Page:Martin Chuzzlewit.djvu/701

602 to acknowledge which I could not reconcile it to myself to avow, then unless you made submission to me, first. Thus it was I lost you. If I have had, indirectly, any act or part in the fate of that unhappy man, by putting means, however small, within his reach; Heaven forgive me! I might have known, perhaps, that he would misuse money; that it was ill bestowed upon him; and that sown by his hands, it could engender mischief only. But I never thought of him at that time, as having the disposition or ability to be a serious impostor, or otherwise than as a thoughtless, idle-humoured, dissipated spendthrift, sinning more against himself than others, and frequenting low haunts and indulging vicious tastes, to his own ruin only."

"Beggin' your pardon, Sir," said Mr. Tapley, who had Mrs. Lupin on his arm by this time, quite agreeably; "if I may make so bold as say so, my opinion is, as you was quite correct, and that he turned out perfectly nat'ral for all that. There's a surprisin' number of men, Sir, who as long as they 've only got their own shoes and stockings to depend upon, will walk down-hill, along the gutters quiet enough, and by themselves, and not do much harm. But set any on 'em up with a coach and horses, Sir; and it's wonderful what a knowledge of drivin' he 'll shew, and how he 'll fill his wehicle with passengers, and start off in the middle of the road, neck or nothing, to the Devil! Bless your heart. Sir, there's ever so many Tiggs a passing this here Temple-gate any hour in the day, that only want a chance, to turn out full-blown Montagues every one!"

"Your ignorance, as you call it, Mark," said Mr. Chuzzlewit, "is wiser than some men's enlightenment, and mine among them. You are right; not for the first time to-day. Now hear me out, my dears. And hear me, you, who, if what I have been told be accurately stated, are Bankrupt in pocket no less than in good name! And when you have heard me, leave this place, and poison my sight no more!"

Mr. Pecksniff laid his hand upon his breast, and bowed again.

"The penance I have done in his house," said Mr. Chuzzlewit, "has carried this reflection with it constantly, above all others. That if it had pleased Heaven to visit such infirmity on my old age as really had reduced me to the state in which I feigned to be, I should have brought its misery upon myself. Oh you whose wealth, like mine, has been a source of continual unhappiness, leading you to distrust the nearest and dearest, and to dig yourself a living grave of suspicion and reserve; take heed that, having cast off all whom you might have bound to you, and tenderly, you do not become in your decay the instrument of such a man as this, and waken in another world to the knowledge of such wrong, as would embitter Heaven itself, if wrong or you could ever reach it!"

And then he told them, how he had sometimes thought, in the beginning, that love might grow up between Mary and Martin; and how he had pleased his fancy with the picture of observing it when it was new, and taking them to task, apart, in counterfeited doubt, and then confessing to them that it had been an object dear to his heart; and by his sympathy with them, and generous provision for their young fortunes, establishing a claim on their affection and regard which nothing