Dickensian Inns & TavernsMatz, B. W. (Bertram Waldrom)
History
Dickensian Inns & Taverns
Matz, B. W. (Bertram Waldrom)
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 -- Settings; Taverns (Inns) -- England
This was the occasion, and the Black Bull the place, where Mrs. Gamp gave
utterance to her famous piece of philosophy: "What a blessed thing it
is--living in a wale--to be contented."
Without following Mrs. Gamp through the details of her effort to help the
patient to convalescence--albeit those efforts were peculiar to herself
and have a unique interest on that account--we need only record that, in
spite of her assurance that, "of all the trying invalieges in this walley
of the shadder, that one beats 'em black and blue," Mr. Lewsome was
eventually able to be moved into the country and Mrs. Gamp was deputed to
accompany him there by coach.
"Arriving at the tavern, Mrs. Gamp (who was full-dressed for the journey,
in her latest suit of mourning) left her friends to entertain themselves
in the yard, while she ascended to the sick-room, where her
fellow-labourer, Mrs. Prig, was dressing the invalid," who was ultimately
assisted downstairs to the coach, just then on the point of starting.
"It was a troublesome matter to adjust Mrs. Gamp's luggage to her
satisfaction; for every package belonging to that lady had the
inconvenient property of requiring to be put in a boot by itself, and to
have no other luggage near it, on pain of actions at law for heavy damages
against the proprietors of the coach. The umbrella with the circular patch
was particularly hard to be got rid of, and several times thrust out its
battered brass nozzle from improper crevices and chinks, to the great
terror of the other passengers. Indeed, in her intense anxiety to find a
haven of refuge for this chattel, Mrs. Gamp so often moved it, in the
course of five minutes, that it seemed not one umbrella but fifty. At
length it was lost, or said to be; and for the next five minutes she was
face to face with the coachman, go wherever he might, protesting that it
should be 'made good' though she took the question to the House of
Commons.
"At last, her bundle, and her pattens, and her basket, and everything
else, being disposed of, she took a friendly leave of Poll and Mr.
Bailey, dropped a curtsy to John Westlock, and parted as from a cherished
member of the sisterhood with Betsey Prig.
"'Wishin' you lots of sickness, my darling creetur,' Mrs. Gamp observed,
'and good places. It won't be long, I hope, before we works together, off
and on, again, Betsey: and may our next meetin' be at a large family's,
where they all takes it reg'lar, one from another, turn and turn about,
and has it businesslike.'"
And so the coach rolled out of the Bull yard with Mrs. Gamp and her charge
comfortably seated within, amidst a cloud of bustle and commotion,
terminating events which have left their mark for all time on the history
of the famous Dickensian tavern.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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