Sketches by Boz, illustrative of everyday life and every-day people by Charles Dickens (books for 20 year olds TXT) 📕

the lodgings for a month. In an hour’s time, the family were seated at tea in their new abode.

‘Capital srimps!’ said Mr. Joseph Tuggs.

Mr. Cymon eyed his father with a rebellious scowl, as he emphatically said ‘_Shrimps_.’

‘Well, then, shrimps,’ said Mr. Joseph Tuggs. ‘Srimps or shrimps, don’t much matter.’

There was pity, blended with malignity, in Mr. Cymon’s eye, as he replied, ‘Don’t matter, father! What would Captain Waters say, if he heard such vulgarity?’

‘Or what would dear Mrs. Captain Waters say,’ added Charlotta, ‘if she saw mother—ma, I mean—eating them whole, heads and all!’

‘It won’t bear thinking of!’ ejaculated Mr. Cymon, with a shudder. ‘How different,’ he thought, ‘from the Dowager Duchess of Dobbleton!’

‘Very pretty woman, Mrs. Captain Waters, is she not, Cymon?’ inquired Miss Charlotta.

A glow of nervous excitement passed over the countenance of Mr. Cymon Tuggs, as he replied, ‘An angel of beauty!’

‘Hallo!’ said Mr. Joseph Tuggs. ‘Hallo, Cymon, my boy, take care. Married lady, you know;’ and he winked one of his twinkling eyes knowingly.

‘Why,’ exclaimed Cymon, starting up with an ebullition of fury, as unexpected as alarming, ‘why am I to be reminded of that blight of my happiness, and ruin of my hopes? Why am I to be taunted with the miseries which are heaped upon my head? Is it not enough to—to—to—’ and the orator paused; but whether for want of words, or lack of breath, was never distinctly ascertained.

There was an impressive solemnity in the tone of this address, and in the air with which the romantic Cymon, at its conclusion, rang the bell, and demanded a flat candlestick, which effectually forbade a reply. He stalked dramatically to bed, and the Tuggses went to bed too, half an hour afterwards, in a state of considerable mystification and perplexity.

If the pier had presented a scene of life and bustle to the Tuggses on their first landing at Ramsgate, it was far surpassed by the appearance of the sands on the morning after their arrival. It was a fine, bright, clear day, with a light breeze from the sea. There were the same ladies and gentlemen, the same children, the same nursemaids, the same telescopes, the same portable chairs. The ladies were employed in needlework, or watch-guard making, or knitting, or reading novels; the gentlemen were reading newspapers and magazines; the children were digging holes in the sand with wooden spades, and collecting water therein; the nursemaids, with their youngest charges in their arms, were running in after the waves, and then running back with the waves after them; and, now and then, a little sailing-boat either departed with a gay and talkative cargo of passengers, or returned with a very silent and particularly uncomfortable-looking one.

‘Well, I never!’ exclaimed Mrs. Tuggs, as she and Mr. Joseph Tuggs, and Miss Charlotta Tuggs, and Mr. Cymon Tuggs, with their eight feet in a corresponding number of yellow shoes, seated themselves on four rush-bottomed chairs, which, being placed in a soft part of the sand, forthwith sunk down some two feet and a half—‘Well, I never!’

Mr. Cymon, by an exertion of great personal strength, uprooted the chairs, and removed them further back.

‘Why, I’m blessed if there ain’t some ladies a-going in!’ exclaimed Mr. Joseph Tuggs, with intense astonishment.

‘Lor, pa!’ exclaimed Miss Charlotta.

‘There _is_, my dear,’ said Mr. Joseph Tuggs. And, sure enough, four young ladies, each furnished with a towel, tripped up the steps of a bathing-machine. In went the horse, floundering about in the water; round turned the machine; down sat the driver; and presently out burst the young ladies aforesaid, with four distinct splashes.

‘Well, that’s sing’ler, too!’ ejaculated Mr. Joseph Tuggs, after an awkward pause. Mr. Cymon coughed slightly.

‘Why, here’s some gentlemen a-going in on this side!’ exclaimed Mrs. Tuggs, in a tone of horror.

Three machines—three horses—three flounderings—three turnings round—three splashes—three gentlemen, disporting themselves in the water like so many dolphins.

‘Well, _that’s_ sing’ler!’ said Mr. Joseph Tuggs again. Miss Charlotta coughed this time, and another pause ensued. It was agreeably broken.

‘How d’ye do, dear? We have been looking for you, all the morning,’ said a voice to Miss Charlotta Tuggs. Mrs. Captain Waters was the owner of it.

‘How d’ye do?’ said Captain Walter Waters, all suavity; and a most cordial interchange of greetings ensued.

‘Belinda, my love,’ said Captain Walter Waters, applying his glass to his eye, and looking in the direction of the sea.

‘Yes, my dear,’ replied Mrs. Captain Waters.

‘There’s Harry Thompson!’

‘Where?’ said Belinda, applying her glass to her eye.

‘Bathing.’

‘Lor, so it is! He don’t see us, does he?’

‘No, I don’t think he does’ replied the captain. ‘Bless my soul, how very singular!’

‘What?’ inquired Belinda.

‘There’s Mary Golding, too.’

‘Lor!—where?’ (Up went the glass again.)

‘There!’ said the captain, pointing to one of the young ladies before noticed, who, in her bathing costume, looked as if she was enveloped in a patent Mackintosh, of scanty dimensions.

‘So it is, I declare!’ exclaimed Mrs. Captain Waters. ‘How very curious we should see them both!’

‘Very,’ said the captain, with perfect coolness.

‘It’s the reg’lar thing here, you see,’ whispered Mr. Cymon Tuggs to his father.

‘I see it is,’ whispered Mr. Joseph Tuggs in reply. ‘Queer, though—ain’t it?’ Mr. Cymon Tuggs nodded assent.

‘What do you think of doing with yourself this morning?’ inquired the captain. ‘Shall we lunch at Pegwell?’

‘I should like that very much indeed,’ interposed Mrs. Tuggs. She had never heard of Pegwell; but the word ‘lunch’ had reached her ears, and it sounded very agreeably.

‘How shall we go?’ inquired the captain; ‘it’s too warm to walk.’

‘A shay?’ suggested Mr. Joseph Tuggs.

‘Chaise,’ whispered Mr. Cymon.

‘I should think one would be enough,’ said Mr. Joseph Tuggs aloud, quite unconscious of the meaning of the correction. ‘However, two shays if you like.’

‘I should like a donkey _so_ much,’ said Belinda.

‘Oh, so should I!’ echoed Charlotta Tuggs.

‘Well, we can have a fly,’ suggested the captain, ‘and you can have a couple of donkeys.’

A fresh difficulty arose. Mrs. Captain Waters declared it would be decidedly improper for two ladies to ride alone. The remedy was obvious. Perhaps young Mr. Tuggs would be gallant enough to accompany them.

Mr. Cymon Tuggs blushed, smiled, looked vacant, and faintly protested that he was no horseman. The objection was at once overruled. A fly was speedily found; and three donkeys—which the proprietor declared on his solemn asseveration to be ‘three parts blood, and the other corn’—were engaged in the service.

‘Kim up!’ shouted one of the two boys who followed behind, to propel the donkeys, when Belinda Waters and Charlotta Tuggs had been hoisted, and pushed, and pulled, into their respective saddles.

‘Hi—hi—hi!’ groaned the other boy behind Mr. Cymon Tuggs. Away went the donkey, with the stirrups jingling against the heels of Cymon’s boots, and Cymon’s boots nearly scraping the ground.

‘Way—way! Wo—o—o—!’ cried Mr. Cymon Tuggs as well as he could, in the midst of the jolting.

‘Don’t make it gallop!’ screamed Mrs. Captain Waters, behind.

‘My donkey _will_ go into the public-house!’ shrieked Miss Tuggs in the rear.

‘Hi—hi—hi!’ groaned both the boys together; and on went the donkeys as if nothing would ever stop them.

Everything has an end, however; even the galloping of donkeys will cease in time. The animal which Mr. Cymon Tuggs bestrode, feeling sundry uncomfortable tugs at the bit, the intent of which he could by no means divine, abruptly sidled against a brick wall, and expressed his uneasiness by grinding Mr. Cymon Tuggs’s leg on the rough surface. Mrs. Captain Waters’s donkey, apparently under the influence of some playfulness of spirit, rushed suddenly, head first, into a hedge, and declined to come out again: and the quadruped on which Miss Tuggs was mounted, expressed his delight at this humorous proceeding by firmly planting his fore-feet against the ground, and kicking up his hind-legs in a very agile, but somewhat alarming manner.

This abrupt termination to the rapidity of the ride, naturally occasioned some confusion. Both the ladies indulged in vehement screaming for several minutes; and Mr. Cymon Tuggs, besides sustaining intense bodily pain, had the additional mental anguish of witnessing their distressing situation, without having the power to rescue them, by reason of his leg being firmly screwed in between the animal and the wall. The efforts of the boys, however, assisted by the ingenious expedient of twisting the tail of the most rebellious donkey, restored order in a much shorter time than could have reasonably been expected, and the little party jogged slowly on together.

‘Now let ’em walk,’ said Mr. Cymon Tuggs. ‘It’s cruel to overdrive ’em.’

‘Werry well, sir,’ replied the boy, with a grin at his companion, as if he understood Mr. Cymon to mean that the cruelty applied less to the animals than to their riders.

‘What a lovely day, dear!’ said Charlotta.

‘Charming; enchanting, dear!’ responded Mrs. Captain Waters.

‘What a beautiful prospect, Mr. Tuggs!’

Cymon looked full in Belinda’s face, as he responded—‘Beautiful, indeed!’ The lady cast down her eyes, and suffered the animal she was riding to fall a little back. Cymon Tuggs instinctively did the same.

There was a brief silence, broken only by a sigh from Mr. Cymon Tuggs.

‘Mr. Cymon,’ said the lady suddenly, in a low tone, ‘Mr. Cymon—I am another’s.’

Mr. Cymon expressed his perfect concurrence in a statement which it was impossible to controvert.

‘If I had not been—’ resumed Belinda; and there she stopped.

‘What—what?’ said Mr. Cymon earnestly. ‘Do not torture me. What would you say?’

‘If I had not been’—continued Mrs. Captain Waters—‘if, in earlier life, it had been my fate to have known, and been beloved by, a noble youth—a kindred soul—a congenial spirit—one capable of feeling and appreciating the sentiments which—’

‘Heavens! what do I hear?’ exclaimed Mr. Cymon Tuggs. ‘Is it possible! can I believe my—Come up!’ (This last unsentimental parenthesis was addressed to the donkey, who, with his head between his fore-legs, appeared to be examining the state of his shoes with great anxiety.)

‘Hi—hi—hi,’ said the boys behind. ‘Come up,’ expostulated Cymon Tuggs again. ‘Hi—hi—hi,’ repeated the boys. And whether it was that the animal felt indignant at the tone of Mr. Tuggs’s command, or felt alarmed by the noise of the deputy proprietor’s boots running behind him; or whether he burned with a noble emulation to outstrip the other donkeys; certain it is that he no sooner heard the second series of ‘hi—hi’s,’ than he started away, with a celerity of pace which jerked Mr. Cymon’s hat off, instantaneously, and carried him to the Pegwell Bay hotel in no time, where he deposited his rider without giving him the trouble of dismounting, by sagaciously pitching him over his head, into the very doorway of the tavern.

Great was the confusion of Mr. Cymon Tuggs, when he was put right end uppermost, by two waiters; considerable was the alarm of Mrs. Tuggs in behalf of her son; agonizing were the apprehensions of Mrs. Captain Waters on his account. It was speedily discovered, however, that he had not sustained much more injury than