Chapter 20. Mr Dombey goes upon a Journey

Dombey and Son

by Charles Dickens

'Mr Dombey, Sir,' said Major Bagstock, 'Joee' B. is not in
general a man of sentiment, for Joseph is tough. But Joe has his
feelings, Sir, and when they are awakened - Damme, Mr Dombey,? cried
the Major with sudden ferocity, 'this is weakness, and I won't submit
to it]'

Major Bagstock delivered himself of these expressions on
receiving Mr Dombey as his guest at the head of his own staircase in
Princess's Place. Mr Dombey had come to breakfast with the Major,
previous to their setting forth on their trip; and the ill-starved
Native had already undergone a world of misery arising out of the
muffins, while, in connexion with the general question of boiled
eggs, life was a burden to him.

'It is not for an old soldier of the Bagstock breed,' observed
the Major, relapsing into a mild state, 'to deliver himself up, a
prey to his own emotions; but - damme, Sir,' cried the Major, in
another spasm of ferocity, 'I condole with you!'

The Major's purple visage deepened in its hue, and the Major's
lobster eyes stood out in bolder relief, as he shook Mr Dombey by the
hand, imparting to that peaceful action as defiant a character as if
it had been the prelude to his immediately boxing Mr Dombey for a
thousand pounds a side and the championship of England. With a
rotatory motion of his head, and a wheeze very like the cough of a
horse, the Major then conducted his visitor to the sitting-room, and
there welcomed him (having now composed his feelings) with the
freedom and frankness ofa travelling companion.

'Dombey,' said the Major, 'I'm glad to see you. I'm proud to see
you. There are not many men in Europe to whom J. Bagstock would say
that - for Josh is blunt. Sir: it's his nature - but Joey B. is proud
to see you, Dombey.'

'Major,' returned Mr Dombey, 'you are very obliging.'

'No, Sir,' said the Major, 'Devil a bit! That's not my
character. If that had been Joe's character, Joe might have been, by
this time, Lieutenant-General Sir Joseph Bagstock, K.C.B., and might
have received you in very different quarters. You don't know old Joe
yet, I find. But this occasion, being special, is a source of pride
to me. By the Lord, Sir,' said the Major resolutely, 'it's an honour
to me!'

Mr Dombey, in his estimation of himself and his money, felt that
this was very true, and therefore did not dispute the point. But the
instinctive recognition of such a truth by the Major, and his plain
avowal of it, were very able. It was a confirmation to Mr Dombey, if
he had required any, of his not being mistaken in the Major. It was
an assurance to him that his power extended beyond his own immediate
sphere; and that the Major, as an officer and a gentleman, had a no
less becoming sense of it, than the beadle of the Royal Exchange.

And if it were ever consolatory to know this, or the like of
this, it was consolatory then, when the impotence of his will, the
instability of his hopes, the feebleness of wealth, had been so
direfully impressed upon him. What could it do, his boy had asked
him. Sometimes, thinking of the baby question, he could hardly
forbear inquiring, himself, what could it do indeed: what had it
done?

But these were lonely thoughts, bred late at night in the sullen
despondency and gloom of his retirement, and pride easily found its
reassurance in many testimonies to the truth, as unimpeachable and
precious as the Major's. Mr Dombey, in his friendlessness, inclined
to the Major. It cannot be said that he warmed towards him, but he
thawed a little, The Major had had some part - and not too much - in
the days by the seaside. He was a man of the world, and knew some
great people. He talked much, and told stories; and Mr Dombey was
disposed to regard him as a choice spirit who shone in society, and
who had not that poisonous ingredient of poverty with which choice
spirits in general are too much adulterated. His station was
undeniable. Altogether the Major was a creditable companion, well
accustomed to a life of leisure, and to such places as that they were
about to visit, and having an air of gentlemanly ease about him that
mixed well enough with his own City character, and did not compete
with it at all. If Mr Dombey had any lingering idea that the Major,
as a man accustomed, in the way of his calling, to make light of the
ruthless hand that had lately crushed his hopes, might unconsciously
impart some useful philosophy to him, and scare away his weak
regrets, he hid it from himself, and left it lying at the bottom of
his pride, unexamined.

'Where is my scoundrel?' said the Major, looking wrathfully
round the room.

The Native, who had no particular name, but answered to any
vituperative epithet, presented himself instantly at the door and
ventured to come no nearer.

'You villain!' said the choleric Major, 'where's the
breakfast?'

The dark servant disappeared in search of it, and was quickly
heard reascending the stairs in such a tremulous state, that the
plates and dishes on the tray he carried, trembling sympathetically
as he came, rattled again, all the way up.

'Dombey,' said the Major, glancing at the Native as he arranged
the table, and encouraging him with an awful shake of his fist when
he upset a spoon, 'here is a devilled grill, a savoury pie, a dish of
kidneys, and so forth. Pray sit down. Old Joe can give you nothing
but camp fare, you see.

'Very excellent fare, Major,' replied his guest; and not in mere
politeness either; for the Major always took the best possible care
of himself, and indeed ate rather more of rich meats than was good
for him, insomuch that his Imperial complexion was mainly referred by
the faculty to that circumstance.

'You have been looking over the way, Sir,' observed the Major.
'Have you seen our friend?'

'You mean Miss Tox,' retorted Mr Dombey. 'No.'

'Charming woman, Sir,' said the Major, with a fat laugh rising
in his short throat, and nearly suffocating him.

'Miss Tox is a very good sort of person, I believe,' replied Mr
Dombey.

The haughty coldness of the reply seemed to afford Major
Bagstock infinite delight. He swelled and swelled, exceedingly: and
even laid down his knife and fork for a moment, to rub his hands.

'Old Joe, Sir,' said the Major, 'was a bit ofa favourite in that
quarter once. But Joe has had his day. J. Bagstock is extinguished -
outrivalled - floored, Sir.'

'I should have supposed,' Mr Dombey replied, 'that the lady's
day for favourites was over: but perhaps you are jesting, Major.'

'Perhaps you are jesting, Dombey?' was the Major's rejoinder.

There never was a more unlikely possiblity. It was so clearly
expressed in Mr Dombey's face, that the Major apologised.

'I beg your pardon,' he said. 'I see you are in earnest. I tell
you what, Dombey.' The Major paused in his eating, and looked
mysteriously indignant. 'That's a de-vilish ambitious woman, Sir.'

Mr Dombey said 'Indeed?' with frigid indifference: mingled
perhaps with some contemptuous incredulity as to Miss Tox having the
presumption to harbour such a superior quality.

'That woman, Sir,' said the Major, 'is, in her way, a Lucifer.
Joey B. has had his day, Sir, but he keeps his eyes. He sees, does
Joe. His Royal Highness the late Duke of York observed of Joey, at a
levee, that he saw.'

The Major accompanied this with such a look, and, between
eating, drinking, hot tea, devilled grill, muffins, and meaning, was
altogether so swollen and inflamed about the head, that even Mr
Dombey showed some anxiety for him.

'That ridiculous old spectacle, Sir,' pursued the Major,
'aspires. She aspires sky-high, Sir. Matrimonially, Dombey.'

'I am sorry for her,' said Mr Dombey.

'Don't say that, Dombey,' returned the Major in a warning
voice.

'Why should I not, Major?' said Mr Dombey.

The Major gave no answer but the horse's cough, and went on
eating vigorously.

'She has taken an interest in your household,' said the Major,
stopping short again, 'and has been a frequent visitor at your house
for some time now.'

'Yes,' replied Mr Dombey with great stateliness, 'Miss Tox was
originally received there, at the time of Mrs Dombey's death, as a
friend of my sister's; and being a well-behaved person, and showing a
liking for the poor infant, she was permitted - may I say encouraged
- to repeat her visits with my sister, and gradually to occupy a kind
of footing of familiarity in the family. I have,' said Mr Dombey, in
the tone of a man who was making a great and valuable concession, 'I
have a respect for Miss Tox. She his been so obliging as to render
many little services in my house: trifling and insignificant services
perhaps, Major, but not to be disparaged on that account: and I hope
I have had the good fortune to be enabled to acknowledge them by such
attention and notice as it has been in my power to bestow. I hold
myself indebted to Miss Tox, Major,' added Mr Dombey, with a slight
wave of his hand, 'for the pleasure of your acquaintance.'

'Dombey,' said the Major, warmly: 'no! No, Sir! Joseph Bagstock
can never permit that assertion to pass uncontradicted. Your
knowledge of old Joe, Sir, such as he is, and old Joe's knowledge of
you, Sir, had its origin in a noble fellow, Sir - in a great
creature, Sir. Dombey!' said the Major, with a struggle which it was
not very difficult to parade, his whole life being a struggle against
all kinds of apoplectic symptoms, 'we knew each other through your
boy.'

Mr Dombey seemed touched, as it is not improbable the Major
designed he should be, by this allusion. He looked down and sighed:
and the Major, rousing himself fiercely, again said, in reference to
the state of mind into which he felt himself in danger of falling,
that this was weakness, and nothing should induce him to submit to
it.

'Our friend had a remote connexion with that event,' said the
Major, 'and all the credit that belongs to her, J. B. is willing to
give her, Sir. Notwithstanding which, Ma'am,' he added, raising his
eyes from his plate, and casting them across Princess's Place, to
where Miss Tox was at that moment visible at her window watering her
flowers, 'you're a scheming jade, Ma'am, and your ambition is a piece
of monstrous impudence. If it only made yourself ridiculous, Ma'am,'
said the Major, rolling his head at the unconscious Miss Tox, while
his starting eyes appeared to make a leap towards her, 'you might do
that to your heart's content, Ma'am, without any objection, I assure
you, on the part of Bagstock.' Here the Major laughed frightfully up
in the tips of his ears and in the veins of his head. 'But when,
Ma'am,' said the Major, 'you compromise other people, and generous,
unsuspicious people too, as a repayment for their condescension, you
stir the blood of old Joe in his body.'

'Major,' said Mr Dombey, reddening, 'I hope you do not hint at
anything so absurd on the part of Miss Tox as - '

'Dombey,' returned the Major, 'I hint at nothing. But Joey B.
has lived in the world, Sir: lived in the world with his eyes open,
Sir, and his ears cocked: and Joe tells you, Dombey, that there's a
devilish artful and ambitious woman over the way.'

Mr Dombey involuntarily glanced over the way; and an angry
glance he sent in that direction, too.

'That's all on such a subject that shall pass the lips of Joseph
Bagstock,' said the Major firmly. 'Joe is not a tale-bearer, but
there are times when he must speak, when he will speak! - confound
your arts, Ma'am,' cried the Major, again apostrophising his fair
neighbour, with great ire, - 'when the provocation is too strong to
admit of his remaining silent.'

The emotion of this outbreak threw the Major into a paroxysm of
horse's coughs, which held him for a long time. On recovering he
added:

'And now, Dombey, as you have invited Joe - old Joe, who has no
other merit, Sir, but that he is tough and hearty - to be your guest
and guide at Leamington, command him in any way you please, and he is
wholly yours. I don't know, Sir,' said the Major, wagging his double
chin with a jocose air, 'what it is you people see in Joe to make you
hold him in such great request, all of you; but this I know, Sir,
that if he wasn't pretty tough, and obstinate in his refusals, you'd
kill him among you with your invitations and so forth, in
double-quick time.'

Mr Dombey, in a few words, expressed his sense of the preference
he received over those other distinguished members of society who
were clamouring for the possession of Major Bagstock. But the Major
cut him short by giving him to understand that he followed his own
inclinations, and that they had risen up in a body and said with one
accord, 'J. B., Dombey is the man for you to choose as a friend.'

The Major being by this time in a state of repletion, with
essence of savoury pie oozing out at the corners of his eyes, and
devilled grill and kidneys tightening his cravat: and the time
moreover approaching for the departure of the railway train to
Birmingham, by which they were to leave town: the Native got him into
his great-coat with immense difficulty, and buttoned him up until his
face looked staring and gasping, over the top of that garment, as if
he were in a barrel. The Native then handed him separately, and with
a decent interval between each supply, his washleather gloves, his
thick stick, and his hat; which latter article the Major wore with a
rakish air on one side of his head, by way of toning down his
remarkable visage. The Native had previously packed, in all possible
and impossible parts of Mr Dombey's chariot, which was in waiting, an
unusual quantity of carpet-bags and small portmanteaus, no less
apoplectic in appearance than the Major himself: and having filled
his own pockets with Seltzer water, East India sherry, sandwiches,
shawls, telescopes, maps, and newspapers, any or all of which light
baggage the Major might require at any instant of the journey, he
announced that everything was ready. To complete the equipment of
this unfortunate foreigner (currently believed to be a prince in his
own country), when he took his seat in the rumble by the side of Mr
Towlinson, a pile of the Major's cloaks and great-coats was hurled
upon him by the landlord, who aimed at him from the pavement with
those great missiles like a Titan, and so covered him up, that he
proceeded, in a living tomb, to the railroad station.

But before the carriage moved away, and while the Native was in
the act of sepulture, Miss Tox appearing at her window, waved a
lilywhite handkerchief. Mr Dombey received this parting salutation
very coldly - very coldly even for him - and honouring her with the
slightest possible inclination of his head, leaned back in the
carriage with a very discontented look. His marked behaviour seemed
to afford the Major (who was all politeness in his recognition of
Miss Tox) unbounded satisfaction; and he sat for a long time
afterwards, leering, and choking, like an over-fed Mephistopheles.

During the bustle of preparation at the railway, Mr Dombey and
the Major walked up and down the platform side by side; the former
taciturn and gloomy, and the latter entertaining him, or entertaining
himself, with a variety of anecdotes and reminiscences, in most of
which Joe Bagstock was the principal performer. Neither of the two
observed that in the course of these walks, they attracted the
attention of a working man who was standing near the engine, and who
touched his hat every time they passed; for Mr Dombey habitually
looked over the vulgar herd, not at them; and the Major was looking,
at the time, into the core of one of his stories. At length, however,
this man stepped before them as they turned round, and pulling his
hat off, and keeping it off, ducked his head to Mr Dombey.

'Beg your pardon, Sir,' said the man, 'but I hope you're a doin'
pretty well, Sir.'

He was dressed in a canvas suit abundantly besmeared with
coal-dust and oil, and had cinders in his whiskers, and a smell of
half-slaked ashes all over him. He was not a bad-looking fellow, nor
even what could be fairly called a dirty-looking fellow, in spite of
this; and, in short, he was Mr Toodle, professionally clothed.

'I shall have the honour of stokin' of you down, Sir,' said Mr
Toodle. 'Beg your pardon, Sir. - I hope you find yourself a coming
round?'

Mr Dombey looked at him, in return for his tone of interest, as
if a man like that would make his very eyesight dirty.

''Scuse the liberty, Sir,' said Toodle, seeing he was not
clearly remembered, 'but my wife Polly, as was called Richards in
your family - '

A change in Mr Dombey's face, which seemed to express
recollection of him, and so it did, but it expressed in a much
stronger degree an angry sense of humiliation, stopped Mr Toodle
short.

'Your wife wants money, I suppose,' said Mr Dombey, putting his
hand in his pocket, and speaking (but that he always did)
haughtily.

'No thank'ee, Sir,' returned Toodle, 'I can't say she does. I
don't.'

Mr Dombey was stopped short now in his turn: and awkwardly: with
his hand in his pocket.

'No, Sir,' said Toodle, turning his oilskin cap round and round;
'we're a doin' pretty well, Sir; we haven't no cause to complain in
the worldly way, Sir. We've had four more since then, Sir, but we
rubs on.'

Mr Dombey would have rubbed on to his own carriage, though in so
doing he had rubbed the stoker underneath the wheels; but his
attention was arrested by something in connexion with the cap still
going slowly round and round in the man's hand.

'We lost one babby,' observed Toodle, 'there's no denyin'.'

'Lately,' added Mr Dombey, looking at the cap.

'No, Sir, up'ard of three years ago, but all the rest is hearty.
And in the matter o readin', Sir,' said Toodle, ducking again, as if
to remind Mr Dombey of what had passed between them on that subject
long ago, 'them boys o' mine, they learned me, among 'em, arter all.
They've made a wery tolerable scholar of me, Sir, them boys.'

'Come, Major!' said Mr Dombey.

'Beg your pardon, Sir,' resumed Toodle, taking a step before
them and deferentially stopping them again, still cap in hand: 'I
wouldn't have troubled you with such a pint except as a way of
gettin' in the name of my son Biler - christened Robin - him as you
was so good as to make a Charitable Grinder on.'

'Well, man,' said Mr Dombey in his severest manner. 'What about
him?'

'Why, Sir,' returned Toodle, shaking his head with a face of
great anxiety and distress, 'I'm forced to say, Sir, that he's gone
wrong.

'He has gone wrong, has he?' said Mr Dombey, with a hard kind of
satisfaction.

'He has fell into bad company, you see, genelmen,' pursued the
father, looking wistfully at both, and evidently taking the Major
into the conversation with the hope of having his sympathy. 'He has
got into bad ways. God send he may come to again, genelmen, but he's
on the wrong track now! You could hardly be off hearing of it
somehow, Sir,' said Toodle, again addressing Mr Dombey individually;
'and it's better I should out and say my boy's gone rather wrong.
Polly's dreadful down about it, genelmen,' said Toodle with the same
dejected look, and another appeal to the Major.

'A son of this man's whom I caused to be educated, Major,' said
Mr Dombey, giving him his arm. 'The usual return!'

'Take advice from plain old Joe, and never educate that sort of
people, Sir,' returned the Major. 'Damme, Sir, it never does! It
always fails!'

The simple father was beginning to submit that he hoped his son,
the quondam Grinder, huffed and cuffed, and flogged and badged, and
taught, as parrots are, by a brute jobbed into his place of
schoolmaster with as much fitness for it as a hound, might not have
been educated on quite a right plan in some undiscovered respect,
when Mr Dombey angrily repeating 'The usual return!' led the Major
away. And the Major being heavy to hoist into Mr Dombey's carriage,
elevated in mid-air, and having to stop and swear that he would flay
the Native alive, and break every bone in his skin, and visit other
physical torments upon him, every time he couldn't get his foot on
the step, and fell back on that dark exile, had barely time before
they started to repeat hoarsely that it would never do: that it
always failed: and that if he were to educate 'his own vagabond,' he
would certainly be hanged.

Mr Dombey assented bitterly; but there was something more in his
bitterness, and in his moody way of falling back in the carriage, and
looking with knitted brows at the changing objects without, than the
failure of that noble educational system administered by the
Grinders' Company. He had seen upon the man's rough cap a piece of
new crape, and he had assured himself, from his manner and his
answers, that he wore it for his son.

So] from high to low, at home or abroad, from Florence in his
great house to the coarse churl who was feeding the fire then smoking
before them, everyone set up some claim or other to a share in his
dead boy, and was a bidder against him! Could he ever forget how that
woman had wept over his pillow, and called him her own child! or how
he, waking from his sleep, had asked for her, and had raised himself
in his bed and brightened when she carne in!

To think of this presumptuous raker among coals and ashes going
on before there, with his sign of mourning! To think that he dared to
enter, even by a common show like that, into the trial and
disappointrnent of a proud gentleman's secret heart! To think that
this lost child, who was to have divided with him his riches, and his
projects, and his power, and allied with whom he was to have shut out
all the world as with a double door of gold, should have let in such
a herd to insult him with their knowledge of his defeated hopes, and
their boasts of claiming community of feeling with himself, so far
removed: if not of having crept into the place wherein he would have
lorded it, alone!

He found no pleasure or relief in the journey. Tortured by these
thoughts he carried monotony with him, through the rushing landscape,
and hurried headlong, not through a rich and varied country, but a
wilderness of blighted plans and gnawing jealousies. The very speed
at which the train was whirled along, mocked the swift course of the
young life that had been borne away so steadily and so inexorably to
its foredoomed end. The power that forced itself upon its iron way -
its own - defiant of all paths and roads, piercing through the heart
of every obstacle, and dragging living creatures of all classes,
ages, and degrees behind it, was a type of the triumphant monster,
Death.

Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, from the town,
burrowmg among the dwellings of men and making the streets hum,
flashing out into the meadows for a moment, mining in through the
damp earth, booming on in darkness and heavy air, bursting out again
into the sunny day so bright and wide; away, with a shriek, and a
roar, and a rattle, through the fields, through the woods, through
the corn, through the hay, through the chalk, through the mould,
through the clay, through the rock, among objects close at hand and
almost in the grasp, ever flying from the traveller, and a deceitful
distance ever moving slowly within him: like as in the track of the
remorseless monster, Death!

Through the hollow, on the height, by the heath, by the orchard,
by the park, by the garden, over the canal, across the river, where
the sheep are feeding, where the mill is going, where the barge is
floating, where the dead are lying, where the factory is smoking,
where the stream is running, where the village clusters, where the
great cathedral rises, where the bleak moor lies, and the wild breeze
smooths or ruffles it at its inconstant will; away, with a shriek,
and a roar, and a rattle, and no trace to leave behind but dust and
vapour: like as in the track of the remorseless monster, Death!

Breasting the wind and light, the shower and sunshine, away, and
still away, it rolls and roars, fierce and rapid, smooth and certain,
and great works and massive bridges crossing up above, fall like a
beam of shadow an inch broad, upon the eye, and then are lost. Away,
and still away, onward and onward ever: glimpses of cottage-homes, of
houses, mansions, rich estates, of husbandry and handicraft, of
people, of old roads and paths that look deserted, small, and
insignificant as they are left behind: and so they do, and what else
is there but such glimpses, in the track of the indomitable monster,
Death!

Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, plunging down
into the earth again, and working on in such a storm of energy and
perseverance, that amidst the darkness and whirlwind the motion seems
reversed, and to tend furiously backward, until a ray of light upon
the Wet wall shows its surface flying past like a fierce stream, Away
once more into the day, and through the day, with a shrill yell of
exultation, roaring, rattling, tearing on, spurning everything with
its dark breath, sometimes pausing for a minute where a crowd of
faces are, that in a minute more are not; sometimes lapping water
greedily, and before the spout at which it drinks' has ceased to drip
upon the ground, shrieking, roaring, rattling through the purple
distance!

Louder and louder yet, it shrieks and cries as it comes tearing
on resistless to the goal: and now its way, still like the way of
Death, is strewn with ashes thickly. Everything around is blackened.
There are dark pools of water, muddy lanes, and miserable habitations
far below. There are jagged walls and falling houses close at hand,
and through the battered roofs and broken windows, wretched rooms are
seen, where 'want and fever hide themselves in many wretched shapes,
while smoke and crowded gables, and distorted chimneys, and deformity
of brick and mortar penning up deformity of mind and body, choke the
murky distance. As Mr Dombey looks out of his carriage window, it is
never in his thoughts that the monster who has brought him there has
let the light of day in on these things: not made or caused them. It
was the journey's fitting end, and might have been the end of
everything; it was so ruinous and dreary.'

So, pursuing the one course of thought, he had the one
relentless monster still before him. All things looked black, and
cold, and deadly upon him, and he on them. He found a likeness to his
misfortune everywhere. There was a remorseless triumph going on about
him, and it galled and stung him in his pride and jealousy, whatever
form it took: though most of all when it divided with him the love
and memory of his lost boy.

There was a face - he had looked upon it, on the previous night,
and it on him with eyes that read his soul, though they were dim with
tears, and hidden soon behind two quivering hands - that often had
attended him in fancy, on this ride. He had seen it, with the
expression of last night, timidly pleading to him. It was not
reproachful, but there was something of doubt, almost of hopeful
incredulity in it, which, as he once more saw that fade away into a
desolate certainty of his dislike, was like reproach. It was a
trouble to him to think of this face of Florence.

Because he felt any new compunction towards it? No. Because the
feeling it awakened in him - of which he had had some old
foreshadowing in older times - was full-formed now, and spoke out
plainly, moving him too much, and threatening to grow too strong for
his composure. Because the face was abroad, in the expression of
defeat and persecution that seemed to encircle him like the air.
Because it barbed the arrow of that cruel and remorseless enemy on
which his thoughts so ran, and put into its grasp a double-handed
sword. Because he knew full well, in his own breast, as he stood
there, tinging the scene of transition before him with the morbid
colours of his own mind, and making it a ruin and a picture of decay,
instead of hopeful change, and promise of better things, that life
had quite as much to do with his complainings as death. One child was
gone, and one child left. Why was the object of his hope removed
instead of her?

The sweet, calm, gentle presence in his fancy, moved him to no
reflection but that. She had been unwelcome to him from the first;
she was an aggravation of his bitterness now. If his son had been his
only child, and the same blow had fallen on him, it would have been
heavy to bear; but infinitely lighter than now, when it might have
fallen on her (whom he could have lost, or he believed it, without a
pang), and had not. Her loving and innocent face rising before him,
had no softening or winning influence. He rejected the angel, and
took up with the tormenting spirit crouching in his bosom. Her
patience, goodness, youth, devotion, love, were as so many atoms in
the ashes upon which he set his heel. He saw her image in the blight
and blackness all around him, not irradiating but deepening the
gloom. More than once upon this journey, and now again as he stood
pondering at this journey's end, tracing figures in the dust with his
stick, the thought came into his mind, what was there he could
interpose between himself and it?

The Major, who had been blowing and panting all the way down,
like another engine, and whose eye had often wandered from his
newspaper to leer at the prospect, as if there were a procession of
discomfited Miss Toxes pouring out in the smoke of the train, and
flying away over the fields to hide themselves in any place of
refuge, aroused his friends by informing him that the post-horses
were harnessed and the carriage ready.

'Dombey,' said the Major, rapping him on the arm with his cane,
'don't be thoughtful. It's a bad habit, Old Joe, Sir, wouldn't be as
tough as you see him, if he had ever encouraged it. You are too great
a man, Dombey, to be thoughtful. In your position, Sir, you're far
above that kind of thing.'

The Major even in his friendly remonstrrnces, thus consulting
the dignity and honour of Mr Dombey, and showing a lively sense of
their importance, Mr Dombey felt more than ever disposed to defer to
a gentleman possessing so much good sense and such a well-regulated
mind; acoordingly he made an effort to listen to the Major's stories,
as they trotted along the turnpike road; and the Major, finding both
the pace and the road a great deal better adapted to his
conversational powers than the mode of travelling they had just
relinquished, came out of his entertainment,

But still the Major, blunt and tough as he was, and as he so
very often said he was, administered some palatable catering to his
companion's appetite. He related, or rather suffered it to escape
him, accidentally, and as one might say, grudgingly and against his
will, how there was great curiosity and excitement at the club, in
regard of his friend Dombey. How he was suffocated with questions,
Sir. How old Joe Bagstock was a greater man than ever, there, on the
strength of Dombey. How they said, 'Bagstock, your friend Dombey now,
what is the view he takes of such and such a question? Though, by the
Rood, Sir,' said the Major, with a broad stare, 'how they discovered
that J. B. ever came to know you, is a mystery!'

In this flow of spirits and conversation, only interrupted by
his usual plethoric symptoms, and by intervals of lunch, and from
time to time by some violent assault upon the Native, who wore a pair
of ear-rings in his dark-brown ears, and on whom his European clothes
sat with an outlandish impossibility of adjustment - being, of their
own accord, and without any reference to the tailor's art, long where
they ought to be short, short where they ought to be long, tight
where they ought to be loose, and loose where they ought to be tight
- and to which he imparted a new grace, whenever the Major attacked
him, by shrinking into them like a shrivelled nut, or a cold monkey -
in this flow of spirits and conversation, the Major continued all
day: so that when evening came on, and found them trotting through
the green and leafy road near Leamington, the Major's voice, what
with talking and eating and chuckling and choking, appeared to be in
the box under the rumble, or in some neighbouring hay-stack. Nor did
the Major improve it at the Royal Hotel, where rooms and dinner had
been ordered, and where he so oppressed his organs of speech by
eating and drinking, that when he retired to bed he had no voice at
all, except to cough with, and could only make himself intelligible
to the dark servant by gasping at him.

He not only rose next morning, however, like a giant refreshed,
but conducted himself, at breakfast like a giant refreshing. At this
meal they arranged their daily habits. The Major was to take the
responsibility of ordering evrything to eat and drink; and they were
to have a late breakfast together every morning, and a late dinner
together every day. Mr Dombey would prefer remaining in his own room,
or walking in the country by himself, on that first day of their
sojourn at Leamington; but next morning he would be happy to
accompany the Major to the Pump-room, and about the town. So they
parted until dinner-time. Mr Dombey retired to nurse his wholesome
thoughts in his own way. The Major, attended by the Native carrying a
camp-stool, a great-coat, and an umbrella, swaggered up and down
through all the public places: looking into subscription books to
find out who was there, looking up old ladies by whom he was much
admired, reporting J. B. tougher than ever, and puffing his rich
friend Dombey wherever he went. There never was a man who stood by a
friend more staunchly than the Major, when in puffing him, he puffed
himself.

It was surprising how much new conversation the Major had to let
off at dinner-time, and what occasion he gave Mr Dombey to admire his
social qualities. At breakfast next morning, he knew the contents of
the latest newspapers received; and mentioned several subjects in
connexion with them, on which his opinion had recently been sought by
persons of such power and might, that they were only to be obscurely
hinted at. Mr Dombey, who had been so long shut up within himself,
and who had rarely, at any time, overstepped the enchanted circle
within which the operations of Dombey and Son were conducted, began
to think this an improvement on his solitary life; and in place of
excusing himself for another day, as he had thought of doing when
alone, walked out with the Major arm-in-arm.