Jericho

“ Jericho.
“My love,” said Jericho: “I have acted weakly—I own it. Condescending to the prejudices of society, in a rash moment, I consented to fight a duel.”
“The rumour, Solomon, had reached me; but I would not reproach you: no; I have struggled with my feelings, and been silent. You cared not to make me a widow,” said Mrs. Jericho, “but heaven knows I forgive you.”
“I received my adversary’s ball here,”—said Jericho, spreading his hand over his heart. “A poor man must have been killed, but there is a fate that watches over property. ”

“ Mizzlemist delivered himself with such energy, that at the same time he struck the fork between the bones of Jericho’s right hand, pinning it where it lay. The planted weapon trembled in the mahogany. Mr. Jericho’s head was at the moment turned aside. A shout from the company proclaimed some calamity. Mr. Jericho slowly turning, saw the fork still quivering in his flesh. He calmly withdrew the weapon from the wood, laid it down, passed his palm over his bloodless hand, and with a smile said—“It’s nothing.” ”

“ Jericho. “They’re wearing him to a shadow. He’ll never be himself so long as he’s in that horrid Commons. He must retire into the Upper House. He’s losing all his substance in Acts of Parliament. And what—what indeed does anybody care? Except ourselves,” said Mrs. Jericho, with self-correction—“except ourselves. And, dear Sir Arthur, I know your friendship—I know your sympathy: that Mr. Jericho, in all his trials, in all his anxieties for the country, that he may always depend upon.” ”

“ Jericho drew himself up. “Pardon me, my dear friend—I”—Candituft struggled with his feelings; at length, he fell upon Jericho’s neck, and in an agony of friendship exclaimed—“Worthiest of beings! Best of creatures! You must fight!”
Jericho was a little subdued by such devotion.—“You really think I must fight?”
“Do you think,” said Candituft, “that the Duke of St. George would suffer a man who refused a challenge to sully the door-step of Red Dragon House? Noblest of men as he is, and kindest of the human race, he would feel it to be his duty to spit upon you. ”

“ Mrs. Jericho remained the undisputed possessor of the last word. With a despairing twitch, Jericho had again seized the newspaper. “Well, then”—said the wife—“it is no use my wasting my time; I will write to the Carraways that we shan’t come.”
“You will do just as you please, I am sure, my dear. You always do,” said Jericho.
“Not I indeed; oh dear no. But, I dare say, your wife out of doors does as she likes; I have no doubt of that. I am sure, again and again have I wished I had been a Hindoo wife; then I had sacrificed myself upon the pyre and been happy—but I am rightly served.” ”

“ Jericho—are noble presences to contemplate. What—observed that intellectual woman—what would the little birds of the air, the robin-redbreasts and all the family of finches, do—were there no cedars with hospitable boughs and twigs to house and roost them? And what would become of the poor and the weak, were there no Jerichos to protect and comfort them? Mr. Jericho was, doubtless, much delighted as he pondered the question.
It must be owned that the genius of money has a liking for fair play. Now and then, it takes pleasure in equity. ”

“ Because, don’t let me blame the postman,” said Basil.
“I did not answer it, young man,” cried Jericho with his best emphasis. “Where nothing is to be said, I take it, silence is the best reply. In a word, I will not advance a single farthing.”
“Not to assist your old friend Carraways?” cried Basil.
“He was never any friend of mine; a mere acquaintance,” said Jericho impatiently.
“To be sure; friendship in ill-luck turns to mere acquaintance. The wine of life—as I’ve heard it called—goes into vinegar; and folks that hugged the bottle, shirk the cruet.” ”

“ I like this,” cried Carraways. “Well, I do think that young folks never look so happy or so handsome as when they’re making hay. What say you, Mrs. Jericho?”
“I was ever of that sentiment,” said Mrs. Jericho, with one of her fullest smiles. “’Tis so pastoral—so innocent; so far away from the fastidious conventionalities of life.” And then Mrs. Jericho darkly frowned, and suddenly squeezing her daughter Monica by the arm, and whispering anxiously between her maternal teeth, cried—“That never can be your sister, Agatha!” ”

“ It is hardly possible to imagine the poverty and wretchedness of the inhabitants, whose filth and squalor are in keeping with the mud-huts in which they live. This must be the Jericho to which we sometimes dismiss "friends" whose presence we do not absolutely require. How often have I wished one and another of my acquaintances — I will not say my enemies — "in Jericho"! It is the general limbo to which we consign all bores and uncomfortable people. And now I was "in Jericho" myself. ”

“ Now, of a second floor, of Primrose Place.”
“Ha! ha! Well, now, I like that,” cried Jericho. “I like a man who can play with fortune. I like a man who, when the wench—she’s a queer cat, fortune, isn’t she, Mr. Gilbert Carraways?—when she spatters him with mud, can give her as good as she sends. Ha! ha! Well, if you have been covered with dirt, you’re merry still. But, why haven’t you come to see me?” asked Jericho with a sneer. ”

“ Jericho knew it was no time to pursue the subject, and she contemplated, with some anxiety, the deepening gravity of Candituft—“my dear Jericho, we will say no more upon the matter. In your present merry humour, you care nothing for people’s affections. You play what tune you please on people’s heartstrings. ”

“ Jericho; as your wife and daughters”—said the lady, “we ought to go drest.”
“Why, yes, my dear”—said Jericho—“’twould look very particular, if you didn’t. He! he!”
“I admire wit, true wit, Mr. Jericho,” said the lady, with a pitying smile; “but no real gentleman ever descends to humour. Major Pennibacker never—but that is not the question. In a word, Mr. Jericho, your wife and daughters have no clothes to go in. Therefore, as you have decided to accept the invitation, may I ask, when can you let me have some money?”
Jericho dropt the paper, pushed himself from the table, and groaned. ”

“ It is difficult—we feel the task—very difficult to obtain belief for the assertion; nevertheless, as faithful chroniclers, we must at any peril make it. The ladies are Mrs. Jericho and her two daughters, Miss Monica and Miss Agatha Pennibacker; the gentleman is Mr. Solomon Jericho.
No, sir; we are not abashed at your look of incredulity; we expected it. We had no thought that, at the word, you would take our avowal for the truth; the folks are, every one of them, so changed; so refined, and yet withal so enlarged. Mrs. Jericho was always a woman of commanding presence ”

“ Jericho; “I have every confidence in you, my dear sir; and so has Mr. Jericho.”
“Any amount of confidence,” said the Man of Money. “Any amount.”
“And as Monica has fixed her heart upon the union”—
“’Twould be a great pity,” said Jericho, determined upon his humour, “to baulk a bold intention. Why, Mr. Candituft, the young lady is such a treasure in herself, that, upon my word, I think you ought, when you marry her, to remunerate us for our loss. It has always seemed to me that certain savages—as they are shamefully called—have the advantage of us in their habits of marriage.” ”

“ People differ on the point devilishly.” Mrs. Jericho stared. “What do you think I heard? Why, that the heart of Lady Malypense—’twas that bitter fellow Thrush who said it—that her heart was like a jewel cushion; merely a thing to stick finery upon.” Mrs. Jericho looked wounded incredulity. “Oh, I don’t believe it. I only tell you how folks gabble about hearts. Ha! ha! every man talks of his neighbour’s heart, as though it was his own watch.—A thing to be seen in all its works; and abused for irregular going. I always laugh when I hear a man talk of another man’s heart. ”

“ Jericho to her emphatic first-born.
“Oh, mustn’t I, though?” cried Basil. “It’s as little as I can do. Ha! you don’t know the lot of people that’s asking me. Bless you! they ask a hundred times to my once. Well, will old Jericho tip the loyalty? Did you give him my sentiment, mother, eh? Money—money’s like the air you breathe; if you have it not you die. Have you brought me the beggarly allowance?—If I don’t blush a hole in my cheek to take it! It’s disgusting. A hundred a year! Not enough to keep a blind man in dogs.”
“My dear Basil, where do you imbibe such extraordinary parallels?” ”

“ Gilbert Carraways, there’s no telling what one may come to.”
“No, Solomon Jericho,” said the merchant. “Still, just now, you must have one comfort; you can’t come to less than you are.” Jericho called up all his thunder to his brows. “Surely,” said Carraways tranquilly, as though he was speaking of some monstrous abortion of nature—“surely, ’tis wonderful! Why, my good man”—
“Good man!” roared Jericho.
“My good man,” and Carraways doggedly repeated the epithet, “where do you put your heart? Why, it can’t be as big as a poppy-seed. Do you ever walk out in the air? ”

“ As I’m alive, you don’t look a shilling in the pound of yourself.”
“Looks, sir—looks,”—said Jericho, with a dignity that did his wife’s heart good—“are the cheats of the simple. If, however, I do look thin, be assured I’ve my own private reasons for it. May I have the pleasure, madam?”—and Jericho offered his arm to Miss Candituft, her brother having introduced [Pg 67] Jericho, and being with his sister introduced to Jericho’s wife and daughter in honourable return. Jericho made for a distant crowd, gathered about the juggler. ”

“ Jericho. “I’ve no doubt you deserve to remember it. I shouldn’t wonder.”
“You don’t know, my dear Sabilla”—Mrs. Jericho trod the room anew, impatient of such daring familiarity—“you don’t know what I’ve suffered. Such an extraordinary dream! I feel it now. It has almost killed me with bile. But it’s the usual case with me. An uncomfortable dream always does. Killed with bile.” ”

“ The scenery became so wild and grand as to satisfy even him. We got the glorious view of the plains of Jericho from the top of the steep descent, and stood still for some time to look. Papa said it was a noble view; but to me it was so full of the riches of association that I could hardly feast upon it enough. Down there, Jericho of old had stood and fallen; when the priests and the people of Israel compassed it about with trumpets of victory. There, or over against it, the Jordan had been divided to let the people pass over. In later days Elijah and Elisha had gone over single-handed. ”

“ Jericho’s. And only to think, if when you was at chapel, the cherry-coloured satin should turn upon your very back to sackcloth and ashes!”
“Breeks, my love,” said the wife with sudden energy, “I’ll risk it.”
“Mr. Jericho”—said the tailor—“is shamefully abused. ’Cause they can’t find a hole in his coat, they pick one in his heart. See, too, what we owe him! Any other man, when he got rich, would have left the tailor of his struggling years; would have cut him off like an end o’ thread,—and gone to the west. Has Mr. Jericho done so?” ”

“ Your hopeful son is going to marry Bessy.”
“Impossible! He cannot mean it,” cried Mrs. Jericho. “It is a mere folly of youth that he will outlive—that he must outlive. The fact is, my dear Jericho, we must send him abroad.”
“We needn’t trouble ourselves. In a few months he will be directly under my foot.” Mrs. Jericho stared. “At the antipodes, my dear; at the antipodes,” and Jericho rubbed his hands at the prospect.
“And that Carraways—oh, it’s a pretty plan, I see, to provide for the daughter—that Carraways came here to tell you this?” ”

“ Yet Jericho, from the first hour of his change, never felt so strong in himself; so insolently vigorous in mind and body. It was clear he should live for ever: he had been made immortal by money (not so uncommon a creed this) . Death was to be awed like the human vulgar, and to pay respect to wealth. The principle of property was to flourish everlastingly in him, Solomon Jericho! ”

“ Jericho believed she had no such creatures in her house.
Well, the two fleas having jumped upon the brow of Jericho, we shall, without any scruple, make use of them. They stand above the brain of the sleeper, and—being descended from the fleas of Æsop—shall, for the nonce, be made to narrate to the reader the vision of the dreaming victim.
[Pg 19]
“Miserable race!”—said the father flea, with its beautiful bright eye shining pitifully upon Jericho—“Miserable craving race! You hear, my son; man, in his greed, never knows when he has wherewithal. He gorges to gluttony, he drinks to drunkenness ”

“ Jericho in a tone of tender remonstrance, “do not be so extravagant. And you hurt your sisters; you do, indeed. A man”—and Mrs. Jericho took breath for a great utterance—“a man never so beautifully shows his own strength, as when he respects our softness.”
“No, indeed;” said the young ladies, speaking and shaking their heads in sympathy. “No!”
“I’ve a whole bank of respect in me, ma’am”—and Basil spread his fingers over his breast—“but I don’t pay a penn’orth of it to forged drafts. Now, softness is one thing; and—my dear parent I am quite prepared to prove what I say—and gammon is another.” ”

“ Jericho.)
“Then there’s this house and all its lumbering trumpery. And—and—that cursed hermitage you made me buy for the time I was to be Prime Minister of England.”—
(“Oh—that Doctor Stubbs would make a morning call!” silently prayed the wife.)
“I shall turn all—all into fighting men. And such men! [Pg 240] Ha! ha! they are never killed; no—no; they multiply. Yes—yes”—and Jericho bent his head, and joined his hands, “they increase and multiply.”—
(“He shall not be left alone,” determined Mrs. Jericho, with a shiver.) ”