'Ay! But I mean with a will.'
'I have no will. That is to say,'--he coloured a little,--'next to none
that I can put in action now. Trained by main force; broken, not bent;
heavily ironed with an object on which I was never consulted and which
was never mine; shipped away to the other end of the world before I
was of age, and exiled there until my father's death there, a year ago;
always grinding in a mill I always hated; what is to be expected from me
in middle life? Will, purpose, hope? All those lights were extinguished
before I could sound the words.'
'Light 'em up again!' said Mr Meagles.
'Ah! Easily said. I am the son, Mr Meagles, of a hard father and
mother. I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced
everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced,
had no existence. Strict people as the phrase is, professors of a stern
religion, their very religion was a gloomy sacrifice of tastes and
sympathies that were never their own, offered up as a part of a bargain
for the security of their possessions. Austere faces, inexorable
discipline, penance in this world and terror in the next--nothing
graceful or gentle anywhere, and the void in my cowed heart
everywhere--this was my childhood, if I may so misuse the word as to
apply it to such a beginning of life.'
'Really though?' said Mr Meagles, made very uncomfortable by the picture
offered to his imagination. 'That was a tough commencement. But come!
You must now study, and profit by, all that lies beyond it, like a
practical man.' 'If the people who are usually called practical, were practical in your
direction--' 'Why, so they are!' said Mr Meagles. 'Are they indeed?' 'Well, I suppose so,' returned Mr Meagles, thinking about it. 'Eh? One can but be practical, and Mrs Meagles and myself are nothing else.' 'My unknown course is easier and more helpful than I had expected to
find it, then,' said Clennam, shaking his head with his grave smile.
'Enough of me. Here is the boat.'
The boat was filled with the cocked hats to which Mr Meagles entertained
a national objection; and the wearers of those cocked hats landed
and came up the steps, and all the impounded travellers congregated
together. There was then a mighty production of papers on the part of
the cocked hats, and a calling over of names, and great work of signing,
sealing, stamping, inking, and sanding, with exceedingly blurred,
gritty, and undecipherable results. Finally, everything was done
according to rule, and the travellers were at liberty to depart
whithersoever they would.