THE HOLLY-TREE
THREE BRANCHES
by
Charles Dickens
From the 1894 Chapman and Hall “Christmas Stories” edition
FIRST BRANCH—MYSELF
I HAVE KEPT ONE SECRET in the course of my life. I am a bashful
man. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose
it, nobody ever did suppose it, but I am naturally a bashful
man. This is the secret which I have never breathed until now.
I might greatly move the reader by some account of the
innumerable places I have not been to, the innumerable people
I have not called upon or received, the innumerable social
evasions I have been guilty of, solely because I am by original
constitution and character a bashful man. But I will leave the
reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me.
That object is to give a plain account of my travels and
discoveries in the Holly-Tree Inn; in which place of good en-
tertainment for man and beast I was once snowed up.
It happened in the memorable year when I parted for ever
from Angela Leath, whom I was shortly to have married, on
making the discovery that she preferred my bosom friend.
From our school-days I had freely admitted Edwin, in my
own mind, to be far superior to myself; and, though I was
grievously wounded at heart, I felt the preference to be natu-
ral, and tried to forgive them both. It was under these cir-
cumstances that I resolved to go to America—on my way to
the Devil.
Communicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to
Edwin, but resolving to write each of them an affecting letter
conveying my blessing and forgiveness, which the steam-ten-
der for shore should carry to the post when I myself should be
bound for the New World, far beyond recall,—I say, locking
up my grief in my own breast, and consoling myself as I could
with the prospect of being generous, I quietly left all I held
dear, and started on the desolate journey I have mentioned.
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The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
The dead winter-time was in full dreariness when I left my
chambers for ever, at five o’clock in the morning. I had shaved
by candle-light, of course, and was miserably cold, and expe-
rienced that general all-pervading sensation of getting up to
be hanged which I have usually found inseparable from un-
timely rising under such circumstances.
How well I remember the forlorn aspect of Fleet Street
when I came out of the Temple! The street-lamps flickering
in the gusty north-east wind, as if the very gas were contorted
with cold; the white-topped houses; the bleak, star-lighted
sky; the market people and other early stragglers, trotting to
circulate their almost frozen blood; the hospitable light and
warmth of the few coffee-shops and public-houses that were
open for such customers; the hard, dry, frosty rime with which
the air was charged (the wind had already beaten it into every
crevice), and which lashed my face like a steel whip.
It wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of
the year. The Post-office packet for the United States was to
depart from Liverpool, weather permitting, on the first of
the ensuing month, and I had the intervening time on my
hands. I had taken this into consideration, and had resolved
to make a visit to a certain spot (which I need not name) on
the farther borders of Yorkshire. It was endeared to me by my
having first seen Angela at a farmhouse in that place, and my
melancholy was gratified by the idea of taking a wintry leave
of it before my expatriation. I ought to explain, that, to avoid
being sought out before my resolution should have been ren-
dered irrevocable by being carried into full effect, I had writ-
ten to Angela overnight, in my usual manner, lamenting that
urgent business, of which she should know all particulars by-
and-by—took me unexpectedly away from her for a week or
ten days.
There was no Northern Railway at that time, and in its
place there were stage-coaches; which I occasionally find my-
self, in common with some other people, affecting to lament
now, but which everybody dreaded as a very serious penance
then. I had secured the box-seat on the fastest of these, and
my business in Fleet Street was to get into a cab with my
portmanteau, so to make the best of my way to the Peacock
at Islington, where I was to join this coach. But when one of
our Temple watchmen, who carried my portmanteau into
Fleet Street for me, told me about the huge blocks of ice that
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had for some days past been floating in the river, having closed
up in the night, and made a walk from the Temple Gardens
over to the Surrey shore, I began to ask myself the question,
whether the box-seat would not be likely to put a sudden and
a frosty end to my unhappiness. I was heart-broken, it is true,
and yet I was not quite so far gone as to wish to be frozen to
death.
When I got up to the Peacock,—where I found everybody
drinking hot purl, in self-preservation,—I asked if there were
an inside seat to spare. I then discovered that, inside or out, I
was the only passenger. This gave me a still livelier idea of the
great inclemency of the weather, since that coach always loaded
particularly well. However, I took a little purl (which I found
uncommonly good), and got into the coach. When I was
seated, they built me up with straw to the waist, and, con-
scious of making a rather ridiculous appearance, I began my
journey.
It was still dark when we left the Peacock. For a little while,
pale, uncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and van-
ished, and then it was hard, black, frozen day. People were
lighting their fires; smoke was mounting straight up high into
the rarified air; and we were rattling for Highgate Archway
over the hardest ground I have ever heard the ring of iron
shoes on. As we got into the country, everything seemed to
have grown old and gray. The roads, the trees, thatched roofs
of cottages and homesteads, the ricks in farmers’ yards. Out-
door work was abandoned, horse-troughs at road-side inns
were frozen hard, no stragglers lounged about, doors were
close shut, little turnpike houses had blazing fires inside, and
children (even turnpike people have children, and seem to
like them) rubbed the frost from the little panes of glass with
their chubby arms, that their bright eyes might catch a glimpse
of the solitary coach going by. I don’t know when the snow
begin to set in; but I know that we were changing horses
somewhere when I heard the guard remark, “That the old
lady up in the sky was picking her geese pretty hard to-day.”
Then, indeed, I found the white down falling fast and thick.
The lonely day wore on, and I dozed it out, as a lonely
traveller does. I was warm and valiant after eating and drink-
ing,—particularly after dinner; cold and depressed at all other
times. I was always bewildered as to time and place, and al-
ways more or less out of my senses. The coach and horses
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The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
seemed to execute in chorus Auld Lang Syne, without a
moment’s intermission. They kept the time and tune with
the greatest regularity, and rose into the swell at the beginning
of the Refrain, with a precision that worried me to death.
While we changed horses, the guard and coachman went
stumping up and down the road, printing off their shoes in
the snow, and poured so much liquid consolation into them-
selves without being any the worse for it, that I began to con-
found them, as it darkened again, with two great white casks
standing on end. Our horses tumbled down in solitary places,
and we got them up,—which was the pleasantest variety I
had, for it warmed me. And it snowed and snowed, and still
it snowed, and never left off snowing. All night long we went
on in this manner. Thus we came round the clock, upon the
Great North Road, to the performance of Auld Lang Syne by
day again. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed,
and never left off snowing.
I forget now where we were at noon on the second day, and
where we ought to have been; but I know that we were scores
of miles behindhand, and that our case was growing worse
every hour. The drift was becoming prodigiously deep; land-
marks were getting snowed out; the road and the fields were
all one; instead of having fences and hedge-rows to guide us,
we went crunching on over an unbroken surface of ghastly
white that might sink beneath us at any moment and drop us
down a whole hillside. Still the coachman and guard—who
kept together on the box, always in council, and looking well
about them—made out the track with astonishing sagacity.
When we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy,
like a large drawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil
expended on the churches and houses where the snow lay thick-
est. When we came within a town, and found the church
clocks all stopped, the dial-faces choked with snow, and the
inn-signs blotted out, it seemed as if the whole place were
overgrown with white moss. As to the coach, it was a mere
snowball; similarly, the men and boys who ran along beside
us to the town’s end, turning our clogged wheels and encour-
aging our horses, were men and boys of snow; and the bleak
wild solitude to which they at last dismissed us was a snowy
Sahara. One would have thought this enough: notwithstand-
ing which, I pledge my word that it snowed and snowed, and
still it snowed, and never left off snowing.
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We performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day; seeing noth-
ing, out of towns and villages, but the track of stoats, hares,
and foxes, and sometimes of birds. At nine o’clock at night,
on a Yorkshire moor, a cheerful burst from our horn, and a
welcome sound of talking, with a glimmering and moving
about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsy state. I found
that we were going to change.
They helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head
became as white as King Lear’s in a single minute, “What Inn
is this?”
“The Holly-Tree, sir,” said he.
“Upon my word, I believe,” said I, apologetically, to the
guard and coachman, “that I must stop here.”
Now the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the
post-boy, and all the stable authorities, had already asked the
coachman, to the wide-eyed interest of all the rest of the estab-
lishment, if he meant to go on. The coachman had already
replied, “Yes, he’d take her through it,”—meaning by Her the
coach,—”if so be as George would stand by him.” George was
the guard, and he had already sworn that he would stand by
him. So the helpers were already getting the horses out.
My declaring myself beaten, after this parley, was not an
announcement without preparation. Indeed, but for the way
to the announcement being smoothed by the parley, I more
than doubt whether, as an innately bashful man, I should
have had the confidence to make it. As it was, it received the
approval even of the guard and coachman. Therefore, with
many confirmations of my inclining, and many remarks from
one bystander to another, that the gentleman could go for’ard
by the mail to-morrow, whereas to-night he would only be
froze, and where was the good of a gentleman being froze—
ah, let alone buried alive (which latter clause was added by a
humorous helper as a joke at my expense, and was extremely
well received), I saw my portmanteau got out stiff, like a fro-
zen body; did the handsome thing by the guard and coach-
man; wished them good-night and a prosperous journey; and,
a little ashamed of myself, after all, for leaving them to fight
it out alone, followed the landlord, landlady, and waiter of
the Holly-Tree up-stairs.
I thought I had never seen such a large room as that into
which they showed me. It had five windows, with dark red
curtains that would have absorbed the light of a general illu-
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The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
mination; and there were complications of drapery at the top
of the curtains, that went wandering about the wall in a most
extraordinary manner. I asked for a smaller room, and they
told me there was no smaller room.
They could screen me in, however, the landlord said. They
brought a great old japanned screen, with natives (Japanese, I
suppose) engaged in a variety of idiotic pursuits all over it;
and left me roasting whole before an immense fire.
My bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great
staircase at the end of a long gallery; and nobody knows what
a misery this is to a bashful man who would rather not meet
people on the stairs. It was the grimmest room I have ever
had the nightmare in; and all the furniture, from the four
posts of the bed to the two old silver candle-sticks, was tall,
high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted. Below, in my sitting-
room, if I looked round my screen, the wind rushed at me
like a mad bull; if I stuck to my arm-chair, the fire scorched
me to the colour of a new brick. The chimney-piece was very
high, and there was a bad glass—what I may call a wavy glass—
above it, which, when I stood up, just showed me my ante-
rior phrenological developments,—and these never look well,
in any subject, cut short off at the eyebrow. If I stood with
my back to the fire, a gloomy vault of darkness above and
beyond the screen insisted on being looked at; and, in its dim
remoteness, the drapery of the ten curtains of the five win-
dows went twisting and creeping about, like a nest of gigantic
worms.
I suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed
by some other men of similar character in themselves; there-
fore I am emboldened to mention, that, when I travel, I never
arrive at a place but I immediately want to go away from it.
Before I had finished my supper of broiled fowl and mulled
port, I had impressed upon the waiter in detail my arrange-
ments for departure in the morning. Breakfast and bill at eight.
Fly at nine. Two horses, or, if needful, even four.
Tired though I was, the night appeared about a week long.
In cases of nightmare, I thought of Angela, and felt more
depressed than ever by the reflection that I was on the short-
est road to Gretna Green. What had I to do with Gretna Green?
I was not going that way to the Devil, but by the American
route, I remarked in my bitterness.
In the morning I found that it was snowing still, that it had
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Charles Dickens
snowed all night, and that I was snowed up. Nothing could
get out of that spot on the moor, or could come at it, until
the road had been cut out by labourers from the market-town.
When they might cut their way to the Holly-Tree nobody
could tell me.
It was now Christmas-eve. I should have had a dismal Christ-
mas-time of it anywhere, and consequently that did not so
much matter; still, being snowed up was like dying of frost, a
thing I had not bargained for. I felt very lonely. Yet I could no
more have proposed to the landlord and landlady to admit
me to their society (though I should have liked it—very much)
than I could have asked them to present me with a piece of
plate. Here my great secret, the real bashfulness of my charac-
ter, is to be observed. Like most bashful men, I judge of other
people as if they were bashful too. Besides being far too shame-
faced to make the proposal myself, I really had a delicate mis-
giving that it would be in the last degree disconcerting to
them.
Trying to settle down, therefore, in my solitude, I first of
all asked what books there were in the house. The waiter
brought me a Book of Roads, two or three old Newspapers,
a little Song-Book, terminating in a collection of Toasts and
Sentiments, a little Jest-Book, an odd volume of Peregrine
Pickle, and the Sentimental Journey. I knew every word of
the two last already, but I read them through again, then tried
to hum all the songs (Auld Lang Syne was among them);
went entirely through the jokes,—in which I found a fund of
melancholy adapted to my state of mind; proposed all the
toasts, enunciated all the sentiments, and mastered the pa-
pers. The latter had nothing in them but stock advertisements,
a meeting about a county rate, and a highway robbery. As I
am a greedy reader, I could not make this supply hold out
until night; it was exhausted by tea-time. Being then entirely
cast upon my own resources, I got through an hour in con-
sidering what to do next. Ultimately, it came into my head
(from which I was anxious by any means to exclude Angela
and Edwin), that I would endeavour to recall my experience
of Inns, and would try how long it lasted me. I stirred the
fire, moved my chair a little to one side of the screen,—not
daring to go far, for I knew the wind was waiting to make a
rush at me, I could hear it growling,—and began.
My first impressions of an Inn dated from the Nursery;
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The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
consequently I went back to the Nursery for a starting-point,
and found myself at the knee of a sallow woman with a fishy
eye, an aquiline nose, and a green gown, whose specially was a
dismal narrative of a landlord by the roadside, whose visitors
unaccountably disappeared for many years, until it was dis-
covered that the pursuit of his life had been to convert them
into pies. For the better devotion of himself to this branch of
industry, he had constructed a secret door behind the head of
the bed; and when the visitor (oppressed with pie) had fallen
asleep, this wicked landlord would look softly in with a lamp
in one hand and a knife in the other, would cut his throat,
and would make him into pies; for which purpose he had
coppers, underneath a trap-door, always boiling; and rolled
out his pastry in the dead of the night. Yet even he was not
insensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to
sleep without being heard to mutter, “Too much pepper!”
which was eventually the cause of his being brought to jus-
tice. I had no sooner disposed of this criminal than there started
up another of the same period, whose profession was origi-
nally house-breaking; in the pursuit of which art he had had
his right ear chopped off one night, as he was burglariously
getting in at a window, by a brave and lovely servant-maid
(whom the aquiline-nosed woman, though not at all answer-
ing the description, always mysteriously implied to be her-
self). After several years, this brave and lovely servant-maid
was married to the landlord of a country Inn; which landlord
had this remarkable characteristic, that he always wore a silk
nightcap, and never would on any consideration take it off.
At last, one night, when he was fast asleep, the brave and
lovely woman lifted up his silk nightcap on the right side,
and found that he had no ear there; upon which she saga-
ciously perceived that he was the clipped housebreaker, who
had married her with the intention of putting her to death.
She immediately heated the poker and terminated his career,
for which she was taken to King George upon his throne, and
received the compliments of royalty on her great discretion
and valour. This same narrator, who had a Ghoulish pleasure,
I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the utmost
confines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote within
her own experience, founded, I now believe, upon Raymond
and Agnes, or the Bleeding Nun. She said it happened to her
brother-in-law, who was immensely rich,—which my father
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was not; and immensely tall,—which my father was not. It
was always a point with this Ghoul to present my clearest
relations and friends to my youthful mind under circumstances
of disparaging contrast. The brother-in-law was riding once
through a forest on a magnificent horse (we had no magnifi-
cent horse at our house), attended by a favourite and valuable
Newfoundland dog (we had no dog), when he found himself
benighted, and came to an Inn. A dark woman opened the
door, and he asked her if he could have a bed there. She an-
swered yes, and put his horse in the stable, and took him into
a room where there were two dark men. While he was at
supper, a parrot in the room began to talk, saying, “Blood,
blood! Wipe up the blood!” Upon which one of the dark
men wrung the parrot’s neck, and said he was fond of roasted
parrots, and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the
morning. After eating and drinking heartily, the immensely
rich, tall brother-in-law went up to bed; but he was rather
vexed, because they had shut his dog in the stable, saying that
they never allowed dogs in the house. He sat very quiet for
more than an hour, thinking and thinking, when, just as his
candle was burning out, he heard a scratch at the door. He
opened the door, and there was the Newfoundland dog! The
dog came softly in, smelt about him, went straight to some
straw in the corner which the dark men had said covered apples,
tore the straw away, and disclosed two sheets steeped in blood.
Just at that moment the candle went out, and the brother-in-
law, looking through a chink in the door, saw the two dark
men stealing up-stairs; one armed with a dagger that long
(about five feet); the other carrying a chopper, a sack, and a
spade. Having no remembrance of the close of this adven-
ture, I suppose my faculties to have been always so frozen
with terror at this stage of it, that the power of listening stag-
nated within me for some quarter of an hour.
These barbarous stories carried me, sitting there on the
Holly-Tree hearth, to the Roadside Inn, renowned in my time
in a sixpenny book with a folding plate, representing in a
central compartment of oval form the portrait of Jonathan
Bradford, and in four corner compartments four incidents of
the tragedy with which the name is associated,—coloured with
a hand at once so free and economical, that the bloom of
Jonathan’s complexion passed without any pause into the
breeches of the ostler, and, smearing itself off into the next
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The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
division, became rum in a bottle. Then I remembered how
the landlord was found at the murdered traveller’s bedside,
with his own knife at his feet, and blood upon his hand; how
he was hanged for the murder, notwithstanding his protesta-
tion that he had indeed come there to kill the traveller for his
saddle-bags, but had been stricken motionless on finding him
already slain; and how the ostler, years afterwards, owned the
deed. By this time I had made myself quite uncomfortable. I
stirred the fire, and stood with my back to it as long as I
could bear the heat, looking up at the darkness beyond the
screen, and at the wormy curtains creeping in and creeping
out, like the worms in the ballad of Alonzo the Brave and the
Fair Imogene.
There was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to
school, which had pleasanter recollections about it than any
of these. I took it next. It was the Inn where friends used to
put up, and where we used to go to see parents, and to have
salmon and fowls, and be tipped. It had an ecclesiastical sign,—
the Mitre,—and a bar that seemed to be the next best thing
to a bishopric, it was so snug. I loved the landlord’s youngest
daughter to distraction,—but let that pass. It was in this Inn
that I was cried over by my rosy little sister, because I had
acquired a black eye in a fight. And though she had been, that
Holly-Tree night, for many a long year where all tears are
dried, the Mitre softened me yet.
“To be continued to-morrow,” said I, when I took my candle
to go to bed. But my bed took it upon itself to continue the
train of thought that night. It carried me away, like the en-
chanted carpet, to a distant place (though still in England),
and there, alighting from a stage-coach at another Inn in the
snow, as I had actually done some years before, I repeated in
my sleep a curious experience I had really had there. More
than a year before I made the journey in the course of which
I put up at that Inn, I had lost a very near and dear friend by
death. Every night since, at home or away from home, I had
dreamed of that friend; sometimes as still living; sometimes
as returning from the world of shadows to comfort me; al-
ways as being beautiful, placid, and happy, never in associa-
tion with any approach to fear or distress. It was at a lonely
Inn in a wide moorland place, that I halted to pass the night.
When I had looked from my bedroom window over the waste
of snow on which the moon was shining, I sat down by my
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fire to write a letter. I had always, until that hour, kept it
within my own breast that I dreamed every night of the dear
lost one. But in the letter that I wrote I recorded the circum-
stance, and added that I felt much interested in proving
whether the subject of my dream would still be faithful to
me, travel-tired, and in that remote place. No. I lost the be-
loved figure of my vision in parting with the secret. My sleep
has never looked upon it since, in sixteen years, but once. I
was in Italy, and awoke (or seemed to awake), the well-re-
membered voice distinctly in my ears, conversing with it. I
entreated it, as it rose above my bed and soared up to the
vaulted roof of the old room, to answer me a question I had
asked touching the Future Life. My hands were still out-
stretched towards it as it vanished, when I heard a bell ringing
by the garden wall, and a voice in the deep stillness of the
night calling on all good Christians to pray for the souls of
the dead; it being All Souls’ Eve.
To return to the Holly-Tree. When I awoke next day, it was
freezing hard, and the lowering sky threatened more snow.
My breakfast cleared away, I drew my chair into its former
place, and, with the fire getting so much the better of the
landscape that I sat in twilight, resumed my Inn remembrances.
That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up
once, in the days of the hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer
was bitterness. It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the
midnight wind that rattled my lattice window came moan-
ing at me from Stonehenge. There was a hanger-on at that
establishment (a supernaturally preserved Druid I believe him
to have been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a
flinty blue eye always looking afar off; who claimed to have
been a shepherd, and who seemed to be ever watching for the
reappearance, on the verge of the horizon, of some ghostly
flock of sheep that had been mutton for many ages. He was a
man with a weird belief in him that no one could count the
stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of
them; likewise, that any one who counted them three times
nine times, and then stood in the centre and said, “I dare!”
would behold a tremendous apparition, and be stricken dead.
He pretended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him to have
been familiar with the dodo), in manner following: He was
out upon the plain at the close of a late autumn day, when he
dimly discerned, going on before him at a curious fitfully
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The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
bounding pace, what he at first supposed to be a gig-umbrella
that had been blown from some conveyance, but what he
presently believed to be a lean dwarf man upon a little pony.
Having followed this object for some distance without gain-
ing on it, and having called to it many times without receiv-
ing any answer, he pursued it for miles and miles, when, at
length coming up with it, he discovered it to be the last bus-
tard in Great Britain, degenerated into a wingless state, and
running along the ground. Resolved to capture him or perish
in the attempt, he closed with the bustard; but the bustard,
who had formed a counter-resolution that he should do nei-
ther, threw him, stunned him, and was last seen making off
due west. This weird main, at that stage of metempsychosis,
may have been a sleep-walker or an enthusiast or a robber;
but I awoke one night to find him in the dark at my bedside,
repeating the Athanasian Creed in a terrific voice. I paid my
bill next day, and retired from the county with all possible
precipitation.
That was not a commonplace story which worked itself
out at a little Inn in Switzerland, while I was staying there. It
was a very homely place, in a village of one narrow zigzag
street, among mountains, and you went in at the main door
through the cow-house, and among the mules and the dogs
and the fowls, before ascending a great bare staircase to the
rooms; which were all of unpainted wood, without plaster-
ing or papering,—like rough packing-cases. Outside there was
nothing but the straggling street, a little toy church with a
copper-coloured steeple, a pine forest, a torrent, mists, and
mountain-sides. A young man belonging to this Inn had dis-
appeared eight weeks before (it was winter-time), and was
supposed to have had some undiscovered love affair, and to
have gone for a soldier. He had got up in the night, and
dropped into the village street from the loft in which he slept
with another man; and he had done it so quietly, that his
companion and fellow-labourer had heard no movement when
he was awakened in the morning, and they said, “Louis, where
is Henri?” They looked for him high and low, in vain, and
gave him up. Now, outside this Inn, there stood, as there
stood outside every dwelling in the village, a stack of fire-
wood; but the stack belonging to the Inn was higher than any
of the rest, because the Inn was the richest house, and burnt
the most fuel. It began to be noticed, while they were look-
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Charles Dickens
ing high and low, that a Bantam cock, part of the live stock
of the Inn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get to
the top of this wood-stack; and that he would stay there for
hours and hours, crowing, until he appeared in danger of split-
ting himself. Five weeks went on,—six weeks,—and still this
terrible Bantam, neglecting his domestic affairs, was always
on the top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes out of
his head. By this time it was perceived that Louis had become
inspired with a violent animosity towards the terrible Ban-
tam, and one morning he was seen by a woman, who sat
nursing her goitre at a little window in a gleam of sun, to
catch up a rough billet of wood, with a great oath, hurl it at
the terrible Bantam crowing on the wood-stack, and bring
him down dead. Hereupon the woman, with a sudden light
in her mind, stole round to the back of the wood-stack, and,
being a good climber, as all those women are, climbed up,
and soon was seen upon the summit, screaming, looking down
the hollow within, and crying, “Seize Louis, the murderer!
Ring the church bell! Here is the body!” I saw the murderer
that day, and I saw him as I sat by my fire at the Holly-Tree
Inn, and I see him now, lying shackled with cords on the
stable litter, among the mild eyes and the smoking breath of
the cows, waiting to be taken away by the police, and stared
at by the fearful village. A heavy animal,—the dullest animal
in the stables,—with a stupid head, and a lumpish face de-
void of any trace of insensibility, who had been, within the
knowledge of the murdered youth, an embezzler of certain
small moneys belonging to his master, and who had taken
this hopeful mode of putting a possible accuser out of his
way. All of which he confessed next day, like a sulky wretch
who couldn’t be troubled any more, now that they had got
hold of him, and meant to make an end of him. I saw him
once again, on the day of my departure from the Inn. In that
Canton the headsman still does his office with a sword; and I
came upon this murderer sitting bound, to a chair, with his
eyes bandaged, on a scaffold in a little market-place. In that
instant, a great sword (loaded with quicksilver in the thick
part of the blade) swept round him like a gust of wind or fire,
and there was no such creature in the world. My wonder was,
not that he was so suddenly dispatched, but that any head
was left unreaped, within a radius of fifty yards of that tre-
mendous sickle.
16
The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
That was a good Inn, too, with the kind, cheerful landlady
and the honest landlord, where I lived in the shadow of Mont
Blanc, and where one of the apartments has a zoological paper-
ing on the walls, not so accurately joined but that the elephant
occasionally rejoices in a tiger’s hind legs and tail, while the lion
puts on a trunk and tusks, and the bear, moulting as it were,
appears as to portions of himself like a leopard. I made several
American friends at that Inn, who all called Mont Blanc Mount
Blank,—except one good-humoured gentleman, of a very so-
ciable nature, who became on such intimate terms with it that
he spoke of it familiarly as “Blank;” observing, at breakfast,
“Blank looks pretty tall this morning;” or considerably doubt-
ing in the courtyard in the evening, whether there warn’t some
go-ahead naters in our country, sir, that would make out the
top of Blank in a couple of hours from first start—now!
Once I passed a fortnight at an Inn in the North of En-
gland, where I was haunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie.
It was a Yorkshire pie, like a fort,—an abandoned fort with
nothing in it; but the waiter had a fixed idea that it was a
point of ceremony at every meal to put the pie on the table.
After some days I tried to hint, in several delicate ways, that I
considered the pie done with; as, for example, by emptying
fag-ends of glasses of wine into it; putting cheese-plates and
spoons into it, as into a basket; putting wine-bottles into it,
as into a cooler; but always in vain, the pie being invariably
cleaned out again and brought up as before. At last, begin-
ning to be doubtful whether I was not the victim of a spectral
illusion, and whether my health and spirits might not sink
under the horrors of an imaginary pie, I cut a triangle out of
it, fully as large as the musical instrument of that name in a
powerful orchestra. Human provision could not have fore-
seen the result—but the waiter mended the pie. With some
effectual species of cement, he adroitly fitted the triangle in
again, and I paid my reckoning and fled.
The Holly-Tree was getting rather dismal. I made an over-
land expedition beyond the screen, and penetrated as far as
the fourth window. Here I was driven back by stress of weather.
Arrived at my winter-quarters once more, I made up the fire,
and took another Inn.
It was in the remotest part of Cornwall. A great annual
Miners’ Feast was being holden at the Inn, when I and my
travelling companions presented ourselves at night among the
17
Charles Dickens
wild crowd that were dancing before it by torchlight. We had
had a break-down in the dark, on a stony morass some miles
away; and I had the honour of leading one of the unharnessed
post-horses. If any lady or gentleman, on perusal of the present
lines, will take any very tall post-horse with his traces hanging
about his legs, and will conduct him by the bearing-rein into
the heart of a country dance of a hundred and fifty couples,
that lady or gentleman will then, and only then, form an
adequate idea of the extent to which that post-horse will tread
on his conductor’s toes. Over and above which, the post-horse,
finding three hundred people whirling about him, will prob-
ably rear, and also lash out with his hind legs, in a manner
incompatible with dignity or self-respect on his conductor’s
part. With such little drawbacks on my usually impressive
aspect, I appeared at this Cornish Inn, to the unutterable
wonder of the Cornish Miners. It was full, and twenty times
full, and nobody could be received but the post-horse,—
though to get rid of that noble animal was something. While
my fellow-travellers and I were discussing how to pass the
night and so much of the next day as must intervene before
the jovial blacksmith and the jovial wheelwright would be in
a condition to go out on the morass and mend the coach, an
honest man stepped forth from the crowd and proposed his
unlet floor of two rooms, with supper of eggs and bacon, ale
and punch. We joyfully accompanied him home to the strang-
est of clean houses, where we were well entertained to the
satisfaction of all parties. But the novel feature of the enter-
tainment was, that our host was a chair-maker, and that the
chairs assigned to us were mere frames, altogether without
bottoms of any sort; so that we passed the evening on perches.
Nor was this the absurdest consequence; for when we unbent
at supper, and any one of us gave way to laughter, he forgot
the peculiarity of his position, and instantly disappeared. I
myself, doubled up into an attitude from which self-extrica-
tion was impossible, was taken out of my frame, like a clown
in a comic pantomime who has tumbled into a tub, five times
by the taper’s light during the eggs and bacon.
The Holly-Tree was fast reviving within me a sense of lone-
liness. I began to feel conscious that my subject would never
carry on until I was dug out. I might be a week here,—weeks!
There was a story with a singular idea in it, connected with
an Inn I once passed a night at in a picturesque old town on
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The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
the Welsh border. In a large double-bedded room of this Inn
there had been a suicide committed by poison, in one bed,
while a tired traveller slept unconscious in the other. After
that time, the suicide bed was never used, but the other con-
stantly was; the disused bedstead remaining in the room empty,
though as to all other respects in its old state. The story ran,
that whosoever slept in this room, though never so entire a
stranger, from never so far off, was invariably observed to
come down in the morning with an impression that he smelt
Laudanum, and that his mind always turned upon the sub-
ject of suicide; to which, whatever kind of man he might be,
he was certain to make some reference if he conversed with
any one. This went on for years, until it at length induced the
landlord to take the disused bedstead down, and bodily burn
it,—bed, hangings, and all. The strange influence (this was
the story) now changed to a fainter one, but never changed
afterwards. The occupant of that room, with occasional but
very rare exceptions, would come down in the morning, try-
ing to recall a forgotten dream he had had in the night. The
landlord, on his mentioning his perplexity, would suggest
various commonplace subjects, not one of which, as he very
well knew, was the true subject. But the moment the land-
lord suggested “Poison,” the traveller started, and cried, “Yes!”
He never failed to accept that suggestion, and he never re-
called any more of the dream.
This reminiscence brought the Welsh Inns in general before
me; with the women in their round hats, and the harpers with
their white beards (venerable, but humbugs, I am afraid), play-
ing outside the door while I took my dinner. The transition
was natural to the Highland Inns, with the oatmeal bannocks,
the honey, the venison steaks, the trout from the loch, the
whisky, and perhaps (having the materials so temptingly at hand)
the Athol brose. Once was I coming south from the Scottish
Highlands in hot haste, hoping to change quickly at the station
at the bottom of a certain wild historical glen, when these eyes
did with mortification see the landlord come out with a tele-
scope and sweep the whole prospect for the horses; which horses
were away picking up their own living, and did not heave in
sight under four hours. Having thought of the loch-trout, I
was taken by quick association to the Anglers’ Inns of England
(I have assisted at innumerable feats of angling by lying in the
bottom of the boat, whole summer days, doing nothing with
19
Charles Dickens
the greatest perseverance; which I have generally found to be as
effectual towards the taking of fish as the finest tackle and the
utmost science), and to the pleasant white, clean, flower-pot-
decorated bedrooms of those inns, overlooking the river, and
the ferry, and the green ait, and the church-spire, and the coun-
try bridge; and to the pearless Emma with the bright eyes and
the pretty smile, who waited, bless her! with a natural grace
that would have converted Blue-Beard. Casting my eyes upon
my Holly-Tree fire, I next discerned among the glowing coals
the pictures of a score or more of those wonderful English post-
ing-inns which we are all so sorry to have lost, which were so
large and so comfortable, and which were such monuments of
British submission to rapacity and extortion. He who would
see these houses pining away, let him walk from Basingstoke,
or even Windsor, to London, by way of Hounslow, and moralise
on their perishing remains; the stables crumbling to dust; un-
settled labourers and wanderers bivouacking in the outhouses;
grass growing in the yards; the rooms, where erst so many hun-
dred beds of down were made up, let off to Irish lodgers at
eighteenpence a week; a little ill-looking beer-shop shrinking
in the tap of former days, burning coach-house gates for fire-
wood, having one of its two windows bunged up, as if it had
received punishment in a fight with the Railroad; a low, bandy-
legged, brick-making bulldog standing in the doorway. What
could I next see in my fire so naturally as the new railway-house
of these times near the dismal country station; with nothing
particular on draught but cold air and damp, nothing worth
mentioning in the larder but new mortar, and no business do-
ing beyond a conceited affectation of luggage in the hall? Then
I came to the Inns of Paris, with the pretty apartment of four
pieces up one hundred and seventy-five waxed stairs, the privi-
lege of ringing the bell all day long without influencing
anybody’s mind or body but your own, and the not-too-much-
for-dinner, considering the price. Next to the provincial Inns of
France, with the great church-tower rising above the courtyard,
the horse-bells jingling merrily up and down the street beyond,
and the clocks of all descriptions in all the rooms, which are
never right, unless taken at the precise minute when, by get-
ting exactly twelve hours too fast or too slow, they uninten-
tionally become so. Away I went, next, to the lesser roadside
Inns of Italy; where all the dirty clothes in the house (not in
wear) are always lying in your anteroom; where the mosqui-
20
The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
toes make a raisin pudding of your face in summer, and the
cold bites it blue in winter; where you get what you can, and
forget what you can’t: where I should again like to be boiling
my tea in a pocket-handkerchief dumpling, for want of a tea-
pot. So to the old palace Inns and old monastery Inns, in
towns and cities of the same bright country; with their mas-
sive quadrangular staircases, whence you may look from
among clustering pillars high into the blue vault of heaven;
with their stately banqueting-rooms, and vast refectories; with
their labyrinths of ghostly bedchambers, and their glimpses
into gorgeous streets that have no appearance of reality or
possibility. So to the close little Inns of the Malaria districts,
with their pale attendants, and their peculiar smell of never
letting in the air. So to the immense fantastic Inns of Venice,
with the cry of the gondolier below, as he skims the corner;
the grip of the watery odours on one particular little bit of
the bridge of your nose (which is never released while you
stay there); and the great bell of St. Mark’s Cathedral tolling
midnight. Next I put up for a minute at the restless Inns
upon the Rhine, where your going to bed, no matter at what
hour, appears to be the tocsin for everybody else’s getting up;
and where, in the table-d’hote room at the end of the long
table (with several Towers of Babel on it at the other end, all
made of white plates), one knot of stoutish men, entirely
dressed in jewels and dirt, and having nothing else upon them,
will remain all night, clinking glasses, and singing about the
river that flows, and the grape that grows, and Rhine wine
that beguiles, and Rhine woman that smiles and hi drink drink
my friend and ho drink drink my brother, and all the rest of
it. I departed thence, as a matter of course, to other German
Inns, where all the eatables are soddened down to the same
flavour, and where the mind is disturbed by the apparition of
hot puddings, and boiled cherries, sweet and slab, at awfully
unexpected periods of the repast. After a draught of sparkling
beer from a foaming glass jug, and a glance of recognition
through the windows of the student beer-houses at Heidel-
berg and elsewhere, I put out to sea for the Inns of America,
with their four hundred beds apiece, and their eight or nine
hundred ladies and gentlemen at dinner every day. Again I
stood in the bar-rooms thereof, taking my evening cobbler,
julep, sling, or cocktail. Again I listened to my friend the
General,—whom I had known for five minutes, in the course
21
Charles Dickens
of which period he had made me intimate for life with two
Majors, who again had made me intimate for life with three
Colonels, who again had made me brother to twenty-two
civilians,—again, I say, I listened to my friend the General,
leisurely expounding the resources of the establishment, as to
gentlemen’s morning-room, sir; ladies’ morning-room, sir;
gentlemen’s evening-room, sir; ladies’ evening-room, sir; la-
dies’ and gentlemen’s evening reuniting-room, sir; music-
room, sir; reading-room, sir; over four hundred sleeping-
rooms, sir; and the entire planned and finited within twelve
calendar months from the first clearing off of the old encum-
brances on the plot, at a cost of five hundred thousand dol-
lars, sir. Again I found, as to my individual way of thinking,
that the greater, the more gorgeous, and the more dollarous
the establishment was, the less desirable it was. Nevertheless,
again I drank my cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail, in all good-
will, to my friend the General, and my friends the Majors,
Colonels, and civilians all; full well knowing that, whatever
little motes my beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, they
belong to a kind, generous, large-hearted, and great people.
I had been going on lately at a quick pace to keep my soli-
tude out of my mind; but here I broke down for good, and
gave up the subject. What was I to do? What was to become
of me? Into what extremity was I submissively to sink? Sup-
posing that, like Baron Trenck, I looked out for a mouse or
spider, and found one, and beguiled my imprisonment by
training it? Even that might be dangerous with a view to the
future. I might be so far gone when the road did come to be
cut through the snow, that, on my way forth, I might burst
into tears, and beseech, like the prisoner who was released in
his old age from the Bastille, to be taken back again to the
five windows, the ten curtains, and the sinuous drapery.
A desperate idea came into my head. Under any other cir-
cumstances I should have rejected it; but, in the strait at which
I was, I held it fast. Could I so far overcome the inherent
bashfulness which withheld me from the landlord’s table and
the company I might find there, as to call up the Boots, and
ask him to take a chair,—and something in a liquid form,—
and talk to me? I could, I would, I did.
22
The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
SECOND BRANCH—THE BOOTS
WHERE HAD HE BEEN in his time? he repeated, when I asked
him the question. Lord, he had been everywhere! And what
had he been? Bless you, he had been everything you could
mention a’most!
Seen a good deal? Why, of course he had. I should say so, he
could assure me, if I only knew about a twentieth part of
what had come in his way. Why, it would be easier for him,
he expected, to tell what he hadn’t seen than what he had. Ah!
A deal, it would.
What was the curiousest thing he had seen? Well! He didn’t
know. He couldn’t momently name what was the curiousest
thing he had seen—unless it was a Unicorn, and he see him
once at a Fair. But supposing a young gentleman not eight
year old was to run away with a fine young woman of seven,
might I think that a queer start? Certainly. Then that was a
start as he himself had had his blessed eyes on, and he had
cleaned the shoes they run away in—and they was so little
that he couldn’t get his hand into ‘em.
Master Harry Walmers’ father, you see, he lived at the Elmses,
down away by Shooter’s Hill there, six or seven miles from
Lunnon. He was a gentleman of spirit, and good-looking,
and held his head up when he walked, and had what you may
call Fire about him. He wrote poetry, and he rode, and he
ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted, and he
done it all equally beautiful. He was uncommon proud of
Master Harry as was his only child; but he didn’t spoil him
neither. He was a gentleman that had a will of his own and a
eye of his own, and that would be minded. Consequently,
though he made quite a companion of the fine bright boy,
and was delighted to see him so fond of reading his fairy
books, and was never tired of hearing him say my name is
Norval, or hearing him sing his songs about Young May
Moons is beaming love, and When he as adores thee has left
but the name, and that; still he kept the command over the
child, and the child was a child, and it’s to be wished more of
‘em was!
How did Boots happen to know all this? Why, through
being under-gardener. Of course he couldn’t be under-gar-
dener, and be always about, in the summer-time, near the
windows on the lawn, a mowing, and sweeping, and weed-
23
Charles Dickens
ing, and pruning, and this and that, without getting acquainted
with the ways of the family. Even supposing Master Harry
hadn’t come to him one morning early, and said, “Cobbs,
how should you spell Norah, if you was asked?” and then
began cutting it in print all over the fence.
He couldn’t say he had taken particular notice of children
before that; but really it was pretty to see them two mites a
going about the place together, deep in love. And the courage
of the boy! Bless your soul, he’d have throwed off his little
hat, and tucked up his little sleeves, and gone in at a Lion, he
would, if they had happened to meet one, and she had been
frightened of him. One day he stops, along with her, where
Boots was hoeing weeds in the gravel, and says, speaking up,
“Cobbs,” he says, “I like you.” “Do you, sir? I’m proud to
hear it.” “Yes, I do, Cobbs. Why do I like you, do you think,
Cobbs?” “Don’t know, Master Harry, I am sure.” “Because
Norah likes you, Cobbs.” “Indeed, sir? That’s very gratify-
ing.” “Gratifying, Cobbs? It’s better than millions of the bright-
est diamonds to be liked by Norah.” “Certainly, sir.” “You’re
going away, ain’t you, Cobbs?” “Yes, sir.” “Would you like
another situation, Cobbs?” “Well, sir, I shouldn’t object, if it
was a good Inn.” “Then, Cobbs,” says he, “you shall be our
Head Gardener when we are married.” And he tucks her, in
her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks away.
Boots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and
equal to a play, to see them babies, with their long, bright,
curling hair, their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread,
a rambling about the garden, deep in love. Boots was of opin-
ion that the birds believed they was birds, and kept up with
‘em, singing to please ‘em. Sometimes they would creep under
the Tulip-tree, and would sit there with their arms round one
another’s necks, and their soft cheeks touching, a reading about
the Prince and the Dragon, and the good and bad enchanters,
and the king’s fair daughter. Sometimes he would hear them
planning about having a house in a forest, keeping bees and a
cow, and living entirely on milk and honey. Once he came
upon them by the pond, and heard Master Harry say, “Ador-
able Norah, kiss me, and say you love me to distraction, or I’ll
jump in head-foremost.” And Boots made no question he
would have done it if she hadn’t complied. On the whole, Boots
said it had a tendency to make him feel as if he was in love
himself—only he didn’t exactly know who with.
24
The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
“Cobbs,” said Master Harry, one evening, when Cobbs was
watering the flowers, “I am going on a visit, this present Mid-
summer, to my grandmamma’s at York.”
“Are you indeed, sir? I hope you’ll have a pleasant time. I
am going into Yorkshire, myself, when I leave here.”
“Are you going to your grandmamma’s, Cobbs?”
“No, sir. I haven’t got such a thing.”
“Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?”
“No, sir.”
The boy looked on at the watering of the flowers for a little
while, and then said, “I shall be very glad indeed to go,
Cobbs,—Norah’s going.”
“You’ll be all right then, sir,” says Cobbs, “with your beau-
tiful sweetheart by your side.”
“Cobbs,” returned the boy, flushing, “I never let anybody
joke about it, when I can prevent them.”
“It wasn’t a joke, sir,” says Cobbs, with humility,—”wasn’t
so meant.”
“I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know,
and you’re going to live with us.—Cobbs!”
“Sir.”
“What do you think my grandmamma gives me when I go
down there?”
“I couldn’t so much as make a guess, sir.”
“A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs.”
“Whew!” says Cobbs, “that’s a spanking sum of money, Mas-
ter Harry.”
“A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money
as that,—couldn’t a person, Cobbs?”
“I believe you, sir!”
“Cobbs,” said the boy, “I’ll tell you a secret. At Norah’s
house, they have been joking her about me, and pretending
to laugh at our being engaged,—pretending to make game of
it, Cobbs!”
“Such, sir,” says Cobbs, “is the depravity of human natur.”
The boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few
minutes with his glowing face towards the sunset, and then
departed with, “Good-night, Cobbs. I’m going in.”
If I was to ask Boots how it happened that he was a-going
to leave that place just at that present time, well, he couldn’t
rightly answer me. He did suppose he might have stayed there
till now if he had been anyways inclined. But, you see, he was
25
Charles Dickens
younger then, and he wanted change. That’s what he
wanted,—change. Mr. Walmers, he said to him when he gave
him notice of his intentions to leave, “Cobbs,” he says, “have
you anythink to complain of? I make the inquiry because if I
find that any of my people really has anythink to complain
of, I wish to make it right if I can.” “No, sir.” says Cobbs;
“thanking you, sir, I find myself as well sitiwated here as I
could hope to be anywheres. The truth is, sir, that I’m a-
going to seek my fortun’.” “O, indeed, Cobbs!” he says; “I
hope you may find it.” And Boots could assure me—which
he did, touching his hair with his bootjack, as a salute in the
way of his present calling—that he hadn’t found it yet.
Well, sir! Boots left the Elmses when his time was up, and
Master Harry, he went down to the old lady’s at York, which
old lady would have given that child the teeth out of her head
(if she had had any), she was so wrapped up in him. What does
that Infant do,—for Infant you may call him and be within the
mark,—but cut away from that old lady’s with his Norah, on
a expedition to go to Gretna Green and be married!
Sir, Boots was at this identical Holly-Tree Inn (having left
it several times since to better himself, but always come back
through one thing or another), when, one summer afternoon,
the coach drives up, and out of the coach gets them two chil-
dren. The Guard says to our Governor, “I don’t quite make
out these little passengers, but the young gentleman’s words
was, that they was to be brought here.” The young gentleman
gets out; hands his lady out; gives the Guard something for
himself; says to our Governor, “We’re to stop here to-night,
please. Sitting-room and two bedrooms will be required.
Chops and cherry-pudding for two!” and tucks her, in her
sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks into the house
much bolder than Brass.
Boots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that es-
tablishment was, when these two tiny creatures all alone by
themselves was marched into the Angel,—much more so,
when he, who had seen them without their seeing him, give
the Governor his views of the expedition they was upon.
“Cobbs,” says the Governor, “if this is so, I must set off my-
self to York, and quiet their friends’ minds. In which case you
must keep your eye upon ‘em, and humour ‘em, till I come
back. But before I take these measures, Cobbs, I should wish
you to find from themselves whether your opinion is cor-
26
The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
rect.” “Sir, to you,” says Cobbs, “that shall be done directly.”
So Boots goes up-stairs to the Angel, and there he finds
Master Harry on a e-normous sofa,—immense at any time,
but looking like the Great Bed of Ware, compared with
him,—a drying the eyes of Miss Norah with his pocket-
hankecher. Their little legs was entirely off the ground, of
course, and it really is not possible for Boots to express to me
how small them children looked.
“It’s Cobbs! It’s Cobbs!” cries Master Harry, and comes run-
ning to him, and catching hold of his hand. Miss Norah comes
running to him on t’other side and catching hold of his t’other
hand, and they both jump for joy.
“I see you a getting out, sir,” says Cobbs. “I thought it was
you. I thought I couldn’t be mistaken in your height and fig-
ure. What’s the object of your journey, sir?—Matrimonial?”
“We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green,” re-
turned the boy. “We have run away on purpose. Norah has
been in rather low spirits, Cobbs; but she’ll be happy, now we
have found you to be our friend.”
“Thank you, sir, and thank you, miss,” says Cobbs, “for your
good opinion. Did you bring any luggage with you, sir?”
If I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honour
upon it, the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round
and a half of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops,
and a hair-brush,—seemingly a doll’s. The gentleman had got
about half a dozen yards of string, a knife, three or four sheets
of writing-paper folded up surprising small, a orange, and a
Chaney mug with his name upon it.
“What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir?” says Cobbs.
“To go on,” replied the boy,—which the courage of that
boy was something wonderful!—”in the morning, and be mar-
ried to-morrow.”
“Just so, sir,” says Cobbs. “Would it meet your views, sir, if
I was to accompany you?”
When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and
cried out, “Oh, yes, yes, Cobbs! Yes!”
“Well, sir,” says Cobbs. “If you will excuse my having the
freedom to give an opinion, what I should recommend would
be this. I’m acquainted with a pony, sir, which, put in a
pheayton that I could borrow, would take you and Mrs. Harry
Walmers, Junior, (myself driving, if you approved,) to the
end of your journey in a very short space of time. I am not
27
Charles Dickens
altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty to-mor-
row, but even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it
might be worth your while. As to the small account here, sir,
in case you was to find yourself running at all short, that
don’t signify; because I’m a part proprietor of this inn, and it
could stand over.”
Boots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and
jumped for joy again, and called him “Good Cobbs!” and
“Dear Cobbs!” and bent across him to kiss one another in the
delight of their confiding hearts, he felt himself the meanest
rascal for deceiving ‘em that ever was born.
“Is there anything you want just at present, sir?” says Cobbs,
mortally ashamed of himself.
“We should like some cakes after dinner,” answered Master
Harry, folding his arms, putting out one leg, and looking
straight at him, “and two apples,—and jam. With dinner we
should like to have toast-and-water. But Norah has always
been accustomed to half a glass of currant wine at dessert.
And so have I.”
“It shall be ordered at the bar, sir,” says Cobbs; and away he
went.
Boots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of
speaking as he had then, that he would far rather have had it
out in half-a-dozen rounds with the Governor than have com-
bined with him; and that he wished with all his heart there
was any impossible place where those two babies could make
an impossible marriage, and live impossibly happy ever after-
wards. However, as it couldn’t be, he went into the Governor’s
plans, and the Governor set off for York in half an hour.
The way in which the women of that house—without ex-
ception—every one of ‘em—married and single—took to that
boy when they heard the story, Boots considers surprising. It
was as much as he could do to keep ‘em from dashing into
the room and kissing him. They climbed up all sorts of places,
at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of
glass. They was seven deep at the keyhole. They was out of
their minds about him and his bold spirit.
In the evening, Boots went into the room to see how the
runaway couple was getting on. The gentleman was on the
window-seat, supporting the lady in his arms. She had tears
upon her face, and was lying, very tired and half asleep, with
her head upon his shoulder.
28
The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
“Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, fatigued, sir?” says Cobbs.
“Yes, she is tired, Cobbs; but she is not used to be away
from home, and she has been in low spirits again. Cobbs, do
you think you could bring a biffin, please?”
“I ask your pardon, sir,” says Cobbs. “What was it you—?”
“I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She is
very fond of them.”
Boots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and
when he brought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady,
and fed her with a spoon, and took a little himself; the lady
being heavy with sleep, and rather cross. “What should you
think, sir,” says Cobbs, “of a chamber candlestick?” The gentle-
man approved; the chambermaid went first, up the great stair-
case; the lady, in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly es-
corted by the gentleman; the gentleman embraced her at her
door, and retired to his own apartment, where Boots softly
locked him up.
Boots couldn’t but feel with increased acuteness what a base
deceiver he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they
had ordered sweet milk-and-water, and toast and currant jelly,
over-night) about the pony. It really was as much as he could
do, he don’t mind confessing to me, to look them two young
things in the face, and think what a wicked old father of lies
he had grown up to be. Howsomever, he went on a lying like
a Trojan about the pony. He told ‘em that it did so unfortu-
nately happen that the pony was half clipped, you see, and
that he couldn’t be taken out in that state, for fear it should
strike to his inside. But that he’d be finished clipping in the
course of the day, and that to-morrow morning at eight o’clock
the pheayton would be ready. Boots’s view of the whole case,
looking back on it in my room, is, that Mrs. Harry Walmers,
Junior, was beginning to give in. She hadn’t had her hair curled
when she went to bed, and she didn’t seem quite up to brush-
ing it herself, and its getting in her eyes put her out. But noth-
ing put out Master Harry. He sat behind his breakfast-cup, a
tearing away at the jelly, as if he had been his own father.
After breakfast, Boots is inclined to consider that they
drawed soldiers,—at least, he knows that many such was found
in the fire-place, all on horseback. In the course of the morn-
ing, Master Harry rang the bell,—it was surprising how that
there boy did carry on,—and said, in a sprightly way, “Cobbs,
is there any good walks in this neighbourhood?”
29
Charles Dickens
“Yes, sir,” says Cobbs. “There’s Love Lane.”
“Get out with you, Cobbs!”—that was that there boy’s ex-
pression,—”you’re joking.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” says Cobbs, “there really is Love
Lane. And a pleasant walk it is, and proud shall I be to show
it to yourself and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior.”
“Norah, dear,” said Master Harry, “this is curious. We really
ought to see Love Lane. Put on your bonnet, my sweetest
darling, and we will go there with Cobbs.”
Boots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be,
when that young pair told him, as they all three jogged along
together, that they had made up their minds to give him two
thousand guineas a year as head-gardener, on accounts of his
being so true a friend to ‘em. Boots could have wished at the
moment that the earth would have opened and swallowed
him up, he felt so mean, with their beaming eyes a looking at
him, and believing him. Well, sir, he turned the conversation
as well as he could, and he took ‘em down Love Lane to the
water-meadows, and there Master Harry would have drowned
himself in half a moment more, a getting out a water-lily for
her,—but nothing daunted that boy. Well, sir, they was tired
out. All being so new and strange to ‘em, they was tired as
tired could be. And they laid down on a bank of daisies, like
the children in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep.
Boots don’t know—perhaps I do,—but never mind, it don’t
signify either way—why it made a man fit to make a fool of
himself to see them two pretty babies a lying there in the clear
still sunny day, not dreaming half so hard when they was asleep
as they done when they was awake. But, Lord! when you
come to think of yourself, you know, and what a game you
have been up to ever since you was in your own cradle, and
what a poor sort of a chap you are, and how it’s always either
Yesterday with you, or else To-morrow, and never To-day,
that’s where it is!
Well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was get-
ting pretty clear to Boots, namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmerses,
Junior’s, temper was on the move. When Master Harry took
her round the waist, she said he “teased her so;” and when he
says, “Norah, my young May Moon, your Harry tease you?”
she tells him, “Yes; and I want to go home!”
A biled fowl, and baked bread-and-butter pudding, brought
Mrs. Walmers up a little; but Boots could have wished, he
30
The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
must privately own to me, to have seen her more sensible of
the woice of love, and less abandoning of herself to currants.
However, Master Harry, he kept up, and his noble heart was
as fond as ever. Mrs. Walmers turned very sleepy about dusk,
and began to cry. Therefore, Mrs. Walmers went off to bed as
per yesterday; and Master Harry ditto repeated.
About eleven or twelve at night comes back the Governor
in a chaise, along with Mr. Walmers and a elderly lady. Mr.
Walmers looks amused and very serious, both at once, and
says to our missis, “We are much indebted to you, ma’am, for
your kind care of our little children, which we can never suf-
ficiently acknowledge. Pray, ma’am, where is my boy?” Our
missis says, “Cobbs has the dear child in charge, sir. Cobbs,
show Forty!” Then he says to Cobbs, “Ah, Cobbs, I am glad
to see you! I understood you was here!” And Cobbs says, “Yes,
sir. Your most obedient, sir.”
I may be surprised to hear Boots say it, perhaps; but Boots
assures me that his heart beat like a hammer, going up-stairs.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” says he, while unlocking the door; “I
hope you are not angry with Master Harry. For Master Harry
is a fine boy, sir, and will do you credit and honour.” And
Boots signifies to me, that, if the fine boy’s father had contra-
dicted him in the daring state of mind in which he then was,
he thinks he should have “fetched him a crack,” and taken the
consequences.
But Mr. Walmers only says, “No, Cobbs. No, my good
fellow. Thank you!” And, the door being opened, goes in.
Boots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees Mr. Walmers
go up to the bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little
sleeping face. Then he stands looking at it for a minute, look-
ing wonderfully like it (they do say he ran away with Mrs.
Walmers); and then he gently shakes the little shoulder.
“Harry, my dear boy! Harry!”
Master Harry starts up and looks at him. Looks at Cobbs
too. Such is the honour of that mite, that he looks at Cobbs,
to see whether he has brought him into trouble.
“I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself
and come home.”
“Yes, pa.”
Master Harry dresses himself quickly. His breast begins to
swell when he has nearly finished, and it swells more and more
as he stands, at last, a looking at his father: his father standing
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Charles Dickens
a looking at him, the quiet image of him.
“Please may I”—the spirit of that little creatur, and the way
he kept his rising tears down!—”please, dear pa—may I—
kiss Norah before I go?”
“You may, my child.”
So he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads the
way with the candle, and they come to that other bedroom,
where the elderly lady is seated by the bed, and poor little
Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, is fast asleep. There the father
lifts the child up to the pillow, and he lays his little face down
for an instant by the little warm face of poor unconscious
little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, and gently draws it to
him,—a sight so touching to the chambermaids who are peep-
ing through the door, that one of them calls out, “It’s a shame
to part ‘em!” But this chambermaid was always, as Boots in-
forms me, a soft-hearted one. Not that there was any harm in
that girl. Far from it.
Finally, Boots says, that’s all about it. Mr. Walmers drove
away in the chaise, having hold of Master Harry’s hand. The
elderly lady and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, that was never
to be (she married a Captain long afterwards, and died in
India), went off next day. In conclusion, Boots put it to me
whether I hold with him in two opinions: firstly, that there
are not many couples on their way to be married who are half
as innocent of guile as those two children; secondly, that it
would be a jolly good thing for a great many couples on their
way to be married, if they could only be stopped in time, and
brought back separately.
THIRD BRANCH—THE BILL
I HAD BEEN SNOWED UP a whole week. The time had hung so
lightly on my hands, that I should have been in great doubt
of the fact but for a piece of documentary evidence that lay
upon my table.
The road had been dug out of the snow on the previous
day, and the document in question was my bill. It testified
emphatically to my having eaten and drunk, and warmed my-
self, and slept among the sheltering branches of the Holly-
Tree, seven days and nights.
I had yesterday allowed the road twenty-four hours to im-
prove itself, finding that I required that additional margin of
32
The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
time for the completion of my task. I had ordered my Bill to
be upon the table, and a chaise to be at the door, “at eight
o’clock to-morrow evening.” It was eight o’clock to-morrow
evening when I buckled up my travelling writing-desk in its
leather case, paid my Bill, and got on my warm coats and
wrappers. Of course, no time now remained for my travel-
ling on to add a frozen tear to the icicles which were doubt-
less hanging plentifully about the farmhouse where I had first
seen Angela. What I had to do was to get across to Liverpool
by the shortest open road, there to meet my heavy baggage
and embark. It was quite enough to do, and I had not an
hour too much time to do it in.
I had taken leave of all my Holly-Tree friends—almost, for
the time being, of my bashfulness too—and was standing for
half a minute at the Inn door watching the ostler as he took
another turn at the cord which tied my portmanteau on the
chaise, when I saw lamps coming down towards the Holly-
Tree. The road was so padded with snow that no wheels were
audible; but all of us who were standing at the Inn door saw
lamps coming on, and at a lively rate too, between the walls
of snow that had been heaped up on either side of the track.
The chambermaid instantly divined how the case stood, and
called to the ostler, “Tom, this is a Gretna job!” The ostler,
knowing that her sex instinctively scented a marriage, or any-
thing in that direction, rushed up the yard bawling, “Next
four out!” and in a moment the whole establishment was
thrown into commotion.
I had a melancholy interest in seeing the happy man who
loved and was beloved; and therefore, instead of driving off
at once, I remained at the Inn door when the fugitives drove
up. A bright-eyed fellow, muffled in a mantle, jumped out so
briskly that he almost overthrew me. He turned to apologise,
and, by heaven, it was Edwin!
“Charley!” said he, recoiling. “Gracious powers, what do
you do here?”
“Edwin,” said I, recoiling, “gracious powers, what do you
do here?” I struck my forehead as I said it, and an insupport-
able blaze of light seemed to shoot before my eyes.
He hurried me into the little parlour (always kept with a
slow fire in it and no poker), where posting company waited
while their horses were putting to, and, shutting the door,
said:
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Charles Dickens
“Charley, forgive me!”
“Edwin!” I returned. “Was this well? When I loved her so
dearly! When I had garnered up my heart so long!” I could say
no more.
He was shocked when he saw how moved I was, and made
the cruel observation, that he had not thought I should have
taken it so much to heart.
I looked at him. I reproached him no more. But I looked at
him. “My dear, dear Charley,” said he, “don’t think ill of me,
I beseech you! I know you have a right to my utmost confi-
dence, and, believe me, you have ever had it until now. I ab-
hor secrecy. Its meanness is intolerable to me. But I and my
dear girl have observed it for your sake.”
He and his dear girl! It steeled me.
“You have observed it for my sake, sir?” said I, wondering
how his frank face could face it out so.
“Yes!—and Angela’s,” said he.
I found the room reeling round in an uncertain way, like a
labouring, humming-top. “Explain yourself,” said I, holding
on by one hand to an arm-chair.
“Dear old darling Charley!” returned Edwin, in his cordial
manner, “consider! When you were going on so happily with
Angela, why should I compromise you with the old gentle-
man by making you a party to our engagement, and (after he
had declined my proposals) to our secret intention? Surely it
was better that you should be able honourably to say, ‘He
never took counsel with me, never told me, never breathed a
word of it.’ If Angela suspected it, and showed me all the
favour and support she could—God bless her for a precious
creature and a priceless wife!—I couldn’t help that. Neither I
nor Emmeline ever told her, any more than we told you. And
for the same good reason, Charley; trust me, for the same
good reason, and no other upon earth!”
Emmeline was Angela’s cousin. Lived with her. Had been
brought up with her. Was her father’s ward. Had property.
“Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin!” said I, em-
bracing him with the greatest affection.
“My good fellow!” said he, “do you suppose I should be
going to Gretna Green without her?”
I ran out with Edwin, I opened the chaise door, I took
Emmeline in my arms, I folded her to my heart. She was
wrapped in soft white fur, like the snowy landscape: but was
34
The Holly-Tree—Three Branches
warm, and young, and lovely. I put their leaders to with my
own hands, I gave the boys a five-pound note apiece, I cheered
them as they drove away, I drove the other way myself as hard
as I could pelt.
I never went to Liverpool, I never went to America, I went
straight back to London, and I married Angela. I have never
until this time, even to her, disclosed the secret of my character,
and the mistrust and the mistaken journey into which it led
me. When she, and they, and our eight children and their seven—
I mean Edwin and Emmeline’s, whose oldest girl is old enough
now to wear white for herself, and to look very like her mother
in it—come to read these pages, as of course they will, I shall
hardly fail to be found out at last. Never mind! I can bear it. I
began at the Holly-Tree, by idle accident, to associate the Christ-
mas time of year with human interest, and with some inquiry
into, and some care for, the lives of those by whom I find
myself surrounded. I hope that I am none the worse for it, and
that no one near me or afar off is the worse for it. And I say,
May the green Holly-Tree flourish, striking its roots deep into
our English ground, and having its germinating qualities car-
ried by the birds of Heaven all over the world!