There were still many things to be settled before the journey could be made. Mr Crawley, in his first plan, proposed that he should go up by night mail train, travelling in the third class, having walked over to Silverbridge to meet it; that he should then walk about London from 5am to 10am, and afterwards come down by an afternoon train to which a third class was also attached. But at last his wife persuaded him that such a task as that, performed in the middle of winter, would be enough to kill any man, and that, if attempted, it would certainly kill him; and he consented at last to sleep the night in town--being specially moved thereto by discovering that he could, in conformity with this scheme, get in and out of the train at a station considerably nearer to him than Silverbridge, and that he could get a return-ticket at a third-class fare. The whole journey, he found, could be done for a pound, allowing him seven shillings for his night's expenses in London; and out of the resources of the family there were produced two sovereigns, so that in the event of accident he would not utterly be a castaway from want of funds.
So he started on his journey after an early dinner, almost hopeful through the new excitement of a journey to London, and his wife walked with him nearly as far as the station. 'Do not reject my cousin's kindness,' were the last words she spoke.
'For his professional kindness, if he will extend it to me, I will be most thankful,' he replied. She did not dare to say more; nor had she dared to write privately to her cousin, asking for any special help, lest by doing so she should seem to impugn the sufficiency and stability of her husband's judgment. He got up to town late at night, and having made inquiry of one of the porters, he hired a bed for himself in the neighbourhood of the railway station. Here he had a cup of tea and a morsel of bread-and-butter, and in the morning he breakfasted again on the same fare. 'No I have no luggage,' he had said to the girl at the public-house, who had asked him as to his travelling gear. 'If luggage be needed as a certificate of respectability, I will pass on elsewhere,' said he. The girl stared, and assured him that she did not doubt his respectability. 'I am a clergyman of the Church of England,' he had said, 'but my circumstances prevent me from seeking a more expensive lodging.' They did their best to make him comfortable, and, I think, almost disappointed him in not heaping further misfortunes on his head.
He was in Raymond's Buildings at half-past nine, and for half an hour walked up and down the umbrageous pavement--it used to be umbrageous, but perhaps the trees have gone now--before the doors of the various chambers. He could hear the clock strike from Gray's Inn; and the moment that it had struck he was turning in, but was encountered in the passage by Mr Toogood, who was equally punctual with himself. Strange stories about Mr Crawley had reached Mr Toogood's household, and that Maria, the mention of whose Christian name had been so offensive to the clergyman, had begged her husband not to be a moment late. Poor Mr Toogood, who on ordinary days did perhaps take a few minutes' grace, was thus hurried away almost with his breakfast in his throat, and, as we have seen, just saved himself. 'Perhaps, sir, you are Mr Crawley?' he said, in a good-humoured, cheery voice. He was a good-humoured, cheery-looking man, about fifty years of age, with grizzled hair and sunburnt face, and large whiskers. Nobody would have taken him to be a partner in any of those great houses of which we have read in history--the Quirk, Gammon and Snaps of the profession, or the Dodson and Foggs, who are immortal.
'That is my name, sir,' said Mr Crawley, taking off his hat and bowing low, 'and I am here by appointment to meet Mr Toogood, the solicitor, whose name I see affixed upon the door-post.'
'I am Mr Toogood, the solicitor, and I hope to see you quite well, Mr Crawley.' Then the attorney shook hands with the clergyman and preceded him upstairs to the front room on the first floor. 'Here we are, Mr Crawley, and pray take a chair. I wish you could have made it convenient to come and see us at home. We are rather long, as my wife says--long in family, she means, and therefore are not very well off for spare beds--'
'Oh, sir.'
'I've twelve of 'em living, Mr Crawley--from eighteen years, the eldest--a girl, down to eighteen months the youngest--a boy, and they go in and out, boy and girl, boy and girl, like the cogs of a wheel. They ain't such far away distant cousins from your own young ones--only first, once, as we call it.'
'I am aware that there is a family tie, or I should not have ventured to trouble you.'
'Blood is thicker than water, isn't it? I often say that. I heard of one your girls only yesterday. She is staying somewhere down in the country, not far from where my sister lives--Mrs Eames, the widow of poor John Eames, who never did any good in this world. I daresay you've heard of her?'
'The name is familiar to me, Mr Toogood.'
'Of course it is. I've a nephew down there just now, and he saw your girl the other day;--very highly spoke of her too. Let me see;--how many do you have?'
'Three living, Mr Toogood.'
'I've just four times three;--that's the difference. But I comfort myself with the text about the quiver you know; and I tell them that when they've eat up all the butter, they'll have to take their bread dry.'
'I trust the young people take your teaching in the proper spirit.'
'I don't know much about spirit. There's spirit enough. My second girl, Lucy, told me that if I came here today without tickets for the pantomime I shouldn't have any dinner allowed me. That's the way they treat me. But we understand each other at home. We're all pretty good friends there, thank God. And there isn't a sick chick among the boiling.'
'You have many mercies for which you should indeed be thankful,' said Mr Crawley, gravely.