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The Murderer has his Victim in his Net
Harry Furniss
1910
13.9 x 9 cm, vignetted
Dickens's Master Humphrey's Clock, completes Vol. 6 of the Charles Dickens Library Edition; facing page 39.
"I stole down after him, creeping under certain shrubs which grow in that place. And none but devils know with what terror I, a strong, full-grown man, tracked the footsteps of that baby as he approached the water’s brink."
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Then I withdrew to a secret place, which he must pass if he stole away alone to swim this bauble, and lurked there for his coming. He came neither that day nor the next, though I waited from noon till nightfall. I was sure that I had him in my net, for I had heard him prattling of the toy, and knew that in his infant pleasure he kept it by his side in bed. I felt no weariness or fatigue, but waited patiently, and on the third day he passed me, running joyously along, with his silken hair streaming in the wind, and he singing — God have mercy upon me! — singing a merry ballad, — who could hardly lisp the words.
I stole down after him, creeping under certain shrubs which grow in that place, and none but devils know with what terror I, a strong, full-grown man, tracked the footsteps of that baby as he approached the water’s brink. I was close upon him, had sunk upon my knee and raised my hand to thrust him in, when he saw my shadow in the stream and turned him round. ["The Clock-Case: A Confession found in a Prison from the Time of Charles the Second," 39]
Although series editor J. A. Hammerton has selected for reprinting fourteen from among the various articles, stories, and essays that appeared in Master Humphrey's Clock but were in no way associated with either of the weekly periodical's serial novels, Furniss illustrates only four. In contrast to his highly specific treatment of the narrator in the ink-and-wash frontispiece, Furniss shows Dickens's narrator, the elderly cripple, Master Humphrey, in only one of the four illustrations in the 1910 edition, entitled Mr. Pickwick examining the Clock as a visual preface to "Mr. Pickwick's Tale," which has absolutely nothing to do with either of the Clock's two novels, but harkens back to Dickens's initial picaresque novel, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Dickens apparently envisaged publishing such short stories as contributions by Pickwick and Sam Weller.
This particular story, which involves a first-person narrator from within the tale rather than Master Humphrey (who merely serves as editor found the "found" narrative) is particularly gruesome. The central character is an officer in Charles the Second's army (whom Furniss depicts as lying in wait for his victim). The murderer recounts in his confessional, written on the eve of his execution, how he murdered a child, his orphaned nephew, not for his inheritance alone but because (he contends) the boy detested him. Later, Dickens might have used such an intense and compact first-person narrative for psychological revelation, but here he merely exploits the bloody plot for sensational effect, recalling "The Drunkard's Death," an interpolated short story in The Pickwick Papers. When he reviewed this slight piece for Graham's Magazine in May 1841, Edgar Allen Poe praised the short story for "its remarkable power" (cited in Deborah A. Thomas, 31).
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. , 1988.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. "The Clock Case: A Confession found in a Prison from the Time of Charles the Second." Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. VI, 37-45.
Thomas. Deborah A. "Imaginative Overindulgence." Dickens and the Short Story. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. 7-31.
Created 24 December 2019