'Ay! But I mean with a will.'

'I have no will. That is to say,'--he coloured a little,--'next to none

that I can put in action now. Trained by main force; broken, not bent;

heavily ironed with an object on which I was never consulted and which

was never mine; shipped away to the other end of the world before I

was of age, and exiled there until my father's death there, a year ago;

always grinding in a mill I always hated; what is to be expected from me

in middle life? Will, purpose, hope? All those lights were extinguished

before I could sound the words.'

'Light 'em up again!' said Mr Meagles.

'Ah! Easily said. I am the son, Mr Meagles, of a hard father and

mother. I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced

everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced,

had no existence. Strict people as the phrase is, professors of a stern

religion, their very religion was a gloomy sacrifice of tastes and

sympathies that were never their own, offered up as a part of a bargain

for the security of their possessions. Austere faces, inexorable

discipline, penance in this world and terror in the next--nothing

graceful or gentle anywhere, and the void in my cowed heart

everywhere--this was my childhood, if I may so misuse the word as to

apply it to such a beginning of life.'

'Really though?' said Mr Meagles, made very uncomfortable by the picture

offered to his imagination. 'That was a tough commencement. But come!

You must now study, and profit by, all that lies beyond it, like a

practical man.' 'If the people who are usually called practical, were practical in your

direction--' 'Why, so they are!' said Mr Meagles. 'Are they indeed?' 'Well, I suppose so,' returned Mr Meagles, thinking about it. 'Eh? One can but be practical, and Mrs Meagles and myself are nothing else.' 'My unknown course is easier and more helpful than I had expected to

find it, then,' said Clennam, shaking his head with his grave smile.

'Enough of me. Here is the boat.'

The boat was filled with the cocked hats to which Mr Meagles entertained

a national objection; and the wearers of those cocked hats landed

and came up the steps, and all the impounded travellers congregated

together. There was then a mighty production of papers on the part of

the cocked hats, and a calling over of names, and great work of signing,

sealing, stamping, inking, and sanding, with exceedingly blurred,

gritty, and undecipherable results. Finally, everything was done

according to rule, and the travellers were at liberty to depart

whithersoever they would.




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