In the autumn month of September,eighteen hundred and fifty-seven,wherein these presents bear date,two idle apprentices,exhausted by the long,hot summer,and the long,hot work it had brought with it,ran away from their employer.They were bound to a highly meritorious lady (named Literature),of fair credit and repute,though,it must be acknowledged,not quite so highly esteemed in the City as she might be.This is the more remarkable,as there is nothing against the respectable lady in that quarter,but quite the contrary;her family having rendered eminent service to many famous citizens of London.It may be sufficient to name Sir William Walworth,Lord Mayor under King Richard II.,at the time of Wat Tyler's insurrection,and Sir Richard Whittington:which latter distinguished man and magistrate was doubtless indebted to the lady's family for the gift of his celebrated cat.There is also strong reason to suppose that they rang the Highgate bells for him with their own hands.
The misguided young men who thus shirked their duty to the mistress from whom they had received many favours,were actuated by the low idea of making a perfectly idle trip,in any direction.They had no intention of going anywhere in particular;they wanted to see nothing,they wanted to know nothing,they wanted to learn nothing,they wanted to do nothing.They wanted only to be idle.They took to themselves (after HOGARTH),the names of Mr.Thomas Idle and Mr.
Francis Goodchild;but there was not a moral pin to choose between them,and they were both idle in the last degree.
Between Francis and Thomas,however,there was this difference of character:Goodchild was laboriously idle,and would take upon himself any amount of pains and labour to assure himself that he was idle;in short,had no better idea of idleness than that it was useless industry.Thomas Idle,on the other hand,was an idler of the unmixed Irish or Neapolitan type;a passive idler,a born-and-bred idler,a consistent idler,who practised what he would have preached if he had not been too idle to preach;a one entire and perfect chrysolite of idleness.
The two idle apprentices found themselves,within a few hours of their escape,walking down into the North of England,that is to say,Thomas was lying in a meadow,looking at the railway trains as they passed over a distant viaduct -which was HIS idea of walking down into the North;while Francis was walking a mile due South against time -which was HIS idea of walking down into the North.
In the meantime the day waned,and the milestones remained unconquered.
'Tom,'said Goodchild,'the sun is getting low.Up,and let us go forward!'
'Nay,'quoth Thomas Idle,'I have not done with Annie Laurie yet.'
And he proceeded with that idle but popular ballad,to the effect that for the bonnie young person of that name he would 'lay him doon and dee'-equivalent,in prose,to lay him down and die.
'What an ass that fellow was!'cried Goodchild,with the bitter emphasis of contempt.
'Which fellow?'asked Thomas Idle.
'The fellow in your song.Lay him doon and dee!Finely he'd show off before the girl by doing THAT.A sniveller!Why couldn't he get up,and punch somebody's head!'
'Whose?'asked Thomas Idle.
'Anybody's.Everybody's would be better than nobody's!If I fell into that state of mind about a girl,do you think I'd lay me doon and dee?No,sir,'proceeded Goodchild,with a disparaging assumption of the Scottish accent,'I'd get me oop and peetch into somebody.Wouldn't you?'
'I wouldn't have anything to do with her,'yawned Thomas Idle.
'Why should I take the trouble?'
'It's no trouble,Tom,to fall in love,'said Goodchild,shaking his head.
'It's trouble enough to fall out of it,once you're in it,'retorted Tom.'So I keep out of it altogether.It would be better for you,if you did the same.'
Mr.Goodchild,who is always in love with somebody,and not unfrequently with several objects at once,made no reply.He heaved a sigh of the kind which is termed by the lower orders 'a bellowser,'and then,heaving Mr.Idle on his feet (who was not half so heavy as the sigh),urged him northward.
These two had sent their personal baggage on by train:only retaining each a knapsack.Idle now applied himself to constantly regretting the train,to tracking it through the intricacies of Bradshaw's Guide,and finding out where it is now -and where now -and where now -and to asking what was the use of walking,when you could ride at such a pace as that.Was it to see the country?If that was the object,look at it out of the carriage windows.There was a great deal more of it to be seen there than here.Besides,who wanted to see the country?Nobody.And again,whoever did walk?Nobody.Fellows set off to walk,but they never did it.
They came back and said they did,but they didn't.Then why should he walk?He wouldn't walk.He swore it by this milestone!
It was the fifth from London,so far had they penetrated into the North.Submitting to the powerful chain of argument,Goodchild proposed a return to the Metropolis,and a falling back upon Euston Square Terminus.Thomas assented with alacrity,and so they walked down into the North by the next morning's express,and carried their knapsacks in the luggage-van.
It was like all other expresses,as every express is and must be.
It bore through the harvest country a smell like a large washing-day,and a sharp issue of steam as from a huge brazen tea-urn.The greatest power in nature and art combined,it yet glided over dangerous heights in the sight of people looking up from fields and roads,as smoothly and unreally as a light miniature plaything.