Charles Dickens

“ After a while I recognized the familiar way to Saint Albans. At Barnet fresh horses were ready for us, and we changed and went on. It was very cold indeed, and the open country was white with snow, though none was falling then.
“An old acquaintance of yours, this road, Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Bucket cheerfully.
“Yes,” I returned. “Have you gathered any intelligence?”
“None that can be quite depended on as yet,” he answered, “but it’s early times as yet.” ”

“ In my memory the lights upon the bridge are always burning dim, the cutting wind is eddying round the homeless woman whom we pass, the monotonous wheels are whirling on, and the light of the carriage- lamps reflected back looks palely in upon me—a face rising out of the dreaded water. ”

“ Bucket. “Bounds? Now, Miss Summerson, I’ll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful when you are happily married and have got a family about you. Whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in all concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are dead certain to collar it if they can. Whenever a person proclaims to you ‘In worldly matters I’m a child,’ you consider that that person is only a-crying off from being held accountable and that you have got that person’s number, and it’s Number One. ”

“ You keep yourself cool and equal for anything that may happen, and it’ll be the better for you, the better for me, the better for Lady Dedlock, and the better for Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.”
He was really very kind and gentle, and as he stood before the fire warming his boots and rubbing his face with his forefinger, I felt a confidence in his sagacity which reassured me. It was not yet a quarter to two when I heard horses’ feet and wheels outside. “Now, Miss Summerson,” said he, “we are off, if you please!” ”

“ We went on with toil enough, but the dismal roads were not much worse than they had been, and the stage was only nine miles. My companion smoking on the box—I had thought at the last inn of begging him to do so when I saw him standing at a great fire in a comfortable cloud of tobacco—was as vigilant as ever and as quickly down and up again when we came to any human abode or any human creature. He had lighted his little dark lantern, which seemed to be a favourite with him, for we had lamps to the carriage ”

“ Whenever you find a young man behind the kitchen-door, you give that young man in charge on suspicion of being secreted in a dwelling-house with an unlawful purpose.”
We were now in front of the house; he looked attentively and closely at the gravel for footprints before he raised his eyes to the windows.
“Do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room when he’s on a visit here, Miss Summerson?” he inquired, glancing at Mr. Skimpole’s usual chamber.
“You know Mr. Skimpole!” said I.
“What do you call him again?” returned Mr. Bucket, bending down his ear. “Skimpole, is it? ”

“ I was proceeding, when Jenny’s husband impatiently took me up.
“When she went from here, she went right away nor’ard by the high road. Ask on the road if you doubt me, and see if it warn’t so. Now, there’s the end. That’s all about it.”
I glanced at my companion, and finding that he had already risen and was ready to depart, thanked them for what they had told me, and took my leave. The woman looked full at Mr. Bucket as he went out, and he looked full at her.
“Now, Miss Summerson,” he said to me as we walked quickly away. “They’ve got her ladyship’s watch among ’em. That’s a positive fact.” ”

“ Bucket, “which is the only thing that can’t be spared in this case, I might get it out of that woman; but it’s too doubtful a chance to trust to under present circumstances. They are up to keeping a close eye upon her, and any fool knows that a poor creetur like her, beaten and kicked and scarred and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband that ill uses her through thick and thin. ”

“ With the same kind intention, manifestly, he often spoke to me of indifferent things, while his face was busy with the one object that we had in view. He still pursued this subject as we turned in at the garden-gate.
“Ah!” said Mr. Bucket. “Here we are, and a nice retired place it is. Puts a man in mind of the country house in the Woodpecker- tapping, that was known by the smoke which so gracefully curled. They’re early with the kitchen fire, and that denotes good servants. But what you’ve always got to be careful of with servants is who comes to see ’em ”

“ I had heard him ordering drink, and chinking money, and making himself agreeable and merry everywhere; but whenever he took his seat upon the box again, his face resumed its watchful steady look, and he always said to the driver in the same business tone, “Get on, my lad!”
With all these stoppages, it was between five and six o’clock and we were yet a few miles short of Saint Albans when he came out of one of these houses and handed me in a cup of tea.
“Drink it, Miss Summerson, it’ll do you good. You’re beginning to get more yourself now, ain’t you?” ”

“ Bucket thoughtfully came and warmed the soles of his boots, first one and then the other, at the fire.
“Are you well wrapped up, Miss Summerson?” he asked me as his eyes met mine. “It’s a desperate sharp night for a young lady to be out in.” ”

“ Now, I am not a poetical man myself, except in a vocal way when it goes round a company, but I’m a practical one, and that’s my experience. So’s this rule. Fast and loose in one thing, fast and loose in everything. ”

“ Look alive here with them horses. Send a man for’ard in the saddle to the next stage, and let him send another for’ard again, and order four on, up, right through. My darling, don’t you be afraid!”
These orders and the way in which he ran about the yard urging them caused a general excitement that was scarcely less bewildering to me than the sudden change. But in the height of the confusion, a mounted man galloped away to order the relays, and our horses were put to with great speed. ”

“ It could not be doubted that this was the truth.
“Then, Miss Summerson,” said my companion, “we can’t be too soon at the cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. Most inquiries there I leave to you, if you’ll be so good as to make ’em. The naturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is your own way.” ”

“ Bucket, who was the person entrusted with the secret. In taking me to him my guardian told me this, and also explained how it was that he had come to think of me. Mr. Bucket, in a low voice, by the light of my guardian’s candle, read to me in the hall a letter that my mother had left upon her table; and I suppose within ten minutes of my having been aroused I was sitting beside him, rolling swiftly through the streets. ”

“ The lady was upon a journey all alone, strange as we might think it, and could she rest herself where you’re a setten for a hour or so. Yes she could, and so she did. Then she went—it might be at twenty minutes past eleven, and it might be at twenty minutes past twelve; we ain’t got no watches here to know the time by, nor yet clocks. Where did she go? I don’t know where she go’d. She went one way, and Jenny went another; one went right to Lunnun, and t’other went right from it. That’s all about it. Ask this man. He heerd it all, and see it all. He knows. ”

“ Mr. Bucket took me in and sat me in an arm-chair by a bright fire. It was now past one, as I saw by the clock against the wall. Two police officers, looking in their perfectly neat uniform not at all like people who were up all night, were quietly writing at a desk; and the place seemed very quiet altogether, except for some beating and calling out at distant doors underground, to which nobody paid any attention.
A third man in uniform, whom Mr. Bucket called and to whom he whispered his instructions, went out; and then the two others advised together while one wrote from Mr. ”