THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES(两个闲荡徒弟的旅行)

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THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

THE LAZY TOUR OF

TWO IDLE

APPRENTICES

THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

CHAPTER I

In the autumn month of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven,

wherein these presents bear date, two idle apprentices, exhausted by the

long, hot summer, and the long, hot work it had brought with it, ran away

from their employer. They were bound to a highly meritorious lady

(named Literature), of fair credit and repute, though, it must be

acknowledged, not quite so highly esteemed in the City as she might be.

This is the more remarkable, as there is nothing against the respectable

lady in that quarter, but quite the contrary; her family having rendered

eminent service to many famous citizens of London. It may be sufficient

to name Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor under King Richard II., at the

time of Wat Tyler's insurrection, and Sir Richard Whittington: which

latter distinguished man and magistrate was doubtless indebted to the

lady's family for the gift of his celebrated cat. There is also strong reason

to suppose that they rang the Highgate bells for him with their own hands.

The misguided young men who thus shirked their duty to the mistress

from whom they had received many favours, were actuated by the low

idea of making a perfectly idle trip, in any direction. They had no

intention of going anywhere in particular; they wanted to see nothing, they

wanted to know nothing, they wanted to learn nothing, they wanted to do

nothing. They wanted only to be idle. They took to themselves (after

HOGARTH), the names of Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild;

but there was not a moral pin to choose between them, and they were both

idle in the last degree.

Between Francis and Thomas, however, there was this difference of

character: Goodchild was laboriously idle, and would take upon himself

any amount of pains and labour to assure himself that he was idle; in short,

had no better idea of idleness than that it was useless industry. Thomas

Idle, on the other hand, was an idler of the unmixed Irish or Neapolitan

type; a passive idler, a born-and- bred idler, a consistent idler, who

practised what he would have preached if he had not been too idle to

preach; a one entire and perfect chrysolite of idleness.

THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

The two idle apprentices found themselves, within a few hours of their

escape, walking down into the North of England, that is to say, Thomas

was lying in a meadow, looking at the railway trains as they passed over a

distant viaduct - which was HIS idea of walking down into the North;

while Francis was walking a mile due South against time - which was HIS

idea of walking down into the North. In the meantime the day waned, and

the milestones remained unconquered.

'Tom,' said Goodchild, 'the sun is getting low. Up, and let us go

forward!'

'Nay,' quoth Thomas Idle, 'I have not done with Annie Laurie yet.' And

he proceeded with that idle but popular ballad, to the effect that for the

bonnie young person of that name he would 'lay him doon and dee' -

equivalent, in prose, to lay him down and die.

'What an ass that fellow was!' cried Goodchild, with the bitter

emphasis of contempt.

'Which fellow?' asked Thomas Idle.

'The fellow in your song. Lay him doon and dee! Finely he'd show

off before the girl by doing THAT. A sniveller! Why couldn't he get up,

and punch somebody's head!'

'Whose?' asked Thomas Idle.

'Anybody's. Everybody's would be better than nobody's! If I fell

into that state of mind about a girl, do you think I'd lay me doon and dee?

No, sir,' proceeded Goodchild, with a disparaging assumption of the

Scottish accent, 'I'd get me oop and peetch into somebody. Wouldn't

you?'

'I wouldn't have anything to do with her,' yawned Thomas Idle. 'Why

should I take the trouble?'

'It's no trouble, Tom, to fall in love,' said Goodchild, shaking his head.

'It's trouble enough to fall out of it, once you're in it,' retorted Tom.

'So I keep out of it altogether. It would be better for you, if you did the

same.'

Mr. Goodchild, who is always in love with somebody, and not

unfrequently with several objects at once, made no reply. He heaved a

sigh of the kind which is termed by the lower orders 'a bellowser,' and then,

THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

heaving Mr. Idle on his feet (who was not half so heavy as the sigh), urged

him northward.

These two had sent their personal baggage on by train: only retaining

each a knapsack. Idle now applied himself to constantly regretting the

train, to tracking it through the intricacies of Bradshaw's Guide, and

finding out where it is now - and where now - and where now - and to

asking what was the use of walking, when you could ride at such a pace as

that. Was it to see the country? If that was the object, look at it out of

the carriage windows. There was a great deal more of it to be seen there

than here. Besides, who wanted to see the country? Nobody. And

again, whoever did walk? Nobody. Fellows set off to walk, but they

never did it. They came back and said they did, but they didn't. Then

why should he walk? He wouldn't walk. He swore it by this milestone!

It was the fifth from London, so far had they penetrated into the North.

Submitting to the powerful chain of argument, Goodchild proposed a

return to the Metropolis, and a falling back upon Euston Square Terminus.

Thomas assented with alacrity, and so they walked down into the North by

the next morning's express, and carried their knapsacks in the luggage-

van.

It was like all other expresses, as every express is and must be. It bore

through the harvest country a smell like a large washing- day, and a sharp

issue of steam as from a huge brazen tea-urn. The greatest power in

nature and art combined, it yet glided over dangerous heights in the sight

of people looking up from fields and roads, as smoothly and unreally as a

light miniature plaything. Now, the engine shrieked in hysterics of such

intensity, that it seemed desirable that the men who had her in charge

should hold her feet, slap her hands, and bring her to; now, burrowed into

tunnels with a stubborn and undemonstrative energy so confusing that the

train seemed to be flying back into leagues of darkness. Here, were

station after station, swallowed up by the express without stopping; here,

stations where it fired itself in like a volley of cannon-balls, swooped

away four country-people with nosegays, and three men of business with

portmanteaus, and fired itself off again, bang, bang, bang! At long

intervals were uncomfortable refreshment-rooms, made more

THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

uncomfortable by the scorn of Beauty towards Beast, the public (but to

whom she never relented, as Beauty did in the story, towards the other

Beast), and where sensitive stomachs were fed, with a contemptuous

sharpness occasioning indigestion. Here, again, were stations with

nothing going but a bell, and wonderful wooden razors set aloft on great

posts, shaving the air. In these fields, the horses, sheep, and cattle were

well used to the thundering meteor, and didn't mind; in those, they were all

set scampering together, and a herd of pigs scoured after them. The

pastoral country darkened, became coaly, became smoky, became infernal,

got better, got worse, improved again, grew rugged, turned romantic; was

a wood, a stream, a chain of hills, a gorge, a moor, a cathedral town, a

fortified place, a waste. Now, miserable black dwellings, a black canal,

and sick black towers of chimneys; now, a trim garden, where the flowers

were bright and fair; now, a wilderness of hideous altars all a- blaze; now,

the water meadows with their fairy rings; now, the mangy patch of unlet

building ground outside the stagnant town, with the larger ring where the

Circus was last week. The temperature changed, the dialect changed, the

people changed, faces got sharper, manner got shorter, eyes got shrewder

and harder; yet all so quickly, that the spruce guard in the London uniform

and silver lace, had not yet rumpled his shirt-collar, delivered half the

dispatches in his shiny little pouch, or read his newspaper.

Carlisle! Idle and Goodchild had got to Carlisle. It looked

congenially and delightfully idle. Something in the way of public

amusement had happened last month, and something else was going to

happen before Christmas; and, in the meantime there was a lecture on

India for those who liked it - which Idle and Goodchild did not. Likewise,

by those who liked them, there were impressions to be bought of all the

vapid prints, going and gone, and of nearly all the vapid books. For

those who wanted to put anything in missionary boxes, here were the

boxes. For those who wanted the Reverend Mr. Podgers (artist's proofs,

thirty shillings), here was Mr. Podgers to any amount. Not less gracious

and abundant, Mr. Codgers also of the vineyard, but opposed to Mr.

Podgers, brotherly tooth and nail. Here, were guide-books to the

neighbouring antiquities, and eke the Lake country, in several dry and

THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

husky sorts; here, many physically and morally impossible heads of both

sexes, for young ladies to copy, in the exercise of the art of drawing; here,

further, a large impression of MR. SPURGEON, solid as to the flesh, not

to say even something gross. The working young men of Carlisle were

drawn up, with their hands in their pockets, across the pavements, four and

six abreast, and appeared (much to the satisfaction of Mr. Idle) to have

nothing else to do. The working and growing young women of Carlisle,

from the age of twelve upwards, promenaded the streets in the cool of the

evening, and rallied the said young men. Sometimes the young men

rallied the young women, as in the case of a group gathered round an

accordion-player, from among whom a young man advanced behind a

young woman for whom he appeared to have a tenderness, and hinted to

her that he was there and playful, by giving her (he wore clogs) a kick.

On market morning, Carlisle woke up amazingly, and became (to the

two Idle Apprentices) disagreeably and reproachfully busy. There were

its cattle market, its sheep market, and its pig market down by the river,

with raw-boned and shock-headed Rob Roys hiding their Lowland dresses

beneath heavy plaids, prowling in and out among the animals, and

flavouring the air with fumes of whiskey. There was its corn market

down the main street, with hum of chaffering over open sacks. There

was its general market in the street too, with heather brooms on which the

purple flower still flourished, and heather baskets primitive and fresh to

behold. With women trying on clogs and caps at open stalls, and 'Bible

stalls' adjoining. With 'Doctor Mantle's Dispensary for the cure of all

Human Maladies and no charge for advice,' and with Doctor Mantle's

'Laboratory of Medical, Chemical, and Botanical Science' - both healing

institutions established on one pair of trestles, one board, and one sun-

blind. With the renowned phrenologist from London, begging to be

favoured (at sixpence each) with the company of clients of both sexes, to

whom, on examination of their heads, he would make revelations

'enabling him or her to know themselves.' Through all these bargains and

blessings, the recruiting-sergeant watchfully elbowed his way, a thread of

War in the peaceful skein. Likewise on the walls were printed hints that

the Oxford Blues might not be indisposed to hear of a few fine active

THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

young men; and that whereas the standard of that distinguished corps is

full six feet, 'growing lads of five feet eleven' need not absolutely despair

of being accepted.

Scenting the morning air more pleasantly than the buried majesty of

Denmark did, Messrs. Idle and Goodchild rode away from Carlisle at eight

o'clock one forenoon, bound for the village of Hesket, Newmarket, some

fourteen miles distant. Goodchild (who had already begun to doubt

whether he was idle: as his way always is when he has nothing to do)

had read of a certain black old Cumberland hill or mountain, called

Carrock, or Carrock Fell; and had arrived at the conclusion that it would

be the culminating triumph of Idleness to ascend the same. Thomas Idle,

dwelling on the pains inseparable from that achievement, had expressed

the strongest doubts of the expediency, and even of the sanity, of the

enterprise; but Goodchild had carried his point, and they rode away.

Up hill and down hill, and twisting to the right, and twisting to the left,

and with old Skiddaw (who has vaunted himself a great deal more than his

merits deserve; but that is rather the way of the Lake country), dodging the

apprentices in a picturesque and pleasant manner. Good, weather-proof,

warm, pleasant houses, well white-limed, scantily dotting the road.

Clean children coming out to look, carrying other clean children as big as

themselves. Harvest still lying out and much rained upon; here and there,

harvest still unreaped. Well-cultivated gardens attached to the cottages,

with plenty of produce forced out of their hard soil. Lonely nooks, and

wild; but people can be born, and married, and buried in such nooks, and

can live and love, and be loved, there as elsewhere, thank God! (Mr.

Goodchild's remark.) By-and-by, the village. Black, coarse-stoned,

rough-windowed houses; some with outer staircases, like Swiss houses; a

sinuous and stony gutter winding up hill and round the corner, by way of

street. All the children running out directly. Women pausing in

washing, to peep from doorways and very little windows. Such were the

observations of Messrs. Idle and Goodchild, as their conveyance stopped

at the village shoemaker's. Old Carrock gloomed down upon it all in a

very ill-tempered state; and rain was beginning.

The village shoemaker declined to have anything to do with Carrock.

THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

No visitors went up Carrock. No visitors came there at all. Aa' the

world ganged awa' yon. The driver appealed to the Innkeeper. The

Innkeeper had two men working in the fields, and one of them should be

called in, to go up Carrock as guide. Messrs. Idle and Goodchild, highly

approving, entered the Innkeeper's house, to drink whiskey and eat

oatcake.

The Innkeeper was not idle enough - was not idle at all, which was a

great fault in him - but was a fine specimen of a north-country man, or any

kind of man. He had a ruddy cheek, a bright eye, a well-knit frame, an

immense hand, a cheery, outspeaking voice, and a straight, bright, broad

look. He had a drawing-room, too, upstairs, which was worth a visit to

the Cumberland Fells. (This was Mr. Francis Goodchild's opinion, in

which Mr. Thomas Idle did not concur.)

The ceiling of this drawing-room was so crossed and recrossed by

beams of unequal lengths, radiating from a centre, in a corner, that it

looked like a broken star-fish. The room was comfortably and solidly

furnished with good mahogany and horsehair. It had a snug fireside, and

a couple of well-curtained windows, looking out upon the wild country

behind the house. What it most developed was, an unexpected taste for

little ornaments and nick-nacks, of which it contained a most surprising

number. They were not very various, consisting in great part of waxen

babies with their limbs more or less mutilated, appealing on one leg to the

parental affections from under little cupping glasses; but, Uncle Tom was

there, in crockery, receiving theological instructions from Miss Eva, who

grew out of his side like a wen, in an exceedingly rough state of profile

propagandism. Engravings of Mr. Hunt's country boy, before and after

his pie, were on the wall, divided by a highly-coloured nautical piece, the

subject of which had all her colours (and more) flying, and was making

great way through a sea of a regular pattern, like a lady's collar. A

benevolent, elderly gentleman of the last century, with a powdered head,

kept guard, in oil and varnish, over a most perplexing piece of furniture on

a table; in appearance between a driving seat and an angular knife- box,

but, when opened, a musical instrument of tinkling wires, exactly like

David's harp packed for travelling. Everything became a nick-nack in

THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

this curious room. The copper tea-kettle, burnished up to the highest

point of glory, took his station on a stand of his own at the greatest

possible distance from the fireplace, and said: 'By your leave, not a

kettle, but a bijou.' The Staffordshire-ware butter-dish with the cover on,

got upon a little round occasional table in a window, with a worked top,

and announced itself to the two chairs accidentally placed there, as an aid

to polite conversation, a graceful trifle in china to be chatted over by

callers, as they airily trifled away the visiting moments of a butterfly

existence, in that rugged old village on the Cumberland Fells. The very

footstool could not keep the floor, but got upon a sofa, and there-from

proclaimed itself, in high relief of white and liver-coloured wool, a

favourite spaniel coiled up for repose. Though, truly, in spite of its bright

glass eyes, the spaniel was the least successful assumption in the

collection: being perfectly flat, and dismally suggestive of a recent

mistake in sitting down on the part of some corpulent member of the

family.

There were books, too, in this room; books on the table, books on the

chimney-piece, books in an open press in the corner. Fielding was there,

and Smollett was there, and Steele and Addison were there, in dispersed

volumes; and there were tales of those who go down to the sea in ships,

for windy nights; and there was really a choice of good books for rainy

days or fine. It was so very pleasant to see these things in such a

lonesome by-place - so very agreeable to find these evidences of a taste,

however homely, that went beyond the beautiful cleanliness and trimness

of the house - so fanciful to imagine what a wonder a room must be to the

little children born in the gloomy village - what grand impressions of it

those of them who became wanderers over the earth would carry away;

and how, at distant ends of the world, some old voyagers would die,

cherishing the belief that the finest apartment known to men was once in

the Hesket-Newmarket Inn, in rare old Cumberland - it was such a

charmingly lazy pursuit to entertain these rambling thoughts over the

choice oatcake and the genial whiskey, that Mr. Idle and Mr. Goodchild

never asked themselves how it came to pass that the men in the fields were

never heard of more, how the stalwart landlord replaced them without

THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

explanation, how his dog-cart came to be waiting at the door, and how

everything was arranged without the least arrangement for climbing to old

Carrock's shoulders, and standing on his head.

Without a word of inquiry, therefore, the Two Idle Apprentices drifted

out resignedly into a fine, soft, close, drowsy, penetrating rain; got into the

landlord's light dog-cart, and rattled off through the village for the foot of

Carrock. The journey at the outset was not remarkable. The

Cumberland road went up and down like all other roads; the Cumberland

curs burst out from backs of cottages and barked like other curs, and the

Cumberland peasantry stared after the dog-cart amazedly, as long as it was

in sight, like the rest of their race. The approach to the foot of the

mountain resembled the approaches to the feet of most other mountains all

over the world. The cultivation gradually ceased, the trees grew

gradually rare, the road became gradually rougher, and the sides of the

mountain looked gradually more and more lofty, and more and more

difficult to get up. The dog-cart was left at a lonely farm-house. The

landlord borrowed a large umbrella, and, assuming in an instant the

character of the most cheerful and adventurous of guides, led the way to

the ascent. Mr. Goodchild looked eagerly at the top of the mountain, and,

feeling apparently that he was now going to be very lazy indeed, shone all

over wonderfully to the eye, under the influence of the contentment within

and the moisture without. Only in the bosom of Mr. Thomas Idle did

Despondency now hold her gloomy state. He kept it a secret; but he

would have given a very handsome sum, when the ascent began, to have

been back again at the inn. The sides of Carrock looked fearfully steep,

and the top of Carrock was hidden in mist. The rain was falling faster

and faster. The knees of Mr. Idle - always weak on walking excursions -

shivered and shook with fear and damp. The wet was already penetrating

through the young man's outer coat to a brand-new shooting-jacket, for

which he had reluctantly paid the large sum of two guineas on leaving

town; he had no stimulating refreshment about him but a small packet of

clammy gingerbread nuts; he had nobody to give him an arm, nobody to

push him gently behind, nobody to pull him up tenderly in front, nobody

to speak to who really felt the difficulties of the ascent, the dampness of

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THELAZYTOUROFTWOIDLEAPPRENTICES1THELAZYTOUROFTWOIDLEAPPRENTICESTHELAZYTOUROFTWOIDLEAPPRENTICES2CHAPTERIIntheautumnmonthofSeptember,eighteenhundredandfifty-seven,whereinthesepresentsbeardate,twoidleapprentices,exhaustedbythelong,hotsummer,andthelong,hotworkithadbroughtwithit,ranawayfromtheiremployer....

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