The Mudfog Papers Read online

  Mr Nicholas Tulrumble was seated in a small cavern with a skylight, which he called his library, sketching out a plan of the procession on a large sheet of paper; and into the cavern the secretary ushered Ned Twigger.

  “Well, Twigger!” said Nicholas Tulrumble, condescendingly.

  There was a time when Twigger would have replied, “Well, Nick!” but that was in the days of the truck, and a couple of years before the donkey; so he only bowed.

  “I want you to go into training, Twigger,” said Mr Tulrumble.

  “What for, sir?” enquired Ned, with a stare.

  “Hush, hush, Twigger!” said the Mayor. “Shut the door, Mr Jennings. Look here, Twigger.”

  As the Mayor said this, he unlocked a high closet and disclosed a complete suit of brass armour, of gigantic dimensions.

  “I want you to wear this next Monday, Twigger,” said the Mayor.

  “Bless your heart and soul, sir!” replied Ned. “You might as well ask me to wear a seventy-four pounder,* or a cast-iron boiler.”

  “Nonsense, Twigger, nonsense!” said the Mayor.

  “I couldn’t stand under it, sir,” said Twigger. “It would make mashed potatoes of me, if I attempted it.”

  “Pooh, pooh, Twigger!” returned the Mayor. “I tell you I have seen it done with my own eyes, in London, and the man wasn’t half such a man as you are either.”

  “I should as soon have thought of a man’s wearing the case of an eight-day clock* to save his linen,” said Twigger, casting a look of apprehension at the brass suit.

  “It’s the easiest thing in the world,” rejoined the Mayor.

  “It’s nothing,” said Mr Jennings.

  “When you’re used to it,” added Ned.

  “You do it by degrees,” said the Mayor. “You would begin with one piece tomorrow, and two the next day, and so on, till you had got it all on. Mr Jennings, give Twigger a glass of rum. Just try the breastplate, Twigger. Stay; take another glass of rum first. Help me to lift it, Mr Jennings. Stand firm, Twigger! There! It isn’t half as heavy as it looks, is it?”

  Twigger was a good strong, stout fellow; so, after a great deal of staggering, he managed to keep himself up, under the breastplate, and even contrived, with the aid of another glass of rum, to walk about in it, and the gauntlets into the bargain. He made a trial of the helmet, but was not equally successful, inasmuch as he tipped over instantly – an accident which Mr Tulrumble clearly demonstrated to be occasioned by his not having a counteracting weight of brass on his legs.

  “Now, wear that with grace and propriety on Monday next,” said Tulrumble, “and I’ll make your fortune.”

  “I’ll try what I can do, sir,” said Twigger.

  “It must be kept a profound secret,” said Tulrumble.

  “Of course, sir,” replied Twigger.

  “And you must be sober,” said Tulrumble, “perfectly sober.”

  Mr Twigger at once solemnly pledged himself to be as sober as a judge, and Nicholas Tulrumble was satisfied, although, had we been Nicholas, we should certainly have exacted some promise of a more specific nature; inasmuch as, having attended the Mudfog assizes in the evening more than once, we can solemnly testify to having seen judges with very strong symptoms of dinner under their wigs. However, that’s neither here nor there.

  The next day, and the day following, and the day after that, Ned Twigger was securely locked up in the small cavern with the skylight, hard at work at the armour. With every additional piece he could manage to stand upright in, he had an additional glass of rum; and at last, after many partial suffocations, he contrived to get on the whole suit and to stagger up and down the room in it, like an intoxicated effigy from Westminster Abbey.

  Never was man so delighted as Nicholas Tulrumble; never was woman so charmed as Nicholas Tulrumble’s wife. Here was a sight for the common people of Mudfog! A live man in brass armour! Why, they would go wild with wonder!

  The day – the Monday – arrived.

  If the morning had been made to order, it couldn’t have been better adapted to the purpose. They never showed a better fog in London on Lord Mayor’s Day than enwrapped the town of Mudfog on that eventful occasion. It had risen slowly and surely from the green and stagnant water with the first light of morning, until it reached a little above the lamp-post tops; and there it had stopped, with a sleepy, sluggish obstinacy, which bade defiance to the sun, who had got up very bloodshot about the eyes, as if he had been at a drinking party over night, and was doing his day’s work with the worst possible grace. The thick damp mist hung over the town like a huge gauze curtain. All was dim and dismal. The church steeples had bidden a temporary adieu to the world below, and every object of lesser importance – houses, barns, hedges, trees and barges – had all taken the veil.

  The church clock struck one. A cracked trumpet from the front garden of Mudfog Hall produced a feeble flourish, as if some asthmatic person had coughed into it accidentally; the gate flew open, and out came a gentleman, on a moist-sugar-coloured charger, intended to represent a herald, but bearing a much stronger resemblance to a court card* on horseback. This was one of the circus people, who always came down to Mudfog at that time of the year, and who had been engaged by Nicholas Tulrumble expressly for the occasion. There was the horse, whisking his tail about, balancing himself on his hind legs and flourishing away with his forefeet, in a manner which would have gone to the hearts and souls of any reasonable crowd. But a Mudfog crowd never was a reasonable one, and in all probability never will be. Instead of scattering the very fog with their shouts, as they ought most indubitably to have done, and were fully intended to do by Nicholas Tulrumble, they no sooner recognized the herald than they began to growl forth the most unqualified disapprobation at the bare notion of his riding like any other man. If he had come out on his head indeed, or jumping through a hoop, or flying through a red-hot drum, or even standing on one leg with his other foot in his mouth, they might have had something to say to him; but for a professional gentleman to sit astride in the saddle, with his feet in the stirrups, was rather too good a joke. So, the herald was a decided failure, and the crowd hooted with great energy, as he pranced ingloriously away.

  On the procession came. We are afraid to say how many supernumeraries there were, in striped shirts and black velvet caps, to imitate the London watermen, or how many base imitations of running footmen, or how many banners, which, owing to the heaviness of the atmosphere, could by no means be prevailed on to display their inscriptions; still less do we feel disposed to relate how the men who played the wind instruments, looking up into the sky (we mean the fog) with musical fervour, walked through pools of water and hillocks of mud, till they covered the powdered heads of the running footmen aforesaid with splashes that looked curious, but not ornamental; or how the barrel-organ performer put on the wrong stop and played one tune while the band played another; or how the horses, being used to the arena, and not to the streets, would stand still and dance, instead of going on and prancing – all of which are matters which might be dilated upon to great advantage, but which we have not the least intention of dilating upon, notwithstanding.

  Oh! It was a grand and beautiful sight to behold a corporation in glass coaches, provided at the sole cost and charge of Nicholas Tulrumble, coming rolling along, like a funeral out of mourning, and to watch the attempts the corporation made to look great and solemn, when Nicholas Tulrumble himself, in the four-wheel chaise, with the tall postilion, rolled out after them, with Mr Jennings on one side to look like a chaplain and a supernumerary on the other, with an old Life Guardsman’s sabre,* to imitate the sword-bearer; and to see the tears rolling down the faces of the mob as they screamed with merriment. This was beautiful! And so was the appearance of Mrs Tulrumble and son, as they bowed with grave dignity out of their coach window to all the dirty faces that were laughing around them – but it is not even with this that we ha
ve to do, but with the sudden stopping of the procession at another blast of the trumpet, whereat, and whereupon, a profound silence ensued, and all eyes were turned towards Mudfog Hall, in the confident anticipation of some new wonder.

  “They won’t laugh now, Mr Jennings,” said Nicholas Tulrumble.

  “I think not, sir,” said Mr Jennings.

  “See how eager they look,” said Nicholas Tulrumble. “Aha! The laugh will be on our side now, eh, Mr Jennings?”

  “No doubt of that, sir,” replied Mr Jennings; and Nicholas Tulrumble, in a state of pleasurable excitement, stood up in the four-wheel chaise and telegraphed gratification to the Mayoress behind.

  While all this was going forward, Ned Twigger had descended into the kitchen of Mudfog Hall for the purpose of indulging the servants with a private view of the curiosity that was to burst upon the town; and, somehow or other, the footman was so companionable, and the housemaid so kind, and the cook so friendly, that he could not resist the offer of the first-mentioned to sit down and take something – just to drink success to master in.

  So, down Ned Twigger sat himself in his brass livery on the top of the kitchen table, and in a mug of something strong, paid for by the unconscious Nicholas Tulrumble, and provided by the companionable footman, drank success to the Mayor and his procession; and, as Ned laid by his helmet to imbibe the something strong, the companionable footman put it on his own head, to the immeasurable and unrecordable delight of the cook and housemaid. The companionable footman was very facetious to Ned, and Ned was very gallant to the cook and housemaid by turns. They were all very cosy and comfortable, and the something strong went briskly round.

  At last Ned Twigger was loudly called for by the procession people; and, having had his helmet fixed on, in a very complicated manner, by the companionable footman and the kind housemaid and the friendly cook, he walked gravely forth, and appeared before the multitude.

  The crowd roared – it was not with wonder, it was not with surprise: it was most decidedly and unquestionably with laughter.

  “What!” said Mr Tulrumble, starting up in the four-wheel chaise. “Laughing? If they laugh at a man in real brass armour, they’d laugh when their own fathers were dying. Why doesn’t he go into his place, Mr Jennings? What’s he rolling down towards us for? He has no business here!”

  “I am afraid, sir…” faltered Mr Jennings.

  “Afraid of what, sir?” said Nicholas Tulrumble, looking up into the secretary’s face.

  “I am afraid he’s drunk, sir,” replied Mr Jennings.

  Nicholas Tulrumble took one look at the extraordinary figure that was bearing down upon them, and then, clasping his secretary by the arm, uttered an audible groan in anguish of spirit.

  It is a melancholy fact that Mr Twigger, having full licence to demand a single glass of rum on the putting on of every piece of the armour, got, by some means or other, rather out of his calculation in the hurry and confusion of preparation, and drank about four glasses to a piece instead of one, not to mention the something strong which went on the top of it. Whether the brass armour checked the natural flow of perspiration and thus prevented the spirit from evaporating, we are not scientific enough to know; but, whatever the cause was, Mr Twigger no sooner found himself outside the gate of Mudfog Hall than he also found himself in a very considerable state of intoxication – and hence his extraordinary style of progressing. This was bad enough, but, as if fate and fortune had conspired against Nicholas Tulrumble, Mr Twigger, not having been penitent for a good calendar month, took it into his head to be most especially and particularly sentimental, just when his repentance could have been most conveniently dispensed with. Immense tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he was vainly endeavouring to conceal his grief by applying to his eyes a blue cotton pocket handkerchief with white spots – an article not strictly in keeping with a suit of armour some three hundred years old or thereabouts.

  “Twigger, you villain!” said Nicholas Tulrumble, quite forgetting his dignity, “go back.”

  “Never,” said Ned. “I’m a miserable wretch. I’ll never leave you.”

  The bystanders of course received this declaration with acclamations of “That’s right, Ned, don’t!”

  “I don’t intend it,” said Ned, with all the obstinacy of a very tipsy man. “I’m very unhappy. I’m the wretched father of an unfortunate family, but I am very faithful, sir. I’ll never leave you.” Having reiterated this obliging promise, Ned proceeded in broken words to harangue the crowd upon the number of years he had lived in Mudfog, the excessive respectability of his character and other topics of the like nature.

  “Here! Will anybody lead him away?” said Nicholas. “If they’ll call on me afterwards, I’ll reward them well.”

  Two or three men stepped forward, with the view of bearing Ned off, when the secretary interposed.

  “Take care! Take care!” said Mr Jennings. “I beg your pardon, sir, but they’d better not go too near him, because if he falls over, he’ll certainly crush somebody.”

  At this hint the crowd retired on all sides to a very respectful distance, and left Ned, like the Duke of Devonshire, in a little circle of his own.

  “But, Mr Jennings,” said Nicholas Tulrumble, “he’ll be suffocated.”

  “I’m very sorry for it, sir,” replied Mr Jennings, “but nobody can get that armour off without his own assistance. I’m quite certain of it from the way he put it on.”

  Here Ned wept dolefully, and shook his helmeted head, in a manner that might have touched a heart of stone; but the crowd had not hearts of stone, and they laughed heartily.

  “Dear me, Mr Jennings,” said Nicholas, turning pale at the possibility of Ned’s being smothered in his antique costume. “Dear me, Mr Jennings, can nothing be done with him?”

  “Nothing at all,” replied Ned, “nothing at all. Gentlemen, I’m an unhappy wretch. I’m a body, gentlemen, in a brass coffin.” At this poetical idea of his own conjuring up, Ned cried so much that the people began to get sympathetic, and to ask what Nicholas Tulrumble meant by putting a man into such a machine as that; and one individual in a hairy waistcoat like the top of a trunk, who had previously expressed his opinion that if Ned hadn’t been a poor man, Nicholas wouldn’t have dared do it, hinted at the propriety of breaking the four-wheel chaise, or Nicholas’s head, or both, which last compound proposition the crowd seemed to consider a very good notion.

  It was not acted upon, however, for it had hardly been broached when Ned Twigger’s wife made her appearance abruptly in the little circle before noticed, and Ned no sooner caught a glimpse of her face and form than from the mere force of habit he set off towards his home just as fast as his legs could carry him; and that was not very quick in the present instance either, for however ready they might have been to carry him, they couldn’t get on very well under the brass armour. So Mrs Twigger had plenty of time to denounce Nicholas Tulrumble to his face; to express her opinion that he was a decided monster; and to intimate that, if her ill-used husband sustained any personal damage from the brass armour, she would have the law of Nicholas Tulrumble for manslaughter. When she had said all this with due vehemence, she posted after Ned, who was dragging himself along as best he could, and deploring his unhappiness in most dismal tones.

  What a wailing and screaming Ned’s children raised when he got home at last! Mrs Twigger tried to undo the armour, first in one place and then in another, but she couldn’t manage it; so she tumbled Ned into bed, helmet, armour, gauntlets and all. Such a creaking as the bedstead made, under Ned’s weight in his new suit! It didn’t break down though, and there Ned lay, like the anonymous vessel in the Bay of Biscay, till next day,* drinking barley water, and looking miserable – and every time he groaned, his good lady said it served him right, which was all the consolation Ned Twigger got.

  Nicholas Tulrumble and the gorgeous procession went on together to the
town hall, amid the hisses and groans of all the spectators, who had suddenly taken it into their heads to consider poor Ned a martyr. Nicholas was formally installed in his new office, in acknowledgement of which ceremony he delivered himself of a speech, composed by the secretary, which was very long, and no doubt very good, only the noise of the people outside prevented anybody from hearing it but Nicholas Tulrumble himself. After which, the procession got back to Mudfog Hall any how it could, and Nicholas and the corporation sat down to dinner.

  But the dinner was flat, and Nicholas was disappointed. They were such dull sleepy old fellows, that corporation. Nicholas made quite as long speeches as the Lord Mayor of London had done, nay, he said the very same things that the Lord Mayor of London had said, and the deuce a cheer the corporation gave him. There was only one man in the party who was thoroughly awake, and he was insolent and called him Nick. Nick! What would be the consequence, thought Nicholas, of anybody presuming to call the Lord Mayor of London “Nick”! He should like to know what the sword-bearer would say to that; or the recorder, or the toastmaster, or any other of the great officers of the city. They’d nick him.

  But these were not the worst of Nicholas Tulrumble’s doings. If they had been, he might have remained a mayor to this day and have talked till he lost his voice. He contracted a relish for statistics and got philosophical, and the statistics and the philosophy together led him into an act which increased his unpopularity and hastened his downfall.