BLEAK HOUSE

Inapoi la Sumar

CHAPTER XXIV  

An Appeal Case

As soon as Richard and I had held the conversation of which I have  given an account, Richard communicated the state of his mind to Mr.  Jarndyce.  I doubt if my guardian were altogether taken by surprise  when he received the representation, though it caused him much  uneasiness and disappointment.  He and Richard were often closeted  together, late at night and early in the morning, and passed whole  days in London, and had innumerable appointments with Mr. Kenge,  and laboured through a quantity of disagreeable business.  While  they were thus employed, my guardian, though he underwent  considerable inconvenience from the state of the wind and rubbed  his head so constantly that not a single hair upon it ever rested  in its right place, was as genial with Ada and me as at any other  time, but maintained a steady reserve on these matters. 

And as our  utmost endeavours could only elicit from Richard himself sweeping  assurances that everything was going on capitally and that it  really was all right at last, our anxiety was not much relieved by  him.  We learnt, however, as the time went on, that a new application was  made to the Lord Chancellor on Richard's behalf as an infant and a  ward, and I don't know what, and that there was a quantity of  talking, and that the Lord Chancellor described him in open court  as a vexatious and capricious infant, and that the matter was  adjourned and readjourned, and referred, and reported on, and  petitioned about until Richard began to doubt (as he told us)  whether, if he entered the army at all, it would not be as a  veteran of seventy or eighty years of age.  At last an appointment  was made for him to see the Lord Chancellor again in his private  room, and there the Lord Chancellor very seriously reproved him for  trifling with time and not knowing his mind--"a pretty good joke, I  think," said Richard, "from that quarter!"--and at last it was  settled that his application should be granted.  His name was  entered at the Horse Guards as an applicant for an ensign's  commission; the purchase-money was deposited at an agent's; and  Richard, in his usual characteristic way, plunged into a violent  course of military study and got up at five o'clock every morning  to practise the broadsword exercise.  Thus, vacation succeeded term, and term succeeded vacation.  We  sometimes heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce as being in the paper or  out of the paper, or as being to be mentioned, or as being to be  spoken to; and it came on, and it went off.  Richard, who was now  in a professor's house in London, was able to be with us less  frequently than before; my guardian still maintained the same  reserve; and so time passed until the commission was obtained and  Richard received directions with it to join a regiment in Ireland.  He arrived post-haste with the intelligence one evening, and had a  long conference with my guardian.  Upwards of an hour elapsed  before my guardian put his head into the room where Ada and I were  sitting and said, "Come in, my dears!" 

We went in and found  Richard, whom we had last seen in high spirits, leaning on the  chimney-piece looking mortified and angry. 

"Rick and I, Ada," said Mr. Jarndyce, "are not quite of one mind.   Come, come, Rick, put a brighter face upon it!" 

"You are very hard with me, sir," said Richard. 

"The harder  because you have been so considerate to me in all other respects  and have done me kindnesses that I can never acknowledge.  I never  could have been set right without you, sir." 

"Well, well!" said Mr. Jarndyce. 

"I want to set you more right  yet.  I want to set you more right with yourself." 

"I hope you will excuse my saying, sir," returned Richard in a  fiery way, but yet respectfully, "that I think I am the best judge  about myself." 

"I hope you will excuse my saying, my dear Rick," observed Mr.  Jarndyce with the sweetest cheerfulness and good humour, "that's  it's quite natural in you to think so, but I don't think so.  I  must do my duty, Rick, or you could never care for me in cool  blood; and I hope you will always care for me, cool and hot." 

Ada had turned so pale that he made her sit down in his reading- chair and sat beside her. 

"It's nothing, my dear," he said, "it's nothing.  Rick and I have  only had a friendly difference, which we must state to you, for you  are the theme.  Now you are afraid of what's coming." 

"I am not indeed, cousin John," replied Ada with a smile, "if it is  to come from you." 

"Thank you, my dear.  Do you give me a minute's calm attention,  without looking at Rick.  And, little woman, do you likewise.  My  dear girl," putting his hand on hers as it lay on the side of the  easy-chair, "you recollect the talk we had, we four when the little  woman told me of a little love affair?" 

"It is not likely that either Richard or I can ever forget your  kindness that day, cousin John."  "I can never forget it," said Richard. 

"And I can never forget it," said Ada. 

"So much the easier what I have to say, and so much the easier for  us to agree," returned my guardian, his face irradiated by the  gentleness and honour of his heart. 

"Ada, my bird, you should know  that Rick has now chosen his profession for the last time.  All  that he has of certainty will be expended when he is fully  equipped.  He has exhausted his resources and is bound henceforward  to the tree he has planted." 

"Quite true that I have exhausted my present resources, and I am  quite content to know it.  But what I have of certainty, sir," said  Richard, "is not all I have." 

"Rick, Rick!" cried my guardian with a sudden terror in his manner,  and in an altered voice, and putting up his hands as if he would  have stopped his ears. 

"For the love of God, don't found a hope or  expectation on the family curse!  Whatever you do on this side the  grave, never give one lingering glance towards the horrible phantom  that has haunted us so many years.  Better to borrow, better to  beg, better to die!" 

We were all startled by the fervour of this warning.  Richard bit  his lip and held his breath, and glanced at me as if he felt, and  knew that I felt too, how much he needed it. 

"Ada, my dear," said Mr. Jarndyce, recovering his cheerfulness,  "these are strong words of advice, but I live in Bleak House and  have seen a sight here.  Enough of that.  All Richard had to start  him in the race of life is ventured.  I recommend to him and you,  for his sake and your own, that he should depart from us with the  understanding that there is no sort of contract between you.  I  must go further.  1 will be plain with you both.  You were to  confide freely in me, and I will confide freely in you.  I ask you  wholly to relinquish, for the present, any tie but your  relationship." 

"Better to say at once, sir," returned Richard, "that you renounce  all confidence in me and that you advise Ada to do the same." 

"Better to say nothing of the sort, Rick, because I don't mean it." 

"You think I have begun ill, sir," retorted Richard. 

"I HAVE, I  know." 

"How I hoped you would begin, and how go on, I told you when we  spoke of these things last," said Mr. Jarndyce in a cordial and  encouraging manner. 

"You have not made that beginning yet, but  there is a time for all things, and yours is not gone by; rather,  it is just now fully come.  Make a clear beginning altogether.  You  two (very young, my dears) are cousins.  As yet, you are nothing  more.  What more may come must come of being worked out, Rick, and  no sooner." 

"You are very hard with me, sir," said Richard. 

"Harder than I  could have supposed you would be." 

"My dear boy," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I am harder with myself when I  do anything that gives you pain.  You have your remedy in your own  hands.  Ada, it is better for him that he should be free and that  there should be no youthful engagement between you.  Rick, it is  better for her, much better; you owe it to her.  Come!  Each of you  will do what is best for the other, if not what is best for  yourselves." 

"Why is it best, sir?" returned Richard hastily. 

"It was not when  we opened our hearts to you.  You did not say so then." 

"I have had experience since.  I don't blame you, Rick, but I have  had experience since." 

"You mean of me, sir." 

"Well!  Yes, of both of you," said Mr. Jarndyce kindly. 

"The time  is not come for your standing pledged to one another.  It is not  right, and I must not recognize it.  Come, come, my young cousins,  begin afresh!  Bygones shall be bygones, and a new page turned for  you to write your lives in." 

Richard gave an anxious glance at Ada but said nothing. 

"I have avoided saying one word to either of you or to Esther,"  said Mr. Jarndyce, "until now, in order that we might be open as  the day, and all on equal terms.  I now affectionately advise, I  now most earnestly entreat, you two to part as you came here.   Leave all else to time, truth, and steadfastness.  If you do  otherwise, you will do wrong, and you will have made me do wrong in  ever bringing you together."  A long silence succeeded. 

"Cousin Richard," said Ada then, raising her blue eyes tenderly to  his face, "after what our cousin John has said, I think no choice  is left us.  Your mind may he quite at ease about me, for you will  leave me here under his care and will be sure that I can have  nothing to wish for--quite sure if I guide myself by his advice.   I--I don't doubt, cousin Richard," said Ada, a little confused,  "that you are very fond of me, and I--I don't think you will fall  in love with anybody else. 

But I should like you to consider well  about it too, as I should like you to be in all things very happy.   You may trust in me, cousin Richard.  I am not at all changeable;  but I am not unreasonable, and should never blame you.  Even  cousins may be sorry to part; and in truth I am very, very sorry,  Richard, though I know it's for your welfare.  I shall always think  of you affectionately, and often talk of you with Esther, and--and  perhaps you will sometimes think a little of me, cousin Richard.   So now," said Ada, going up to him and giving him her trembling  hand, "we are only cousins again, Richard--for the time perhaps-- and I pray for a blessing on my dear cousin, wherever he goes!" 

It was strange to me that Richard should not be able to forgive my  guardian for entertaining the very same opinion of him which he  himself had expressed of himself in much stronger terms to me.  But  it was certainly the case.  I observed with great regret that from  this hour he never was as free and open with Mr. Jarndyce as he had  been before.  He had every reason given him to be so, but he was  not; and solely on his side, an estrangement began to arise between  them.  In the business of preparation and equipment he soon lost himself,  and even his grief at parting from Ada, who remained in  Hertfordshire while he, Mr. Jarndyce, and I went up to London for a  week.  He remembered her by fits and starts, even with bursts of  tears, and at such times would confide to me the heaviest self- reproaches.  But in a few minutes he would recklessly conjure up  some undefinable means by which they were both to be made rich and  happy for ever, and would become as gay as possible.  It was a busy time, and I trotted about with him all day long,  buying a variety of things of which he stood in need.  Of the  things he would have bought if he had been left to his own ways I  say nothing.  He was perfectly confidential with me, and often  talked so sensibly and feelingly about his faults and his vigorous  resolutions, and dwelt so much upon the encouragement he derived  from these conversations that I could never have been tired if I  had tried.  There used, in that week, to come backward and forward to our  lodging to fence with Richard a person who had formerly been a  cavalry soldier; he was a fine bluff-looking man, of a frank free  bearing, with whom Richard had practised for some months.  I heard  so much about him, not only from Richard, but from my guardian too,  that I was purposely in the room with my work one morning after  breakfast when he came. 

"Good morning, Mr. George," said my guardian, who happened to be  alone with me. 

"Mr. Carstone will be here directly.  Meanwhile,  Miss Summerson is very happy to see you, I know.  Sit down." 

He sat down, a little disconcerted by my presence, I thought, and  without looking at me, drew his heavy sunburnt hand across and  across his upper lip. 

"You are as punctual as the sun," said Mr. Jarndyce. 

"Military time, sir," he replied. 

"Force of habit.  A mere habit  in me, sir.  I am not at all business-like." 

"Yet you have a large establishment, too, I am told?" said Mr.  Jarndyce. 

"Not much of a one, sir.  I keep a shooting gallery, but not much  of a one." 

"And what kind of a shot and what kind of a swordsman do you make  of Mr. Carstone?" said my guardian. 

"Pretty good, sir," he replied, folding his arms upon his broad  chest and looking very large. 

"If Mr. Carstone was to give his  full mind to it, he would come out very good." 

"But he don't, I suppose?" said my guardian. 

"He did at first, sir, but not afterwards.  Not his full mind.   Perhaps he has something else upon it--some young lady, perhaps."   

His bright dark eyes glanced at me for the first time. 

"He has not me upon his mind, I assure you, Mr. George," said I,  laughing, "though you seem to suspect me." 

He reddened a little through his brown and made me a trooper's bow.   

"No offence, I hope, miss.  I am one of the roughs." 

"Not at all," said I. 

"I take it as a compliment." 

If he had not looked at me before, he looked at me now in three or  four quick successive glances. 

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said  to my guardian with a manly kind of diffidence, "but you did me the  honour to mention the young lady's name--" 

"Miss Summerson." 

"Miss Summerson," he repeated, and looked at me again. 

"Do you know the name?" I asked. 

"No, miss.  To my knowledge I never heard it.  I thought I had seen  you somewhere." 

"I think not," I returned, raising my head from my work to look at  him; and there was something so genuine in his speech and manner  that I was glad of the opportunity. 

"I remember faces very well." 

"So do I, miss!" he returned, meeting my look with the fullness of  his dark eyes and broad forehead.  "Humph!  What set me off, now,  upon that!"  His once more reddening through his brown and being disconcerted by  his efforts to remember the association brought my guardian to his  relief. 

"Have you many pupils, Mr. George?" 

"They vary in their number, sir.  Mostly they're but a small lot to  live by." 

"And what classes of chance people come to practise at your  gallery?" 

"All sorts, sir.  Natives and foreigners.  From gentlemen to  'prentices.  I have had Frenchwomen come, before now, and show  themselves dabs at pistol-shooting.  Mad people out of number, of  course, but THEY go everywhere where the doors stand open." 

"People don't come with grudges and schemes of finishing their  practice with live targets, I hope?" said my guardian, smiling. 

"Not much of that, sir, though that HAS happened.  Mostly they come  for skill--or idleness.  Six of one, and half-a-dozen of the other.   I beg your pardon," said Mr. George, sitting stiffly upright and  squaring an elbow on each knee, "but I believe you're a Chancery  suitor, if I have heard correct?" 

"I am sorry to say I am." 

"I have had one of YOUR compatriots in my time, sir." 

"A Chancery suitor?" returned my guardian. 

"How was that?" 

"Why, the man was so badgered and worried and tortured by being  knocked about from post to pillar, and from pillar to post," said  Mr. George, "that he got out of sorts.  I don't believe he had any  idea of taking aim at anybody, but he was in that condition of  resentment and violence that he would come and pay for fifty shots  and fire away till he was red hot.  One day I said to him when  there was nobody by and he had been talking to me angrily about his  wrongs, 'If this practice is a safety-valve, comrade, well and  good; but I don't altogether like your being so bent upon it in  your present state of mind; I'd rather you took to something else.'   I was on my guard for a blow, he was that passionate; but he  received it in very good part and left off directly.  We shook  hands and struck up a sort of friendship." 

"What was that man?" asked my guardian in a new tone of interest. 

"Why, he began by being a small Shropshire farmer before they made  a baited bull of him," said Mr. George. 

"Was his name Gridley?" 

"It was, sir."  Mr. George directed another succession of quick bright glances at  me as my guardian and I exchanged a word or two of surprise at the  coincidence, and I therefore explained to him how we knew the name.   He made me another of his soldierly bows in acknowledgment of what  he called my condescension. 

"I don't know," he said as he looked at me, "what it is that sets  me off again--but--bosh!  What's my head running against!"  He  passed one of his heavy hands over his crisp dark hair as if to  sweep the broken thoughts out of his mind and sat a little forward,  with one arm akimbo and the other resting on his leg, looking in a  brown study at the ground. 

"I am sorry to learn that the same state of mind has got this  Gridley into new troubles and that he is in hiding," said my  guardian. 

"So I am told, sir," returned Mr. George, still musing and looking  on the ground. 

"So I am told." 

"You don't know where?" 

"No, sir," returned the trooper, lifting up his eyes and coming out  of his reverie. 

"I can't say anything about him.  He will be worn  out soon, I expect.  You may file a strong man's heart away for a  good many years, but it will tell all of a sudden at last." 

Richard's entrance stopped the conversation.  Mr. George rose, made  me another of his soldierly bows, wished my guardian a good day,  and strode heavily out of the room.  This was the morning of the day appointed for Richard's departure.   We had no more purchases to make now; I had completed all his  packing early in the afternoon; and our time was disengaged until  night, when he was to go to Liverpool for Holyhead.  Jarndyce and  Jarndyce being again expected to come on that day, Richard proposed  to me that we should go down to the court and hear what passed.  As  it was his last day, and he was eager to go, and I had never been  there, I gave my consent and we walked down to Westminster, where  the court was then sitting.  We beguiled the way with arrangements  concerning the letters that Richard was to write to me and the  letters that I was to write to him and with a great many hopeful  projects.  My guardian knew where we were going and therefore was  not with us.  When we came to the court, there was the Lord Chancellor--the same  whom I had seen in his private room in Lincoln's Inn--sitting in  great state and gravity on the bench, with the mace and seals on a  red table below him and an immense flat nosegay, like a little  garden, which scented the whole court.  Below the table, again, was  a long row of solicitors, with bundles of papers on the matting at  their feet; and then there were the gentlemen of the bar in wigs  and gowns--some awake and some asleep, and one talking, and nobody  paying much attention to what he said. 

The Lord Chancellor leaned  back in his very easy chair with his elbow on the cushioned arm and  his forehead resting on his hand; some of those who were present  dozed; some read the newspapers; some walked about or whispered in  groups: all seemed perfectly at their ease, by no means in a hurry,  very unconcerned, and extremely comfortable.  To see everything going on so smoothly and to think of the  roughness of the suitors' lives and deaths; to see all that full  dress and ceremony and to think of the waste, and want, and  beggared misery it represented; to consider that while the sickness  of hope deferred was raging in so many hearts this polite show went  calmly on from day to day, and year to year, in such good order and  composure; to behold the Lord Chancellor and the whole array of  practitioners under him looking at one another and at the  spectators as if nobody had ever heard that all over England the  name in which they were assembled was a bitter jest, was held in  universal horror, contempt, and indignation, was known for  something so flagrant and bad that little short of a miracle could  bring any good out of it to any one--this was so curious and self- contradictory to me, who had no experience of it, that it was at  first incredible, and I could not comprehend it.  I sat where  Richard put me, and tried to listen, and looked about me; but there  seemed to be no reality in the whole scene except poor little Miss  Flite, the madwoman, standing on a bench and nodding at it.  Miss Flite soon espied us and came to where we sat.  She gave me a  gracious welcome to her domain and indicated, with much  gratification and pride, its principal attractions.  Mr. Kenge also  came to speak to us and did the honours of the place in much the  same way, with the bland modesty of a proprietor.  It was not a  very good day for a visit, he said; he would have preferred the  first day of term; but it was imposing, it was imposing.  When we had been there half an hour or so, the case in progress--if  I may use a phrase so ridiculous in such a connexion--seemed to die  out of its own vapidity, without coming, or being by anybody  expected to come, to any resuIt. 

The Lord Chancellor then threw  down a bundle of papers from his desk to the gentlemen below him,  and somebody said, "Jarndyce and Jarndyce."  Upon this there was a  buzz, and a laugh, and a general withdrawal of the bystanders, and  a bringing in of great heaps, and piles, and bags and bags full of  papers.  I think it came on "for further directions"--about some bill of  costs, to the best of my understanding, which was confused enough.   But I counted twenty-three gentlemen in wigs who said they were "in  it," and none of them appeared to understand it much better than I.   They chatted about it with the Lord Chancellor, and contradicted  and explained among themselves, and some of them said it was this  way, and some of them said it was that way, and some of them  jocosely proposed to read huge volumes of affidavits, and there was  more buzzing and laughing, and everybody concerned was in a state  of idle entertainment, and nothing could be made of it by anybody.   After an hour or so of this, and a good many speeches being begun  and cut short, it was "referred back for the present," as Mr. Kenge  said, and the papers were bundled up again before the clerks had  finished bringing them in.  I glanced at Richard on the termination of these hopeless  proceedings and was shocked to see the worn look of his handsome  young face.  "It can't last for ever, Dame Durden.  Better luck  next time!" was all he said.  I had seen Mr. Guppy bringing in papers and arranging them for Mr.  Kenge; and he had seen me and made me a forlorn bow, which rendered  me desirous to get out of the court.  Richard had given me his arm  and was taking me away when Mr. Guppy came up. 

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Carstone," said he in a whisper, "and Miss  Summerson's also, but there's a lady here, a friend of mine, who  knows her and wishes to have the pleasure of shaking hands." 

As he  spoke, I saw before me, as if she had started into bodily shape  from my remembrance, Mrs. Rachael of my godmother's house. 

"How do you do, Esther?" said she. 

"Do you recollect me?"  I gave her my hand and told her yes and that she was very little  altered. 

"I wonder you remember those times, Esther," she returned with her  old asperity. 

"They are changed now.  Well! I am glad to see you,  and glad you are not too proud to know me."  But indeed she seemed  disappointed that I was not. 

"Proud, Mrs. Rachael!" I remonstrated. 

"I am married, Esther," she returned, coldly correcting me, "and am  Mrs. Chadband.  Well! I wish you good day, and I hope you'll do  well." 

Mr. Guppy, who had been attentive to this short dialogue, heaved a  sigh in my ear and elbowed his own and Mrs. Rachael's way through  the confused little crowd of people coming in and going out, which  we were in the midst of and which the change in the business had  brought together.  Richard and I were making our way through it,  and I was yet in the first chill of the late unexpected recognition  when I saw, coming towards us, but not seeing us, no less a person  than Mr. George.  He made nothing of the people about him as he  tramped on, staring over their heads into the body of the court. 

"George!" said Richard as I called his attention to him.  "You are well met, sir," he returned. 

"And you, miss.  Could you  point a person out for me, I want?  I don't understand these  places."  Turning as he spoke and making an easy way for us, he stopped when  we were out of the press in a corner behind a great red curtain. 

"There's a little cracked old woman," he began, "that--"  I put up my finger, for Miss Flite was close by me, having kept  beside me all the time and having called the attention of several  of her legal acquaintance to me (as I had overheard to my  confusion) by whispering in their ears, "Hush!  Fitz Jarndyce on my  left!" 

"Hem!" said Mr. George. 

"You remember, miss, that we passed some  conversation on a certain man this morning?  Gridley," in a low  whisper behind his hand. 

"Yes," said I. 

"He is hiding at my place.  I couldn't mention it.  Hadn't his  authority.  He is on his last march, miss, and has a whim to see  her.  He says they can feel for one another, and she has been  almost as good as a friend to him here.  I came down to look for  her, for when I sat by Gridley this afternoon, I seemed to hear the  roll of the muffled drums." 

"Shall I tell her?" said I. 

"Would you be so good?" he returned with a glance of something like  apprehension at Miss Flite. 

"It's a providence I met you, miss; I  doubt if I should have known how to get on with that lady." 

And he  put one hand in his breast and stood upright in a martial attitude  as I informed little Miss Flite, in her ear, of the purport of his  kind errand. 

"My angry friend from Shropshire!  Almost as celebrated as myself!"  she exclaimed. 

"Now really!  My dear, I will wait upon him with  the greatest pleasure." 

"He is living concealed at Mr. George's," said I. 

"Hush!  This is  Mr. George." 

"In--deed!" returned Miss Flite. 

"Very proud to have the honour!   A military man, my dear.  You know, a perfect general!" she  whispered to me.  Poor Miss Flite deemed it necessary to be so courtly and polite, as  a mark of her respect for the army, and to curtsy so very often  that it was no easy matter to get her out of the court.  When this  was at last done, and addressing Mr. George as "General," she gave  him her arm, to the great entertainment of some idlers who were  looking on, he was so discomposed and begged me so respectfully  "not to desert him" that I could not make up my mind to do it,  especially as Miss Flite was always tractable with me and as she  too said, "Fitz Jarndyce, my dear, you will accompany us, of  course." 

As Richard seemed quite willing, and even anxious, that  we should see them safely to their destination, we agreed to do so.   And as Mr. George informed us that Gridley's mind had run on Mr.  Jarndyce all the afternoon after hearing of their interview in the  morning, I wrote a hasty note in pencil to my guardian to say where  we were gone and why.  Mr. George sealed it at a coffee-house, that  it might lead to no discovery, and we sent it off by a ticket- porter.  We then took a hackney-coach and drove away to the neighbourhood of  Leicester Square.  We walked through some narrow courts, for which  Mr. George apologized, and soon came to the shooting gallery, the  door of which was closed.  As he pulled a bell-handle which hung by  a chain to the door-post, a very respectable old gentleman with  grey hair, wearing spectacles, and dressed in a black spencer and  gaiters and a broad-brimmed hat, and carrying a large gold-beaded  cane, addressed him. 

"I ask your pardon, my good friend," said he, "but is this George's  Shooting Gallery?" 

"It is, sir," returned Mr. George, glancing up at the great letters  in which that inscription was painted on the whitewashed wall. 

"Oh! To be sure!" said the old gentleman, following his eyes.   

"Thank you.  Have you rung the bell?" 

"My name is George, sir, and I have rung the bell." 

"Oh, indeed?" said the old gentleman. 

"Your name is George?  Then  I am here as soon as you, you see.  You came for me, no doubt?" 

"No, sir.  You have the advantage of me." 

"Oh, indeed?" said the old gentleman. 

"Then it was your young man  who came for me.  I am a physician and was requested--five minutes  ago--to come and visit a sick man at George's Shooting Gallery." 

"The muffled drums," said Mr. George, turning to Richard and me and  gravely shaking his head. 

"It's quite correct, sir.  Will you  please to walk in." 

The door being at that moment opened by a very singular-looking  little man in a green-baize cap and apron, whose face and hands and  dress were blackened all over, we passed along a dreary passage  into a large building with bare brick walls where there were  targets, and guns, and swords, and other things of that kind.  When  we had all arrived here, the physician stopped, and taking off his  hat, appeared to vanish by magic and to leave another and quite a  different man in his place. 

"Now lookee here, George," said the man, turning quickly round upon  him and tapping him on the breast with a large forefinger. 

"You  know me, and I know you.  You're a man of the world, and I'm a man  of the world.  My name's Bucket, as you are aware, and I have got a  peace-warrant against Gridley.  You have kept him out of the way a  long time, and you have been artful in it, and it does you credit." 

Mr. George, looking hard at him, bit his lip and shook his head. 

"Now, George," said the other, keeping close to him, "you're a  sensible man and a well-conducted man; that's what YOU are, beyond  a doubt.  And mind you, I don't talk to you as a common character,  because you have served your country and you know that when duty  calls we must obey.  Consequently you're very far from wanting to  give trouble.  If I required assistance, you'd assist me; that's  what YOU'D do.  Phil Squod, don't you go a-sidling round the  gallery like that"--the dirty little man was shuffling about with  his shoulder against the wall, and his eyes on the intruder, in a  manner that looked threatening--"because I know you and won't have  it." 

"Phil!" said Mr. George. 

"Yes, guv'ner." 

"Be quiet."  The little man, with a low growl, stood still. 

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Bucket, "you'll excuse anything  that may appear to be disagreeable in this, for my name's Inspector  Bucket of the Detective, and I have a duty to perform.  George, I  know where my man is because I was on the roof last night and saw  him through the skylight, and you along with him.  He is in there,  you know," pointing; "that's where HE is--on a sofy.  Now I must  see my man, and I must tell my man to consider himself in custody;  but you know me, and you know I don't want to take any  uncomfortable measures.  You give me your word, as from one man to  another (and an old soldier, mind you, likewise), that it's  honourable between us two, and I'll accommodate you to the utmost  of my power." 

"I give it," was the reply. 

'"But it wasn't handsome in you, Mr.  Bucket." 

"Gammon, George!  Not handsome?" said Mr. Bucket, tapping him on  his broad breast again and shaking hands with him. 

"I don't say it  wasn't handsome in you to keep my man so close, do I?  Be equally  good-tempered to me, old boy!  Old William Tell, Old Shaw, the Life  Guardsman!  Why, he's a model of the whole British army in himself,  ladies and gentlemen.  I'd give a fifty-pun' note to be such a  figure of a man!"  The affair being brought to this head, Mr. George, after a little  consideration, proposed to go in first to his comrade (as he called  him), taking Miss Flite with him.  Mr. Bucket agreeing, they went  away to the further end of the gallery, leaving us sitting and  standing by a table covered with guns.  Mr. Bucket took this  opportunity of entering into a little light conversation, asking me  if I were afraid of fire-arms, as most young ladies were; asking  Richard if he were a good shot; asking Phil Squod which he  considered the best of those rifles and what it might be worth  first-hand, telling him in return that it was a pity he ever gave  way to his temper, for he was naturally so amiable that he might  have been a young woman, and making himself generally agreeable.  After a time he followed us to the further end of the gallery, and  Richard and I were going quietly away when Mr. George came after  us.  He said that if we had no objection to see his comrade, he  would take a visit from us very kindly.  The words had hardly  passed his lips when the bell was rung and my guardian appeared,  "on the chance," he slightly observed, "of being able to do any  little thing for a poor fellow involved in the same misfortune as  himself." 

We all four went back together and went into the place  where Gridley was.  It was a bare room, partitioned off from the gallery with unpainted  wood.  As the screening was not more than eight or ten feet high  and only enclosed the sides, not the top, the rafters of the high  gallery roof were overhead, and the skylight through which Mr.  Bucket had looked down.  The sun was low--near setting--and its  light came redly in above, without descending to the ground.  Upon  a plain canvas-covered sofa lay the man from Shropshire, dressed  much as we had seen him last, but so changed that at first I  recognized no likeness in his colourless face to what I  recollected.  He had been still writing in his hiding-place, and still dwelling  on his grievances, hour after hour.  A table and some shelves were  covered with manuscript papers and with worn pens and a medley of  such tokens.  Touchingly and awfully drawn together, he and the  little mad woman were side by side and, as it were, alone.  She sat  on a chair holding his hand, and none of us went close to them.  His voice had faded, with the old expression of his face, with his  strength, with his anger, with his resistance to the wrongs that  had at last subdued him.  The faintest shadow of an object full of  form and colour is such a picture of it as he was of the man from  Shropshire whom we had spoken with before.  He inclined his head to Richard and me and spoke to my guardian. 

"Mr. Jarndyce, it is very kind of you to come to see me.  I am not  long to be seen, I think.  I am very glad to take your hand, sir.   You are a good man, superior to injustice, and God knows I honour  you." 

They shook hands earnestly, and my guardian said some words of  comfort to him. 

"It may seem strange to you, sir," returned Gridley; "I should not  have liked to see you if this had been the flrst time of our  meeting.  But you know I made a fight for it, you know I stood up  with my single hand against them all, you know I told them the  truth to the last, and told them what they were, and what they had  done to me; so I don't mind your seeing me, this wreck." 

"You have been courageous with them many and many a time," returned  my guardian. 

"Sir, I have been," with a faint smile. 

"I told you what would  come of it when I ceased to be so, and see here!  Look at us--look  at us!" 

He drew the hand Miss Flite held through her arm and  brought her something nearer to him. 

"This ends it.  Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits  and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul  alone comes natural to me, and I am fit for.  There is a tie of  many suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever  had on earth that Chancery has not broken." 

"Accept my blessing, Gridley," said Miss Flite in tears. 

"Accept  my blessing!" 

"I thought, boastfully, that they never could break my heart, Mr.  Jarndyce.  I was resolved that they should not.  I did believe that  I could, and would, charge them with being the mockery they were  until I died of some bodily disorder.  But I am worn out.  How long  I have been wearing out, I don't know; I seemed to break down in an  hour.  I hope they may never come to hear of it.  I hope everybody  here will lead them to believe that I died defying them,  consistently and perseveringly, as I did through so many years."  Here Mr. Bucket, who was sitting in a corner by the door, good- naturedly offered such consolation as he could administer. 

"Come, come!" he said from his corner. 

"Don't go on in that way,  Mr. Gridley.  You are only a little low.  We are all of us a little  low sometimes.  I am.  Hold up, hold up!  You'll lose your temper  with the whole round of 'em, again and again; and I shall take you  on a score of warrants yet, if I have luck." 

He only shook his head. 

"Don't shake your head," said Mr. Bucket. 

"Nod it; that's what I  want to see you do.  Why, Lord bless your soul, what times we have  had together!  Haven't I seen you in the Fleet over and over again  for contempt?  Haven't I come into court, twenty afternoons for no  other purpose than to see you pin the Chancellor like a bull-dog?   Don't you remember when you first began to threaten the lawyers,  and the peace was sworn against you two or three times a week?  Ask  the little old lady there; she has been always present.  Hold up,  Mr. Gridley, hold up, sir!" 

"What are you going to do about him?" asked George in a low voice. 

"I don't know yet," said Bucket in the same tone.  Then resuming  his encouragement, he pursued aloud: "Worn out, Mr. Gridley?  After  dodging me for all these weeks and forcing me to climb the roof  here like a tom cat and to come to see you as a doctor?  That ain't  like being worn out.  I should think not!  Now I tell you what you  want.  You want excitement, you know, to keep YOU up; that's what  YOU want.  You're used to it, and you can't do without it.  I  couldn't myself.  Very well, then; here's this warrant got by Mr.  Tulkinghorn of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and backed into half-a-dozen  counties since.  What do you say to coming along with me, upon this  warrant, and having a good angry argument before the magistrates?   It'll do you good; it'll freshen you up and get you into training  for another turn at the Chancellor.  Give in?  Why, I am surprised  to hear a man of your energy talk of giving in.  You mustn't do  that.  You're half the fun of the fair in the Court of Chancery.   George, you lend Mr. Gridley a hand, and let's see now whether he  won't be better up than down." 

"He is very weak," said the trooper in a low voice. 

"Is he?" returned Bucket anxiously. 

"I only want to rouse him.  I  don't like to see an old acquaintance giving in like this.  It  would cheer him up more than anything if I could make him a little  waxy with me.  He's welcome to drop into me, right and left, if he  likes.  I shall never take advantage of it." 

The roof rang with a scream from Miss Flite, which still rings in  my ears. 

"Oh, no, Gridley!" she cried as he fell heavily and calmly back  from before her. 

"Not without my blessing.  After so many years!" 

The sun was down, the light had gradually stolen from the roof, and  the shadow had crept upward.  But to me the shadow of that pair,  one living and one dead, fell heavier on Richard's departure than  the darkness of the darkest night.  And through Richard's farewell  words I heard it echoed: "Of all my old associations, of all my old  pursuits and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one  poor soul alone comes natural to me, and I am fit for.  There is a  tie of many suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie  I ever had on earth that Chancery has not broken!"

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