DOCTOR MARIGOLD by Charles Dickens(read and download)

I courted my wife from the footboard of the cart. I did indeed. She was

a Suffolk young woman, and it was in Ipswich market-place right opposite

the corn-chandler’s shop. I had noticed her up at a window last Saturday

that was, appreciating highly. I had took to her, and I had said to

myself, “If not already disposed of, I’ll have that lot.” Next Saturday

that come, I pitched the cart on the same pitch, and I was in very high

feather indeed, keeping ’em laughing the whole of the time, and getting

off the goods briskly. At last I took out of my waistcoat-pocket a small

lot wrapped in soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the

window where she was). “Now here, my blooming English maidens, is an

article, the last article of the present evening’s sale, which I offer to

only you, the lovely Suffolk Dumplings biling over with beauty, and I

won’t take a bid of a thousand pounds for from any man alive. Now what

is it? Why, I’ll tell you what it is. It’s made of fine gold, and it’s

not broke, though there’s a hole in the middle of it, and it’s stronger

than any fetter that ever was forged, though it’s smaller than any finger

in my set of ten. Why ten? Because, when my parents made over my

property to me, I tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels,

twelve table-cloths, twelve knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and

twelve teaspoons, but my set of fingers was two short of a dozen, and

could never since be matched. Now what else is it? Come, I’ll tell you.

It’s a hoop of solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper, that I myself

took off the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle

Street, London city; I wouldn’t tell you so if I hadn’t the paper to

show, or you mightn’t believe it even of me. Now what else is it? It’s

a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, all in gold

and all in one. Now what else is it? It’s a wedding-ring. Now I’ll

tell you what I’m a going to do with it. I’m not a going to offer this

lot for money; but I mean to give it to the next of you beauties that

laughs, and I’ll pay her a visit to-morrow morning at exactly half after

nine o’clock as the chimes go, and I’ll take her out for a walk to put up

the banns.” She laughed, and got the ring handed up to her. When I

called in the morning, she says, “O dear! It’s never you, and you never

mean it?” “It’s ever me,” says I, “and I am ever yours, and I ever mean

it.” So we got married, after being put up three times–which, by the

bye, is quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the

Cheap Jack customs pervade society.

She wasn’t a bad wife, but she had a temper. If she could have parted

with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn’t have swopped her away in

exchange for any other woman in England. Not that I ever did swop her

away, for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year.

Now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks all, I’ll let you into a secret,

though you won’t believe it. Thirteen year of temper in a Palace would

try the worst of you, but thirteen year of temper in a Cart would try the

best of you. You are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see.

There’s thousands of couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a

whetstone in houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to

the Divorce Court in a cart. Whether the jolting makes it worse, I don’t

undertake to decide; but in a cart it does come home to you, and stick to

you. Wiolence in a cart is _so_ wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is

_so_ aggrawating.

We might have had such a pleasant life! A roomy cart, with the large

goods hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when on the road, an

iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for

the smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a dog and a horse. What more

do you want? You draw off upon a bit of turf in a green lane or by the

roadside, you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing, you light your

fire upon the ashes of the last visitors, you cook your stew, and you

wouldn’t call the Emperor of France your father. But have a temper in

the cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and

where are you then? Put a name to your feelings.

My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did. Before she broke

out, he would give a howl, and bolt. How he knew it, was a mystery to

me; but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him up out of his

soundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and bolt. At such times I

wished I was him.

The worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and I love children

with all my heart. When she was in her furies she beat the child. This

got to be so shocking, as the child got to be four or five year old, that

I have many a time gone on with my whip over my shoulder, at the old

horse’s head, sobbing and crying worse than ever little Sophy did. For

how could I prevent it? Such a thing is not to be tried with such a

temper–in a cart–without coming to a fight. It’s in the natural size

and formation of a cart to bring it to a fight. And then the poor child

got worse terrified than before, as well as worse hurt generally, and her

mother made complaints to the next people we lighted on, and the word

went round, “Here’s a wretch of a Cheap Jack been a beating his wife.”

Little Sophy was such a brave child! She grew to be quite devoted to her

poor father, though he could do so little to help her. She had a

wonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling natural about her.

It is quite astonishing to me now, that I didn’t go tearing mad when I

used to see her run from her mother before the cart, and her mother catch

her by this hair, and pull her down by it, and beat her.

Such a brave child I said she was! Ah! with reason.

“Don’t you mind next time, father dear,” she would whisper to me, with

her little face still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet; “if I don’t

cry out, you may know I am not much hurt. And even if I do cry out, it

will only be to get mother to let go and leave off.” What I have seen

the little spirit bear–for me–without crying out!

Yet in other respects her mother took great care of her. Her clothes

were always clean and neat, and her mother was never tired of working at

’em. Such is the inconsistency in things. Our being down in the marsh

country in unhealthy weather, I consider the cause of Sophy’s taking bad

low fever; but however she took it, once she got it she turned away from

her mother for evermore, and nothing would persuade her to be touched by

her mother’s hand. She would shiver and say, “No, no, no,” when it was

offered at, and would hide her face on my shoulder, and hold me tighter

round the neck.

The Cheap Jack business had been worse than ever I had known it, what

with one thing and what with another (and not least with railroads, which

will cut it all to pieces, I expect, at last), and I was run dry of

money. For which reason, one night at that period of little Sophy’s

being so bad, either we must have come to a dead-lock for victuals and

drink, or I must have pitched the cart as I did.

I couldn’t get the dear child to lie down or leave go of me, and indeed I

hadn’t the heart to try, so I stepped out on the footboard with her

holding round my neck. They all set up a laugh when they see us, and one

chuckle-headed Joskin (that I hated for it) made the bidding, “Tuppence

for her!”

“Now, you country boobies,” says I, feeling as if my heart was a heavy

weight at the end of a broken sashline, “I give you notice that I am a

going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to give you so much

more than your money’s worth that you’ll only persuade yourselves to draw

your Saturday night’s wages ever again arterwards by the hopes of meeting

me to lay ’em out with, which you never will, and why not? Because I’ve

made my fortunes by selling my goods on a large scale for seventy-five

per cent. less than I give for ’em, and I am consequently to be elevated

to the House of Peers next week, by the title of the Duke of Cheap and

Markis Jackaloorul. Now let’s know what you want to-night, and you shall

have it. But first of all, shall I tell you why I have got this little

girl round my neck? You don’t want to know? Then you shall. She

belongs to the Fairies. She’s a fortune-teller. She can tell me all

about you in a whisper, and can put me up to whether you’re going to buy

a lot or leave it. Now do you want a saw? No, she says you don’t,

because you’re too clumsy to use one. Else here’s a saw which would be a

lifelong blessing to a handy man, at four shillings, at three and six, at

three, at two and six, at two, at eighteen-pence. But none of you shall

have it at any price, on account of your well-known awkwardness, which

would make it manslaughter. The same objection applies to this set of

three planes which I won’t let you have neither, so don’t bid for ’em.

Now I am a going to ask her what you do want.” (Then I whispered, “Your

head burns so, that I am afraid it hurts you bad, my pet,” and she

answered, without opening her heavy eyes, “Just a little, father.”) “O!

This little fortune-teller says it’s a memorandum-book you want. Then

why didn’t you mention it? Here it is. Look at it. Two hundred

superfine hot-pressed wire-wove pages–if you don’t believe me, count

’em–ready ruled for your expenses, an everlastingly pointed pencil to

put ’em down with, a double-bladed penknife to scratch ’em out with, a

book of printed tables to calculate your income with, and a camp-stool to

sit down upon while you give your mind to it! Stop! And an umbrella to

keep the moon off when you give your mind to it on a pitch-dark night.

Now I won’t ask you how much for the lot, but how little? How little are

you thinking of? Don’t be ashamed to mention it, because my

fortune-teller knows already.” (Then making believe to whisper, I kissed

her,–and she kissed me.) “Why, she says you are thinking of as little

as three and threepence! I couldn’t have believed it, even of you,

unless she told me. Three and threepence! And a set of printed tables

in the lot that’ll calculate your income up to forty thousand a year!

With an income of forty thousand a year, you grudge three and sixpence.

Well then, I’ll tell you my opinion. I so despise the threepence, that

I’d sooner take three shillings. There. For three shillings, three

shillings, three shillings! Gone. Hand ’em over to the lucky man.”

As there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about and grinned at

everybody, while I touched little Sophy’s face and asked her if she felt

faint, or giddy. “Not very, father. It will soon be over.” Then

turning from the pretty patient eyes, which were opened now, and seeing

nothing but grins across my lighted grease-pot, I went on again in my

Cheap Jack style. “Where’s the butcher?” (My sorrowful eye had just

caught sight of a fat young butcher on the outside of the crowd.) “She

says the good luck is the butcher’s. Where is he?” Everybody handed on

the blushing butcher to the front, and there was a roar, and the butcher

felt himself obliged to put his hand in his pocket, and take the lot. The

party so picked out, in general, does feel obliged to take the lot–good

four times out of six. Then we had another lot, the counterpart of that

one, and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is always wery much enjoyed.

Then we had the spectacles. It ain’t a special profitable lot, but I put

’em on, and I see what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to take

off the taxes, and I see what the sweetheart of the young woman in the

shawl is doing at home, and I see what the Bishops has got for dinner,

and a deal more that seldom fails to fetch ’em ‘up in their spirits; and

the better their spirits, the better their bids. Then we had the ladies’

lot–the teapot, tea-caddy, glass sugar-basin, half-a-dozen spoons, and

caudle-cup–and all the time I was making similar excuses to give a look

or two and say a word or two to my poor child. It was while the second

ladies’ lot was holding ’em enchained that I felt her lift herself a

little on my shoulder, to look across the dark street. “What troubles

you, darling?” “Nothing troubles me, father. I am not at all troubled.

But don’t I see a pretty churchyard over there?” “Yes, my dear.” “Kiss

me twice, dear father, and lay me down to rest upon that churchyard grass

so soft and green.” I staggered back into the cart with her head dropped

on my shoulder, and I says to her mother, “Quick. Shut the door! Don’t

let those laughing people see!” “What’s the matter?” she cries. “O

woman, woman,” I tells her, “you’ll never catch my little Sophy by her

hair again, for she has flown away from you!”

Maybe those were harder words than I meant ’em; but from that time forth

my wife took to brooding, and would sit in the cart or walk beside it,

hours at a stretch, with her arms crossed, and her eyes looking on the

ground. When her furies took her (which was rather seldomer than before)

they took her in a new way, and she banged herself about to that extent

that I was forced to hold her. She got none the better for a little

drink now and then, and through some years I used to wonder, as I plodded

along at the old horse’s head, whether there was many carts upon the road

that held so much dreariness as mine, for all my being looked up to as

the King of the Cheap Jacks. So sad our lives went on till one summer

evening, when, as we were coming into Exeter, out of the farther West of

England, we saw a woman beating a child in a cruel manner, who screamed,

“Don’t beat me! O mother, mother, mother!” Then my wife stopped her

ears, and ran away like a wild thing, and next day she was found in the

river.