The Three Clerks by Anthony Trollope

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'Why, Tudor, you are the youngest fish I ever met, sent out to
swim alone in this wicked world of ours. Who the deuce talks
openly of his speculations? Will Sir Gregory tell you what shares
he buys? Is not every member of the House, every man in the
Government, every barrister, parson, and doctor, that can collect
a hundred pounds, are not all of them at the work? And do they
talk openly of the matter? Does the bishop put it into his
charge, or the parson into his sermon?'

'But they would not be ashamed to tell their friends.'

'Would not they? Oh! the Rev. Mr. Pickabit, of St. Judas Without,
would not be ashamed to tell his bishop! But the long and the
short of the thing is this; most men circumstanced as you are
have no chance of doing anything good till they are forty or
fifty, and then their energies are worn out. You have had tact
enough to push yourself up early, and yet it seems you have not
pluck enough to take the goods the gods provide you.'

'The gods!--you mean the devils rather,' said Alaric, who sat
listening and drinking, almost unconsciously, his doctored
tipple.

'Call them what you will for me. Fortune has generally been
esteemed a goddess, but misfortune a very devil. But, Tudor, you
don't know the world. Here is a chance in your way. Of course
that keg of brandy who went out just now understands very well
who you are. He wants to be civil to me, and he thinks it wise to
be civil to you also. He has a hat full of these shares, and he
tells me that, knowing my weakness, and presuming that you have
the same, he bought a few extra this morning, thinking we might
like them. Now, I have no hesitation in saying there is not a
single man whom the Government could send down here, from Sir
Gregory downwards, who could refuse the chance.'

'I am quite sure that Neverbend----'

'Oh! for Heaven's sake don't choke me with Neverbend; the fools
are fools, and will be so; they are used for their folly. I speak
of men with brains. How do you think that such men as Hardlines,
Vigil, and Mr. Estimate have got up in the world? Would they be
where they are now, had they been contented with their salaries?'

'They had private fortunes.'

'Very private they must have been--I never heard of them. No;
what fortunes they have they made. Two of them are in Parliament,
and the other has a Government situation of L2,000 a year, with
little or nothing to do. But they began life early, and never
lost a chance.'

'It is quite clear that that blackguard who was here just now
thinks that he can influence my opinion by inducing me to have an
interest in the matter.'

'He had no such idea--nor have I. Do you think I would persuade
you to such villany? Do you think I do not know you too well? Of
course the possession of these shares can have no possible effect
on your report, and is not expected to have any. But when men
like you and me become of any note in the world, others, such as
Manylodes, like to know that we are embarked in the same
speculation with themselves. Why are members of Parliament asked
to be directors, and vice-governors, and presidents, and
guardians, of all the joint-stock societies that are now set
agoing? Not because of their capital, for they generally have
none; not for their votes, because one vote can be but of little
use in any emergency. It is because the names of men of note are
worth money. Men of note understand this, and enjoy the fat of
the land accordingly. I want to see you among the number.'

'Twas thus the devil pleaded for the soul of Alaric Tudor; and,
alas! he did not plead in vain. Let him but have a fair hearing,
and he seldom does. 'Tis in this way that the truth of that awful
mystery, the fall of man, comes home to us; that we cannot hear
the devil plead, and resist the charm of his eloquence. To listen
is to be lost. 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from
evil!' Let that petition come forth from a man's heart, a true
and earnest prayer, and he will be so led that he shall not hear
the charmer, let him charm ever so wisely.

'Twas but a thin veil that the Hon. Undecimus Scott threw over
the bait with which he fished for the honesty of Alaric Tudor,
and yet it sufficed. One would say that a young man, fortified
with such aspirations as those which glowed in Alaric's breast,
should have stood a longer siege; should have been able to look
with clearer eyesight on the landmarks which divide honour from
dishonour, integrity from fraud, and truth from falsehood. But he
had never prayed to be delivered from evil. His desire had rather
been that he might be led into temptation.

He had never so prayed--yet had he daily said his prayers at
fitting intervals. On every returning Sunday had he gone through,
with all the fitting forms, the ordinary worship of a Christian.
Nor had he done this as a hypocrite. With due attention and a
full belief he had weekly knelt at God's temple, and given, if
not his mind, at least his heart, to the service of his church.
But the inner truth of the prayer which he repeated so often had
not come home to him. Alas! how many of us from week to week call
ourselves worms and dust and miserable sinners, describe
ourselves as chaff for the winds, grass for the burning, stubble
for the plough, as dirt and filth fit only to be trodden under
foot, and yet in all our doings before the world cannot bring
home to ourselves the conviction that we require other guidance
than our own!

Alaric Tudor had sighed for permission to go forth among
worldlings and there fight the world's battle. Power, station,
rank, wealth, all the good things which men earn by tact,
diligence, and fortune combined, and which were so far from him
at his outset in life, became daily more dear to his heart. And
now his honourable friend twitted him with being a mere clerk!
No, he was not, never had been, never would be such. Had he not
already, in five or six short years, distanced his competitors,
and made himself the favourite and friend of men infinitely above
him in station? Was he not now here in Tavistock on a mission
which proved that he was no mere clerk? Was not the fact of his
drinking bishop in the familiar society of a lord's son, and an
ex-M.P., a proof of it?

It would be calumny on him to say that he had allowed Scott to
make him tipsy on this occasion. He was far from being tipsy; but
yet the mixture which he had been drinking had told upon his
brain.

'But, Undy,' said he--he had never before called his honourable
friend by his Christian name--'but, Undy, if I take these shares,
where am I to get the money to pay for them?

'The chances are you may part with them before you leave
Tavistock. If so, you will not have to pay for them. You will
only have to pocket the difference.'

'Or pay the loss.'

'Or pay the loss. But there's no chance of that. I'll guarantee
you against that.'

'But I shan't like to sell them. I shan't choose to be
trafficking in shares. Buying a few as an investment may,
perhaps, be a different thing.'

'Oh, Alaric, Alaric, to what a pass had your conscience come,
when it could be so silenced!'

'Well, I suppose you can raise a couple of hundred--L205 will
cover the whole thing, commission and all; but, mind, I don't
advise you to keep them long--I shall take two months' dividends,
and then sell.'

'Two hundred and five pounds,' said Tudor, to whom the sum seemed
anything but trifling; 'and when must it be paid?'

'Well, I can give Manylodes a cheque for the whole, dated this
day week. You'll be back in town before that. We must allow him
L5 for the accommodation. I suppose you can pay the money in at
my banker's by that day?'

Alaric had some portion of the amount himself, and he knew that
Norman had money by him; he felt also a half-drunken conviction
that if Norman failed him, Captain Cuttwater would not let him
want such a sum; and so he said that he could, and the bargain
was completed.

As he went downstairs whistling with an affected ease, and a
gaiety which, he by no means felt, Undy Scott leant back in his
chair, and began to speculate whether his new purchase was worth
the purchase-money. 'He's a sharp fellow; certainly, in some
things, and may do well yet; but he's uncommonly green. That,
however, will wear off. I should not be surprised if he told
Neverbend the whole transaction before this time to-morrow.' And
then Mr. Scott finished his cigar and went to bed.

When Alaric entered the sitting-room at the Bedford, he found
Neverbend still seated at a table covered with official books and
huge bundles of official papers. An enormous report was open
before him, from which he was culling the latent sweets, and
extracting them with a pencil. He glowered at Alaric with a
severe suspicious eye, which seemed to accuse him at once of the
deed which he had done.

'You are very late,' said Neverbend, 'but I have not been sorry
to be alone. I believe I have been able to embody in a rough
draft the various points which we have hitherto discussed. I have
just been five hours and a half at it;' and Fidus looked at his
watch; 'five hours and forty minutes. To-morrow, perhaps, that
is, if you are not going to your friend again, you'll not object
to make a fair copy----'

'Copy!' shouted Alaric, in whose brain the open air had not
diminished the effect of the bishop, and who remembered, with all
the energy of pot valour, that he was not a mere clerk; 'copy--
bother; I'm going to bed, old fellow; and I advise you to do the
same.'

And then, taking up a candlestick and stumbling somewhat
awkwardly against a chair, Tudor went off to his room, waiting no
further reply from his colleague.

Mr. Neverbend slowly put up his papers and followed him. 'He is
decidedly the worse for drink--decidedly so,' said he to himself,
as he pulled off his clothes. 'What a disgrace to the Woods and
Works--what a disgrace!'

And he resolved in his mind that he would be very early at the
pit's mouth. He would not be kept from his duty while a
dissipated colleague collected his senses by the aid of soda-
water.

CHAPTER X

WHEAL MARY JANE

Mr. Manylodes was, at any rate, right in this, that that
beverage, which men call bishop, is a doctored tipple; and Alaric
Tudor, when he woke in the morning, owned the truth. It had been
arranged that certain denizens of the mine should meet the two
Commissioners at the pit-mouth at eight o'clock, and it had been
settled at dinner-time that breakfast should be on the table at
seven, sharp. Half an hour's quick driving would take them to the
spot.

At seven Mr. Fidus Neverbend, who had never yet been known to be
untrue to an appointment by the fraction of a second, was
standing over the breakfast-table alone. He was alone, but not on
that account unhappy. He could hardly disguise the pleasure with
which he asked the waiter whether Mr. Tudor was yet dressed, or
the triumph which he felt when he heard that his colleague was
not _quite ready_.

'Bring the tea and the eggs at once,' said Neverbend, very
briskly.

'Won't you wait for Mr. Tudor?' asked the waiter, with an air of
surprise. Now the landlord, waiter, boots, and chambermaid, the
chambermaid especially, had all, in Mr. Neverbend's estimation,
paid Tudor by far too much consideration; and he was determined
to show that he himself was first fiddle.

'Wait! no; quite out of the question--bring the hot water
immediately--and tell the ostler to have the fly at the door at
half-past seven exact.'

'Yes, sir,' said the man, and disappeared.

Neverbend waited five minutes, and then rang the bell
impetuously. 'If you don't bring me my tea immediately, I shall
send for Mr. Boteldale.' Now Mr. Boteldale was the landlord.

'Mr. Tudor will be down in ten minutes,' was the waiter's false
reply; for up to that moment poor Alaric had not yet succeeded in
lifting his throbbing head from his pillow. The boots was now
with him administering soda-water and brandy, and he was
pondering in his sickened mind whether, by a manful effort, he
could rise and dress himself; or whether he would not throw
himself backwards on his coveted bed, and allow Neverbend the
triumph of descending alone to the nether world.

Neverbend nearly threw the loaf at the waiter's head. Wait ten
minutes longer! what right had that vile Devonshire napkin-
twirler to make to him so base a proposition? 'Bring me my
breakfast, sir,' shouted Neverbend, in a voice that made the
unfortunate sinner jump out of the room, as though he had been
moved by a galvanic battery.

In five minutes, tea made with lukewarm water, and eggs that were
not half boiled were brought to the impatient Commissioner. As a
rule Mr. Neverbend, when travelling on the public service, made a
practice of enjoying his meals. It was the only solace which he
allowed himself; the only distraction from the cares of office
which he permitted either to his body or his mind. But on this
great occasion his country required that he should forget his
comforts; and he drank his tasteless tea, and ate his uncooked
eggs, threatening the waiter as he did so with sundry pains and
penalties, in the form of sixpences withheld.

'Is the fly there?' said he, as he bolted a last morsel of cold
roast beef.

'Coming, sir,' said the waiter, as he disappeared round a corner.

In the meantime Alaric sat lackadaisical on his bedside, all
undressed, leaning his head upon his hand, and feeling that his
struggle to dress himself was all but useless. The sympathetic
boots stood by with a cup of tea--well-drawn comfortable tea--in
his hand, and a small bit of dry toast lay near on an adjacent
plate.

'Try a bit o' toast, sir,' said boots.

'Ugh!' ejaculated poor Alaric.

'Have a leetle drop o' rum in the tea, sir, and it'll set you all
to rights in two minutes.'

The proposal made Alaric very sick, and nearly completed the
catastrophe. 'Ugh!' he said.

'There's the trap, sir, for Mr. Neverbend,' said the boots, whose
ears caught the well-known sound.

'The devil it is!' said Alaric, who was now stirred up to instant
action. 'Take my compliments to Mr. Neverbend, and tell him I'll
thank him to wait ten minutes.'

Boots, descending with the message, found Mr. Neverbend ready
coated and gloved, standing at the hotel door. The fly was there,
and the lame ostler holding the horse; but the provoking driver
had gone back for his coat.

'Please, sir, Mr. Tudor says as how you're not to go just at
present, but to wait ten minutes till he be ready.'

Neverbend looked at the man, but he would not trust himself to
speak. Wait ten minutes, and it now wanted five-and-twenty
minutes to eight!--no--not for all the Tudors that ever sat upon
the throne of England.

There he stood with his watch in his hand as the returning Jehu
hurried round from the stable yard. 'You are now seven minutes
late,' said he, 'and if you are not at the place by eight
o'clock, I shall not give you one farthing!'

'All right,' said Jehu. 'We'll be at Mary Jane in less than no
time;' and off they went, not at the quickest pace. But
Neverbend's heart beat high with triumph, as he reflected that he
had carried the point on which he had been so intent.

Alaric, when he heard the wheels roll off, shook from him his
lethargy. It was not only that Neverbend would boast that he
alone had gone through the perils of their subterranean duty, but
that doubtless he would explain in London how his colleague had
been deterred from following him. It was a grievous task, that of
dressing himself, as youthful sinners know but too well. Every
now and then a qualm would come over him, and make the work seem
all but impossible. Boots, however, stuck to him like a man,
poured cold water over his head, renewed his tea-cup, comforted
him with assurances of the bracing air, and put a paper full of
sandwiches in his pocket.

'For heaven's sake put them away,' said Alaric, to whom the very
idea of food was repulsive.

'You'll want 'em, sir, afore you are half way to Mary Jane; and
it a'n't no joke going down and up again. I know what's what,
sir.'

The boots stuck to him like a man. He did not only get him
sandwiches, but he procured for him also Mr. Boteldale's own
fast-trotting pony, and just as Neverbend was rolling up to the
pit's mouth fifteen minutes after his time, greatly resolving in
his own mind to button his breeches pocket firmly against the
recreant driver, Alaric started on the chase after him.

Mr. Neverbend had a presentiment that, sick as his friend might
be, nauseous as doubtless were the qualms arising from yesterday's
intemperance, he would make an attempt to recover his lost
ground. He of the Woods and Works had begun to recognize the
energy of him of the Weights and Measures, and felt that there
was in it a force that would not easily be overcome, even by the
fumes of bishop. But yet it would be a great thing for the Woods
and Works if he, Neverbend, could descend in this perilous
journey to the deep bowels of the earth, leaving the Weights and
Measures stranded in the upper air. This descent among the hidden
riches of a lower world, this visit to the provocations of evils
not yet dug out from their durable confinement, was the keystone,
as it were, of the whole mission. Let Neverbend descend alone,
alone inspect the wonders of that dirty deep, and Tudor might
then talk and write as he pleased. In such case all the world of
the two public offices in Question, and of some others cognate to
them, would adjudge that he, Neverbend, had made himself master
of the situation.

Actuated by these correct calculations, Mr. Neverbend was rather
fussy to begin an immediate descent when he found himself on the
spot. Two native gentlemen, who were to accompany the Commissioners,
or the Commissioner, as appeared likely to be the case, were already
there, as were also the men who were to attend upon them.

It was an ugly uninviting place to look at, with but few visible
signs of wealth. The earth, which had been burrowed out by these
human rabbits in their search after tin, lay around in huge
ungainly heaps; the overground buildings of the establishment
consisted of a few ill-arranged sheds, already apparently in a
state of decadence; dirt and slush, and pods of water confined by
muddy dams, abounded on every side; muddy men, with muddy carts
and muddy horses, slowly crawled hither and thither, apparently
with no object, and evidently indifferent as to whom they might
overset in their course. The inferior men seemed to show no
respect to those above them, and the superiors to exercise no
authority over those below them. There was, a sullen equality
among them all. On the ground around was no vegetation; nothing
green met the eye, some few stunted bushes appeared here and
there, nearly smothered by heaped-up mud, but they had about them
none of the attractiveness of foliage. The whole scene, though
consisting of earth alone, was unearthly, and looked as though
the devil had walked over the place with hot hoofs, and then
raked it with a huge rake.

'I am afraid I am very late,' said Neverbend, getting out of his
fly in all the haste he could muster, and looking at his watch
the moment his foot touched the ground, 'very late indeed,
gentlemen; I really must apologize, but it was the driver; I was
punctual to the minute, I was indeed. But come, gentlemen, we
won't lose another moment,' and Mr. Neverbend stepped out as
though he were ready at an instant's notice to plunge head
foremost down the deepest shaft in all that region of mines.

'Oh, sir, there a'n't no cause of hurry whatsomever,' said one of
the mining authorities; 'the day is long enough.'

'Oh, but there is cause of hurry, Mr. Undershot,' said Neverbend
angrily 'great cause of hurry; we must do this work very
thoroughly; and I positively have not time to get through all
that I have before me.

'But-a'n't the other gen'leman a-coming?' asked Mr. Undershot.

'Surely Mr. Tooder isn't a going to cry off?' said the other.
'Why, he was so hot about it yesterday.'

'Mr. Tudor is not very well this morning,' said Mr. Neverbend.
'As his going down is not necessary for the inquiry, and is
merely a matter of taste on his part, he has not joined me this
morning. Come, gentlemen, are we ready?'

It was then for the first time explained to Mr. Neverbend that he
had to go through a rather complicated adjustment of his toilet
before he would be considered fit to meet, the infernal gods. He
must, he was informed, envelop himself from head to foot in
miner's habiliments, if he wished to save every stitch he had on
him from dirt and destruction. He must also cover up his head
with a linen cap, so constituted as to carry a lump of mud with a
candle stuck in it, if he wished to save either his head from
filth or his feet from falling. Now Mr. Neverbend, like most
clerks in public offices, was somewhat particular about his
wardrobe; it behoved him, as a gentleman frequenting the West
End, to dress well, and it also behoved him to dress cheaply; he
was, moreover, careful both as to his head and feet; he could
not, therefore, reject the recommended precautions, but yet the
time!--the time thus lost might destroy all.

He hurried into the shed where his toilet was to be made, and
suffered himself to be prepared in the usual way. He took off his
own great coat, and put on a muddy course linen jacket that
covered the upper portion of his body completely; he then dragged
on a pair of equally muddy overalls; and lastly submitted to a
most uninviting cap, which came down over his ears, and nearly
over his eyes, and on the brow of which a lump of mud was then
affixed, bearing a short tallow candle.

But though dressed thus in miner's garb, Mr. Neverbend could not
be said to look the part he filled. He was a stout, reddish-faced
gentleman, with round shoulders and huge whiskers, he was nearly
bald, and wore spectacles, and in the costume in which he now
appeared he did not seem to be at his ease. Indeed, all his air
of command, all his personal dignity and dictatorial tone, left
him as soon as he found himself metamorphosed into a fat pseudo-
miner. He was like a cock whose feathers had been trailed through
the mud, and who could no longer crow aloud, or claim the
dunghill as his own. His appearance was somewhat that of a dirty
dissipated cook who, having been turned out of one of the clubs
for drunkenness, had been wandering about the streets all night.
He began to wish that he was once more in the well-known
neighbourhood of Charing Cross.

The adventure, however, must now be carried through. There was
still enough of manhood in his heart to make him feel that he
could not return to his colleague at Tavistock without visiting
the wonders which he had come so far to see. When he reached the
head of the shaft, however, the affair did appear to him to be
more terrible than he had before conceived. He was invited to get
into a rough square bucket, in which there was just room for
himself and another to stand; he was specially cautioned to keep
his head straight, and his hands and elbows from protruding, and
then the windlass began to turn, and the upper world, the
sunlight, and all humanity receded from his view.

The world receded from his view, but hardly soon enough;
for as the windlass turned and the bucket descended, his last
terrestrial glance, looking out among the heaps of mud, descried
Alaric Tudor galloping on Mr. Boteldale's pony up to the very
mouth of the mine.

'_Facilis descensus Averni_.' The bucket went down easy
enough, and all too quick. The manner in which it grounded itself
on the first landing grated discordantly on Mr. Neverbend's finer
perceptibilities. But when he learnt, after the interchange of
various hoarse and to him unintelligible bellowings, that he was
to wait in that narrow damp lobby for the coming of his fellow-
Commissioner, the grating on his feelings was even more
discordant. He had not pluck enough left to grumble: but he
grunted his displeasure. He grunted, however, in vain; for in
about a quarter of an hour Alaric was close to him, shoulder to
shoulder. He also wore a white jacket, &c., with a nightcap of
mud and candle on his head; but somehow he looked as though he
had worn them all his life. The fast gallop, and the excitement
of the masquerade, which for him had charms the sterner Neverbend
could not feel, had dissipated his sickness; and he was once more
all himself.

'So I've caught you at the first stage,' said he, good-humouredly;
for though he knew how badly he had been treated, he was much
too wise to show his knowledge. 'It shall go hard but I'll distance
you before we have done,' he said to himself. Poor Neverbend
only grunted.

And then they all went down a second stage in another bucket; and
then a third in a third bucket; and then the business commenced.
As far as this point passive courage alone had been required; to
stand upright in a wooden tub and go down, and down, and down,
was in itself easy enough, so long as the heart did not utterly
faint. Mr. Neverbend's heart had grown faintish, but still he had
persevered, and now stood on a third lobby, listening with dull,
unintelligent ears to eager questions asked, by his colleague,
and to the rapid answers of their mining guides. Tudor was
absolutely at work with paper and pencil, taking down notes in
that wretched Pandemonium.