The Haunted Man and the Ghosts Bargain | Page 4

said Mr. Swidger. "That's what I always say, sir. You may

call him the trunk of the tree!--Bread. Then you come to his successor,
my unworthy self--Salt--and Mrs. William, Swidgers both.--Knife and
fork. Then you come to all my brothers and their families, Swidgers,
man and woman, boy and girl. Why, what with cousins, uncles, aunts,
and relationships of this, that, and t'other degree, and whatnot degree,
and marriages, and lyings-in, the Swidgers--Tumbler--might take hold
of hands, and make a ring round England!"
Receiving no reply at all here, from the thoughtful man whom he
addressed, Mr. William approached, him nearer, and made a feint of
accidentally knocking the table with a decanter, to rouse him. The
moment he succeeded, he went on, as if in great alacrity of
acquiescence.
"Yes, sir! That's just what I say myself, sir. Mrs. William and me have
often said so. 'There's Swidgers enough,' we say, 'without OUR
voluntary contributions,'--Butter. In fact, sir, my father is a family in
himself--Castors--to take care of; and it happens all for the best that we
have no child of our own, though it's made Mrs. William rather
quiet-like, too. Quite ready for the fowl and mashed potatoes, sir? Mrs.
William said she'd dish in ten minutes when I left the Lodge."
"I am quite ready," said the other, waking as from a dream, and
walking slowly to and fro.
"Mrs. William has been at it again, sir!" said the keeper, as he stood
warming a plate at the fire, and pleasantly shading his face with it. Mr.
Redlaw stopped in his walking, and an expression of interest appeared
in him.
"What I always say myself, sir. She WILL do it! There's a motherly
feeling in Mrs. William's breast that must and will have went."
"What has she done?"
"Why, sir, not satisfied with being a sort of mother to all the young
gentlemen that come up from a variety of parts, to attend your courses
of lectures at this ancient foundation--its surprising how stone-chaney
catches the heat this frosty weather, to be sure!" Here he turned the
plate, and cooled his fingers.
"Well?" said Mr. Redlaw.
"That's just what I say myself, sir," returned Mr. William, speaking
over his shoulder, as if in ready and delighted assent. "That's exactly
where it is, sir! There ain't one of our students but appears to regard

Mrs. William in that light. Every day, right through the course, they
puts their heads into the Lodge, one after another, and have all got
something to tell her, or something to ask her. 'Swidge' is the
appellation by which they speak of Mrs. William in general, among
themselves, I'm told; but that's what I say, sir. Better be called ever so
far out of your name, if it's done in real liking, than have it made ever
so much of, and not cared about! What's a name for? To know a person
by. If Mrs. William is known by something better than her name--I
allude to Mrs. William's qualities and disposition--never mind her name,
though it IS Swidger, by rights. Let 'em call her Swidge, Widge,
Bridge--Lord! London Bridge, Blackfriars, Chelsea, Putney, Waterloo,
or Hammersmith Suspension--if they like."
The close of this triumphant oration brought him and the plate to the
table, upon which he half laid and half dropped it, with a lively sense of
its being thoroughly heated, just as the subject of his praises entered the
room, bearing another tray and a lantern, and followed by a venerable
old man with long grey hair.
Mrs. William, like Mr. William, was a simple, innocent-looking person,
in whose smooth cheeks the cheerful red of her husband's official
waistcoat was very pleasantly repeated. But whereas Mr. William's
light hair stood on end all over his head, and seemed to draw his eyes
up with it in an excess of bustling readiness for anything, the dark
brown hair of Mrs. William was carefully smoothed down, and waved
away under a trim tidy cap, in the most exact and quiet manner
imaginable. Whereas Mr. William's very trousers hitched themselves
up at the ankles, as if it were not in their iron-grey nature to rest
without looking about them, Mrs. William's neatly-flowered skirts--red
and white, like her own pretty face--were as composed and orderly, as
if the very wind that blew so hard out of doors could not disturb one of
their folds. Whereas his coat had something of a fly-away and half-off
appearance about the collar and breast, her little bodice was so placid
and neat, that there should have been protection for her, in it, had she
needed any, with the roughest people. Who could have had the heart to
make so calm a bosom swell with grief, or throb with fear, or flutter
with a