As Mr. Pickwick contemplated a stay of at least two months in Bath, hedeemed it advisable to take private lodgings for himself and friends forthat period; and as a favourable opportunity offered for their securing,on moderate terms, the upper portion of a house in the Royal Crescent,which was larger than they required, Mr. and Mrs. Dowler offered torelieve them of a bedroom and sitting-room. This proposition was at onceaccepted, and in three days' time they were all located in their newabode, when Mr. Pickwick began to drink the waters with the utmostassiduity. Mr. Pickwick took them systematically. He drank a quarter ofa pint before breakfast, and then walked up a hill; and another quarterof a pint after breakfast, and then walked down a hill; and, after everyfresh quarter of a pint, Mr. Pickwick declared, in the most solemn andemphatic terms, that he felt a great deal better; whereat his friendswere very much delighted, though they had not been previously aware thatthere was anything the matter with him.

The Great Pump Room is a spacious saloon, ornamented with Corinthianpillars, and a music-gallery, and a Tompion clock, and a statue of Nash,and a golden inscription, to which all the water-drinkers should attend,for it appeals to them in the cause of a deserving charity. There is alarge bar with a marble vase, out of which the pumper gets the water;and there are a number of yellow-looking tumblers, out of which thecompany get it; and it is a most edifying and satisfactory sight tobehold the perseverance and gravity with which they swallow it. Thereare baths near at hand, in which a part of the company wash themselves;and a band plays afterwards, to congratulate the remainder on theirhaving done so. There is another pump room, into which infirm ladiesand gentlemen are wheeled, in such an astonishing variety of chairs andchaises, that any adventurous individual who goes in with the regularnumber of toes, is in imminent danger of coming out without them; andthere is a third, into which the quiet people go, for it is less noisythan either. There is an immensity of promenading, on crutches andoff, with sticks and without, and a great deal of conversation, andliveliness, and pleasantry.

Every morning, the regular water-drinkers, Mr. Pickwick among thenumber, met each other in the pump room, took their quarter of apint, and walked constitutionally. At the afternoon's promenade, LordMutanhed, and the Honourable Mr. Crushton, the Dowager Lady Snuphanuph,Mrs. Colonel Wugsby, and all the great people, and all the morningwater-drinkers, met in grand assemblage. After this, they walked out, ordrove out, or were pushed out in bath-chairs, and met one another again.After this, the gentlemen went to the reading-rooms, and met divisionsof the mass. After this, they went home. If it were theatre-night,perhaps they met at the theatre; if it were assembly-night, they metat the rooms; and if it were neither, they met the next day. A verypleasant routine, with perhaps a slight tinge of sameness.

Mr. Pickwick was sitting up by himself, after a day spent in thismanner, making entries in his journal, his friends having retired tobed, when he was roused by a gentle tap at the room door.

'Beg your pardon, Sir,' said Mrs. Craddock, the landlady, peeping in;'but did you want anything more, sir?'

'Nothing more, ma'am,' replied Mr. Pickwick.

'My young girl is gone to bed, Sir,' said Mrs. Craddock; 'and Mr. Dowleris good enough to say that he'll sit up for Mrs. Dowler, as the partyisn't expected to be over till late; so I was thinking that if youwanted nothing more, Mr. Pickwick, I would go to bed.'

'By all means, ma'am,' replied Mr. Pickwick. 'Wish you good-night, Sir,'said Mrs. Craddock.

'Good-night, ma'am,' rejoined Mr. Pickwick.

Mrs. Craddock closed the door, and Mr. Pickwick resumed his writing.

In half an hour's time the entries were concluded. Mr. Pickwickcarefully rubbed the last page on the blotting-paper, shut up the book,wiped his pen on the bottom of the inside of his coat tail, and openedthe drawer of the inkstand to put it carefully away. There were a coupleof sheets of writing-paper, pretty closely written over, in the inkstanddrawer, and they were folded so, that the title, which was in a goodround hand, was fully disclosed to him. Seeing from this, that it wasno private document; and as it seemed to relate to Bath, and was veryshort: Mr. Pick-wick unfolded it, lighted his bedroom candle that itmight burn up well by the time he finished; and drawing his chair nearerthe fire, read as follows--

THE TRUE LEGEND OF PRINCE BLADUD

'Less than two hundred years ago, on one of the public baths in thiscity, there appeared an inscription in honour of its mighty founder, therenowned Prince Bladud. That inscription is now erased.

'For many hundred years before that time, there had been handed down,from age to age, an old legend, that the illustrious prince beingafflicted with leprosy, on his return from reaping a rich harvestof knowledge in Athens, shunned the court of his royal father, andconsorted moodily with husbandman and pigs. Among the herd (so said thelegend) was a pig of grave and solemn countenance, with whom the princehad a fellow-feeling--for he too was wise--a pig of thoughtful andreserved demeanour; an animal superior to his fellows, whose grunt wasterrible, and whose bite was sharp. The young prince sighed deeply ashe looked upon the countenance of the majestic swine; he thought of hisroyal father, and his eyes were bedewed with tears.

'This sagacious pig was fond of bathing in rich, moist mud. Not insummer, as common pigs do now, to cool themselves, and did even inthose distant ages (which is a proof that the light of civilisation hadalready begun to dawn, though feebly), but in the cold, sharp days ofwinter. His coat was ever so sleek, and his complexion so clear, thatthe prince resolved to essay the purifying qualities of the same waterthat his friend resorted to. He made the trial. Beneath that black mud,bubbled the hot springs of Bath. He washed, and was cured. Hasteningto his father's court, he paid his best respects, and returning quicklyhither, founded this city and its famous baths.

'He sought the pig with all the ardour of their early friendship--but,alas! the waters had been his death. He had imprudently taken a bath attoo high a temperature, and the natural philosopher was no more! He wassucceeded by Pliny, who also fell a victim to his thirst for knowledge.

'This was the legend. Listen to the true one.

'A great many centuries since, there flourished, in great state, thefamous and renowned Lud Hudibras, king of Britain. He was a mightymonarch. The earth shook when he walked--he was so very stout. Hispeople basked in the light of his countenance--it was so red andglowing. He was, indeed, every inch a king. And there were a goodmany inches of him, too, for although he was not very tall, he was aremarkable size round, and the inches that he wanted in height, he madeup in circumference. If any degenerate monarch of modern times could bein any way compared with him, I should say the venerable King Cole wouldbe that illustrious potentate.

'This good king had a queen, who eighteen years before, had had a son,who was called Bladud. He was sent to a preparatory seminary in hisfather's dominions until he was ten years old, and was then despatched,in charge of a trusty messenger, to a finishing school at Athens; andas there was no extra charge for remaining during the holidays, and nonotice required previous to the removal of a pupil, there he remainedfor eight long years, at the expiration of which time, the king hisfather sent the lord chamberlain over, to settle the bill, and to bringhim home; which, the lord chamberlain doing, was received with shouts,and pensioned immediately.

'When King Lud saw the prince his son, and found he had grown up such afine young man, he perceived what a grand thing it would be to havehim married without delay, so that his children might be the means ofperpetuating the glorious race of Lud, down to the very latest ages ofthe world. With this view, he sent a special embassy, composed ofgreat noblemen who had nothing particular to do, and wanted lucrativeemployment, to a neighbouring king, and demanded his fair daughter inmarriage for his son; stating at the same time that he was anxious to beon the most affectionate terms with his brother and friend, but that ifthey couldn't agree in arranging this marriage, he should be under theunpleasant necessity of invading his kingdom and putting his eyes out.To this, the other king (who was the weaker of the two) replied that hewas very much obliged to his friend and brother for all his goodnessand magnanimity, and that his daughter was quite ready to be married,whenever Prince Bladud liked to come and fetch her.

'This answer no sooner reached Britain, than the whole nation wastransported with joy. Nothing was heard, on all sides, but the sounds offeasting and revelry--except the chinking of money as it was paid inby the people to the collector of the royal treasures, to defray theexpenses of the happy ceremony. It was upon this occasion that King Lud,seated on the top of his throne in full council, rose, in the exuberanceof his feelings, and commanded the lord chief justice to order in therichest wines and the court minstrels--an act of graciousness which hasbeen, through the ignorance of traditionary historians, attributed toKing Cole, in those celebrated lines in which his Majesty is representedas

Calling for his pipe, and calling for his pot, And calling for his fiddlers three.

Which is an obvious injustice to the memory of King Lud, and a dishonestexaltation of the virtues of King Cole.

'But, in the midst of all this festivity and rejoicing, there was oneindividual present, who tasted not when the sparkling wines were pouredforth, and who danced not, when the minstrels played. This was no otherthan Prince Bladud himself, in honour of whose happiness a wholepeople were, at that very moment, straining alike their throats andpurse-strings. The truth was, that the prince, forgetting the undoubtedright of the minister for foreign affairs to fall in love on his behalf,had, contrary to every precedent of policy and diplomacy, already fallenin love on his own account, and privately contracted himself unto thefair daughter of a noble Athenian.

'Here we have a striking example of one of the manifold advantages ofcivilisation and refinement. If the prince had lived in later days, hemight at once have married the object of his father's choice, and thenset himself seriously to work, to relieve himself of the burden whichrested heavily upon him. He might have endeavoured to break her heart bya systematic course of insult and neglect; or, if the spirit of her sex,and a proud consciousness of her many wrongs had upheld her under thisill-treatment, he might have sought to take her life, and so get rid ofher effectually. But neither mode of relief suggested itself to PrinceBladud; so he solicited a private audience, and told his father.

'it is an old prerogative of kings to govern everything but theirpassions. King Lud flew into a frightful rage, tossed his crown up tothe ceiling, and caught it again--for in those days kings kept theircrowns on their heads, and not in the Tower--stamped the ground, rappedhis forehead, wondered why his own flesh and blood rebelled against him,and, finally, calling in his guards, ordered the prince away to instantConfinement in a lofty turret; a course of treatment which the kings ofold very generally pursued towards their sons, when their matrimonialinclinations did not happen to point to the same quarter as their own.

'When Prince Bladud had been shut up in the lofty turret for the greaterpart of a year, with no better prospect before his bodily eyes than astone wall, or before his mental vision than prolonged imprisonment, henaturally began to ruminate on a plan of escape, which, after monthsof preparation, he managed to accomplish; considerately leaving hisdinner-knife in the heart of his jailer, lest the poor fellow (who hada family) should be considered privy to his flight, and punishedaccordingly by the infuriated king.

'The monarch was frantic at the loss of his son. He knew not on whom tovent his grief and wrath, until fortunately bethinking himself of thelord chamberlain who had brought him home, he struck off his pension andhis head together.

'Meanwhile, the young prince, effectually disguised, wandered onfoot through his father's dominions, cheered and supported in all hishardships by sweet thoughts of the Athenian maid, who was the innocentcause of his weary trials. One day he stopped to rest in a countryvillage; and seeing that there were gay dances going forward on thegreen, and gay faces passing to and fro, ventured to inquire of areveller who stood near him, the reason for this rejoicing.

'"Know you not, O stranger," was the reply, "of the recent proclamationof our gracious king?"

'"Proclamation! No. What proclamation?" rejoined the prince--for he hadtravelled along the by and little-frequented ways, and knew nothing ofwhat had passed upon the public roads, such as they were.

'"Why," replied the peasant, "the foreign lady that our prince wishedto wed, is married to a foreign noble of her own country, and the kingproclaims the fact, and a great public festival besides; for now, ofcourse, Prince Bladud will come back and marry the lady his fatherchose, who they say is as beautiful as the noonday sun. Your health,sir. God save the king!"

'The prince remained to hear no more. He fled from the spot, and plungedinto the thickest recesses of a neighbouring wood. On, on, he wandered,night and day; beneath the blazing sun, and the cold pale moon; throughthe dry heat of noon, and the damp cold of night; in the gray light ofmorn, and the red glare of eve. So heedless was he of time or object,that being bound for Athens, he wandered as far out of his way as Bath.

'There was no city where Bath stands, then. There was no vestige ofhuman habitation, or sign of man's resort, to bear the name; but therewas the same noble country, the same broad expanse of hill and dale, thesame beautiful channel stealing on, far away, the same lofty mountainswhich, like the troubles of life, viewed at a distance, and partiallyobscured by the bright mist of its morning, lose their ruggedness andasperity, and seem all ease and softness. Moved by the gentle beauty ofthe scene, the prince sank upon the green turf, and bathed his swollenfeet in his tears.

'"Oh!" said the unhappy Bladud, clasping his hands, and mournfullyraising his eyes towards the sky, "would that my wanderings mightend here! Would that these grateful tears with which I now mourn hopemisplaced, and love despised, might flow in peace for ever!"

'The wish was heard. It was in the time of the heathen deities, who usedoccasionally to take people at their words, with a promptness, in somecases, extremely awkward. The ground opened beneath the prince's feet;he sank into the chasm; and instantaneously it closed upon his head forever, save where his hot tears welled up through the earth, and wherethey have continued to gush forth ever since.

'It is observable that, to this day, large numbers of elderly ladies andgentlemen who have been disappointed in procuring partners, and almostas many young ones who are anxious to obtain them, repair annuallyto Bath to drink the waters, from which they derive much strength andcomfort. This is most complimentary to the virtue of Prince Bladud'stears, and strongly corroborative of the veracity of this legend.'

Mr. Pickwick yawned several times when he had arrived at the end of thislittle manuscript, carefully refolded, and replaced it in the inkstanddrawer, and then, with a countenance expressive of the utmost weariness,lighted his chamber candle, and went upstairs to bed. He stopped at Mr.Dowler's door, according to custom, and knocked to say good-night.

'Ah!' said Dowler, 'going to bed? I wish I was. Dismal night. Windy;isn't it?'

'Very,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'Good-night.'

'Good-night.'

Mr. Pickwick went to his bedchamber, and Mr. Dowler resumed his seatbefore the fire, in fulfilment of his rash promise to sit up till hiswife came home.

There are few things more worrying than sitting up for somebody,especially if that somebody be at a party. You cannot help thinking howquickly the time passes with them, which drags so heavily with you; andthe more you think of this, the more your hopes of their speedy arrivaldecline. Clocks tick so loud, too, when you are sitting up alone, andyou seem as if you had an under-garment of cobwebs on. First, somethingtickles your right knee, and then the same sensation irritates yourleft. You have no sooner changed your position, than it comes againin the arms; when you have fidgeted your limbs into all sorts of queershapes, you have a sudden relapse in the nose, which you rub as if torub it off--as there is no doubt you would, if you could. Eyes, too, aremere personal inconveniences; and the wick of one candle gets an inchand a half long, while you are snuffing the other. These, and variousother little nervous annoyances, render sitting up for a length of timeafter everybody else has gone to bed, anything but a cheerful amusement.

This was just Mr. Dowler's opinion, as he sat before the fire, and felthonestly indignant with all the inhuman people at the party who werekeeping him up. He was not put into better humour either, by thereflection that he had taken it into his head, early in the evening, tothink he had got an ache there, and so stopped at home. At length, afterseveral droppings asleep, and fallings forward towards the bars, andcatchings backward soon enough to prevent being branded in the face, Mr.Dowler made up his mind that he would throw himself on the bed in theback room and think--not sleep, of course.

'I'm a heavy sleeper,' said Mr. Dowler, as he flung himself on the bed.'I must keep awake. I suppose I shall hear a knock here. Yes. I thoughtso. I can hear the watchman. There he goes. Fainter now, though. Alittle fainter. He's turning the corner. Ah!' When Mr. Dowler arrived atthis point, he turned the corner at which he had been long hesitating,and fell fast asleep.

Just as the clock struck three, there was blown into the crescent asedan-chair with Mrs. Dowler inside, borne by one short, fat chairman,and one long, thin one, who had had much ado to keep their bodiesperpendicular: to say nothing of the chair. But on that high ground,and in the crescent, which the wind swept round and round as if it weregoing to tear the paving stones up, its fury was tremendous. They werevery glad to set the chair down, and give a good round loud double-knockat the street door.

They waited some time, but nobody came.

'Servants is in the arms o' Porpus, I think,' said the short chairman,warming his hands at the attendant link-boy's torch.

'I wish he'd give 'em a squeeze and wake 'em,' observed the long one.

'Knock again, will you, if you please,' cried Mrs. Dowler from thechair. 'Knock two or three times, if you please.'

The short man was quite willing to get the job over, as soon aspossible; so he stood on the step, and gave four or five most startlingdouble-knocks, of eight or ten knocks a-piece, while the long man wentinto the road, and looked up at the windows for a light.

Nobody came. It was all as silent and dark as ever.

'Dear me!' said Mrs. Dowler. 'You must knock again, if you please.''There ain't a bell, is there, ma'am?' said the short chairman.

'Yes, there is,' interposed the link-boy, 'I've been a-ringing at itever so long.'

'It's only a handle,' said Mrs. Dowler, 'the wire's broken.'

'I wish the servants' heads wos,' growled the long man.

'I must trouble you to knock again, if you please,' said Mrs. Dowler,with the utmost politeness.

The short man did knock again several times, without producing thesmallest effect. The tall man, growing very impatient, then relievedhim, and kept on perpetually knocking double-knocks of two loud knockseach, like an insane postman.

At length Mr. Winkle began to dream that he was at a club, and that themembers being very refractory, the chairman was obliged to hammer thetable a good deal to preserve order; then he had a confused notion of anauction room where there were no bidders, and the auctioneer was buyingeverything in; and ultimately he began to think it just within thebounds of possibility that somebody might be knocking at the streetdoor. To make quite certain, however, he remained quiet in bed forten minutes or so, and listened; and when he had counted two orthree-and-thirty knocks, he felt quite satisfied, and gave himself agreat deal of credit for being so wakeful.

'Rap rap-rap rap-rap rap-ra, ra, ra, ra, ra, rap!' went the knocker.

Mr. Winkle jumped out of bed, wondering very much what could possiblybe the matter, and hastily putting on his stockings and slippers, foldedhis dressing-gown round him, lighted a flat candle from the rush-lightthat was burning in the fireplace, and hurried downstairs.

'Here's somebody comin' at last, ma'am,' said the short chairman.

'I wish I wos behind him vith a bradawl,' muttered the long one.

'Who's there?' cried Mr. Winkle, undoing the chain.

'Don't stop to ask questions, cast-iron head,' replied the long man,with great disgust, taking it for granted that the inquirer was afootman; 'but open the door.'

'Come, look sharp, timber eyelids,' added the other encouragingly.

Mr. Winkle, being half asleep, obeyed the command mechanically, openedthe door a little, and peeped out. The first thing he saw, was the redglare of the link-boy's torch. Startled by the sudden fear that thehouse might be on fire, he hastily threw the door wide open, and holdingthe candle above his head, stared eagerly before him, not quite certainwhether what he saw was a sedan-chair or a fire-engine. At this instantthere came a violent gust of wind; the light was blown out; Mr. Winklefelt himself irresistibly impelled on to the steps; and the door blewto, with a loud crash.

'Well, young man, now you HAVE done it!' said the short chairman.

Mr. Winkle, catching sight of a lady's face at the window of the sedan,turned hastily round, plied the knocker with all his might and main, andcalled frantically upon the chairman to take the chair away again.

'Take it away, take it away,' cried Mr. Winkle. 'Here's somebody comingout of another house; put me into the chair. Hide me! Do something withme!'

All this time he was shivering with cold; and every time he raisedhis hand to the knocker, the wind took the dressing-gown in a mostunpleasant manner.

'The people are coming down the crescent now. There are ladies with 'em;cover me up with something. Stand before me!' roared Mr. Winkle. Butthe chairmen were too much exhausted with laughing to afford him theslightest assistance, and the ladies were every moment approachingnearer and nearer. Mr. Winkle gave a last hopeless knock; the ladieswere only a few doors off. He threw away the extinguished candle, which,all this time he had held above his head, and fairly bolted into thesedan-chair where Mrs. Dowler was.

Now, Mrs. Craddock had heard the knocking and the voices at last; and,only waiting to put something smarter on her head than her nightcap,ran down into the front drawing-room to make sure that it was the rightparty. Throwing up the window-sash as Mr. Winkle was rushing into thechair, she no sooner caught sight of what was going forward below, thanshe raised a vehement and dismal shriek, and implored Mr. Dowler to getup directly, for his wife was running away with another gentleman.

Upon this, Mr. Dowler bounced off the bed as abruptly as an India-rubberball, and rushing into the front room, arrived at one window just as Mr.Pickwick threw up the other, when the first object that met the gaze ofboth, was Mr. Winkle bolting into the sedan-chair.

'Watchman,' shouted Dowler furiously, 'stop him--hold him--keep himtight--shut him in, till I come down. I'll cut his throat--give me aknife--from ear to ear, Mrs. Craddock--I will!' And breaking from theshrieking landlady, and from Mr. Pickwick, the indignant husband seizeda small supper-knife, and tore into the street. But Mr. Winkle didn'twait for him. He no sooner heard the horrible threat of the valorousDowler, than he bounced out of the sedan, quite as quickly as he hadbounced in, and throwing off his slippers into the road, took to hisheels and tore round the crescent, hotly pursued by Dowler and thewatchman. He kept ahead; the door was open as he came round the secondtime; he rushed in, slammed it in Dowler's face, mounted to his bedroom,locked the door, piled a wash-hand-stand, chest of drawers, and a tableagainst it, and packed up a few necessaries ready for flight with thefirst ray of morning.

Dowler came up to the outside of the door; avowed, through the keyhole,his steadfast determination of cutting Mr. Winkle's throat next day;and, after a great confusion of voices in the drawing-room, amidst whichthat of Mr. Pickwick was distinctly heard endeavouring to make peace,the inmates dispersed to their several bed-chambers, and all was quietonce more.

It is not unlikely that the inquiry may be made, where Mr. Weller was,all this time? We will state where he was, in the next chapter.