Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens [big ebook reader txt] 📗

They walked up and down the yard on the evening of Little Dorrit’s Sunday interview with her lover on the Iron Bridge. The cares of state were over for that day, the Drawing Room had been well attended, several new presentations had taken place, the three-and-sixpence accidentally left on the table had accidentally increased to twelve shillings, and the Father of the Marshalsea refreshed himself with a whiff of cigar. As he walked up and down, affably accommodating his step to the shuffle of his brother, not proud in his superiority, but considerate of that poor creature, bearing with him, and breathing toleration of his infirmities in every little puff of smoke that issued from his lips and aspired to get over the spiked wall, he was a sight to wonder at.

His brother Frederick of the dim eye, palsied hand, bent form, and groping mind, submissively shuffled at his side, accepting his patronage as he accepted every incident of the labyrinthian world in which he had got lost. He held the usual screwed bit of whitey-brown paper in his hand, from which he ever and again unscrewed a spare pinch of snuff. That falteringly taken, he would glance at his brother not unadmiringly, put his hands behind him, and shuffle on so at his side until he took another pinch, or stood still to look about him⁠—perchance suddenly missing his clarinet.

The College visitors were melting away as the shades of night drew on, but the yard was still pretty full, the Collegians being mostly out, seeing their friends to the Lodge. As the brothers paced the yard, William the bond looked about him to receive salutes, returned them by graciously lifting off his hat, and, with an engaging air, prevented Frederick the free from running against the company, or being jostled against the wall. The Collegians as a body were not easily impressible, but even they, according to their various ways of wondering, appeared to find in the two brothers a sight to wonder at.

“You are a little low this evening, Frederick,” said the Father of the Marshalsea. “Anything the matter?”

“The matter?” He stared for a moment, and then dropped his head and eyes again. “No, William, no. Nothing is the matter.”

“If you could be persuaded to smarten yourself up a little, Frederick⁠—”

“Aye, aye!” said the old man hurriedly. “But I can’t be. I can’t be. Don’t talk so. That’s all over.”

The Father of the Marshalsea glanced at a passing Collegian with whom he was on friendly terms, as who should say, “An enfeebled old man, this; but he is my brother, sir, my brother, and the voice of Nature is potent!” and steered his brother clear of the handle of the pump by the threadbare sleeve. Nothing would have been wanting to the perfection of his character as a fraternal guide, philosopher and friend, if he had only steered his brother clear of ruin, instead of bringing it upon him.

“I think, William,” said the object of his affectionate consideration, “that I am tired, and will go home to bed.”

“My dear Frederick,” returned the other, “don’t let me detain you; don’t sacrifice your inclination to me.”

“Late hours, and a heated atmosphere, and years, I suppose,” said Frederick, “weaken me.”

“My dear Frederick,” returned the Father of the Marshalsea, “do you think you are sufficiently careful of yourself? Do you think your habits are as precise and methodical as⁠—shall I say as mine are? Not to revert again to that little eccentricity which I mentioned just now, I doubt if you take air and exercise enough, Frederick. Here is the parade, always at your service. Why not use it more regularly than you do?”

“Hah!” sighed the other. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

“But it is of no use saying yes, yes, my dear Frederick,” the Father of the Marshalsea in his mild wisdom persisted, “unless you act on that assent. Consider my case, Frederick. I am a kind of example. Necessity and time have taught me what to do. At certain stated hours of the day, you will find me on the parade, in my room, in the Lodge, reading the paper, receiving company, eating and drinking. I have impressed upon Amy during many years, that I must have my meals (for instance) punctually. Amy has grown up in a sense of the importance of these arrangements, and you know what a good girl she is.”

The brother only sighed again, as he plodded dreamily along, “Hah! Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

“My dear fellow,” said the Father of the Marshalsea, laying his hand upon his shoulder, and mildly rallying him⁠—mildly, because of his weakness, poor dear soul; “you said that before, and it does not express much, Frederick, even if it means much. I wish I could rouse you, my good Frederick; you want to be roused.”

“Yes, William, yes. No doubt,” returned the other, lifting his dim eyes to his face. “But I am not like you.”

The Father of the Marshalsea said, with a shrug of modest self-depreciation, “Oh! You might be like me, my dear Frederick; you might be, if you chose!” and forbore, in the magnanimity of his strength, to press his fallen brother further.

There was a great deal of leave-taking going on in corners, as was usual on Sunday nights; and here and there in the dark, some poor woman, wife or mother, was weeping with a new Collegian. The time had been when the Father himself had wept, in the shades of that yard, as his own poor wife had wept. But it was many years ago; and now he was like a passenger aboard ship in a long voyage, who has recovered from seasickness, and is impatient of that weakness in the fresher passengers taken aboard at the last port. He was inclined to remonstrate, and to express his opinion that people who couldn’t get on without crying, had no business there. In manner, if not in words, he always testified his displeasure