Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller

Similarly on this same head, the Uncommercial underwent

discomfiture from a Wiltshire labourer: a simple, fresh-coloured

farm-labourer, of eight-and-thirty, who at one time stood beside

him looking on at new arrivals, and with whom he held this

dialogue:

UNCOMMERCIAL. Would you mind my asking you what part of the

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country you come from?

WILTSHIRE. Not a bit. Theer! (exultingly) I’ve worked all my life

o’ Salisbury Plain, right under the shadder o’ Stonehenge. You

mightn’t think it, but I haive.

UNCOMMERCIAL. And a pleasant country too.

WILTSHIRE. Ah! ‘Tis a pleasant country.

UNCOMMERCIAL. Have you any family on board?

WILTSHIRE. Two children, boy and gal. I am a widderer, I am, and

I’m going out alonger my boy and gal. That’s my gal, and she’s a

fine gal o’ sixteen (pointing out the girl who is writing by the

boat). I’ll go and fetch my boy. I’d like to show you my boy.

(Here Wiltshire disappears, and presently comes back with a big,

shy boy of twelve, in a superabundance of boots, who is not at all

glad to be presented.) He is a fine boy too, and a boy fur to

work! (Boy having undutifully bolted, Wiltshire drops him.)

UNCOMMERCIAL. It must cost you a great deal of money to go so far,

three strong.

WILTSHIRE. A power of money. Theer! Eight shillen a week, eight

shillen a week, eight shillen a week, put by out of the week’s

wages for ever so long.

UNCOMMERCIAL. I wonder how you did it.

WILTSHIRE (recognising in this a kindred spirit). See theer now!

I wonder how I done it! But what with a bit o’ subscription heer,

and what with a bit o’ help theer, it were done at last, though I

don’t hardly know how. Then it were unfort’net for us, you see, as

we got kep’ in Bristol so long – nigh a fortnight, it were – on

accounts of a mistake wi’ Brother Halliday. Swaller’d up money, it

did, when we might have come straight on.

UNCOMMERCIAL (delicately approaching Joe Smith). You are of the

Mormon religion, of course?

WILTSHIRE (confidently). O yes, I’m a Mormon. (Then

reflectively.) I’m a Mormon. (Then, looking round the ship,

feigns to descry a particular friend in an empty spot, and evades

the Uncommercial for evermore.)

After a noontide pause for dinner, during which my Emigrants were

nearly all between-decks, and the Amazon looked deserted, a general

muster took place. The muster was for the ceremony of passing the

Government Inspector and the Doctor. Those authorities held their

temporary state amidships, by a cask or two; and, knowing that the

whole Eight hundred emigrants must come face to face with them, I

took my station behind the two. They knew nothing whatever of me,

I believe, and my testimony to the unpretending gentleness and good

nature with which they discharged their duty, may be of the greater

worth. There was not the slightest flavour of the Circumlocution

Office about their proceedings.

The emigrants were now all on deck. They were densely crowded aft,

and swarmed upon the poop-deck like bees. Two or three Mormon

agents stood ready to hand them on to the Inspector, and to hand

them forward when they had passed. By what successful means, a

special aptitude for organisation had been infused into these

people, I am, of course, unable to report. But I know that, even

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now, there was no disorder, hurry, or difficulty.

All being ready, the first group are handed on. That member of the

party who is entrusted with the passenger-ticket for the whole, has

been warned by one of the agents to have it ready, and here it is

in his hand. In every instance through the whole eight hundred,

without an exception, this paper is always ready.

INSPECTOR (reading the ticket). Jessie Jobson, Sophronia Jobson,

Jessie Jobson again, Matilda Jobson, William Jobson, Jane Jobson,

Matilda Jobson again, Brigham Jobson, Leonardo Jobson, and Orson

Jobson. Are you all here? (glancing at the party, over his

spectacles).

JESSIE JOBSON NUMBER TWO. All here, sir.

This group is composed of an old grandfather and grandmother, their