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On the Road to Salisbury
Harry Furniss
1910
14.6cm by 9.6 cm, vignetted
Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, TheCharles Dickens Library Edition, Chapter 42, "Continuation of the Enterprise of Mr. Jonas and His Friend," facing VII, 673.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"When I said to-night, that I wished I had never started on this journey," cried his master, "I knew it was an ill-fated one. Look at this boy!"
"Is that all?" growled Jonas. "If you call that a sign of it —"
"Why, what should I call a sign of it?" asked Montague, hurriedly. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," said Jonas, stooping down over the body, "that I never heard you were his father, or had any particular reason to care much about him. Halloa. Hold up there!"
But the boy was past holding up, or being held up, or giving any other sign of life than a faint and fitful beating of the heart. After some discussion the driver mounted the horse which had been least injured, and took the lad in his arms as well as he could; while Montague and Jonas, leading the other horse, and carrying a trunk between them, walked by his side towards Salisbury. [Chapter 42, "Continuation of the Enterprise of Mr. Jonas and His Friend," 671-72: the picture's original caption has been emphasized]
The sense of dread anticipation intensifies as Jonas attempts to murder his business partner, making the death of "Mr. Montague" look like a traffic accident. As Dickens moves towards the resolution of the Anglo-Bengalee swindle, Dickens maintains a high degree of suspense after Tigg's preventing Jonas and Mercy Chuzzlewit from catching the Antwerp steamer in London, and Jonas's growing more and more determined to free himself from his partner's gri
Once he has made his last big score, defrauding Seth Pecksniff, Montague Tigg intends to "decamp across the water" (669), enjoying his ill-gotten gains on the Continent, living the high life on the funds of numerous Anglo-Bengalee investors, while his partner, Jonas, suffers the legal consequences. He resolves to be wary of his partner, however, as he knows that "If he could kill me with a wish . . . I should not live long" (669). Their plan is to travel by chaise to Salisbury, then cross to Pecksniff's village the next morning. However, a lightning storm frightens the horses and leaves the carriage in a ditch, with both Jonas and Tigg temporarily unconscious. Awakening first, Jonas grabs the bridles of both steeds, hoping that in their anxiety they will trample his companion, lying senseless in the road. However, the driver's coming to consciousness foils Jonas's plan. However, although the three adults have survived with minor cuts and bruises, it appears that the accident has taken the life of Bailey, Montague's servant; mounting the horse that is uninjured, the driver takes the body of the boy in his arms, leaving Montague and Jonas to carry their heavy trunk as best as they can to Salisbury four miles away, leading the second horse. Jonas suggests that the driver ride off with Bailey to get him medical assistance, but Tigg is determined not to be left alone with his desperate partner. All three make their way slowly to their inn at Salisbury, where the tense mood of watchful suspicion intensifies.
The Furniss illustration is extremely low-key, as if, in contradiction to the violent action of Phiz's Mr. Jonas Exhibits his Presence of Mind (see below) for the same chapter in the original serial, Furniss means to let the text create the suspense and the illustration merely to set the scene, with a muddy, rain-soaked road and a gate to the right to suggest the London-to-Salisbury turnpike road. Far more dramatic is the April 1844 illustration of "Montague was lying senseless on the road when Jonas ran to the horses' heads; and, pulling at their bridles, set them struggling and plunging with such violence as brought their hoofs at every effort nearer to the skull of the prostrate man, and must have led in half a minute to his brains being dashed out on the highway" (Chapter 42, 670). Moreover, Furniss has chosen a much less engaging scene when, the three adults having recovered from the accident, Bailey's life hangs in the balance as Tigg (left) and Jonas (right), holding the trunk between them, trudge towards Salisbury, accompanied by the postillion on horseback (upper left). The artist creates considerable depth of field through the relative sizes of the horses along a lower-right-to-upper-left diagonal, with Jonas's head in the very centre of the composition.
The illustrator's challenge is to convey the inner tension between the two characters beneath the scene's tranquil surface. In the Household Edition, thirty-eight years prior to The Charles Dickens Library Edition, Fred Barnard aroused the reader's expectation that Jonas will be looking for an opportunity to murder his blackmailing partner in "Now, could you cut a man's throat with such a thing as this?" demanded Jonas (see below), thereby avoiding the possibility of competing with Phiz by attempting to deal with the carriage accident, for he knew that his old friend was a brilliant hand at drawing vigorous, prancing horses. Significantly, although Furniss reveals Jonas's expression in profile, he keeps from us the complicated emotions that the near-death experienced has aroused in Tigg.
Left: Phiz's realisation of Jonas's immediate reaction to Tigg's blackmailing him, Mr. Nadgett Breathes, as Usual, an Atmosphere of Mystery (Chapter 38, February 1844). Right: Phiz's dynamic realisation of Jonas's attempting to murder Tigg by having the horses trample him, Mr. Jonas Exhibits his Presence of Mind (April 1844). [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Above: Barnard's realisation of the scene in which Jonas contemplates simply slitting Tigg's throat, "Now, could you cut a man's throat with such a thing as this?" demanded Jonas (1872). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
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Created 3 February 2016
Last modified 23 January 2020