Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1792 page)

The situation was now, in plain terms, one of absolute danger.  There lay Mr. Idle writhing with pain, there was the mist as thick as ever, there was the landlord as completely lost as the strangers whom he was conducting, and there was the compass broken in Goodchild’s pocket.  To leave the wretched Thomas on unknown ground was plainly impossible; and to get him to walk with a badly sprained ankle seemed equally out of the question.  However, Goodchild (brought back by his cry for help) bandaged the ankle with a pocket-handkerchief, and assisted by the landlord, raised the crippled Apprentice to his legs, offered him a shoulder to lean on, and exhorted him for the sake of the whole party to try if he could walk.  Thomas, assisted by the shoulder on one side, and a stick on the other, did try, with what pain and difficulty those only can imagine who have sprained an ankle and have had to tread on it afterwards.  At a pace adapted to the feeble hobbling of a newly-lamed man, the lost party moved on, perfectly ignorant whether they were on the right side of the mountain or the wrong, and equally uncertain how long Idle would be able to contend with the pain in his ankle, before he gave in altogether and fell down again, unable to stir another step.

Slowly and more slowly, as the clog of crippled Thomas weighed heavily and more heavily on the march of the expedition, the lost travellers followed the windings of the stream, till they came to a faintly-marked cart-track, branching off nearly at right angles, to the left.  After a little consultation it was resolved to follow this dim vestige of a road in the hope that it might lead to some farm or cottage, at which Idle could be left in safety.  It was now getting on towards the afternoon, and it was fast becoming more than doubtful whether the party, delayed in their progress as they now were, might not be overtaken by the darkness before the right route was found, and be condemned to pass the night on the mountain, without bit or drop to comfort them, in their wet clothes.

The cart-track grew fainter and fainter, until it was washed out altogether by another little stream, dark, turbulent, and rapid.  The landlord suggested, judging by the colour of the water, that it must be flowing from one of the lead mines in the neighbourhood of Carrock; and the travellers accordingly kept by the stream for a little while, in the hope of possibly wandering towards help in that way.  After walking forward about two hundred yards, they came upon a mine indeed, but a mine, exhausted and abandoned; a dismal, ruinous place, with nothing but the wreck of its works and buildings left to speak for it.  Here, there were a few sheep feeding.  The landlord looked at them earnestly, thought he recognised the marks on them — then thought he did not — finally gave up the sheep in despair — and walked on just as ignorant of the whereabouts of the party as ever.

The march in the dark, literally as well as metaphorically in the dark, had now been continued for three-quarters of an hour from the time when the crippled Apprentice had met with his accident.  Mr. Idle, with all the will to conquer the pain in his ankle, and to hobble on, found the power rapidly failing him, and felt that another ten minutes at most would find him at the end of his last physical resources.  He had just made up his mind on this point, and was about to communicate the dismal result of his reflections to his companions, when the mist suddenly brightened, and begun to lift straight ahead.  In another minute, the landlord, who was in advance, proclaimed that he saw a tree.  Before long, other trees appeared — then a cottage — then a house beyond the cottage, and a familiar line of road rising behind it.  Last of all, Carrock itself loomed darkly into view, far away to the right hand.  The party had not only got down the mountain without knowing how, but had wandered away from it in the mist, without knowing why — away, far down on the very moor by which they had approached the base of Carrock that morning.

The happy lifting of the mist, and the still happier discovery that the travellers had groped their way, though by a very roundabout direction, to within a mile or so of the part of the valley in which the farm-house was situated, restored Mr. Idle’s sinking spirits and reanimated his failing strength.  While the landlord ran off to get the dog-cart, Thomas was assisted by Goodchild to the cottage which had been the first building seen when the darkness brightened, and was propped up against the garden wall, like an artist’s lay figure waiting to be forwarded, until the dog-cart should arrive from the farm-house below.  In due time — and a very long time it seemed to Mr. Idle — the rattle of wheels was heard, and the crippled Apprentice was lifted into the seat.  As the dog-cart was driven back to the inn, the landlord related an anecdote which he had just heard at the farm-house, of an unhappy man who had been lost, like his two guests and himself, on Carrock; who had passed the night there alone; who had been found the next morning, ‘scared and starved;’ and who never went out afterwards, except on his way to the grave.  Mr. Idle heard this sad story, and derived at least one useful impression from it.  Bad as the pain in his ankle was, he contrived to bear it patiently, for he felt grateful that a worse accident had not befallen him in the wilds of Carrock.

CHAPTER II

The dog-cart, with Mr. Thomas Idle and his ankle on the hanging seat behind, Mr. Francis Goodchild and the Innkeeper in front, and the rain in spouts and splashes everywhere, made the best of its way back to the little inn; the broken moor country looking like miles upon miles of Pre-Adamite sop, or the ruins of some enormous jorum of antediluvian toast-and-water.  The trees dripped; the eaves of the scattered cottages dripped; the barren stone walls dividing the land, dripped; the yelping dogs dripped; carts and waggons under ill-roofed penthouses, dripped; melancholy cocks and hens perching on their shafts, or seeking shelter underneath them, dripped; Mr. Goodchild dripped; Thomas Idle dripped; the Inn-keeper dripped; the mare dripped; the vast curtains of mist and cloud passed before the shadowy forms of the hills, streamed water as they were drawn across the landscape.  Down such steep pitches that the mare seemed to be trotting on her head, and up such steep pitches that she seemed to have a supplementary leg in her tail, the dog-cart jolted and tilted back to the village.  It was too wet for the women to look out, it was too wet even for the children to look out; all the doors and windows were closed, and the only sign of life or motion was in the rain-punctured puddles.

Whiskey and oil to Thomas Idle’s ankle, and whiskey without oil to Francis Goodchild’s stomach, produced an agreeable change in the systems of both; soothing Mr. Idle’s pain, which was sharp before, and sweetening Mr. Goodchild’s temper, which was sweet before.  Portmanteaus being then opened and clothes changed, Mr. Goodchild, through having no change of outer garments but broadcloth and velvet, suddenly became a magnificent portent in the Innkeeper’s house, a shining frontispiece to the fashions for the month, and a frightful anomaly in the Cumberland village.

Greatly ashamed of his splendid appearance, the conscious Goodchild quenched it as much as possible, in the shadow of Thomas Idle’s ankle, and in a corner of the little covered carriage that started with them for Wigton — a most desirable carriage for any country, except for its having a flat roof and no sides; which caused the plumps of rain accumulating on the roof to play vigorous games of bagatelle into the interior all the way, and to score immensely.  It was comfortable to see how the people coming back in open carts from Wigton market made no more of the rain than if it were sunshine; how the Wigton policeman taking a country walk of half-a-dozen miles (apparently for pleasure), in resplendent uniform, accepted saturation as his normal state; how clerks and schoolmasters in black, loitered along the road without umbrellas, getting varnished at every step; how the Cumberland girls, coming out to look after the Cumberland cows, shook the rain from their eyelashes and laughed it away; and how the rain continued to fall upon all, as it only does fall in hill countries.

Wigton market was over, and its bare booths were smoking with rain all down the street.  Mr. Thomas Idle, melodramatically carried to the inn’s first floor, and laid upon three chairs (he should have had the sofa, if there had been one), Mr. Goodchild went to the window to take an observation of Wigton, and report what he saw to his disabled companion.

‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas Idle, ‘What do you see from the turret?’

‘I see,’ said Brother Francis, ‘what I hope and believe to be one of the most dismal places ever seen by eyes.  I see the houses with their roofs of dull black, their stained fronts, and their dark-rimmed windows, looking as if they were all in mourning.  As every little puff of wind comes down the street, I see a perfect train of rain let off along the wooden stalls in the market-place and exploded against me.  I see a very big gas lamp in the centre which I know, by a secret instinct, will not be lighted to-night.  I see a pump, with a trivet underneath its spout whereon to stand the vessels that are brought to be filled with water.  I see a man come to pump, and he pumps very hard, but no water follows, and he strolls empty away.’

‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas Idle, ‘what more do you see from the turret, besides the man and the pump, and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and the rain?’

‘I see,’ said Brother Francis, ‘one, two, three, four, five, linen-drapers’ shops in front of me.  I see a linen-draper’s shop next door to the right — and there are five more linen-drapers’ shops down the corner to the left.  Eleven homicidal linen-drapers’ shops within a short stone’s throw, each with its hands at the throats of all the rest!  Over the small first-floor of one of these linen-drapers’ shops appears the wonderful inscription, BANK.’

‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas Idle, ‘what more do you see from the turret, besides the eleven homicidal linen-drapers’ shops, and the wonderful inscription, “Bank,” — on the small first-floor, and the man and the pump and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and the rain?’

‘I see,’ said Brother Francis, ‘the depository for Christian Knowledge, and through the dark vapour I think I again make out Mr. Spurgeon looming heavily.  Her Majesty the Queen, God bless her, printed in colours, I am sure I see.  I see the
Illustrated
London News
of several years ago, and I see a sweetmeat shop — which the proprietor calls a “Salt Warehouse” — with one small female child in a cotton bonnet looking in on tip-toe, oblivious of rain.  And I see a watchmaker’s with only three great pale watches of a dull metal hanging in his window, each in a separate pane.’

‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas Idle, ‘what more do you see of Wigton, besides these objects, and the man and the pump and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and the rain?’

‘I see nothing more,’ said Brother Francis, ‘and there is nothing more to see, except the curlpaper bill of the theatre, which was opened and shut last week (the manager’s family played all the parts), and the short, square, chinky omnibus that goes to the railway, and leads too rattling a life over the stones to hold together long.  O yes!  Now, I see two men with their hands in their pockets and their backs towards me.’

‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas Idle, ‘what do you make out from the turret, of the expression of the two men with their hands in their pockets and their backs towards you?’

‘They are mysterious men,’ said Brother Francis, ‘with inscrutable backs.  They keep their backs towards me with persistency.  If one turns an inch in any direction, the other turns an inch in the same direction, and no more.  They turn very stiffly, on a very little pivot, in the middle of the market-place.  Their appearance is partly of a mining, partly of a ploughing, partly of a stable, character.  They are looking at nothing — very hard.  Their backs are slouched, and their legs are curved with much standing about.  Their pockets are loose and dog’s-eared, on account of their hands being always in them.  They stand to be rained upon, without any movement of impatience or dissatisfaction, and they keep so close together that an elbow of each jostles an elbow of the other, but they never speak.  They spit at times, but speak not.  I see it growing darker and darker, and still I see them, sole visible population of the place, standing to be rained upon with their backs towards me, and looking at nothing very hard.’

‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas Idle, ‘before you draw down the blind of the turret and come in to have your head scorched by the hot gas, see if you can, and impart to me, something of the expression of those two amazing men.’

‘The murky shadows,’ said Francis Goodchild, ‘are gathering fast; and the wings of evening, and the wings of coal, are folding over Wigton.  Still, they look at nothing very hard, with their backs towards me.  Ah!  Now, they turn, and I see — ’

‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas Idle, ‘tell me quickly what you see of the two men of Wigton!’

‘I see,’ said Francis Goodchild, ‘that they have no expression at all.  And now the town goes to sleep, undazzled by the large unlighted lamp in the market-place; and let no man wake it.’