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+****The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Cricket on the Hearth****
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+The Cricket on the Hearth
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+by Charles Dickens
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+October, 1996  [Etext #678]
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+
+
+The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens
+SCanned and David Price ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+
+The Cricket on the Hearth
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I - Chrip the First
+
+
+
+THE kettle began it!  Don't tell me what Mrs. Peerybingle said.  I 
+know better.  Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it on record to the end of 
+time that she couldn't say which of them began it; but, I say the 
+kettle did.  I ought to know, I hope!  The kettle began it, full 
+five minutes by the little waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner, 
+before the Cricket uttered a chirp.
+
+As if the clock hadn't finished striking, and the convulsive little 
+Haymaker at the top of it, jerking away right and left with a 
+scythe in front of a Moorish Palace, hadn't mowed down half an acre 
+of imaginary grass before the Cricket joined in at all!
+
+Why, I am not naturally positive.  Every one knows that.  I 
+wouldn't set my own opinion against the opinion of Mrs. 
+Peerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on any account whatever.  
+Nothing should induce me.  But, this is a question of act.  And the 
+fact is, that the kettle began it, at least five minutes before the 
+Cricket gave any sign of being in existence.  Contradict me, and 
+I'll say ten.
+
+Let me narrate exactly how it happened.  I should have proceeded to 
+do so in my very first word, but for this plain consideration - if 
+I am to tell a story I must begin at the beginning; and how is it 
+possible to begin at the beginning, without beginning at the 
+kettle?
+
+It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of skill, 
+you must understand, between the kettle and the Cricket.  And this 
+is what led to it, and how it came about.
+
+Mrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and clicking 
+over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable 
+rough impressions of the first proposition in Euclid all about the 
+yard - Mrs. Peerybingle filled the kettle at the water-butt.  
+Presently returning, less the pattens (and a good deal less, for 
+they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was but short), she set the 
+kettle on the fire.  In doing which she lost her temper, or mislaid 
+it for an instant; for, the water being uncomfortably cold, and in 
+that slippy, slushy, sleety sort of state wherein it seems to 
+penetrate through every kind of substance, patten rings included - 
+had laid hold of Mrs. Peerybingle's toes, and even splashed her 
+legs.  And when we rather plume ourselves (with reason too) upon 
+our legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in point of 
+stockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear.
+
+Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate.  It wouldn't 
+allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn't hear of 
+accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it WOULD lean 
+forward with a drunken air, and dribble, a very Idiot of a kettle, 
+on the hearth.  It was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered 
+morosely at the fire.  To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. 
+Peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvy, and then, 
+with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived 
+sideways in - down to the very bottom of the kettle.  And the hull 
+of the Royal George has never made half the monstrous resistance to 
+coming out of the water, which the lid of that kettle employed 
+against Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again.
+
+It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carrying its 
+handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and 
+mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, 'I won't boil.  
+Nothing shall induce me!'
+
+But Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good humour, dusted her chubby 
+little hands against each other, and sat down before the kettle, 
+laughing.  Meantime, the jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and 
+gleaming on the little Haymaker at the top of the Dutch clock, 
+until one might have thought he stood stock still before the 
+Moorish Palace, and nothing was in motion but the flame.
+
+He was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two to the second, 
+all right and regular.  But, his sufferings when the clock was 
+going to strike, were frightful to behold; and, when a Cuckoo 
+looked out of a trap-door in the Palace, and gave note six times, 
+it shook him, each time, like a spectral voice - or like a 
+something wiry, plucking at his legs.
+
+It was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise among the 
+weights and ropes below him had quite subsided, that this terrified 
+Haymaker became himself again.  Nor was he startled without reason; 
+for these rattling, bony skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting 
+in their operation, and I wonder very much how any set of men, but 
+most of all how Dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them.  
+There is a popular belief that Dutchmen love broad cases and much 
+clothing for their own lower selves; and they might know better 
+than to leave their clocks so very lank and unprotected, surely.
+
+Now it was, you observe, that the kettle began to spend the 
+evening.  Now it was, that the kettle, growing mellow and musical, 
+began to have irrepressible gurglings in its throat, and to indulge 
+in short vocal snorts, which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn't 
+quite made up its mind yet, to be good company.  Now it was, that 
+after two or three such vain attempts to stifle its convivial 
+sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all reserve, and burst 
+into a stream of song so cosy and hilarious, as never maudlin 
+nightingale yet formed the least idea of.
+
+So plain too!  Bless you, you might have understood it like a book 
+- better than some books you and I could name, perhaps.  With its 
+warm breath gushing forth in a light cloud which merrily and 
+gracefully ascended a few feet, then hung about the chimney-corner 
+as its own domestic Heaven, it trolled its song with that strong 
+energy of cheerfulness, that its iron body hummed and stirred upon 
+the fire; and the lid itself, the recently rebellious lid - such is 
+the influence of a bright example - performed a sort of jig, and 
+clattered like a deaf and dumb young cymbal that had never known 
+the use of its twin brother.
+
+That this song of the kettle's was a song of invitation and welcome 
+to somebody out of doors:  to somebody at that moment coming on, 
+towards the snug small home and the crisp fire:  there is no doubt 
+whatever.  Mrs. Peerybingle knew it, perfectly, as she sat musing 
+before the hearth.  It's a dark night, sang the kettle, and the 
+rotten leaves are lying by the way; and, above, all is mist and 
+darkness, and, below, all is mire and clay; and there's only one 
+relief in all the sad and murky air; and I don't know that it is 
+one, for it's nothing but a glare; of deep and angry crimson, where 
+the sun and wind together; set a brand upon the clouds for being 
+guilty of such weather; and the widest open country is a long dull 
+streak of black; and there's hoar-frost on the finger-post, and 
+thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn't water, and the water 
+isn't free; and you couldn't say that anything is what it ought to 
+be; but he's coming, coming, coming! -
+
+And here, if you like, the Cricket DID chime in! with a Chirrup, 
+Chirrup, Chirrup of such magnitude, by way of chorus; with a voice 
+so astoundingly disproportionate to its size, as compared with the 
+kettle; (size! you couldn't see it!) that if it had then and there 
+burst itself like an overcharged gun, if it had fallen a victim on 
+the spot, and chirruped its little body into fifty pieces, it would 
+have seemed a natural and inevitable consequence, for which it had 
+expressly laboured.
+
+The kettle had had the last of its solo performance.  It persevered 
+with undiminished ardour; but the Cricket took first fiddle and 
+kept it.  Good Heaven, how it chirped!  Its shrill, sharp, piercing 
+voice resounded through the house, and seemed to twinkle in the 
+outer darkness like a star.  There was an indescribable little 
+trill and tremble in it, at its loudest, which suggested its being 
+carried off its legs, and made to leap again, by its own intense 
+enthusiasm.  Yet they went very well together, the Cricket and the 
+kettle.  The burden of the song was still the same; and louder, 
+louder, louder still, they sang it in their emulation.
+
+The fair little listener - for fair she was, and young:  though 
+something of what is called the dumpling shape; but I don't myself 
+object to that - lighted a candle, glanced at the Haymaker on the 
+top of the clock, who was getting in a pretty average crop of 
+minutes; and looked out of the window, where she saw nothing, owing 
+to the darkness, but her own face imaged in the glass.  And my 
+opinion is (and so would yours have been), that she might have 
+looked a long way, and seen nothing half so agreeable.  When she 
+came back, and sat down in her former seat, the Cricket and the 
+kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of 
+competition.  The kettle's weak side clearly being, that he didn't 
+know when he was beat.
+
+There was all the excitement of a race about it.  Chirp, chirp, 
+chirp!  Cricket a mile ahead.  Hum, hum, hum - m - m!  Kettle 
+making play in the distance, like a great top.  Chirp, chirp, 
+chirp!  Cricket round the corner.  Hum, hum, hum - m - m!  Kettle 
+sticking to him in his own way; no idea of giving in.  Chirp, 
+chirp, chirp!  Cricket fresher than ever.  Hum, hum, hum - m - m!  
+Kettle slow and steady.  Chirp, chirp, chirp!  Cricket going in to 
+finish him.  Hum, hum, hum - m - m!  Kettle not to be finished.  
+Until at last they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry, 
+helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the kettle chirped and 
+the Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the kettle hummed, 
+or they both chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer 
+head than yours or mine to have decided with anything like 
+certainty.  But, of this, there is no doubt:  that, the kettle and 
+the Cricket, at one and the same moment, and by some power of 
+amalgamation best known to themselves, sent, each, his fireside 
+song of comfort streaming into a ray of the candle that shone out 
+through the window, and a long way down the lane.  And this light, 
+bursting on a certain person who, on the instant, approached 
+towards it through the gloom, expressed the whole thing to him, 
+literally in a twinkling, and cried, 'Welcome home, old fellow!  
+Welcome home, my boy!'
+
+This end attained, the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and 
+was taken off the fire.  Mrs. Peerybingle then went running to the 
+door, where, what with the wheels of a cart, the tramp of a horse, 
+the voice of a man, the tearing in and out of an excited dog, and 
+the surprising and mysterious appearance of a baby, there was soon 
+the very What's-his-name to pay.
+
+Where the baby came from, or how Mrs. Peerybingle got hold of it in 
+that flash of time, I don't know.  But a live baby there was, in 
+Mrs. Peerybingle's arms; and a pretty tolerable amount of pride she 
+seemed to have in it, when she was drawn gently to the fire, by a 
+sturdy figure of a man, much taller and much older than herself, 
+who had to stoop a long way down, to kiss her.  But she was worth 
+the trouble.  Six foot six, with the lumbago, might have done it.
+
+'Oh goodness, John!' said Mrs. P.  'What a state you are in with 
+the weather!'
+
+He was something the worse for it, undeniably.  The thick mist hung 
+in clots upon his eyelashes like candied thaw; and between the fog 
+and fire together, there were rainbows in his very whiskers.
+
+'Why, you see, Dot,' John made answer, slowly, as he unrolled a 
+shawl from about his throat; and warmed his hands; 'it - it an't 
+exactly summer weather.  So, no wonder.'
+
+'I wish you wouldn't call me Dot, John.  I don't like it,' said 
+Mrs. Peerybingle:  pouting in a way that clearly showed she DID 
+like it, very much.
+
+'Why what else are you?' returned John, looking down upon her with 
+a smile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze as his huge hand 
+and arm could give.  'A dot and' - here he glanced at the baby - 'a 
+dot and carry - I won't say it, for fear I should spoil it; but I 
+was very near a joke.  I don't know as ever I was nearer.'
+
+He was often near to something or other very clever, by his own 
+account:  this lumbering, slow, honest John; this John so heavy, 
+but so light of spirit; so rough upon the surface, but so gentle at 
+the core; so dull without, so quick within; so stolid, but so good!  
+Oh Mother Nature, give thy children the true poetry of heart that 
+hid itself in this poor Carrier's breast - he was but a Carrier by 
+the way - and we can bear to have them talking prose, and leading 
+lives of prose; and bear to bless thee for their company!
+
+It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure, and her baby in 
+her arms:  a very doll of a baby:  glancing with a coquettish 
+thoughtfulness at the fire, and inclining her delicate little head 
+just enough on one side to let it rest in an odd, half-natural, 
+half-affected, wholly nestling and agreeable manner, on the great 
+rugged figure of the Carrier.  It was pleasant to see him, with his 
+tender awkwardness, endeavouring to adapt his rude support to her 
+slight need, and make his burly middle-age a leaning-staff not 
+inappropriate to her blooming youth.  It was pleasant to observe 
+how Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the background for the baby, took 
+special cognizance (though in her earliest teens) of this grouping; 
+and stood with her mouth and eyes wide open, and her head thrust 
+forward, taking it in as if it were air.  Nor was it less agreeable 
+to observe how John the Carrier, reference being made by Dot to the 
+aforesaid baby, checked his hand when on the point of touching the 
+infant, as if he thought he might crack it; and bending down, 
+surveyed it from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled pride, 
+such as an amiable mastiff might be supposed to show, if he found 
+himself, one day, the father of a young canary.
+
+'An't he beautiful, John?  Don't he look precious in his sleep?'
+
+'Very precious,' said John.  'Very much so.  He generally IS 
+asleep, an't he?'
+
+'Lor, John!  Good gracious no!'
+
+'Oh,' said John, pondering.  'I thought his eyes was generally 
+shut.  Halloa!'
+
+'Goodness, John, how you startle one!'
+
+'It an't right for him to turn 'em up in that way!' said the 
+astonished Carrier, 'is it?  See how he's winking with both of 'em 
+at once!  And look at his mouth!  Why he's gasping like a gold and 
+silver fish!'
+
+'You don't deserve to be a father, you don't,' said Dot, with all 
+the dignity of an experienced matron.  'But how should you know 
+what little complaints children are troubled with, John!  You 
+wouldn't so much as know their names, you stupid fellow.'  And when 
+she had turned the baby over on her left arm, and had slapped its 
+back as a restorative, she pinched her husband's ear, laughing.
+
+'No,' said John, pulling off his outer coat.  'It's very true, Dot.  
+I don't know much about it.  I only know that I've been fighting 
+pretty stiffly with the wind to-night.  It's been blowing north-
+east, straight into the cart, the whole way home.'
+
+'Poor old man, so it has!' cried Mrs. Peerybingle, instantly 
+becoming very active.  'Here!  Take the precious darling, Tilly, 
+while I make myself of some use.  Bless it, I could smother it with 
+kissing it, I could!  Hie then, good dog!  Hie, Boxer, boy!  Only 
+let me make the tea first, John; and then I'll help you with the 
+parcels, like a busy bee.  "How doth the little" - and all the rest 
+of it, you know, John.  Did you ever learn "how doth the little," 
+when you went to school, John?'
+
+'Not to quite know it,' John returned.  'I was very near it once.  
+But I should only have spoilt it, I dare say.'
+
+'Ha ha,' laughed Dot.  She had the blithest little laugh you ever 
+heard.  'What a dear old darling of a dunce you are, John, to be 
+sure!'
+
+Not at all disputing this position, John went out to see that the 
+boy with the lantern, which had been dancing to and fro before the 
+door and window, like a Will of the Wisp, took due care of the 
+horse; who was fatter than you would quite believe, if I gave you 
+his measure, and so old that his birthday was lost in the mists of 
+antiquity.  Boxer, feeling that his attentions were due to the 
+family in general, and must be impartially distributed, dashed in 
+and out with bewildering inconstancy; now, describing a circle of 
+short barks round the horse, where he was being rubbed down at the 
+stable-door; now feigning to make savage rushes at his mistress, 
+and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now, eliciting a 
+shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the fire, 
+by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her countenance; 
+now, exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the baby; now, going round 
+and round upon the hearth, and lying down as if he had established 
+himself for the night; now, getting up again, and taking that 
+nothing of a fag-end of a tail of his, out into the weather, as if 
+he had just remembered an appointment, and was off, at a round 
+trot, to keep it.
+
+'There!  There's the teapot, ready on the hob!' said Dot; as 
+briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house.  'And there's the 
+old knuckle of ham; and there's the butter; and there's the crusty 
+loaf, and all!  Here's the clothes-basket for the small parcels, 
+John, if you've got any there - where are you, John?'
+
+'Don't let the dear child fall under the grate, Tilly, whatever you 
+do!'
+
+It may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her rejecting the 
+caution with some vivacity, that she had a rare and surprising 
+talent for getting this baby into difficulties and had several 
+times imperilled its short life, in a quiet way peculiarly her own.  
+She was of a spare and straight shape, this young lady, insomuch 
+that her garments appeared to be in constant danger of sliding off 
+those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which they were loosely hung.  
+Her costume was remarkable for the partial development, on all 
+possible occasions, of some flannel vestment of a singular 
+structure; also for affording glimpses, in the region of the back, 
+of a corset, or pair of stays, in colour a dead-green.  Being 
+always in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed, 
+besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's 
+perfections and the baby's, Miss Slowboy, in her little errors of 
+judgment, may be said to have done equal honour to her head and to 
+her heart; and though these did less honour to the baby's head, 
+which they were the occasional means of bringing into contact with 
+deal doors, dressers, stair-rails, bed-posts, and other foreign 
+substances, still they were the honest results of Tilly Slowboy's 
+constant astonishment at finding herself so kindly treated, and 
+installed in such a comfortable home.  For, the maternal and 
+paternal Slowboy were alike unknown to Fame, and Tilly had been 
+bred by public charity, a foundling; which word, though only 
+differing from fondling by one vowel's length, is very different in 
+meaning, and expresses quite another thing.
+
+To have seen little Mrs. Peerybingle come back with her husband, 
+tugging at the clothes-basket, and making the most strenuous 
+exertions to do nothing at all (for he carried it), would have 
+amused you almost as much as it amused him.  It may have 
+entertained the Cricket too, for anything I know; but, certainly, 
+it now began to chirp again, vehemently.
+
+'Heyday!' said John, in his slow way.  'It's merrier than ever, to-
+night, I think.'
+
+'And it's sure to bring us good fortune, John!  It always has done 
+so.  To have a Cricket on the Hearth, is the luckiest thing in all 
+the world!'
+
+John looked at her as if he had very nearly got the thought into 
+his head, that she was his Cricket in chief, and he quite agreed 
+with her.  But, it was probably one of his narrow escapes, for he 
+said nothing.
+
+'The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John, was on that 
+night when you brought me home - when you brought me to my new home 
+here; its little mistress.  Nearly a year ago.  You recollect, 
+John?'
+
+O yes.  John remembered.  I should think so!
+
+'Its chirp was such a welcome to me!  It seemed so full of promise 
+and encouragement.  It seemed to say, you would be kind and gentle 
+with me, and would not expect (I had a fear of that, John, then) to 
+find an old head on the shoulders of your foolish little wife.'
+
+John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then the head, 
+as though he would have said No, no; he had had no such 
+expectation; he had been quite content to take them as they were.  
+And really he had reason.  They were very comely.
+
+'It spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say so; for you have 
+ever been, I am sure, the best, the most considerate, the most 
+affectionate of husbands to me.  This has been a happy home, John; 
+and I love the Cricket for its sake!'
+
+'Why so do I then,' said the Carrier.  'So do I, Dot.'
+
+'I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the many 
+thoughts its harmless music has given me.  Sometimes, in the 
+twilight, when I have felt a little solitary and down-hearted, John 
+- before baby was here to keep me company and make the house gay - 
+when I have thought how lonely you would be if I should die; how 
+lonely I should be if I could know that you had lost me, dear; its 
+Chirp, Chirp, Chirp upon the hearth, has seemed to tell me of 
+another little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me, before whose 
+coming sound my trouble vanished like a dream.  And when I used to 
+fear - I did fear once, John, I was very young you know - that ours 
+might prove to be an ill-assorted marriage, I being such a child, 
+and you more like my guardian than my husband; and that you might 
+not, however hard you tried, be able to learn to love me, as you 
+hoped and prayed you might; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp has cheered me 
+up again, and filled me with new trust and confidence.  I was 
+thinking of these things to-night, dear, when I sat expecting you; 
+and I love the Cricket for their sake!'
+
+'And so do I,' repeated John.  'But, Dot?  I hope and pray that I 
+might learn to love you?  How you talk!  I had learnt that, long 
+before I brought you here, to be the Cricket's little mistress, 
+Dot!'
+
+She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up at him 
+with an agitated face, as if she would have told him something.  
+Next moment she was down upon her knees before the basket, speaking 
+in a sprightly voice, and busy with the parcels.
+
+'There are not many of them to-night, John, but I saw some goods 
+behind the cart, just now; and though they give more trouble, 
+perhaps, still they pay as well; so we have no reason to grumble, 
+have we?  Besides, you have been delivering, I dare say, as you 
+came along?'
+
+'Oh yes,' John said.  'A good many.'
+
+'Why what's this round box?  Heart alive, John, it's a wedding-
+cake!'
+
+'Leave a woman alone to find out that,' said John, admiringly.  
+'Now a man would never have thought of it.  Whereas, it's my belief 
+that if you was to pack a wedding-cake up in a tea-chest, or a 
+turn-up bedstead, or a pickled salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a 
+woman would be sure to find it out directly.  Yes; I called for it 
+at the pastry-cook's.'
+
+'And it weighs I don't know what - whole hundredweights!' cried 
+Dot, making a great demonstration of trying to lift it.
+
+'Whose is it, John?  Where is it going?'
+
+'Read the writing on the other side,' said John.
+
+'Why, John!  My Goodness, John!'
+
+'Ah! who'd have thought it!' John returned.
+
+'You never mean to say,' pursued Dot, sitting on the floor and 
+shaking her head at him, 'that it's Gruff and Tackleton the 
+toymaker!'
+
+John nodded.
+
+Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least.  Not in assent 
+- in dumb and pitying amazement; screwing up her lips the while 
+with all their little force (they were never made for screwing up; 
+I am clear of that), and looking the good Carrier through and 
+through, in her abstraction.  Miss Slowboy, in the mean time, who 
+had a mechanical power of reproducing scraps of current 
+conversation for the delectation of the baby, with all the sense 
+struck out of them, and all the nouns changed into the plural 
+number, inquired aloud of that young creature, Was it Gruffs and 
+Tackletons the toymakers then, and Would it call at Pastry-cooks 
+for wedding-cakes, and Did its mothers know the boxes when its 
+fathers brought them homes; and so on.
+
+'And that is really to come about!' said Dot.  'Why, she and I were 
+girls at school together, John.'
+
+He might have been thinking of her, or nearly thinking of her, 
+perhaps, as she was in that same school time.  He looked upon her 
+with a thoughtful pleasure, but he made no answer.
+
+'And he's as old!  As unlike her! - Why, how many years older than 
+you, is Gruff and Tackleton, John?'
+
+'How many more cups of tea shall I drink to-night at one sitting, 
+than Gruff and Tackleton ever took in four, I wonder!' replied 
+John, good-humouredly, as he drew a chair to the round table, and 
+began at the cold ham.  'As to eating, I eat but little; but that 
+little I enjoy, Dot.'
+
+Even this, his usual sentiment at meal times, one of his innocent 
+delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, and flatly 
+contradicted him), awoke no smile in the face of his little wife, 
+who stood among the parcels, pushing the cake-box slowly from her 
+with her foot, and never once looked, though her eyes were cast 
+down too, upon the dainty shoe she generally was so mindful of.  
+Absorbed in thought, she stood there, heedless alike of the tea and 
+John (although he called to her, and rapped the table with his 
+knife to startle her), until he rose and touched her on the arm; 
+when she looked at him for a moment, and hurried to her place 
+behind the teaboard, laughing at her negligence.  But, not as she 
+had laughed before.  The manner and the music were quite changed.
+
+The Cricket, too, had stopped.  Somehow the room was not so 
+cheerful as it had been.  Nothing like it.
+
+'So, these are all the parcels, are they, John?' she said, breaking 
+a long silence, which the honest Carrier had devoted to the 
+practical illustration of one part of his favourite sentiment - 
+certainly enjoying what he ate, if it couldn't be admitted that he 
+ate but little.  'So, these are all the parcels; are they, John?'
+
+'That's all,' said John.  'Why - no - I - ' laying down his knife 
+and fork, and taking a long breath.  'I declare - I've clean 
+forgotten the old gentleman!'
+
+'The old gentleman?'
+
+'In the cart,' said John.  'He was asleep, among the straw, the 
+last time I saw him.  I've very nearly remembered him, twice, since 
+I came in; but he went out of my head again.  Holloa!  Yahip there!  
+Rouse up!  That's my hearty!'
+
+John said these latter words outside the door, whither he had 
+hurried with the candle in his hand.
+
+Miss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference to The Old 
+Gentleman, and connecting in her mystified imagination certain 
+associations of a religious nature with the phrase, was so 
+disturbed, that hastily rising from the low chair by the fire to 
+seek protection near the skirts of her mistress, and coming into 
+contact as she crossed the doorway with an ancient Stranger, she 
+instinctively made a charge or butt at him with the only offensive 
+instrument within her reach.  This instrument happening to be the 
+baby, great commotion and alarm ensued, which the sagacity of Boxer 
+rather tended to increase; for, that good dog, more thoughtful than 
+its master, had, it seemed, been watching the old gentleman in his 
+sleep, lest he should walk off with a few young poplar trees that 
+were tied up behind the cart; and he still attended on him very 
+closely, worrying his gaiters in fact, and making dead sets at the 
+buttons.
+
+'You're such an undeniable good sleeper, sir,' said John, when 
+tranquillity was restored; in the mean time the old gentleman had 
+stood, bareheaded and motionless, in the centre of the room; 'that 
+I have half a mind to ask you where the other six are - only that 
+would be a joke, and I know I should spoil it.  Very near though,' 
+murmured the Carrier, with a chuckle; 'very near!'
+
+The Stranger, who had long white hair, good features, singularly 
+bold and well defined for an old man, and dark, bright, penetrating 
+eyes, looked round with a smile, and saluted the Carrier's wife by 
+gravely inclining his head.
+
+His garb was very quaint and odd - a long, long way behind the 
+time.  Its hue was brown, all over.  In his hand he held a great 
+brown club or walking-stick; and striking this upon the floor, it 
+fell asunder, and became a chair.  On which he sat down, quite 
+composedly.
+
+'There!' said the Carrier, turning to his wife.  'That's the way I 
+found him, sitting by the roadside!  Upright as a milestone.  And 
+almost as deaf.'
+
+'Sitting in the open air, John!'
+
+'In the open air,' replied the Carrier, 'just at dusk.  "Carriage 
+Paid," he said; and gave me eighteenpence.  Then he got in.  And 
+there he is.'
+
+'He's going, John, I think!'
+
+Not at all.  He was only going to speak.
+
+'If you please, I was to be left till called for,' said the 
+Stranger, mildly.  'Don't mind me.'
+
+With that, he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large 
+pockets, and a book from another, and leisurely began to read.  
+Making no more of Boxer than if he had been a house lamb!
+
+The Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity.  The 
+Stranger raised his head; and glancing from the latter to the 
+former, said,
+
+'Your daughter, my good friend?'
+
+'Wife,' returned John.
+
+'Niece?' said the Stranger.
+
+'Wife,' roared John.
+
+'Indeed?' observed the Stranger.  'Surely?  Very young!'
+
+He quietly turned over, and resumed his reading.  But, before he 
+could have read two lines, he again interrupted himself to say:
+
+'Baby, yours?'
+
+John gave him a gigantic nod; equivalent to an answer in the 
+affirmative, delivered through a speaking trumpet.
+
+'Girl?'
+
+'Bo-o-oy!' roared John.
+
+'Also very young, eh?'
+
+Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in.  'Two months and three da-
+ays!  Vaccinated just six weeks ago-o!  Took very fine-ly!  
+Considered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful chi-ild!  Equal 
+to the general run of children at five months o-old!  Takes notice, 
+in a way quite wonderful!  May seem impossible to you, but feels 
+his legs al-ready!'
+
+Here the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these 
+short sentences into the old man's ear, until her pretty face was 
+crimsoned, held up the Baby before him as a stubborn and triumphant 
+fact; while Tilly Slowboy, with a melodious cry of 'Ketcher, 
+Ketcher' - which sounded like some unknown words, adapted to a 
+popular Sneeze - performed some cow-like gambols round that all 
+unconscious Innocent.
+
+'Hark!  He's called for, sure enough,' said John.  'There's 
+somebody at the door.  Open it, Tilly.'
+
+Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from without; 
+being a primitive sort of door, with a latch, that any one could 
+lift if he chose - and a good many people did choose, for all kinds 
+of neighbours liked to have a cheerful word or two with the 
+Carrier, though he was no great talker himself.  Being opened, it 
+gave admission to a little, meagre, thoughtful, dingy-faced man, 
+who seemed to have made himself a great-coat from the sack-cloth 
+covering of some old box; for, when he turned to shut the door, and 
+keep the weather out, he disclosed upon the back of that garment, 
+the inscription G & T in large black capitals.  Also the word GLASS 
+in bold characters.
+
+'Good evening, John!' said the little man.  'Good evening, Mum.  
+Good evening, Tilly.  Good evening, Unbeknown!  How's Baby, Mum?  
+Boxer's pretty well I hope?'
+
+'All thriving, Caleb,' replied Dot.  'I am sure you need only look 
+at the dear child, for one, to know that.'
+
+'And I'm sure I need only look at you for another,' said Caleb.
+
+He didn't look at her though; he had a wandering and thoughtful eye 
+which seemed to be always projecting itself into some other time 
+and place, no matter what he said; a description which will equally 
+apply to his voice.
+
+'Or at John for another,' said Caleb.  'Or at Tilly, as far as that 
+goes.  Or certainly at Boxer.'
+
+'Busy just now, Caleb?' asked the Carrier.
+
+'Why, pretty well, John,' he returned, with the distraught air of a 
+man who was casting about for the Philosopher's stone, at least.  
+'Pretty much so.  There's rather a run on Noah's Arks at present.  
+I could have wished to improve upon the Family, but I don't see how 
+it's to be done at the price.  It would be a satisfaction to one's 
+mind, to make it clearer which was Shems and Hams, and which was 
+Wives.  Flies an't on that scale neither, as compared with 
+elephants you know!  Ah! well!  Have you got anything in the parcel 
+line for me, John?'
+
+The Carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had taken 
+off; and brought out, carefully preserved in moss and paper, a tiny 
+flower-pot.
+
+'There it is!' he said, adjusting it with great care.  'Not so much 
+as a leaf damaged.  Full of buds!'
+
+Caleb's dull eye brightened, as he took it, and thanked him.
+
+'Dear, Caleb,' said the Carrier.  'Very dear at this season.'
+
+'Never mind that.  It would be cheap to me, whatever it cost,' 
+returned the little man.  'Anything else, John?'
+
+'A small box,' replied the Carrier.  'Here you are!'
+
+'"For Caleb Plummer,"' said the little man, spelling out the 
+direction.  '"With Cash."  With Cash, John?  I don't think it's for 
+me.'
+
+'With Care,' returned the Carrier, looking over his shoulder.  
+'Where do you make out cash?'
+
+'Oh!  To be sure!' said Caleb.  'It's all right.  With care!  Yes, 
+yes; that's mine.  It might have been with cash, indeed, if my dear 
+Boy in the Golden South Americas had lived, John.  You loved him 
+like a son; didn't you?  You needn't say you did.  I know, of 
+course.  "Caleb Plummer.  With care."  Yes, yes, it's all right.  
+It's a box of dolls' eyes for my daughter's work.  I wish it was 
+her own sight in a box, John.'
+
+'I wish it was, or could be!' cried the Carrier.
+
+'Thank'ee,' said the little man.  'You speak very hearty.  To think 
+that she should never see the Dolls - and them a-staring at her, so 
+bold, all day long!  That's where it cuts.  What's the damage, 
+John?'
+
+'I'll damage you,' said John, 'if you inquire.  Dot!  Very near?'
+
+'Well! it's like you to say so,' observed the little man.  'It's 
+your kind way.  Let me see.  I think that's all.'
+
+'I think not,' said the Carrier.  'Try again.'
+
+'Something for our Governor, eh?' said Caleb, after pondering a 
+little while.  'To be sure.  That's what I came for; but my head's 
+so running on them Arks and things!  He hasn't been here, has he?'
+
+'Not he,' returned the Carrier.  'He's too busy, courting.'
+
+'He's coming round though,' said Caleb; 'for he told me to keep on 
+the near side of the road going home, and it was ten to one he'd 
+take me up.  I had better go, by the bye. - You couldn't have the 
+goodness to let me pinch Boxer's tail, Mum, for half a moment, 
+could you?'
+
+'Why, Caleb! what a question!'
+
+'Oh never mind, Mum,' said the little man.  'He mightn't like it 
+perhaps.  There's a small order just come in, for barking dogs; and 
+I should wish to go as close to Natur' as I could, for sixpence.  
+That's all.  Never mind, Mum.'
+
+It happened opportunely, that Boxer, without receiving the proposed 
+stimulus, began to bark with great zeal.  But, as this implied the 
+approach of some new visitor, Caleb, postponing his study from the 
+life to a more convenient season, shouldered the round box, and 
+took a hurried leave.  He might have spared himself the trouble, 
+for he met the visitor upon the threshold.
+
+'Oh!  You are here, are you?  Wait a bit.  I'll take you home.  
+John Peerybingle, my service to you.  More of my service to your 
+pretty wife.  Handsomer every day!  Better too, if possible!  And 
+younger,' mused the speaker, in a low voice; 'that's the Devil of 
+it!'
+
+'I should be astonished at your paying compliments, Mr. Tackleton,' 
+said Dot, not with the best grace in the world; 'but for your 
+condition.'
+
+'You know all about it then?'
+
+'I have got myself to believe it, somehow,' said Dot.
+
+'After a hard struggle, I suppose?'
+
+'Very.'
+
+Tackleton the Toy-merchant, pretty generally known as Gruff and 
+Tackleton - for that was the firm, though Gruff had been bought out 
+long ago; only leaving his name, and as some said his nature, 
+according to its Dictionary meaning, in the business - Tackleton 
+the Toy-merchant, was a man whose vocation had been quite 
+misunderstood by his Parents and Guardians.  If they had made him a 
+Money Lender, or a sharp Attorney, or a Sheriff's Officer, or a 
+Broker, he might have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and, 
+after having had the full run of himself in ill-natured 
+transactions, might have turned out amiable, at last, for the sake 
+of a little freshness and novelty.  But, cramped and chafing in the 
+peaceable pursuit of toy-making, he was a domestic Ogre, who had 
+been living on children all his life, and was their implacable 
+enemy.  He despised all toys; wouldn't have bought one for the 
+world; delighted, in his malice, to insinuate grim expressions into 
+the faces of brown-paper farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen 
+who advertised lost lawyers' consciences, movable old ladies who 
+darned stockings or carved pies; and other like samples of his 
+stock in trade.  In appalling masks; hideous, hairy, red-eyed Jacks 
+in Boxes; Vampire Kites; demoniacal Tumblers who wouldn't lie down, 
+and were perpetually flying forward, to stare infants out of 
+countenance; his soul perfectly revelled.  They were his only 
+relief, and safety-valve.  He was great in such inventions.  
+Anything suggestive of a Pony-nightmare was delicious to him.  He 
+had even lost money (and he took to that toy very kindly) by 
+getting up Goblin slides for magic-lanterns, whereon the Powers of 
+Darkness were depicted as a sort of supernatural shell-fish, with 
+human faces.  In intensifying the portraiture of Giants, he had 
+sunk quite a little capital; and, though no painter himself, he 
+could indicate, for the instruction of his artists, with a piece of 
+chalk, a certain furtive leer for the countenances of those 
+monsters, which was safe to destroy the peace of mind of any young 
+gentleman between the ages of six and eleven, for the whole 
+Christmas or Midsummer Vacation.
+
+What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in other things.  You 
+may easily suppose, therefore, that within the great green cape, 
+which reached down to the calves of his legs, there was buttoned up 
+to the chin an uncommonly pleasant fellow; and that he was about as 
+choice a spirit, and as agreeable a companion, as ever stood in a 
+pair of bull-headed-looking boots with mahogany-coloured tops.
+
+Still, Tackleton, the toy-merchant, was going to be married.  In 
+spite of all this, he was going to be married.  And to a young wife 
+too, a beautiful young wife.
+
+He didn't look much like a bridegroom, as he stood in the Carrier's 
+kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and 
+his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked 
+down into the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic ill-
+conditioned self peering out of one little corner of one little 
+eye, like the concentrated essence of any number of ravens.  But, a 
+Bridegroom he designed to be.
+
+'In three days' time.  Next Thursday.  The last day of the first 
+month in the year.  That's my wedding-day,' said Tackleton.
+
+Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open, and one eye 
+nearly shut; and that the one eye nearly shut, was always the 
+expressive eye?  I don't think I did.
+
+'That's my wedding-day!' said Tackleton, rattling his money.
+
+'Why, it's our wedding-day too,' exclaimed the Carrier.
+
+'Ha ha!' laughed Tackleton.  'Odd!  You're just such another 
+couple.  Just!'
+
+The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion is not to be 
+described.  What next?  His imagination would compass the 
+possibility of just such another Baby, perhaps.  The man was mad.
+
+'I say!  A word with you,' murmured Tackleton, nudging the Carrier 
+with his elbow, and taking him a little apart.  'You'll come to the 
+wedding?  We're in the same boat, you know.'
+
+'How in the same boat?' inquired the Carrier.
+
+'A little disparity, you know,' said Tackleton, with another nudge.  
+'Come and spend an evening with us, beforehand.'
+
+'Why?' demanded John, astonished at this pressing hospitality.
+
+'Why?' returned the other.  'That's a new way of receiving an 
+invitation.  Why, for pleasure - sociability, you know, and all 
+that!'
+
+'I thought you were never sociable,' said John, in his plain way.
+
+'Tchah!  It's of no use to be anything but free with you, I see,' 
+said Tackleton.  'Why, then, the truth is you have a - what tea-
+drinking people call a sort of a comfortable appearance together, 
+you and your wife.  We know better, you know, but - '
+
+'No, we don't know better,' interposed John.  'What are you talking 
+about?'
+
+'Well!  We DON'T know better, then,' said Tackleton.  'We'll agree 
+that we don't.  As you like; what does it matter?  I was going to 
+say, as you have that sort of appearance, your company will produce 
+a favourable effect on Mrs. Tackleton that will be.  And, though I 
+don't think your good lady's very friendly to me, in this matter, 
+still she can't help herself from falling into my views, for 
+there's a compactness and cosiness of appearance about her that 
+always tells, even in an indifferent case.  You'll say you'll 
+come?'
+
+'We have arranged to keep our Wedding-Day (as far as that goes) at 
+home,' said John.  'We have made the promise to ourselves these six 
+months.  We think, you see, that home - '
+
+'Bah! what's home?' cried Tackleton.  'Four walls and a ceiling! 
+(why don't you kill that Cricket?  I would!  I always do.  I hate 
+their noise.)  There are four walls and a ceiling at my house.  
+Come to me!'
+
+'You kill your Crickets, eh?' said John.
+
+'Scrunch 'em, sir,' returned the other, setting his heel heavily on 
+the floor.  'You'll say you'll come? it's as much your interest as 
+mine, you know, that the women should persuade each other that 
+they're quiet and contented, and couldn't be better off.  I know 
+their way.  Whatever one woman says, another woman is determined to 
+clinch, always.  There's that spirit of emulation among 'em, sir, 
+that if your wife says to my wife, "I'm the happiest woman in the 
+world, and mine's the best husband in the world, and I dote on 
+him," my wife will say the same to yours, or more, and half believe 
+it.'
+
+'Do you mean to say she don't, then?' asked the Carrier.
+
+'Don't!' cried Tackleton, with a short, sharp laugh.  'Don't what?'
+
+The Carrier had some faint idea of adding, 'dote upon you.'  But, 
+happening to meet the half-closed eye, as it twinkled upon him over 
+the turned-up collar of the cape, which was within an ace of poking 
+it out, he felt it such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to 
+be doted on, that he substituted, 'that she don't believe it?'
+
+'Ah you dog!  You're joking,' said Tackleton.
+
+But the Carrier, though slow to understand the full drift of his 
+meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner, that he was obliged to 
+be a little more explanatory.
+
+'I have the humour,' said Tackleton:  holding up the fingers of his 
+left hand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply 'there I am, 
+Tackleton to wit:' 'I have the humour, sir, to marry a young wife, 
+and a pretty wife:' here he rapped his little finger, to express 
+the Bride; not sparingly, but sharply; with a sense of power.  'I'm 
+able to gratify that humour and I do.  It's my whim.  But - now 
+look there!'
+
+He pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully, before the fire; 
+leaning her dimpled chin upon her hand, and watching the bright 
+blaze.  The Carrier looked at her, and then at him, and then at 
+her, and then at him again.
+
+'She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know,' said Tackleton; 'and 
+that, as I am not a man of sentiment, is quite enough for ME.  But 
+do you think there's anything more in it?'
+
+'I think,' observed the Carrier, 'that I should chuck any man out 
+of window, who said there wasn't.'
+
+'Exactly so,' returned the other with an unusual alacrity of 
+assent.  'To be sure!  Doubtless you would.  Of course.  I'm 
+certain of it.  Good night.  Pleasant dreams!'
+
+The Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and uncertain, in 
+spite of himself.  He couldn't help showing it, in his manner.
+
+'Good night, my dear friend!' said Tackleton, compassionately.  
+'I'm off.  We're exactly alike, in reality, I see.  You won't give 
+us to-morrow evening?  Well!  Next day you go out visiting, I know.  
+I'll meet you there, and bring my wife that is to be.  It'll do her 
+good.  You're agreeable?  Thank'ee.  What's that!'
+
+It was a loud cry from the Carrier's wife:  a loud, sharp, sudden 
+cry, that made the room ring, like a glass vessel.  She had risen 
+from her seat, and stood like one transfixed by terror and 
+surprise.  The Stranger had advanced towards the fire to warm 
+himself, and stood within a short stride of her chair.  But quite 
+still.
+
+'Dot!' cried the Carrier.  'Mary!  Darling!  What's the matter?'
+
+They were all about her in a moment.  Caleb, who had been dozing on 
+the cake-box, in the first imperfect recovery of his suspended 
+presence of mind, seized Miss Slowboy by the hair of her head, but 
+immediately apologised.
+
+'Mary!' exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his arms.  'Are 
+you ill!  What is it?  Tell me, dear!'
+
+She only answered by beating her hands together, and falling into a 
+wild fit of laughter.  Then, sinking from his grasp upon the 
+ground, she covered her face with her apron, and wept bitterly.  
+And then she laughed again, and then she cried again, and then she 
+said how cold it was, and suffered him to lead her to the fire, 
+where she sat down as before.  The old man standing, as before, 
+quite still.
+
+'I'm better, John,' she said.  'I'm quite well now - I -'
+
+'John!'  But John was on the other side of her.  Why turn her face 
+towards the strange old gentleman, as if addressing him!  Was her 
+brain wandering?
+
+'Only a fancy, John dear - a kind of shock - a something coming 
+suddenly before my eyes - I don't know what it was.  It's quite 
+gone, quite gone.'
+
+'I'm glad it's gone,' muttered Tackleton, turning the expressive 
+eye all round the room.  'I wonder where it's gone, and what it 
+was.  Humph!  Caleb, come here!  Who's that with the grey hair?'
+
+'I don't know, sir,' returned Caleb in a whisper.  'Never see him 
+before, in all my life.  A beautiful figure for a nut-cracker; 
+quite a new model.  With a screw-jaw opening down into his 
+waistcoat, he'd be lovely.'
+
+'Not ugly enough,' said Tackleton.
+
+'Or for a firebox, either,' observed Caleb, in deep contemplation, 
+'what a model!  Unscrew his head to put the matches in; turn him 
+heels up'ards for the light; and what a firebox for a gentleman's 
+mantel-shelf, just as he stands!'
+
+'Not half ugly enough,' said Tackleton.  'Nothing in him at all!  
+Come!  Bring that box!  All right now, I hope?'
+
+'Quite gone!' said the little woman, waving him hurriedly away.  
+'Good night!'
+
+'Good night,' said Tackleton.  'Good night, John Peerybingle!  Take 
+care how you carry that box, Caleb.  Let it fall, and I'll murder 
+you!  Dark as pitch, and weather worse than ever, eh?  Good night!'
+
+So, with another sharp look round the room, he went out at the 
+door; followed by Caleb with the wedding-cake on his head.
+
+The Carrier had been so much astounded by his little wife, and so 
+busily engaged in soothing and tending her, that he had scarcely 
+been conscious of the Stranger's presence, until now, when he again 
+stood there, their only guest.
+
+'He don't belong to them, you see,' said John.  'I must give him a 
+hint to go.'
+
+'I beg your pardon, friend,' said the old gentleman, advancing to 
+him; 'the more so, as I fear your wife has not been well; but the 
+Attendant whom my infirmity,' he touched his ears and shook his 
+head, 'renders almost indispensable, not having arrived, I fear 
+there must be some mistake.  The bad night which made the shelter 
+of your comfortable cart (may I never have a worse!) so acceptable, 
+is still as bad as ever.  Would you, in your kindness, suffer me to 
+rent a bed here?'
+
+'Yes, yes,' cried Dot.  'Yes!  Certainly!'
+
+'Oh!' said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this consent.
+
+'Well!  I don't object; but, still I'm not quite sure that - '
+
+'Hush!' she interrupted.  'Dear John!'
+
+'Why, he's stone deaf,' urged John.
+
+'I know he is, but - Yes, sir, certainly.  Yes! certainly!  I'll 
+make him up a bed, directly, John.'
+
+As she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and the 
+agitation of her manner, were so strange that the Carrier stood 
+looking after her, quite confounded.
+
+'Did its mothers make it up a Beds then!' cried Miss Slowboy to the 
+Baby; 'and did its hair grow brown and curly, when its caps was 
+lifted off, and frighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting by the 
+fires!'
+
+With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, which is 
+often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, the Carrier as 
+he walked slowly to and fro, found himself mentally repeating even 
+these absurd words, many times.  So many times that he got them by 
+heart, and was still conning them over and over, like a lesson, 
+when Tilly, after administering as much friction to the little bald 
+head with her hand as she thought wholesome (according to the 
+practice of nurses), had once more tied the Baby's cap on.
+
+'And frighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting by the fires.  What 
+frightened Dot, I wonder!' mused the Carrier, pacing to and fro.
+
+He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the Toy-merchant, 
+and yet they filled him with a vague, indefinite uneasiness.  For, 
+Tackleton was quick and sly; and he had that painful sense, 
+himself, of being of slow perception, that a broken hint was always 
+worrying to him.  He certainly had no intention in his mind of 
+linking anything that Tackleton had said, with the unusual conduct 
+of his wife, but the two subjects of reflection came into his mind 
+together, and he could not keep them asunder.
+
+The bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining all 
+refreshment but a cup of tea, retired.  Then, Dot - quite well 
+again, she said, quite well again - arranged the great chair in the 
+chimney-corner for her husband; filled his pipe and gave it him; 
+and took her usual little stool beside him on the hearth.
+
+She always WOULD sit on that little stool.  I think she must have 
+had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling little stool.
+
+She was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, I should say, 
+in the four quarters of the globe.  To see her put that chubby 
+little finger in the bowl, and then blow down the pipe to clear the 
+tube, and, when she had done so, affect to think that there was 
+really something in the tube, and blow a dozen times, and hold it 
+to her eye like a telescope, with a most provoking twist in her 
+capital little face, as she looked down it, was quite a brilliant 
+thing.  As to the tobacco, she was perfect mistress of the subject; 
+and her lighting of the pipe, with a wisp of paper, when the 
+Carrier had it in his mouth - going so very near his nose, and yet 
+not scorching it - was Art, high Art.
+
+And the Cricket and the kettle, turning up again, acknowledged it!  
+The bright fire, blazing up again, acknowledged it!  The little 
+Mower on the clock, in his unheeded work, acknowledged it!  The 
+Carrier, in his smoothing forehead and expanding face, acknowledged 
+it, the readiest of all.
+
+And as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe, and as 
+the Dutch clock ticked, and as the red fire gleamed, and as the 
+Cricket chirped; that Genius of his Hearth and Home (for such the 
+Cricket was) came out, in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned 
+many forms of Home about him.  Dots of all ages, and all sizes, 
+filled the chamber.  Dots who were merry children, running on 
+before him gathering flowers, in the fields; coy Dots, half 
+shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough 
+image; newly-married Dots, alighting at the door, and taking 
+wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots, 
+attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened; 
+matronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching Dots of 
+daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, encircled and 
+beset by troops of rosy grandchildren; withered Dots, who leaned on 
+sticks, and tottered as they crept along.  Old Carriers too, 
+appeared, with blind old Boxers lying at their feet; and newer 
+carts with younger drivers ('Peerybingle Brothers' on the tilt); 
+and sick old Carriers, tended by the gentlest hands; and graves of 
+dead and gone old Carriers, green in the churchyard.  And as the 
+Cricket showed him all these things - he saw them plainly, though 
+his eyes were fixed upon the fire - the Carrier's heart grew light 
+and happy, and he thanked his Household Gods with all his might, 
+and cared no more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do.
+
+
+But, what was that young figure of a man, which the same Fairy 
+Cricket set so near Her stool, and which remained there, singly and 
+alone?  Why did it linger still, so near her, with its arm upon the 
+chimney-piece, ever repeating 'Married! and not to me!'
+
+O Dot!  O failing Dot!  There is no place for it in all your 
+husband's visions; why has its shadow fallen on his hearth!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II - Chirp The Second
+
+
+
+CALEB PLUMMER and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves, 
+as the Story-books say - and my blessing, with yours to back it I 
+hope, on the Story-books, for saying anything in this workaday 
+world! - Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by 
+themselves, in a little cracked nutshell of a wooden house, which 
+was, in truth, no better than a pimple on the prominent red-brick 
+nose of Gruff and Tackleton.  The premises of Gruff and Tackleton 
+were the great feature of the street; but you might have knocked 
+down Caleb Plummer's dwelling with a hammer or two, and carried off 
+the pieces in a cart.
+
+If any one had done the dwelling-house of Caleb Plummer the honour 
+to miss it after such an inroad, it would have been, no doubt, to 
+commend its demolition as a vast improvement.  It stuck to the 
+premises of Gruff and Tackleton, like a barnacle to a ship's keel, 
+or a snail to a door, or a little bunch of toadstools to the stem 
+of a tree.
+
+But, it was the germ from which the full-grown trunk of Gruff and 
+Tackleton had sprung; and, under its crazy roof, the Gruff before 
+last, had, in a small way, made toys for a generation of old boys 
+and girls, who had played with them, and found them out, and broken 
+them, and gone to sleep.
+
+I have said that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter lived here.  I 
+should have said that Caleb lived here, and his poor Blind Daughter 
+somewhere else - in an enchanted home of Caleb's furnishing, where 
+scarcity and shabbiness were not, and trouble never entered.  Caleb 
+was no sorcerer, but in the only magic art that still remains to 
+us, the magic of devoted, deathless love, Nature had been the 
+mistress of his study; and from her teaching, all the wonder came.
+
+The Blind Girl never knew that ceilings were discoloured, walls 
+blotched and bare of plaster here and there, high crevices 
+unstopped and widening every day, beams mouldering and tending 
+downward.  The Blind Girl never knew that iron was rusting, wood 
+rotting, paper peeling off; the size, and shape, and true 
+proportion of the dwelling, withering away.  The Blind Girl never 
+knew that ugly shapes of delf and earthenware were on the board; 
+that sorrow and faintheartedness were in the house; that Caleb's 
+scanty hairs were turning greyer and more grey, before her 
+sightless face.  The Blind Girl never knew they had a master, cold, 
+exacting, and uninterested - never knew that Tackleton was 
+Tackleton in short; but lived in the belief of an eccentric 
+humourist who loved to have his jest with them, and who, while he 
+was the Guardian Angel of their lives, disdained to hear one word 
+of thankfulness.
+
+And all was Caleb's doing; all the doing of her simple father!  But 
+he too had a Cricket on his Hearth; and listening sadly to its 
+music when the motherless Blind Child was very young, that Spirit 
+had inspired him with the thought that even her great deprivation 
+might be almost changed into a blessing, and the girl made happy by 
+these little means.  For all the Cricket tribe are potent Spirits, 
+even though the people who hold converse with them do not know it 
+(which is frequently the case); and there are not in the unseen 
+world, voices more gentle and more true, that may be so implicitly 
+relied on, or that are so certain to give none but tenderest 
+counsel, as the Voices in which the Spirits of the Fireside and the 
+Hearth address themselves to human kind.
+
+Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual 
+working-room, which served them for their ordinary living-room as 
+well; and a strange place it was.  There were houses in it, 
+finished and unfinished, for Dolls of all stations in life.  
+Suburban tenements for Dolls of moderate means; kitchens and single 
+apartments for Dolls of the lower classes; capital town residences 
+for Dolls of high estate.  Some of these establishments were 
+already furnished according to estimate, with a view to the 
+convenience of Dolls of limited income; others could be fitted on 
+the most expensive scale, at a moment's notice, from whole shelves 
+of chairs and tables, sofas, bedsteads, and upholstery.  The 
+nobility and gentry, and public in general, for whose accommodation 
+these tenements were designed, lay, here and there, in baskets, 
+staring straight up at the ceiling; but, in denoting their degrees 
+in society, and confining them to their respective stations (which 
+experience shows to be lamentably difficult in real life), the 
+makers of these Dolls had far improved on Nature, who is often 
+froward and perverse; for, they, not resting on such arbitrary 
+marks as satin, cotton-print, and bits of rag, had superadded 
+striking personal differences which allowed of no mistake.  Thus, 
+the Doll-lady of distinction had wax limbs of perfect symmetry; but 
+only she and her compeers.  The next grade in the social scale 
+being made of leather, and the next of coarse linen stuff.  As to 
+the common-people, they had just so many matches out of tinder-
+boxes, for their arms and legs, and there they were - established 
+in their sphere at once, beyond the possibility of getting out of 
+it.
+
+There were various other samples of his handicraft, besides Dolls, 
+in Caleb Plummer's room.  There were Noah's Arks, in which the 
+Birds and Beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, I assure you; though 
+they could be crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled and 
+shaken into the smallest compass.  By a bold poetical licence, most 
+of these Noah's Arks had knockers on the doors; inconsistent 
+appendages, perhaps, as suggestive of morning callers and a 
+Postman, yet a pleasant finish to the outside of the building.  
+There were scores of melancholy little carts, which, when the 
+wheels went round, performed most doleful music.  Many small 
+fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture; no end of cannon, 
+shields, swords, spears, and guns.  There were little tumblers in 
+red breeches, incessantly swarming up high obstacles of red-tape, 
+and coming down, head first, on the other side; and there were 
+innumerable old gentlemen of respectable, not to say venerable, 
+appearance, insanely flying over horizontal pegs, inserted, for the 
+purpose, in their own street doors.  There were beasts of all 
+sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed, from the spotted 
+barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to the 
+thoroughbred rocker on his highest mettle.  As it would have been 
+hard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were 
+ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities on the turning of a 
+handle, so it would have been no easy task to mention any human 
+folly, vice, or weakness, that had not its type, immediate or 
+remote, in Caleb Plummer's room.  And not in an exaggerated form, 
+for very little handles will move men and women to as strange 
+performances, as any Toy was ever made to undertake.
+
+In the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his daughter sat at 
+work.  The Blind Girl busy as a Doll's dressmaker; Caleb painting 
+and glazing the four-pair front of a desirable family mansion.
+
+The care imprinted in the lines of Caleb's face, and his absorbed 
+and dreamy manner, which would have sat well on some alchemist or 
+abstruse student, were at first sight an odd contrast to his 
+occupation, and the trivialities about him.  But, trivial things, 
+invented and pursued for bread, become very serious matters of 
+fact; and, apart from this consideration, I am not at all prepared 
+to say, myself, that if Caleb had been a Lord Chamberlain, or a 
+Member of Parliament, or a lawyer, or even a great speculator, he 
+would have dealt in toys one whit less whimsical, while I have a 
+very great doubt whether they would have been as harmless.
+
+'So you were out in the rain last night, father, in your beautiful 
+new great-coat,' said Caleb's daughter.
+
+'In my beautiful new great-coat,' answered Caleb, glancing towards 
+a clothes-line in the room, on which the sack-cloth garment 
+previously described, was carefully hung up to dry.
+
+'How glad I am you bought it, father!'
+
+'And of such a tailor, too,' said Caleb.  'Quite a fashionable 
+tailor.  It's too good for me.'
+
+The Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed with delight.
+
+'Too good, father!  What can be too good for you?'
+
+'I'm half-ashamed to wear it though,' said Caleb, watching the 
+effect of what he said, upon her brightening face; 'upon my word!  
+When I hear the boys and people say behind me, "Hal-loa!  Here's a 
+swell!"  I don't know which way to look.  And when the beggar 
+wouldn't go away last night; and when I said I was a very common 
+man, said "No, your Honour!  Bless your Honour, don't say that!"  I 
+was quite ashamed.  I really felt as if I hadn't a right to wear 
+it.'
+
+Happy Blind Girl!  How merry she was, in her exultation!
+
+'I see you, father,' she said, clasping her hands, 'as plainly, as 
+if I had the eyes I never want when you are with me.  A blue coat - 
+'
+
+'Bright blue,' said Caleb.
+
+'Yes, yes!  Bright blue!' exclaimed the girl, turning up her 
+radiant face; 'the colour I can just remember in the blessed sky!  
+You told me it was blue before!  A bright blue coat - '
+
+'Made loose to the figure,' suggested Caleb.
+
+'Made loose to the figure!' cried the Blind Girl, laughing 
+heartily; 'and in it, you, dear father, with your merry eye, your 
+smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair - looking so young 
+and handsome!'
+
+'Halloa!  Halloa!' said Caleb.  'I shall be vain, presently!'
+
+'I think you are, already,' cried the Blind Girl, pointing at him, 
+in her glee.  'I know you, father!  Ha, ha, ha!  I've found you 
+out, you see!'
+
+How different the picture in her mind, from Caleb, as he sat 
+observing her!  She had spoken of his free step.  She was right in 
+that.  For years and years, he had never once crossed that 
+threshold at his own slow pace, but with a footfall counterfeited 
+for her ear; and never had he, when his heart was heaviest, 
+forgotten the light tread that was to render hers so cheerful and 
+courageous!
+
+Heaven knows!  But I think Caleb's vague bewilderment of manner may 
+have half originated in his having confused himself about himself 
+and everything around him, for the love of his Blind Daughter.  How 
+could the little man be otherwise than bewildered, after labouring 
+for so many years to destroy his own identity, and that of all the 
+objects that had any bearing on it!
+
+'There we are,' said Caleb, falling back a pace or two to form the 
+better judgment of his work; 'as near the real thing as 
+sixpenn'orth of halfpence is to sixpence.  What a pity that the 
+whole front of the house opens at once!  If there was only a 
+staircase in it, now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in at!  
+But that's the worst of my calling, I'm always deluding myself, and 
+swindling myself.'
+
+'You are speaking quite softly.  You are not tired, father?'
+
+'Tired!' echoed Caleb, with a great burst of animation, 'what 
+should tire me, Bertha?  I was never tired.  What does it mean?'
+
+To give the greater force to his words, he checked himself in an 
+involuntary imitation of two half-length stretching and yawning 
+figures on the mantel-shelf, who were represented as in one eternal 
+state of weariness from the waist upwards; and hummed a fragment of 
+a song.  It was a Bacchanalian song, something about a Sparkling 
+Bowl.  He sang it with an assumption of a Devil-may-care voice, 
+that made his face a thousand times more meagre and more thoughtful 
+than ever.
+
+'What!  You're singing, are you?' said Tackleton, putting his head 
+in at the door.  'Go it!  I can't sing.'
+
+Nobody would have suspected him of it.  He hadn't what is generally 
+termed a singing face, by any means.
+
+'I can't afford to sing,' said Tackleton.  'I'm glad YOU CAN.  I 
+hope you can afford to work too.  Hardly time for both, I should 
+think?'
+
+'If you could only see him, Bertha, how he's winking at me!' 
+whispered Caleb.  'Such a man to joke! you'd think, if you didn't 
+know him, he was in earnest - wouldn't you now?'
+
+The Blind Girl smiled and nodded.
+
+'The bird that can sing and won't sing, must be made to sing, they 
+say,' grumbled Tackleton.  'What about the owl that can't sing, and 
+oughtn't to sing, and will sing; is there anything that HE should 
+be made to do?'
+
+'The extent to which he's winking at this moment!' whispered Caleb 
+to his daughter.  'O, my gracious!'
+
+'Always merry and light-hearted with us!' cried the smiling Bertha.
+
+'O, you're there, are you?' answered Tackleton.  'Poor Idiot!'
+
+He really did believe she was an Idiot; and he founded the belief, 
+I can't say whether consciously or not, upon her being fond of him.
+
+'Well! and being there, - how are you?' said Tackleton, in his 
+grudging way.
+
+'Oh! well; quite well.  And as happy as even you can wish me to be.  
+As happy as you would make the whole world, if you could!'
+
+'Poor Idiot!' muttered Tackleton.  'No gleam of reason.  Not a 
+gleam!'
+
+The Blind Girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for a moment in 
+her own two hands; and laid her cheek against it tenderly, before 
+releasing it.  There was such unspeakable affection and such 
+fervent gratitude in the act, that Tackleton himself was moved to 
+say, in a milder growl than usual:
+
+'What's the matter now?'
+
+'I stood it close beside my pillow when I went to sleep last night, 
+and remembered it in my dreams.  And when the day broke, and the 
+glorious red sun - the RED sun, father?'
+
+'Red in the mornings and the evenings, Bertha,' said poor Caleb, 
+with a woeful glance at his employer.
+
+'When it rose, and the bright light I almost fear to strike myself 
+against in walking, came into the room, I turned the little tree 
+towards it, and blessed Heaven for making things so precious, and 
+blessed you for sending them to cheer me!'
+
+'Bedlam broke loose!' said Tackleton under his breath.  'We shall 
+arrive at the strait-waistcoat and mufflers soon.  We're getting 
+on!'
+
+Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared vacantly 
+before him while his daughter spoke, as if he really were uncertain 
+(I believe he was) whether Tackleton had done anything to deserve 
+her thanks, or not.  If he could have been a perfectly free agent, 
+at that moment, required, on pain of death, to kick the Toy-
+merchant, or fall at his feet, according to his merits, I believe 
+it would have been an even chance which course he would have taken.  
+Yet, Caleb knew that with his own hands he had brought the little 
+rose-tree home for her, so carefully, and that with his own lips he 
+had forged the innocent deception which should help to keep her 
+from suspecting how much, how very much, he every day, denied 
+himself, that she might be the happier.
+
+'Bertha!' said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a little 
+cordiality.  'Come here.'
+
+'Oh!  I can come straight to you!  You needn't guide me!' she 
+rejoined.
+
+'Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha?'
+
+'If you will!' she answered, eagerly.
+
+How bright the darkened face!  How adorned with light, the 
+listening head!
+
+'This is the day on which little what's-her-name, the spoilt child, 
+Peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit to you - makes her 
+fantastic Pic-Nic here; an't it?' said Tackleton, with a strong 
+expression of distaste for the whole concern.
+
+'Yes,' replied Bertha.  'This is the day.'
+
+'I thought so,' said Tackleton.  'I should like to join the party.'
+
+'Do you hear that, father!' cried the Blind Girl in an ecstasy.
+
+'Yes, yes, I hear it,' murmured Caleb, with the fixed look of a 
+sleep-walker; 'but I don't believe it.  It's one of my lies, I've 
+no doubt.'
+
+'You see I - I want to bring the Peerybingles a little more into 
+company with May Fielding,' said Tackleton.  'I am going to be 
+married to May.'
+
+'Married!' cried the Blind Girl, starting from him.
+
+'She's such a con-founded Idiot,' muttered Tackleton, 'that I was 
+afraid she'd never comprehend me.  Ah, Bertha!  Married!  Church, 
+parson, clerk, beadle, glass-coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake, 
+favours, marrow-bones, cleavers, and all the rest of the 
+tomfoolery.  A wedding, you know; a wedding.  Don't you know what a 
+wedding is?'
+
+'I know,' replied the Blind Girl, in a gentle tone.  'I 
+understand!'
+
+'Do you?' muttered Tackleton.  'It's more than I expected.  Well!  
+On that account I want to join the party, and to bring May and her 
+mother.  I'll send in a little something or other, before the 
+afternoon.  A cold leg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of 
+that sort.  You'll expect me?'
+
+'Yes,' she answered.
+
+She had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, with her 
+hands crossed, musing.
+
+'I don't think you will,' muttered Tackleton, looking at her; 'for 
+you seem to have forgotten all about it, already.  Caleb!'
+
+'I may venture to say I'm here, I suppose,' thought Caleb.  'Sir!'
+
+'Take care she don't forget what I've been saying to her.'
+
+'SHE never forgets,' returned Caleb.  'It's one of the few things 
+she an't clever in.'
+
+'Every man thinks his own geese swans,' observed the Toy-merchant, 
+with a shrug.  'Poor devil!'
+
+Having delivered himself of which remark, with infinite contempt, 
+old Gruff and Tackleton withdrew.
+
+Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation.  The 
+gaiety had vanished from her downcast face, and it was very sad.  
+Three or four times she shook her head, as if bewailing some 
+remembrance or some loss; but her sorrowful reflections found no 
+vent in words.
+
+It was not until Caleb had been occupied, some time, in yoking a 
+team of horses to a waggon by the summary process of nailing the 
+harness to the vital parts of their bodies, that she drew near to 
+his working-stool, and sitting down beside him, said:
+
+'Father, I am lonely in the dark.  I want my eyes, my patient, 
+willing eyes.'
+
+'Here they are,' said Caleb.  'Always ready.  They are more yours 
+than mine, Bertha, any hour in the four-and-twenty.  What shall 
+your eyes do for you, dear?'
+
+'Look round the room, father.'
+
+'All right,' said Caleb.  'No sooner said than done, Bertha.'
+
+'Tell me about it.'
+
+'It's much the same as usual,' said Caleb.  'Homely, but very snug.  
+The gay colours on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and 
+dishes; the shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the 
+general cheerfulness and neatness of the building; make it very 
+pretty.'
+
+Cheerful and neat it was wherever Bertha's hands could busy 
+themselves.  But nowhere else, were cheerfulness and neatness 
+possible, in the old crazy shed which Caleb's fancy so transformed.
+
+'You have your working dress on, and are not so gallant as when you 
+wear the handsome coat?' said Bertha, touching him.
+
+'Not quite so gallant,' answered Caleb.  'Pretty brisk though.'
+
+'Father,' said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his side, and 
+stealing one arm round his neck, 'tell me something about May.  She 
+is very fair?'
+
+'She is indeed,' said Caleb.  And she was indeed.  It was quite a 
+rare thing to Caleb, not to have to draw on his invention.
+
+'Her hair is dark,' said Bertha, pensively, 'darker than mine.  Her 
+voice is sweet and musical, I know.  I have often loved to hear it.  
+Her shape - '
+
+'There's not a Doll's in all the room to equal it,' said Caleb.  
+'And her eyes! - '
+
+He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his neck, and from 
+the arm that clung about him, came a warning pressure which he 
+understood too well.
+
+He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then fell back upon 
+the song about the sparkling bowl; his infallible resource in all 
+such difficulties.
+
+'Our friend, father, our benefactor.  I am never tired, you know, 
+of hearing about him. - Now, was I ever?' she said, hastily.
+
+'Of course not,' answered Caleb, 'and with reason.'
+
+'Ah!  With how much reason!' cried the Blind Girl.  With such 
+fervency, that Caleb, though his motives were so pure, could not 
+endure to meet her face; but dropped his eyes, as if she could have 
+read in them his innocent deceit.
+
+'Then, tell me again about him, dear father,' said Bertha.  'Many 
+times again!  His face is benevolent, kind, and tender.  Honest and 
+true, I am sure it is.  The manly heart that tries to cloak all 
+favours with a show of roughness and unwillingness, beats in its 
+every look and glance.'
+
+'And makes it noble!' added Caleb, in his quiet desperation.
+
+'And makes it noble!' cried the Blind Girl.  'He is older than May, 
+father.'
+
+'Ye-es,' said Caleb, reluctantly.  'He's a little older than May.  
+But that don't signify.'
+
+'Oh father, yes!  To be his patient companion in infirmity and age; 
+to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his constant friend in 
+suffering and sorrow; to know no weariness in working for his sake; 
+to watch him, tend him, sit beside his bed and talk to him awake, 
+and pray for him asleep; what privileges these would be!  What 
+opportunities for proving all her truth and devotion to him!  Would 
+she do all this, dear father?
+
+'No doubt of it,' said Caleb.
+
+'I love her, father; I can love her from my soul!' exclaimed the 
+Blind Girl.  And saying so, she laid her poor blind face on Caleb's 
+shoulder, and so wept and wept, that he was almost sorry to have 
+brought that tearful happiness upon her.
+
+In the mean time, there had been a pretty sharp commotion at John 
+Peerybingle's, for little Mrs. Peerybingle naturally couldn't think 
+of going anywhere without the Baby; and to get the Baby under weigh 
+took time.  Not that there was much of the Baby, speaking of it as 
+a thing of weight and measure, but there was a vast deal to do 
+about and about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages.  For 
+instance, when the Baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain 
+point of dressing, and you might have rationally supposed that 
+another touch or two would finish him off, and turn him out a tip-
+top Baby challenging the world, he was unexpectedly extinguished in 
+a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to 
+speak) between two blankets for the best part of an hour.  From 
+this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining very much and 
+roaring violently, to partake of - well?  I would rather say, if 
+you'll permit me to speak generally - of a slight repast.  After 
+which, he went to sleep again.  Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of 
+this interval, to make herself as smart in a small way as ever you 
+saw anybody in all your life; and, during the same short truce, 
+Miss Slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so 
+surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection with herself, 
+or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, dog's-eared, 
+independent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least 
+regard to anybody.  By this time, the Baby, being all alive again, 
+was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss 
+Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body, and a sort of 
+nankeen raised-pie for its head; and so in course of time they all 
+three got down to the door, where the old horse had already taken 
+more than the full value of his day's toll out of the Turnpike 
+Trust, by tearing up the road with his impatient autographs; and 
+whence Boxer might be dimly seen in the remote perspective, 
+standing looking back, and tempting him to come on without orders.
+
+As to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping Mrs. 
+Peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of John, if you 
+think THAT was necessary.  Before you could have seen him lift her 
+from the ground, there she was in her place, fresh and rosy, 
+saying, 'John!  How CAN you!  Think of Tilly!'
+
+If I might be allowed to mention a young lady's legs, on any terms, 
+I would observe of Miss Slowboy's that there was a fatality about 
+them which rendered them singularly liable to be grazed; and that 
+she never effected the smallest ascent or descent, without 
+recording the circumstance upon them with a notch, as Robinson 
+Crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar.  But as this might 
+be considered ungenteel, I'll think of it.
+
+'John?  You've got the Basket with the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, 
+and the bottles of Beer?' said Dot.  'If you haven't, you must turn 
+round again, this very minute.'
+
+'You're a nice little article,' returned the Carrier, 'to be 
+talking about turning round, after keeping me a full quarter of an 
+hour behind my time.'
+
+'I am sorry for it, John,' said Dot in a great bustle, 'but I 
+really could not think of going to Bertha's - I would not do it, 
+John, on any account - without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and 
+the bottles of Beer.  Way!'
+
+This monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn't mind it at 
+all.
+
+'Oh DO way, John!' said Mrs. Peerybingle.  'Please!'
+
+'It'll be time enough to do that,' returned John, 'when I begin to 
+leave things behind me.  The basket's here, safe enough.'
+
+'What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not to have said 
+so, at once, and save me such a turn!  I declared I wouldn't go to 
+Bertha's without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles 
+of Beer, for any money.  Regularly once a fortnight ever since we 
+have been married, John, have we made our little Pic-Nic there.  If 
+anything was to go wrong with it, I should almost think we were 
+never to be lucky again.'
+
+'It was a kind thought in the first instance,' said the Carrier:  
+'and I honour you for it, little woman.'
+
+'My dear John,' replied Dot, turning very red, 'don't talk about 
+honouring ME.  Good Gracious!'
+
+'By the bye - ' observed the Carrier.  'That old gentleman - '
+
+Again so visibly, and instantly embarrassed!
+
+'He's an odd fish,' said the Carrier, looking straight along the 
+road before them.  'I can't make him out.  I don't believe there's 
+any harm in him.'
+
+'None at all.  I'm - I'm sure there's none at all.'
+
+'Yes,' said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face by the 
+great earnestness of her manner.  'I am glad you feel so certain of 
+it, because it's a confirmation to me.  It's curious that he should 
+have taken it into his head to ask leave to go on lodging with us; 
+an't it?  Things come about so strangely.'
+
+'So very strangely,' she rejoined in a low voice, scarcely audible.
+
+'However, he's a good-natured old gentleman,' said John, 'and pays 
+as a gentleman, and I think his word is to be relied upon, like a 
+gentleman's.  I had quite a long talk with him this morning:  he 
+can hear me better already, he says, as he gets more used to my 
+voice.  He told me a great deal about himself, and I told him a 
+great deal about myself, and a rare lot of questions he asked me.  
+I gave him information about my having two beats, you know, in my 
+business; one day to the right from our house and back again; 
+another day to the left from our house and back again (for he's a 
+stranger and don't know the names of places about here); and he 
+seemed quite pleased.  "Why, then I shall be returning home to-
+night your way," he says, "when I thought you'd be coming in an 
+exactly opposite direction.  That's capital!  I may trouble you for 
+another lift perhaps, but I'll engage not to fall so sound asleep 
+again."  He WAS sound asleep, sure-ly! - Dot! what are you thinking 
+of?'
+
+'Thinking of, John?  I - I was listening to you.'
+
+'O!  That's all right!' said the honest Carrier.  'I was afraid, 
+from the look of your face, that I had gone rambling on so long, as 
+to set you thinking about something else.  I was very near it, I'll 
+be bound.'
+
+Dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little time, in 
+silence.  But, it was not easy to remain silent very long in John 
+Peerybingle's cart, for everybody on the road had something to say.  
+Though it might only be 'How are you!' and indeed it was very often 
+nothing else, still, to give that back again in the right spirit of 
+cordiality, required, not merely a nod and a smile, but as 
+wholesome an action of the lungs withal, as a long-winded 
+Parliamentary speech.  Sometimes, passengers on foot, or horseback, 
+plodded on a little way beside the cart, for the express purpose of 
+having a chat; and then there was a great deal to be said, on both 
+sides.
+
+Then, Boxer gave occasion to more good-natured recognitions of, and 
+by, the Carrier, than half-a-dozen Christians could have done!  
+Everybody knew him, all along the road - especially the fowls and 
+pigs, who when they saw him approaching, with his body all on one 
+side, and his ears pricked up inquisitively, and that knob of a 
+tail making the most of itself in the air, immediately withdrew 
+into remote back settlements, without waiting for the honour of a 
+nearer acquaintance.  He had business everywhere; going down all 
+the turnings, looking into all the wells, bolting in and out of all 
+the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the Dame-Schools, 
+fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the cats, 
+and trotting into the public-houses like a regular customer.  
+Wherever he went, somebody or other might have been heard to cry, 
+'Halloa!  Here's Boxer!' and out came that somebody forthwith, 
+accompanied by at least two or three other somebodies, to give John 
+Peerybingle and his pretty wife, Good Day.
+
+The packages and parcels for the errand cart, were numerous; and 
+there were many stoppages to take them in and give them out, which 
+were not by any means the worst parts of the journey.  Some people 
+were so full of expectation about their parcels, and other people 
+were so full of wonder about their parcels, and other people were 
+so full of inexhaustible directions about their parcels, and John 
+had such a lively interest in all the parcels, that it was as good 
+as a play.  Likewise, there were articles to carry, which required 
+to be considered and discussed, and in reference to the adjustment 
+and disposition of which, councils had to be holden by the Carrier 
+and the senders:  at which Boxer usually assisted, in short fits of 
+the closest attention, and long fits of tearing round and round the 
+assembled sages and barking himself hoarse.  Of all these little 
+incidents, Dot was the amused and open-eyed spectatress from her 
+chair in the cart; and as she sat there, looking on - a charming 
+little portrait framed to admiration by the tilt - there was no 
+lack of nudgings and glancings and whisperings and envyings among 
+the younger men.  And this delighted John the Carrier, beyond 
+measure; for he was proud to have his little wife admired, knowing 
+that she didn't mind it - that, if anything, she rather liked it 
+perhaps.
+
+The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January weather; 
+and was raw and cold.  But who cared for such trifles?  Not Dot, 
+decidedly.  Not Tilly Slowboy, for she deemed sitting in a cart, on 
+any terms, to be the highest point of human joys; the crowning 
+circumstance of earthly hopes.  Not the Baby, I'll be sworn; for 
+it's not in Baby nature to be warmer or more sound asleep, though 
+its capacity is great in both respects, than that blessed young 
+Peerybingle was, all the way.
+
+You couldn't see very far in the fog, of course; but you could see 
+a great deal!  It's astonishing how much you may see, in a thicker 
+fog than that, if you will only take the trouble to look for it.  
+Why, even to sit watching for the Fairy-rings in the fields, and 
+for the patches of hoar-frost still lingering in the shade, near 
+hedges and by trees, was a pleasant occupation:  to make no mention 
+of the unexpected shapes in which the trees themselves came 
+starting out of the mist, and glided into it again.  The hedges 
+were tangled and bare, and waved a multitude of blighted garlands 
+in the wind; but there was no discouragement in this.  It was 
+agreeable to contemplate; for it made the fireside warmer in 
+possession, and the summer greener in expectancy.  The river looked 
+chilly; but it was in motion, and moving at a good pace - which was 
+a great point.  The canal was rather slow and torpid; that must be 
+admitted.  Never mind.  It would freeze the sooner when the frost 
+set fairly in, and then there would be skating, and sliding; and 
+the heavy old barges, frozen up somewhere near a wharf, would smoke 
+their rusty iron chimney pipes all day, and have a lazy time of it.
+
+In one place, there was a great mound of weeds or stubble burning; 
+and they watched the fire, so white in the daytime, flaring through 
+the fog, with only here and there a dash of red in it, until, in 
+consequence, as she observed, of the smoke 'getting up her nose,' 
+Miss Slowboy choked - she could do anything of that sort, on the 
+smallest provocation - and woke the Baby, who wouldn't go to sleep 
+again.  But, Boxer, who was in advance some quarter of a mile or 
+so, had already passed the outposts of the town, and gained the 
+corner of the street where Caleb and his daughter lived; and long 
+before they had reached the door, he and the Blind Girl were on the 
+pavement waiting to receive them.
+
+Boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions of his own, 
+in his communication with Bertha, which persuade me fully that he 
+knew her to be blind.  He never sought to attract her attention by 
+looking at her, as he often did with other people, but touched her 
+invariably.  What experience he could ever have had of blind people 
+or blind dogs, I don't know.  He had never lived with a blind 
+master; nor had Mr. Boxer the elder, nor Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his 
+respectable family on either side, ever been visited with 
+blindness, that I am aware of.  He may have found it out for 
+himself, perhaps, but he had got hold of it somehow; and therefore 
+he had hold of Bertha too, by the skirt, and kept bold, until Mrs. 
+Peerybingle and the Baby, and Miss Slowboy, and the basket, were 
+all got safely within doors.
+
+May Fielding was already come; and so was her mother - a little 
+querulous chip of an old lady with a peevish face, who, in right of 
+having preserved a waist like a bedpost, was supposed to be a most 
+transcendent figure; and who, in consequence of having once been 
+better off, or of labouring under an impression that she might have 
+been, if something had happened which never did happen, and seemed 
+to have never been particularly likely to come to pass - but it's 
+all the same - was very genteel and patronising indeed.  Gruff and 
+Tackleton was also there, doing the agreeable, with the evident 
+sensation of being as perfectly at home, and as unquestionably in 
+his own element, as a fresh young salmon on the top of the Great 
+Pyramid.
+
+'May!  My dear old friend!' cried Dot, running up to meet her.  
+'What a happiness to see you.'
+
+Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as she; and 
+it really was, if you'll believe me, quite a pleasant sight to see 
+them embrace.  Tackleton was a man of taste beyond all question.  
+May was very pretty.
+
+You know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, how, when 
+it comes into contact and comparison with another pretty face, it 
+seems for the moment to be homely and faded, and hardly to deserve 
+the high opinion you have had of it.  Now, this was not at all the 
+case, either with Dot or May; for May's face set off Dot's, and 
+Dot's face set off May's, so naturally and agreeably, that, as John 
+Peerybingle was very near saying when he came into the room, they 
+ought to have been born sisters - which was the only improvement 
+you could have suggested.
+
+Tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful to relate, 
+a tart besides - but we don't mind a little dissipation when our 
+brides are in the case. we don't get married every day - and in 
+addition to these dainties, there were the Veal and Ham-Pie, and 
+'things,' as Mrs. Peerybingle called them; which were chiefly nuts 
+and oranges, and cakes, and such small deer.  When the repast was 
+set forth on the board, flanked by Caleb's contribution, which was 
+a great wooden bowl of smoking potatoes (he was prohibited, by 
+solemn compact, from producing any other viands), Tackleton led his 
+intended mother-in-law to the post of honour.  For the better 
+gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic old soul 
+had adorned herself with a cap, calculated to inspire the 
+thoughtless with sentiments of awe.  She also wore her gloves.  But 
+let us be genteel, or die!
+
+Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old schoolfellow were side 
+by side; the good Carrier took care of the bottom of the table.  
+Miss Slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article 
+of furniture but the chair she sat on, that she might have nothing 
+else to knock the Baby's head against.
+
+As Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared at her 
+and at the company.  The venerable old gentlemen at the street 
+doors (who were all in full action) showed especial interest in the 
+party, pausing occasionally before leaping, as if they were 
+listening to the conversation, and then plunging wildly over and 
+over, a great many times, without halting for breath - as in a 
+frantic state of delight with the whole proceedings.
+
+Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a fiendish 
+joy in the contemplation of Tackleton's discomfiture, they had good 
+reason to be satisfied.  Tackleton couldn't get on at all; and the 
+more cheerful his intended bride became in Dot's society, the less 
+he liked it, though he had brought them together for that purpose.  
+For he was a regular dog in the manger, was Tackleton; and when 
+they laughed and he couldn't, he took it into his head, 
+immediately, that they must be laughing at him.
+
+'Ah, May!' said Dot.  'Dear dear, what changes!  To talk of those 
+merry school-days makes one young again.'
+
+'Why, you an't particularly old, at any time; are you?' said 
+Tackleton.
+
+'Look at my sober plodding husband there,' returned Dot.  'He adds 
+twenty years to my age at least.  Don't you, John?'
+
+'Forty,' John replied.
+
+'How many YOU'll add to May's, I am sure I don't know,' said Dot, 
+laughing.  'But she can't be much less than a hundred years of age 
+on her next birthday.'
+
+'Ha ha!' laughed Tackleton.  Hollow as a drum, that laugh though.  
+And he looked as if he could have twisted Dot's neck, comfortably.
+
+'Dear dear!' said Dot.  'Only to remember how we used to talk, at 
+school, about the husbands we would choose.  I don't know how 
+young, and how handsome, and how gay, and how lively, mine was not 
+to be!  And as to May's! - Ah dear!  I don't know whether to laugh 
+or cry, when I think what silly girls we were.'
+
+May seemed to know which to do; for the colour flushed into her 
+face, and tears stood in her eyes.
+
+'Even the very persons themselves - real live young men - were 
+fixed on sometimes,' said Dot.  'We little thought how things would 
+come about.  I never fixed on John I'm sure; I never so much as 
+thought of him.  And if I had told you, you were ever to be married 
+to Mr. Tackleton, why you'd have slapped me.  Wouldn't you, May?'
+
+Though May didn't say yes, she certainly didn't say no, or express 
+no, by any means.
+
+Tackleton laughed - quite shouted, he laughed so loud.  John 
+Peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary good-natured and contented 
+manner; but his was a mere whisper of a laugh, to Tackleton's.
+
+'You couldn't help yourselves, for all that.  You couldn't resist 
+us, you see,' said Tackleton.  'Here we are!  Here we are!'
+
+'Where are your gay young bridegrooms now!'
+
+'Some of them are dead,' said Dot; 'and some of them forgotten.  
+Some of them, if they could stand among us at this moment, would 
+not believe we were the same creatures; would not believe that what 
+they saw and heard was real, and we COULD forget them so.  No! they 
+would not believe one word of it!'
+
+'Why, Dot!' exclaimed the Carrier.  'Little woman!'
+
+She had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that she stood in 
+need of some recalling to herself, without doubt.  Her husband's 
+cheek was very gentle, for he merely interfered, as he supposed, to 
+shield old Tackleton; but it proved effectual, for she stopped, and 
+said no more.  There was an uncommon agitation, even in her 
+silence, which the wary Tackleton, who had brought his half-shut 
+eye to bear upon her, noted closely, and remembered to some purpose 
+too.
+
+May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, with her 
+eyes cast down, and made no sign of interest in what had passed.  
+The good lady her mother now interposed, observing, in the first 
+instance, that girls were girls, and byegones byegones, and that so 
+long as young people were young and thoughtless, they would 
+probably conduct themselves like young and thoughtless persons:  
+with two or three other positions of a no less sound and 
+incontrovertible character.  She then remarked, in a devout spirit, 
+that she thanked Heaven she had always found in her daughter May, a 
+dutiful and obedient child; for which she took no credit to 
+herself, though she had every reason to believe it was entirely 
+owing to herself.  With regard to Mr. Tackleton she said, That he 
+was in a moral point of view an undeniable individual, and That he 
+was in an eligible point of view a son-in-law to be desired, no one 
+in their senses could doubt.  (She was very emphatic here.)  With 
+regard to the family into which he was so soon about, after some 
+solicitation, to be admitted, she believed Mr. Tackleton knew that, 
+although reduced in purse, it had some pretensions to gentility; 
+and if certain circumstances, not wholly unconnected, she would go 
+so far as to say, with the Indigo Trade, but to which she would not 
+more particularly refer, had happened differently, it might perhaps 
+have been in possession of wealth.  She then remarked that she 
+would not allude to the past, and would not mention that her 
+daughter had for some time rejected the suit of Mr. Tackleton; and 
+that she would not say a great many other things which she did say, 
+at great length.  Finally, she delivered it as the general result 
+of her observation and experience, that those marriages in which 
+there was least of what was romantically and sillily called love, 
+were always the happiest; and that she anticipated the greatest 
+possible amount of bliss - not rapturous bliss; but the solid, 
+steady-going article - from the approaching nuptials.  She 
+concluded by informing the company that to-morrow was the day she 
+had lived for, expressly; and that when it was over, she would 
+desire nothing better than to be packed up and disposed of, in any 
+genteel place of burial.
+
+As these remarks were quite unanswerable - which is the happy 
+property of all remarks that are sufficiently wide of the purpose - 
+they changed the current of the conversation, and diverted the 
+general attention to the Veal and Ham-Pie, the cold mutton, the 
+potatoes, and the tart.  In order that the bottled beer might not 
+be slighted, John Peerybingle proposed To-morrow:  the Wedding-Day; 
+and called upon them to drink a bumper to it, before he proceeded 
+on his journey.
+
+For you ought to know that he only rested there, and gave the old 
+horse a bait.  He had to go some four of five miles farther on; and 
+when he returned in the evening, he called for Dot, and took 
+another rest on his way home.  This was the order of the day on all 
+the Pic-Nic occasions, had been, ever since their institution.
+
+There were two persons present, besides the bride and bridegroom 
+elect, who did but indifferent honour to the toast.  One of these 
+was Dot, too flushed and discomposed to adapt herself to any small 
+occurrence of the moment; the other, Bertha, who rose up hurriedly, 
+before the rest, and left the table.
+
+'Good bye!' said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on his dreadnought 
+coat.  'I shall be back at the old time.  Good bye all!'
+
+'Good bye, John,' returned Caleb.
+
+He seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in the same 
+unconscious manner; for he stood observing Bertha with an anxious 
+wondering face, that never altered its expression.
+
+'Good bye, young shaver!' said the jolly Carrier, bending down to 
+kiss the child; which Tilly Slowboy, now intent upon her knife and 
+fork, had deposited asleep (and strange to say, without damage) in 
+a little cot of Bertha's furnishing; 'good bye!  Time will come, I 
+suppose, when YOU'LL turn out into the cold, my little friend, and 
+leave your old father to enjoy his pipe and his rheumatics in the 
+chimney-corner; eh?  Where's Dot?'
+
+'I'm here, John!' she said, starting.
+
+'Come, come!' returned the Carrier, clapping his sounding hands.  
+'Where's the pipe?'
+
+'I quite forgot the pipe, John.'
+
+Forgot the pipe!  Was such a wonder ever heard of!  She!  Forgot 
+the pipe!
+
+'I'll - I'll fill it directly.  It's soon done.'
+
+But it was not so soon done, either.  It lay in the usual place - 
+the Carrier's dreadnought pocket - with the little pouch, her own 
+work, from which she was used to fill it, but her hand shook so, 
+that she entangled it (and yet her hand was small enough to have 
+come out easily, I am sure), and bungled terribly.  The filling of 
+the pipe and lighting it, those little offices in which I have 
+commended her discretion, were vilely done, from first to last.  
+During the whole process, Tackleton stood looking on maliciously 
+with the half-closed eye; which, whenever it met hers - or caught 
+it, for it can hardly be said to have ever met another eye:  rather 
+being a kind of trap to snatch it up - augmented her confusion in a 
+most remarkable degree.
+
+'Why, what a clumsy Dot you are, this afternoon!' said John.  'I 
+could have done it better myself, I verify believe!'
+
+With these good-natured words, he strode away, and presently was 
+heard, in company with Boxer, and the old horse, and the cart, 
+making lively music down the road.  What time the dreamy Caleb 
+still stood, watching his blind daughter, with the same expression 
+on his face.
+
+'Bertha!' said Caleb, softly.  'What has happened?  How changed you 
+are, my darling, in a few hours - since this morning.  YOU silent 
+and dull all day!  What is it?  Tell me!'
+
+'Oh father, father!' cried the Blind Girl, bursting into tears.  
+'Oh my hard, hard fate!'
+
+Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her.
+
+'But think how cheerful and how happy you have been, Bertha!  How 
+good, and how much loved, by many people.'
+
+'That strikes me to the heart, dear father!  Always so mindful of 
+me!  Always so kind to me!'
+
+Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her.
+
+'To be - to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear,' he faltered, 'is a 
+great affliction; but - '
+
+'I have never felt it!' cried the Blind Girl.  'I have never felt 
+it, in its fulness.  Never!  I have sometimes wished that I could 
+see you, or could see him - only once, dear father, only for one 
+little minute - that I might know what it is I treasure up,' she 
+laid her hands upon her breast, 'and hold here!  That I might be 
+sure and have it right!  And sometimes (but then I was a child) I 
+have wept in my prayers at night, to think that when your images 
+ascended from my heart to Heaven, they might not be the true 
+resemblance of yourselves.  But I have never had these feelings 
+long.  They have passed away and left me tranquil and contented.'
+
+'And they will again,' said Caleb.
+
+'But, father!  Oh my good, gentle father, bear with me, if I am 
+wicked!' said the Blind Girl.  'This is not the sorrow that so 
+weighs me down!'
+
+Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes overflow; she 
+was so earnest and pathetic, but he did not understand her, yet.
+
+'Bring her to me,' said Bertha.  'I cannot hold it closed and shut 
+within myself.  Bring her to me, father!'
+
+She knew he hesitated, and said, 'May.  Bring May!'
+
+May heard the mention of her name, and coming quietly towards her, 
+touched her on the arm.  The Blind Girl turned immediately, and 
+held her by both hands.
+
+'Look into my face, Dear heart, Sweet heart!' said Bertha.  'Read 
+it with your beautiful eyes, and tell me if the truth is written on 
+it.'
+
+'Dear Bertha, Yes!'
+
+The Blind Girl still, upturning the blank sightless face, down 
+which the tears were coursing fast, addressed her in these words:
+
+'There is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that is not for your 
+good, bright May!  There is not, in my soul, a grateful 
+recollection stronger than the deep remembrance which is stored 
+there, of the many many times when, in the full pride of sight and 
+beauty, you have had consideration for Blind Bertha, even when we 
+two were children, or when Bertha was as much a child as ever 
+blindness can be!  Every blessing on your head!  Light upon your 
+happy course!  Not the less, my dear May;' and she drew towards 
+her, in a closer grasp; 'not the less, my bird, because, to-day, 
+the knowledge that you are to be His wife has wrung my heart almost 
+to breaking!  Father, May, Mary! oh forgive me that it is so, for 
+the sake of all he has done to relieve the weariness of my dark 
+life:  and for the sake of the belief you have in me, when I call 
+Heaven to witness that I could not wish him married to a wife more 
+worthy of his goodness!'
+
+While speaking, she had released May Fielding's hands, and clasped 
+her garments in an attitude of mingled supplication and love.  
+Sinking lower and lower down, as she proceeded in her strange 
+confession, she dropped at last at the feet of her friend, and hid 
+her blind face in the folds of her dress.
+
+'Great Power!' exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow with the 
+truth, 'have I deceived her from the cradle, but to break her heart 
+at last!'
+
+It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, busy 
+little Dot - for such she was, whatever faults she had, and however 
+you may learn to hate her, in good time - it was well for all of 
+them, I say, that she was there:  or where this would have ended, 
+it were hard to tell.  But Dot, recovering her self-possession, 
+interposed, before May could reply, or Caleb say another word.
+
+'Come, come, dear Bertha! come away with me!  Give her your arm, 
+May.  So!  How composed she is, you see, already; and how good it 
+is of her to mind us,' said the cheery little woman, kissing her 
+upon the forehead.  'Come away, dear Bertha.  Come! and here's her 
+good father will come with her; won't you, Caleb?  To - be - sure!'
+
+Well, well! she was a noble little Dot in such things, and it must 
+have been an obdurate nature that could have withstood her 
+influence.  When she had got poor Caleb and his Bertha away, that 
+they might comfort and console each other, as she knew they only 
+could, she presently came bouncing back, - the saying is, as fresh 
+as any daisy; I say fresher - to mount guard over that bridling 
+little piece of consequence in the cap and gloves, and prevent the 
+dear old creature from making discoveries.
+
+'So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly,' said she, drawing a chair 
+to the fire; 'and while I have it in my lap, here's Mrs. Fielding, 
+Tilly, will tell me all about the management of Babies, and put me 
+right in twenty points where I'm as wrong as can be.  Won't you, 
+Mrs. Fielding?'
+
+Not even the Welsh Giant, who, according to the popular expression, 
+was so 'slow' as to perform a fatal surgical operation upon 
+himself, in emulation of a juggling-trick achieved by his arch-
+enemy at breakfast-time; not even he fell half so readily into the 
+snare prepared for him, as the old lady did into this artful 
+pitfall.  The fact of Tackleton having walked out; and furthermore, 
+of two or three people having been talking together at a distance, 
+for two minutes, leaving her to her own resources; was quite enough 
+to have put her on her dignity, and the bewailment of that 
+mysterious convulsion in the Indigo trade, for four-and-twenty 
+hours.  But this becoming deference to her experience, on the part 
+of the young mother, was so irresistible, that after a short 
+affectation of humility, she began to enlighten her with the best 
+grace in the world; and sitting bolt upright before the wicked Dot, 
+she did, in half an hour, deliver more infallible domestic recipes 
+and precepts, than would (if acted on) have utterly destroyed and 
+done up that Young Peerybingle, though he had been an Infant 
+Samson.
+
+To change the theme, Dot did a little needlework - she carried the 
+contents of a whole workbox in her pocket; however she contrived 
+it, I don't know - then did a little nursing; then a little more 
+needlework; then had a little whispering chat with May, while the 
+old lady dozed; and so in little bits of bustle, which was quite 
+her manner always, found it a very short afternoon.  Then, as it 
+grew dark, and as it was a solemn part of this Institution of the 
+Pic-Nic that she should perform all Bertha's household tasks, she 
+trimmed the fire, and swept the hearth, and set the tea-board out, 
+and drew the curtain, and lighted a candle.  Then she played an air 
+or two on a rude kind of harp, which Caleb had contrived for 
+Bertha, and played them very well; for Nature had made her delicate 
+little ear as choice a one for music as it would have been for 
+jewels, if she had had any to wear.  By this time it was the 
+established hour for having tea; and Tackleton came back again, to 
+share the meal, and spend the evening.
+
+Caleb and Bertha had returned some time before, and Caleb had sat 
+down to his afternoon's work.  But he couldn't settle to it, poor 
+fellow, being anxious and remorseful for his daughter.  It was 
+touching to see him sitting idle on his working-stool, regarding 
+her so wistfully, and always saying in his face, 'Have I deceived 
+her from her cradle, but to break her heart!'
+
+When it was night, and tea was done, and Dot had nothing more to do 
+in washing up the cups and saucers; in a word - for I must come to 
+it, and there is no use in putting it off - when the time drew nigh 
+for expecting the Carrier's return in every sound of distant 
+wheels, her manner changed again, her colour came and went, and she 
+was very restless.  Not as good wives are, when listening for their 
+husbands.  No, no, no.  It was another sort of restlessness from 
+that.
+
+Wheels heard.  A horse's feet.  The barking of a dog.  The gradual 
+approach of all the sounds.  The scratching paw of Boxer at the 
+door!
+
+'Whose step is that!' cried Bertha, starting up.
+
+'Whose step?' returned the Carrier, standing in the portal, with 
+his brown face ruddy as a winter berry from the keen night air.  
+'Why, mine.'
+
+'The other step,' said Bertha.  'The man's tread behind you!'
+
+'She is not to be deceived,' observed the Carrier, laughing.  'Come 
+along, sir.  You'll be welcome, never fear!'
+
+He spoke in a loud tone; and as he spoke, the deaf old gentleman 
+entered.
+
+'He's not so much a stranger, that you haven't seen him once, 
+Caleb,' said the Carrier.  'You'll give him house-room till we go?'
+
+'Oh surely, John, and take it as an honour.'
+
+'He's the best company on earth, to talk secrets in,' said John.  
+'I have reasonable good lungs, but he tries 'em, I can tell you.  
+Sit down, sir.  All friends here, and glad to see you!'
+
+When he had imparted this assurance, in a voice that amply 
+corroborated what he had said about his lungs, he added in his 
+natural tone, 'A chair in the chimney-corner, and leave to sit 
+quite silent and look pleasantly about him, is all he cares for.  
+He's easily pleased.'
+
+Bertha had been listening intently.  She called Caleb to her side, 
+when he had set the chair, and asked him, in a low voice, to 
+describe their visitor.  When he had done so (truly now; with 
+scrupulous fidelity), she moved, for the first time since he had 
+come in, and sighed, and seemed to have no further interest 
+concerning him.
+
+The Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was, and 
+fonder of his little wife than ever.
+
+'A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon!' he said, encircling her 
+with his rough arm, as she stood, removed from the rest; 'and yet I 
+like her somehow.  See yonder, Dot!'
+
+He pointed to the old man.  She looked down.  I think she trembled.
+
+'He's - ha ha ha! - he's full of admiration for you!' said the 
+Carrier.  'Talked of nothing else, the whole way here.  Why, he's a 
+brave old boy.  I like him for it!'
+
+'I wish he had had a better subject, John,' she said, with an 
+uneasy glance about the room.  At Tackleton especially.
+
+'A better subject!' cried the jovial John.  'There's no such thing.  
+Come, off with the great-coat, off with the thick shawl, off with 
+the heavy wrappers! and a cosy half-hour by the fire!  My humble 
+service, Mistress.  A game at cribbage, you and I?  That's hearty.  
+The cards and board, Dot.  And a glass of beer here, if there's any 
+left, small wife!'
+
+His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who accepting it with 
+gracious readiness, they were soon engaged upon the game.  At 
+first, the Carrier looked about him sometimes, with a smile, or now 
+and then called Dot to peep over his shoulder at his hand, and 
+advise him on some knotty point.  But his adversary being a rigid 
+disciplinarian, and subject to an occasional weakness in respect of 
+pegging more than she was entitled to, required such vigilance on 
+his part, as left him neither eyes nor ears to spare.  Thus, his 
+whole attention gradually became absorbed upon the cards; and he 
+thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his shoulder restored 
+him to a consciousness of Tackleton.
+
+'I am sorry to disturb you - but a word, directly.'
+
+'I'm going to deal,' returned the Carrier.  'It's a crisis.'
+
+'It is,' said Tackleton.  'Come here, man!'
+
+There was that in his pale face which made the other rise 
+immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what the matter was.
+
+'Hush!  John Peerybingle,' said Tackleton.  'I am sorry for this.  
+I am indeed.  I have been afraid of it.  I have suspected it from 
+the first.'
+
+'What is it?' asked the Carrier, with a frightened aspect.
+
+'Hush!  I'll show you, if you'll come with me.'
+
+The Carrier accompanied him, without another word.  They went 
+across a yard, where the stars were shining, and by a little side-
+door, into Tackleton's own counting-house, where there was a glass 
+window, commanding the ware-room, which was closed for the night.  
+There was no light in the counting-house itself, but there were 
+lamps in the long narrow ware-room; and consequently the window was 
+bright.
+
+'A moment!' said Tackleton.  'Can you bear to look through that 
+window, do you think?'
+
+'Why not?' returned the Carrier.
+
+'A moment more,' said Tackleton.  'Don't commit any violence.  It's 
+of no use.  It's dangerous too.  You're a strong-made man; and you 
+might do murder before you know it.'
+
+The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as if he 
+had been struck.  In one stride he was at the window, and he saw -
+
+Oh Shadow on the Hearth!  Oh truthful Cricket!  Oh perfidious Wife!
+
+He saw her, with the old man - old no longer, but erect and gallant 
+- bearing in his hand the false white hair that had won his way 
+into their desolate and miserable home.  He saw her listening to 
+him, as he bent his head to whisper in her ear; and suffering him 
+to clasp her round the waist, as they moved slowly down the dim 
+wooden gallery towards the door by which they had entered it.  He 
+saw them stop, and saw her turn - to have the face, the face he 
+loved so, so presented to his view! - and saw her, with her own 
+hands, adjust the lie upon his head, laughing, as she did it, at 
+his unsuspicious nature!
+
+He clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it would have 
+beaten down a lion.  But opening it immediately again, he spread it 
+out before the eyes of Tackleton (for he was tender of her, even 
+then), and so, as they passed out, fell down upon a desk, and was 
+as weak as any infant.
+
+He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse and parcels, 
+when she came into the room, prepared for going home.
+
+'Now, John, dear!  Good night, May!  Good night, Bertha!'
+
+Could she kiss them?  Could she be blithe and cheerful in her 
+parting?  Could she venture to reveal her face to them without a 
+blush?  Yes.  Tackleton observed her closely, and she did all this.
+
+Tilly was hushing the Baby, and she crossed and re-crossed 
+Tackleton, a dozen times, repeating drowsily:
+
+'Did the knowledge that it was to be its wifes, then, wring its 
+hearts almost to breaking; and did its fathers deceive it from its 
+cradles but to break its hearts at last!'
+
+'Now, Tilly, give me the Baby!  Good night, Mr. Tackleton.  Where's 
+John, for goodness' sake?'
+
+'He's going to walk beside the horse's head,' said Tackleton; who 
+helped her to her seat.
+
+'My dear John.  Walk?  To-night?'
+
+The muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign in the 
+affirmative; and the false stranger and the little nurse being in 
+their places, the old horse moved off.  Boxer, the unconscious 
+Boxer, running on before, running back, running round and round the 
+cart, and barking as triumphantly and merrily as ever.
+
+When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May and her mother 
+home, poor Caleb sat down by the fire beside his daughter; anxious 
+and remorseful at the core; and still saying in his wistful 
+contemplation of her, 'Have I deceived her from her cradle, but to 
+break her heart at last!'
+
+The toys that had been set in motion for the Baby, had all stopped, 
+and run down, long ago.  In the faint light and silence, the 
+imperturbably calm dolls, the agitated rocking-horses with 
+distended eyes and nostrils, the old gentlemen at the street-doors, 
+standing half doubled up upon their failing knees and ankles, the 
+wry-faced nut-crackers, the very Beasts upon their way into the 
+Ark, in twos, like a Boarding School out walking, might have been 
+imagined to be stricken motionless with fantastic wonder, at Dot 
+being false, or Tackleton beloved, under any combination of 
+circumstances.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III - Chirp the Third
+
+
+
+THE Dutch clock in the corner struck Ten, when the Carrier sat down 
+by his fireside.  So troubled and grief-worn, that he seemed to 
+scare the Cuckoo, who, having cut his ten melodious announcements 
+as short as possible, plunged back into the Moorish Palace again, 
+and clapped his little door behind him, as if the unwonted 
+spectacle were too much for his feelings.
+
+If the little Haymaker had been armed with the sharpest of scythes, 
+and had cut at every stroke into the Carrier's heart, he never 
+could have gashed and wounded it, as Dot had done.
+
+It was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up and held 
+together by innumerable threads of winning remembrance, spun from 
+the daily working of her many qualities of endearment; it was a 
+heart in which she had enshrined herself so gently and so closely; 
+a heart so single and so earnest in its Truth, so strong in right, 
+so weak in wrong; that it could cherish neither passion nor revenge 
+at first, and had only room to hold the broken image of its Idol.
+
+But, slowly, slowly, as the Carrier sat brooding on his hearth, now 
+cold and dark, other and fiercer thoughts began to rise within him, 
+as an angry wind comes rising in the night.  The Stranger was 
+beneath his outraged roof.  Three steps would take him to his 
+chamber-door.  One blow would beat it in.  'You might do murder 
+before you know it,' Tackleton had said.  How could it be murder, 
+if he gave the villain time to grapple with him hand to hand!  He 
+was the younger man.
+
+It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind.  It 
+was an angry thought, goading him to some avenging act, that should 
+change the cheerful house into a haunted place which lonely 
+travellers would dread to pass by night; and where the timid would 
+see shadows struggling in the ruined windows when the moon was dim, 
+and hear wild noises in the stormy weather.
+
+He was the younger man!  Yes, yes; some lover who had won the heart 
+that HE had never touched.  Some lover of her early choice, of whom 
+she had thought and dreamed, for whom she had pined and pined, when 
+he had fancied her so happy by his side.  O agony to think of it!
+
+She had been above-stairs with the Baby, getting it to bed.  As he 
+sat brooding on the hearth, she came close beside him, without his 
+knowledge - in the turning of the rack of his great misery, he lost 
+all other sounds - and put her little stool at his feet.  He only 
+knew it, when he felt her hand upon his own, and saw her looking up 
+into his face.
+
+With wonder?  No.  It was his first impression, and he was fain to 
+look at her again, to set it right.  No, not with wonder.  With an 
+eager and inquiring look; but not with wonder.  At first it was 
+alarmed and serious; then, it changed into a strange, wild, 
+dreadful smile of recognition of his thoughts; then, there was 
+nothing but her clasped hands on her brow, and her bent head, and 
+falling hair.
+
+Though the power of Omnipotence had been his to wield at that 
+moment, he had too much of its diviner property of Mercy in his 
+breast, to have turned one feather's weight of it against her.  But 
+he could not bear to see her crouching down upon the little seat 
+where he had often looked on her, with love and pride, so innocent 
+and gay; and, when she rose and left him, sobbing as she went, he 
+felt it a relief to have the vacant place beside him rather than 
+her so long-cherished presence.  This in itself was anguish keener 
+than all, reminding him how desolate he was become, and how the 
+great bond of his life was rent asunder.
+
+The more he felt this, and the more he knew he could have better 
+borne to see her lying prematurely dead before him with their 
+little child upon her breast, the higher and the stronger rose his 
+wrath against his enemy.  He looked about him for a weapon.
+
+There was a gun, hanging on the wall.  He took it down, and moved a 
+pace or two towards the door of the perfidious Stranger's room.  He 
+knew the gun was loaded.  Some shadowy idea that it was just to 
+shoot this man like a wild beast, seized him, and dilated in his 
+mind until it grew into a monstrous demon in complete possession of 
+him, casting out all milder thoughts and setting up its undivided 
+empire.
+
+That phrase is wrong.  Not casting out his milder thoughts, but 
+artfully transforming them.  Changing them into scourges to drive 
+him on.  Turning water into blood, love into hate, gentleness into 
+blind ferocity.  Her image, sorrowing, humbled, but still pleading 
+to his tenderness and mercy with resistless power, never left his 
+mind; but, staying there, it urged him to the door; raised the 
+weapon to his shoulder; fitted and nerved his finger to the 
+trigger; and cried 'Kill him!  In his bed!'
+
+He reversed the gun to beat the stock up the door; he already held 
+it lifted in the air; some indistinct design was in his thoughts of 
+calling out to him to fly, for God's sake, by the window -
+
+When, suddenly, the struggling fire illumined the whole chimney 
+with a glow of light; and the Cricket on the Hearth began to Chirp!
+
+No sound he could have heard, no human voice, not even hers, could 
+so have moved and softened him.  The artless words in which she had 
+told him of her love for this same Cricket, were once more freshly 
+spoken; her trembling, earnest manner at the moment, was again 
+before him; her pleasant voice - O what a voice it was, for making 
+household music at the fireside of an honest man! - thrilled 
+through and through his better nature, and awoke it into life and 
+action.
+
+He recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his sleep, 
+awakened from a frightful dream; and put the gun aside.  Clasping 
+his hands before his face, he then sat down again beside the fire, 
+and found relief in tears.
+
+The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, and stood in 
+Fairy shape before him.
+
+'"I love it,"' said the Fairy Voice, repeating what he well 
+remembered, '"for the many times I have heard it, and the many 
+thoughts its harmless music has given me."'
+
+'She said so!' cried the Carrier.  'True!'
+
+'"This has been a happy home, John; and I love the Cricket for its 
+sake!"'
+
+'It has been, Heaven knows,' returned the Carrier.  'She made it 
+happy, always, - until now.'
+
+'So gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful, busy, and 
+light-hearted!' said the Voice.
+
+'Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did,' returned the 
+Carrier.
+
+The Voice, correcting him, said 'do.'
+
+The Carrier repeated 'as I did.'  But not firmly.  His faltering 
+tongue resisted his control, and would speak in its own way, for 
+itself and him.
+
+The Figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its hand and said:
+
+'Upon your own hearth - '
+
+'The hearth she has blighted,' interposed the Carrier.
+
+'The hearth she has - how often! - blessed and brightened,' said 
+the Cricket; 'the hearth which, but for her, were only a few stones 
+and bricks and rusty bars, but which has been, through her, the 
+Altar of your Home; on which you have nightly sacrificed some petty 
+passion, selfishness, or care, and offered up the homage of a 
+tranquil mind, a trusting nature, and an overflowing heart; so that 
+the smoke from this poor chimney has gone upward with a better 
+fragrance than the richest incense that is burnt before the richest 
+shrines in all the gaudy temples of this world! - Upon your own 
+hearth; in its quiet sanctuary; surrounded by its gentle influences 
+and associations; hear her!  Hear me!  Hear everything that speaks 
+the language of your hearth and home!'
+
+'And pleads for her?' inquired the Carrier.
+
+'All things that speak the language of your hearth and home, must 
+plead for her!' returned the Cricket.  'For they speak the truth.'
+
+And while the Carrier, with his head upon his hands, continued to 
+sit meditating in his chair, the Presence stood beside him, 
+suggesting his reflections by its power, and presenting them before 
+him, as in a glass or picture.  It was not a solitary Presence.  
+From the hearthstone, from the chimney, from the clock, the pipe, 
+the kettle, and the cradle; from the floor, the walls, the ceiling, 
+and the stairs; from the cart without, and the cupboard within, and 
+the household implements; from every thing and every place with 
+which she had ever been familiar, and with which she had ever 
+entwined one recollection of herself in her unhappy husband's mind; 
+Fairies came trooping forth.  Not to stand beside him as the 
+Cricket did, but to busy and bestir themselves.  To do all honour 
+to her image.  To pull him by the skirts, and point to it when it 
+appeared.  To cluster round it, and embrace it, and strew flowers 
+for it to tread on.  To try to crown its fair head with their tiny 
+hands.  To show that they were fond of it and loved it; and that 
+there was not one ugly, wicked or accusatory creature to claim 
+knowledge of it - none but their playful and approving selves.
+
+His thoughts were constant to her image.  It was always there.
+
+She sat plying her needle, before the fire, and singing to herself.  
+Such a blithe, thriving, steady little Dot!  The fairy figures 
+turned upon him all at once, by one consent, with one prodigious 
+concentrated stare, and seemed to say, 'Is this the light wife you 
+are mourning for!'
+
+There were sounds of gaiety outside, musical instruments, and noisy 
+tongues, and laughter.  A crowd of young merry-makers came pouring 
+in, among whom were May Fielding and a score of pretty girls.  Dot 
+was the fairest of them all; as young as any of them too.  They 
+came to summon her to join their party.  It was a dance.  If ever 
+little foot were made for dancing, hers was, surely.  But she 
+laughed, and shook her head, and pointed to her cookery on the 
+fire, and her table ready spread:  with an exulting defiance that 
+rendered her more charming than she was before.  And so she merrily 
+dismissed them, nodding to her would-be partners, one by one, as 
+they passed, but with a comical indifference, enough to make them 
+go and drown themselves immediately if they were her admirers - and 
+they must have been so, more or less; they couldn't help it.  And 
+yet indifference was not her character.  O no!  For presently, 
+there came a certain Carrier to the door; and bless her what a 
+welcome she bestowed upon him!
+
+Again the staring figures turned upon him all at once, and seemed 
+to say, 'Is this the wife who has forsaken you!'
+
+A shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture:  call it what you 
+will.  A great shadow of the Stranger, as he first stood underneath 
+their roof; covering its surface, and blotting out all other 
+objects.  But the nimble Fairies worked like bees to clear it off 
+again.  And Dot again was there.  Still bright and beautiful.
+
+Rocking her little Baby in its cradle, singing to it softly, and 
+resting her head upon a shoulder which had its counterpart in the 
+musing figure by which the Fairy Cricket stood.
+
+The night - I mean the real night:  not going by Fairy clocks - was 
+wearing now; and in this stage of the Carrier's thoughts, the moon 
+burst out, and shone brightly in the sky.  Perhaps some calm and 
+quiet light had risen also, in his mind; and he could think more 
+soberly of what had happened.
+
+Although the shadow of the Stranger fell at intervals upon the 
+glass - always distinct, and big, and thoroughly defined - it never 
+fell so darkly as at first.  Whenever it appeared, the Fairies 
+uttered a general cry of consternation, and plied their little arms 
+and legs, with inconceivable activity, to rub it out.  And whenever 
+they got at Dot again, and showed her to him once more, bright and 
+beautiful, they cheered in the most inspiring manner.
+
+They never showed her, otherwise than beautiful and bright, for 
+they were Household Spirits to whom falsehood is annihilation; and 
+being so, what Dot was there for them, but the one active, beaming, 
+pleasant little creature who had been the light and sun of the 
+Carrier's Home!
+
+The Fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed her, with 
+the Baby, gossiping among a knot of sage old matrons, and affecting 
+to be wondrous old and matronly herself, and leaning in a staid, 
+demure old way upon her husband's arm, attempting - she! such a bud 
+of a little woman - to convey the idea of having abjured the 
+vanities of the world in general, and of being the sort of person 
+to whom it was no novelty at all to be a mother; yet in the same 
+breath, they showed her, laughing at the Carrier for being awkward, 
+and pulling up his shirt-collar to make him smart, and mincing 
+merrily about that very room to teach him how to dance!
+
+They turned, and stared immensely at him when they showed her with 
+the Blind Girl; for, though she carried cheerfulness and animation 
+with her wheresoever she went, she bore those influences into Caleb 
+Plummer's home, heaped up and running over.  The Blind Girl's love 
+for her, and trust in her, and gratitude to her; her own good busy 
+way of setting Bertha's thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for 
+filling up each moment of the visit in doing something useful to 
+the house, and really working hard while feigning to make holiday; 
+her bountiful provision of those standing delicacies, the Veal and 
+Ham-Pie and the bottles of Beer; her radiant little face arriving 
+at the door, and taking leave; the wonderful expression in her 
+whole self, from her neat foot to the crown of her head, of being a 
+part of the establishment - a something necessary to it, which it 
+couldn't be without; all this the Fairies revelled in, and loved 
+her for.  And once again they looked upon him all at once, 
+appealingly, and seemed to say, while some among them nestled in 
+her dress and fondled her, 'Is this the wife who has betrayed your 
+confidence!'
+
+More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful night, 
+they showed her to him sitting on her favourite seat, with her bent 
+head, her hands clasped on her brow, her falling hair.  As he had 
+seen her last.  And when they found her thus, they neither turned 
+nor looked upon him, but gathered close round her, and comforted 
+and kissed her, and pressed on one another to show sympathy and 
+kindness to her, and forgot him altogether.
+
+Thus the night passed.  The moon went down; the stars grew pale; 
+the cold day broke; the sun rose.  The Carrier still sat, musing, 
+in the chimney corner.  He had sat there, with his head upon his 
+hands, all night.  All night the faithful Cricket had been Chirp, 
+Chirp, Chirping on the Hearth.  All night he had listened to its 
+voice.  All night the household Fairies had been busy with him.  
+All night she had been amiable and blameless in the glass, except 
+when that one shadow fell upon it.
+
+He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and dressed himself.  
+He couldn't go about his customary cheerful avocations - he wanted 
+spirit for them - but it mattered the less, that it was Tackleton's 
+wedding-day, and he had arranged to make his rounds by proxy.  He 
+thought to have gone merrily to church with Dot.  But such plans 
+were at an end.  It was their own wedding-day too.  Ah! how little 
+he had looked for such a close to such a year!
+
+The Carrier had expected that Tackleton would pay him an early 
+visit; and he was right.  He had not walked to and fro before his 
+own door, many minutes, when he saw the Toy-merchant coming in his 
+chaise along the road.  As the chaise drew nearer, he perceived 
+that Tackleton was dressed out sprucely for his marriage, and that 
+he had decorated his horse's head with flowers and favours.
+
+The horse looked much more like a bridegroom than Tackleton, whose 
+half-closed eye was more disagreeably expressive than ever.  But 
+the Carrier took little heed of this.  His thoughts had other 
+occupation.
+
+'John Peerybingle!' said Tackleton, with an air of condolence.  'My 
+good fellow, how do you find yourself this morning?'
+
+'I have had but a poor night, Master Tackleton,' returned the 
+Carrier, shaking his head:  'for I have been a good deal disturbed 
+in my mind.  But it's over now!  Can you spare me half an hour or 
+so, for some private talk?'
+
+'I came on purpose,' returned Tackleton, alighting.  'Never mind 
+the horse.  He'll stand quiet enough, with the reins over this 
+post, if you'll give him a mouthful of hay.'
+
+The Carrier having brought it from his stable, and set it before 
+him, they turned into the house.
+
+'You are not married before noon,' he said, 'I think?'
+
+'No,' answered Tackleton.  'Plenty of time.  Plenty of time.'
+
+When they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was rapping at the 
+Stranger's door; which was only removed from it by a few steps.  
+One of her very red eyes (for Tilly had been crying all night long, 
+because her mistress cried) was at the keyhole; and she was 
+knocking very loud; and seemed frightened.
+
+'If you please I can't make nobody hear,' said Tilly, looking 
+round.  'I hope nobody an't gone and been and died if you please!'
+
+This philanthropic wish, Miss Slowboy emphasised with various new 
+raps and kicks at the door; which led to no result whatever.
+
+'Shall I go?' said Tackleton.  'It's curious.'
+
+The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door, signed to him 
+to go if he would.
+
+So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy's relief; and he too kicked and 
+knocked; and he too failed to get the least reply.  But he thought 
+of trying the handle of the door; and as it opened easily, he 
+peeped in, looked in, went in, and soon came running out again.
+
+'John Peerybingle,' said Tackleton, in his ear.  'I hope there has 
+been nothing - nothing rash in the night?'
+
+The Carrier turned upon him quickly.
+
+'Because he's gone!' said Tackleton; 'and the window's open.  I 
+don't see any marks - to be sure it's almost on a level with the 
+garden:  but I was afraid there might have been some - some 
+scuffle.  Eh?'
+
+He nearly shut up the expressive eye altogether; he looked at him 
+so hard.  And he gave his eye, and his face, and his whole person, 
+a sharp twist.  As if he would have screwed the truth out of him.
+
+'Make yourself easy,' said the Carrier.  'He went into that room 
+last night, without harm in word or deed from me, and no one has 
+entered it since.  He is away of his own free will.  I'd go out 
+gladly at that door, and beg my bread from house to house, for 
+life, if I could so change the past that he had never come.  But he 
+has come and gone.  And I have done with him!'
+
+'Oh! - Well, I think he has got off pretty easy,' said Tackleton, 
+taking a chair.
+
+The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too, and shaded 
+his face with his hand, for some little time, before proceeding.
+
+'You showed me last night,' he said at length, 'my wife; my wife 
+that I love; secretly - '
+
+'And tenderly,' insinuated Tackleton.
+
+'Conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him opportunities of 
+meeting her alone.  I think there's no sight I wouldn't have rather 
+seen than that.  I think there's no man in the world I wouldn't 
+have rather had to show it me.'
+
+'I confess to having had my suspicions always,' said Tackleton.  
+'And that has made me objectionable here, I know.'
+
+'But as you did show it me,' pursued the Carrier, not minding him; 
+'and as you saw her, my wife, my wife that I love' - his voice, and 
+eye, and hand, grew steadier and firmer as he repeated these words:  
+evidently in pursuance of a steadfast purpose - 'as you saw her at 
+this disadvantage, it is right and just that you should also see 
+with my eyes, and look into my breast, and know what my mind is, 
+upon the subject.  For it's settled,' said the Carrier, regarding 
+him attentively.  'And nothing can shake it now.'
+
+Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent, about its being 
+necessary to vindicate something or other; but he was overawed by 
+the manner of his companion.  Plain and unpolished as it was, it 
+had a something dignified and noble in it, which nothing but the 
+soul of generous honour dwelling in the man could have imparted.
+
+'I am a plain, rough man,' pursued the Carrier, 'with very little 
+to recommend me.  I am not a clever man, as you very well know.  I 
+am not a young man.  I loved my little Dot, because I had seen her 
+grow up, from a child, in her father's house; because I knew how 
+precious she was; because she had been my life, for years and 
+years.  There's many men I can't compare with, who never could have 
+loved my little Dot like me, I think!'
+
+He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with his foot, 
+before resuming.
+
+'I often thought that though I wasn't good enough for her, I should 
+make her a kind husband, and perhaps know her value better than 
+another; and in this way I reconciled it to myself, and came to 
+think it might be possible that we should be married.  And in the 
+end it came about, and we were married.'
+
+'Hah!' said Tackleton, with a significant shake of the head.
+
+'I had studied myself; I had had experience of myself; I knew how 
+much I loved her, and how happy I should be,' pursued the Carrier.  
+'But I had not - I feel it now - sufficiently considered her.'
+
+'To be sure,' said Tackleton.  'Giddiness, frivolity, fickleness, 
+love of admiration!  Not considered!  All left out of sight!  Hah!'
+
+'You had best not interrupt me,' said the Carrier, with some 
+sternness, 'till you understand me; and you're wide of doing so.  
+If, yesterday, I'd have struck that man down at a blow, who dared 
+to breathe a word against her, to-day I'd set my foot upon his 
+face, if he was my brother!'
+
+The Toy-merchant gazed at him in astonishment.  He went on in a 
+softer tone:
+
+'Did I consider,' said the Carrier, 'that I took her - at her age, 
+and with her beauty - from her young companions, and the many 
+scenes of which she was the ornament; in which she was the 
+brightest little star that ever shone, to shut her up from day to 
+day in my dull house, and keep my tedious company?  Did I consider 
+how little suited I was to her sprightly humour, and how wearisome 
+a plodding man like me must be, to one of her quick spirit?  Did I 
+consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me, that I loved 
+her, when everybody must, who knew her?  Never.  I took advantage 
+of her hopeful nature and her cheerful disposition; and I married 
+her.  I wish I never had!  For her sake; not for mine!'
+
+The Toy-merchant gazed at him, without winking.  Even the half-shut 
+eye was open now.
+
+'Heaven bless her!' said the Carrier, 'for the cheerful constancy 
+with which she tried to keep the knowledge of this from me!  And 
+Heaven help me, that, in my slow mind, I have not found it out 
+before!  Poor child!  Poor Dot!  I not to find it out, who have 
+seen her eyes fill with tears, when such a marriage as our own was 
+spoken of!  I, who have seen the secret trembling on her lips a 
+hundred times, and never suspected it till last night!  Poor girl!  
+That I could ever hope she would be fond of me!  That I could ever 
+believe she was!'
+
+'She made a show of it,' said Tackleton.  'She made such a show of 
+it, that to tell you the truth it was the origin of my misgivings.'
+
+And here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding, who certainly 
+made no sort of show of being fond of HIM.
+
+'She has tried,' said the poor Carrier, with greater emotion than 
+he had exhibited yet; 'I only now begin to know how hard she has 
+tried, to be my dutiful and zealous wife.  How good she has been; 
+how much she has done; how brave and strong a heart she has; let 
+the happiness I have known under this roof bear witness!  It will 
+be some help and comfort to me, when I am here alone.'
+
+'Here alone?' said Tackleton.  'Oh!  Then you do mean to take some 
+notice of this?'
+
+'I mean,' returned the Carrier, 'to do her the greatest kindness, 
+and make her the best reparation, in my power.  I can release her 
+from the daily pain of an unequal marriage, and the struggle to 
+conceal it.  She shall be as free as I can render her.'
+
+'Make HER reparation!' exclaimed Tackleton, twisting and turning 
+his great ears with his hands.  'There must be something wrong 
+here.  You didn't say that, of course.'
+
+The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the Toy-merchant, and 
+shook him like a reed.
+
+'Listen to me!' he said.  'And take care that you hear me right.  
+Listen to me.  Do I speak plainly?'
+
+'Very plainly indeed,' answered Tackleton.
+
+'As if I meant it?'
+
+'Very much as if you meant it.'
+
+'I sat upon that hearth, last night, all night,' exclaimed the 
+Carrier.  'On the spot where she has often sat beside me, with her 
+sweet face looking into mine.  I called up her whole life, day by 
+day.  I had her dear self, in its every passage, in review before 
+me.  And upon my soul she is innocent, if there is One to judge the 
+innocent and guilty!'
+
+Staunch Cricket on the Hearth!  Loyal household Fairies!
+
+'Passion and distrust have left me!' said the Carrier; 'and nothing 
+but my grief remains.  In an unhappy moment some old lover, better 
+suited to her tastes and years than I; forsaken, perhaps, for me, 
+against her will; returned.  In an unhappy moment, taken by 
+surprise, and wanting time to think of what she did, she made 
+herself a party to his treachery, by concealing it.  Last night she 
+saw him, in the interview we witnessed.  It was wrong.  But 
+otherwise than this she is innocent if there is truth on earth!'
+
+'If that is your opinion' - Tackleton began.
+
+'So, let her go!' pursued the Carrier.  'Go, with my blessing for 
+the many happy hours she has given me, and my forgiveness for any 
+pang she has caused me.  Let her go, and have the peace of mind I 
+wish her!  She'll never hate me.  She'll learn to like me better, 
+when I'm not a drag upon her, and she wears the chain I have 
+riveted, more lightly.  This is the day on which I took her, with 
+so little thought for her enjoyment, from her home.  To-day she 
+shall return to it, and I will trouble her no more.  Her father and 
+mother will be here to-day - we had made a little plan for keeping 
+it together - and they shall take her home.  I can trust her, 
+there, or anywhere.  She leaves me without blame, and she will live 
+so I am sure.  If I should die - I may perhaps while she is still 
+young; I have lost some courage in a few hours - she'll find that I 
+remembered her, and loved her to the last!  This is the end of what 
+you showed me.  Now, it's over!'
+
+'O no, John, not over.  Do not say it's over yet!  Not quite yet.  
+I have heard your noble words.  I could not steal away, pretending 
+to be ignorant of what has affected me with such deep gratitude.  
+Do not say it's over, 'till the clock has struck again!'
+
+She had entered shortly after Tackleton, and had remained there.  
+She never looked at Tackleton, but fixed her eyes upon her husband.  
+But she kept away from him, setting as wide a space as possible 
+between them; and though she spoke with most impassioned 
+earnestness, she went no nearer to him even then.  How different in 
+this from her old self!
+
+'No hand can make the clock which will strike again for me the 
+hours that are gone,' replied the Carrier, with a faint smile.  
+'But let it be so, if you will, my dear.  It will strike soon.  
+It's of little matter what we say.  I'd try to please you in a 
+harder case than that.'
+
+'Well!' muttered Tackleton.  'I must be off, for when the clock 
+strikes again, it'll be necessary for me to be upon my way to 
+church.  Good morning, John Peerybingle.  I'm sorry to be deprived 
+of the pleasure of your company.  Sorry for the loss, and the 
+occasion of it too!'
+
+'I have spoken plainly?' said the Carrier, accompanying him to the 
+door.
+
+'Oh quite!'
+
+'And you'll remember what I have said?'
+
+'Why, if you compel me to make the observation,' said Tackleton, 
+previously taking the precaution of getting into his chaise; 'I 
+must say that it was so very unexpected, that I'm far from being 
+likely to forget it.'
+
+'The better for us both,' returned the Carrier.  'Good bye.  I give 
+you joy!'
+
+'I wish I could give it to YOU,' said Tackleton.  'As I can't; 
+thank'ee.  Between ourselves, (as I told you before, eh?) I don't 
+much think I shall have the less joy in my married life, because 
+May hasn't been too officious about me, and too demonstrative.  
+Good bye!  Take care of yourself.'
+
+The Carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller in the 
+distance than his horse's flowers and favours near at hand; and 
+then, with a deep sigh, went strolling like a restless, broken man, 
+among some neighbouring elms; unwilling to return until the clock 
+was on the eve of striking.
+
+His little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously; but often 
+dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how good he was, how 
+excellent he was! and once or twice she laughed; so heartily, 
+triumphantly, and incoherently (still crying all the time), that 
+Tilly was quite horrified.
+
+'Ow if you please don't!' said Tilly.  'It's enough to dead and 
+bury the Baby, so it is if you please.'
+
+'Will you bring him sometimes, to see his father, Tilly,' inquired 
+her mistress, drying her eyes; 'when I can't live here, and have 
+gone to my old home?'
+
+'Ow if you please don't!' cried Tilly, throwing back her head, and 
+bursting out into a howl - she looked at the moment uncommonly like 
+Boxer.  'Ow if you please don't!  Ow, what has everybody gone and 
+been and done with everybody, making everybody else so wretched!  
+Ow-w-w-w!'
+
+The soft-hearted Slowboy trailed off at this juncture, into such a 
+deplorable howl, the more tremendous from its long suppression, 
+that she must infallibly have awakened the Baby, and frightened him 
+into something serious (probably convulsions), if her eyes had not 
+encountered Caleb Plummer, leading in his daughter.  This spectacle 
+restoring her to a sense of the proprieties, she stood for some few 
+moments silent, with her mouth wide open; and then, posting off to 
+the bed on which the Baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, Saint 
+Vitus manner on the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her 
+face and head among the bedclothes, apparently deriving much relief 
+from those extraordinary operations.
+
+'Mary!' said Bertha.  'Not at the marriage!'
+
+'I told her you would not be there, mum,' whispered Caleb.  'I 
+heard as much last night.  But bless you,' said the little man, 
+taking her tenderly by both hands, 'I don't care for what they say.  
+I don't believe them.  There an't much of me, but that little 
+should be torn to pieces sooner than I'd trust a word against you!'
+
+He put his arms about her and hugged her, as a child might have 
+hugged one of his own dolls.
+
+'Bertha couldn't stay at home this morning,' said Caleb.  'She was 
+afraid, I know, to hear the bells ring, and couldn't trust herself 
+to be so near them on their wedding-day.  So we started in good 
+time, and came here.  I have been thinking of what I have done,' 
+said Caleb, after a moment's pause; 'I have been blaming myself 
+till I hardly knew what to do or where to turn, for the distress of 
+mind I have caused her; and I've come to the conclusion that I'd 
+better, if you'll stay with me, mum, the while, tell her the truth.  
+You'll stay with me the while?' he inquired, trembling from head to 
+foot.  'I don't know what effect it may have upon her; I don't know 
+what she'll think of me; I don't know that she'll ever care for her 
+poor father afterwards.  But it's best for her that she should be 
+undeceived, and I must bear the consequences as I deserve!'
+
+' Mary,' said Bertha, 'where is your hand!  Ah!  Here it is here it 
+is!' pressing it to her lips, with a smile, and drawing it through 
+her arm.  'I heard them speaking softly among themselves, last 
+night, of some blame against you.  They were wrong.'
+
+The Carrier's Wife was silent.  Caleb answered for her.
+
+'They were wrong,' he said.
+
+'I knew it!' cried Bertha, proudly.  'I told them so.  I scorned to 
+hear a word!  Blame HER with justice!' she pressed the hand between 
+her own, and the soft cheek against her face.  'No!  I am not so 
+blind as that.'
+
+Her father went on one side of her, while Dot remained upon the 
+other:  holding her hand.
+
+'I know you all,' said Bertha, 'better than you think.  But none so 
+well as her.  Not even you, father.  There is nothing half so real 
+and so true about me, as she is.  If I could be restored to sight 
+this instant, and not a word were spoken, I could choose her from a 
+crowd!  My sister!'
+
+'Bertha, my dear!' said Caleb, 'I have something on my mind I want 
+to tell you, while we three are alone.  Hear me kindly!  I have a 
+confession to make to you, my darling.'
+
+'A confession, father?'
+
+'I have wandered from the truth and lost myself, my child,' said 
+Caleb, with a pitiable expression in his bewildered face.  'I have 
+wandered from the truth, intending to be kind to you; and have been 
+cruel.'
+
+She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and repeated 
+'Cruel!'
+
+'He accuses himself too strongly, Bertha,' said Dot.  'You'll say 
+so, presently.  You'll be the first to tell him so.'
+
+'He cruel to me!' cried Bertha, with a smile of incredulity.
+
+'Not meaning it, my child,' said Caleb.  'But I have been; though I 
+never suspected it, till yesterday.  My dear blind daughter, hear 
+me and forgive me!  The world you live in, heart of mine, doesn't 
+exist as I have represented it.  The eyes you have trusted in, have 
+been false to you.'
+
+She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still; but drew 
+back, and clung closer to her friend.
+
+'Your road in life was rough, my poor one,' said Caleb, 'and I 
+meant to smooth it for you.  I have altered objects, changed the 
+characters of people, invented many things that never have been, to 
+make you happier.  I have had concealments from you, put deceptions 
+on you, God forgive me! and surrounded you with fancies.'
+
+'But living people are not fancies!' she said hurriedly, and 
+turning very pale, and still retiring from him.  'You can't change 
+them.'
+
+'I have done so, Bertha,' pleaded Caleb.  'There is one person that 
+you know, my dove - '
+
+'Oh father! why do you say, I know?' she answered, in a term of 
+keen reproach.  'What and whom do I know!  I who have no leader!  I 
+so miserably blind.'
+
+In the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands, as if she 
+were groping her way; then spread them, in a manner most forlorn 
+and sad, upon her face.
+
+'The marriage that takes place to-day,' said Caleb, 'is with a 
+stern, sordid, grinding man.  A hard master to you and me, my dear, 
+for many years.  Ugly in his looks, and in his nature.  Cold and 
+callous always.  Unlike what I have painted him to you in 
+everything, my child.  In everything.'
+
+'Oh why,' cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it seemed, almost 
+beyond endurance, 'why did you ever do this!  Why did you ever fill 
+my heart so full, and then come in like Death, and tear away the 
+objects of my love!  O Heaven, how blind I am!  How helpless and 
+alone!'
+
+Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply but in his 
+penitence and sorrow.
+
+She had been but a short time in this passion of regret, when the 
+Cricket on the Hearth, unheard by all but her, began to chirp.  Not 
+merrily, but in a low, faint, sorrowing way.  It was so mournful 
+that her tears began to flow; and when the Presence which had been 
+beside the Carrier all night, appeared behind her, pointing to her 
+father, they fell down like rain.
+
+She heard the Cricket-voice more plainly soon, and was conscious, 
+through her blindness, of the Presence hovering about her father.
+
+'Mary,' said the Blind Girl, 'tell me what my home is.  What it 
+truly is.'
+
+'It is a poor place, Bertha; very poor and bare indeed.  The house 
+will scarcely keep out wind and rain another winter.  It is as 
+roughly shielded from the weather, Bertha,' Dot continued in a low, 
+clear voice, 'as your poor father in his sack-cloth coat.'
+
+The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the Carrier's 
+little wife aside.
+
+'Those presents that I took such care of; that came almost at my 
+wish, and were so dearly welcome to me,' she said, trembling; 
+'where did they come from?  Did you send them?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Who then?'
+
+Dot saw she knew, already, and was silent.  The Blind Girl spread 
+her hands before her face again.  But in quite another manner now.
+
+'Dear Mary, a moment.  One moment?  More this way.  Speak softly to 
+me.  You are true, I know.  You'd not deceive me now; would you?'
+
+'No, Bertha, indeed!'
+
+'No, I am sure you would not.  You have too much pity for me.  
+Mary, look across the room to where we were just now - to where my 
+father is - my father, so compassionate and loving to me - and tell 
+me what you see.'
+
+'I see,' said Dot, who understood her well, 'an old man sitting in 
+a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back, with his face resting 
+on his hand.  As if his child should comfort him, Bertha.'
+
+'Yes, yes.  She will.  Go on.'
+
+'He is an old man, worn with care and work.  He is a spare, 
+dejected, thoughtful, grey-haired man.  I see him now, despondent 
+and bowed down, and striving against nothing.  But, Bertha, I have 
+seen him many times before, and striving hard in many ways for one 
+great sacred object.  And I honour his grey head, and bless him!'
+
+The Blind Girl broke away from her; and throwing herself upon her 
+knees before him, took the grey head to her breast.
+
+'It is my sight restored.  It is my sight!' she cried.  'I have 
+been blind, and now my eyes are open.  I never knew him!  To think 
+I might have died, and never truly seen the father who has been so 
+loving to me!'
+
+There were no words for Caleb's emotion.
+
+'There is not a gallant figure on this earth,' exclaimed the Blind 
+Girl, holding him in her embrace, 'that I would love so dearly, and 
+would cherish so devotedly, as this!  The greyer, and more worn, 
+the dearer, father!  Never let them say I am blind again.  There's 
+not a furrow in his face, there's not a hair upon his head, that 
+shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks to Heaven!'
+
+Caleb managed to articulate 'My Bertha!'
+
+'And in my blindness, I believed him,' said the girl, caressing him 
+with tears of exquisite affection, 'to be so different!  And having 
+him beside me, day by day, so mindful of me - always, never dreamed 
+of this!'
+
+'The fresh smart father in the blue coat, Bertha,' said poor Caleb.  
+'He's gone!'
+
+'Nothing is gone,' she answered.  'Dearest father, no!  Everything 
+is here - in you.  The father that I loved so well; the father that 
+I never loved enough, and never knew; the benefactor whom I first 
+began to reverence and love, because he had such sympathy for me; 
+All are here in you.  Nothing is dead to me.  The soul of all that 
+was most dear to me is here - here, with the worn face, and the 
+grey head.  And I am NOT blind, father, any longer!'
+
+Dot's whole attention had been concentrated, during this discourse, 
+upon the father and daughter; but looking, now, towards the little 
+Haymaker in the Moorish meadow, she saw that the clock was within a 
+few minutes of striking, and fell, immediately, into a nervous and 
+excited state.
+
+'Father,' said Bertha, hesitating.  'Mary.'
+
+'Yes, my dear,' returned Caleb.  'Here she is.'
+
+'There is no change in HER.  You never told me anything of HER that 
+was not true?'
+
+'I should have done it, my dear, I am afraid,' returned Caleb, 'if 
+I could have made her better than she was.  But I must have changed 
+her for the worse, if I had changed her at all.  Nothing could 
+improve her, Bertha.'
+
+Confident as the Blind Girl had been when she asked the question, 
+her delight and pride in the reply and her renewed embrace of Dot, 
+were charming to behold.
+
+'More changes than you think for, may happen though, my dear,' said 
+Dot.  'Changes for the better, I mean; changes for great joy to 
+some of us.  You mustn't let them startle you too much, if any such 
+should ever happen, and affect you?  Are those wheels upon the 
+road?  You've a quick ear, Bertha.  Are they wheels?'
+
+'Yes.  Coming very fast.'
+
+'I - I - I know you have a quick ear,' said Dot, placing her hand 
+upon her heart, and evidently talking on, as fast as she could to 
+hide its palpitating state, 'because I have noticed it often, and 
+because you were so quick to find out that strange step last night.  
+Though why you should have said, as I very well recollect you did 
+say, Bertha, "Whose step is that!" and why you should have taken 
+any greater observation of it than of any other step, I don't know.  
+Though as I said just now, there are great changes in the world:  
+great changes:  and we can't do better than prepare ourselves to be 
+surprised at hardly anything.'
+
+Caleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that she spoke to him, 
+no less than to his daughter.  He saw her, with astonishment, so 
+fluttered and distressed that she could scarcely breathe; and 
+holding to a chair, to save herself from falling.
+
+'They are wheels indeed!' she panted.  'Coming nearer!  Nearer!  
+Very close!  And now you hear them stopping at the garden-gate!  
+And now you hear a step outside the door - the same step, Bertha, 
+is it not! - and now!' -
+
+She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and running up to 
+Caleb put her hands upon his eyes, as a young man rushed into the 
+room, and flinging away his hat into the air, came sweeping down 
+upon them.
+
+'Is it over?' cried Dot.
+
+'Yes!'
+
+'Happily over?'
+
+'Yes!'
+
+'Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb?  Did you ever hear the 
+like of it before?' cried Dot.
+
+'If my boy in the Golden South Americas was alive' - said Caleb, 
+trembling.
+
+'He is alive!' shrieked Dot, removing her hands from his eyes, and 
+clapping them in ecstasy; 'look at him!  See where he stands before 
+you, healthy and strong!  Your own dear son!  Your own dear living, 
+loving brother, Bertha
+
+All honour to the little creature for her transports!  All honour 
+to her tears and laughter, when the three were locked in one 
+another's arms!  All honour to the heartiness with which she met 
+the sunburnt sailor-fellow, with his dark streaming hair, half-way, 
+and never turned her rosy little mouth aside, but suffered him to 
+kiss it, freely, and to press her to his bounding heart!
+
+And honour to the Cuckoo too - why not! - for bursting out of the 
+trap-door in the Moorish Palace like a house-breaker, and 
+hiccoughing twelve times on the assembled company, as if he had got 
+drunk for joy!
+
+The Carrier, entering, started back.  And well he might, to find 
+himself in such good company.
+
+'Look, John!' said Caleb, exultingly, 'look here!  My own boy from 
+the Golden South Americas!  My own son!  Him that you fitted out, 
+and sent away yourself!  Him that you were always such a friend 
+to!'
+
+The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but, recoiling, as 
+some feature in his face awakened a remembrance of the Deaf Man in 
+the Cart, said:
+
+'Edward!  Was it you?'
+
+'Now tell him all!' cried Dot.  'Tell him all, Edward; and don't 
+spare me, for nothing shall make me spare myself in his eyes, ever 
+again.'
+
+'I was the man,' said Edward.
+
+'And could you steal, disguised, into the house of your old 
+friend?' rejoined the Carrier.  'There was a frank boy once - how 
+many years is it, Caleb, since we heard that he was dead, and had 
+it proved, we thought? - who never would have done that.'
+
+'There was a generous friend of mine, once; more a father to me 
+than a friend;' said Edward, 'who never would have judged me, or 
+any other man, unheard.  You were he.  So I am certain you will 
+hear me now.'
+
+The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept far away 
+from him, replied, 'Well! that's but fair.  I will.'
+
+'You must know that when I left here, a boy,' said Edward, 'I was 
+in love, and my love was returned.  She was a very young girl, who 
+perhaps (you may tell me) didn't know her own mind.  But I knew 
+mine, and I had a passion for her.'
+
+'You had!' exclaimed the Carrier.  'You!'
+
+'Indeed I had,' returned the other.  'And she returned it.  I have 
+ever since believed she did, and now I am sure she did.'
+
+'Heaven help me!' said the Carrier.  'This is worse than all.'
+
+'Constant to her,' said Edward, 'and returning, full of hope, after 
+many hardships and perils, to redeem my part of our old contract, I 
+heard, twenty miles away, that she was false to me; that she had 
+forgotten me; and had bestowed herself upon another and a richer 
+man.  I had no mind to reproach her; but I wished to see her, and 
+to prove beyond dispute that this was true.  I hoped she might have 
+been forced into it, against her own desire and recollection.  It 
+would be small comfort, but it would be some, I thought, and on I 
+came.  That I might have the truth, the real truth; observing 
+freely for myself, and judging for myself, without obstruction on 
+the one hand, or presenting my own influence (if I had any) before 
+her, on the other; I dressed myself unlike myself - you know how; 
+and waited on the road - you know where.  You had no suspicion of 
+me; neither had - had she,' pointing to Dot, 'until I whispered in 
+her ear at that fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me.'
+
+'But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had come back,' 
+sobbed Dot, now speaking for herself, as she had burned to do, all 
+through this narrative; 'and when she knew his purpose, she advised 
+him by all means to keep his secret close; for his old friend John 
+Peerybingle was much too open in his nature, and too clumsy in all 
+artifice - being a clumsy man in general,' said Dot, half laughing 
+and half crying - 'to keep it for him.  And when she - that's me, 
+John,' sobbed the little woman - 'told him all, and how his 
+sweetheart had believed him to be dead; and how she had at last 
+been over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage which the silly, 
+dear old thing called advantageous; and when she - that's me again, 
+John - told him they were not yet married (though close upon it), 
+and that it would be nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for 
+there was no love on her side; and when he went nearly mad with joy 
+to hear it; then she - that's me again - said she would go between 
+them, as she had often done before in old times, John, and would 
+sound his sweetheart and be sure that what she - me again, John - 
+said and thought was right.  And it was right, John!  And they were 
+brought together, John!  And they were married, John, an hour ago!  
+And here's the Bride!  And Gruff and Tackleton may die a bachelor!  
+And I'm a happy little woman, May, God bless you!'
+
+She was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything to the 
+purpose; and never so completely irresistible as in her present 
+transports.  There never were congratulations so endearing and 
+delicious, as those she lavished on herself and on the Bride.
+
+Amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest Carrier had 
+stood, confounded.  Flying, now, towards her, Dot stretched out her 
+hand to stop him, and retreated as before.
+
+'No, John, no!  Hear all!  Don't love me any more, John, till 
+you've heard every word I have to say.  It was wrong to have a 
+secret from you, John.  I'm very sorry I didn't think it any harm, 
+till I came and sat down by you on the little stool last night.  
+But when I knew by what was written in your face, that you had seen 
+me walking in the gallery with Edward, and when I knew what you 
+thought, I felt how giddy and how wrong it was.  But oh, dear John, 
+how could you, could you, think so!'
+
+Little woman, how she sobbed again!  John Peerybingle would have 
+caught her in his arms.  But no; she wouldn't let him.
+
+'Don't love me yet, please, John!  Not for a long time yet!  When I 
+was sad about this intended marriage, dear, it was because I 
+remembered May and Edward such young lovers; and knew that her 
+heart was far away from Tackleton.  You believe that, now.  Don't 
+you, John?'
+
+John was going to make another rush at this appeal; but she stopped 
+him again.
+
+'No; keep there, please, John!  When I laugh at you, as I sometimes 
+do, John, and call you clumsy and a dear old goose, and names of 
+that sort, it's because I love you, John, so well, and take such 
+pleasure in your ways, and wouldn't see you altered in the least 
+respect to have you made a King to-morrow.'
+
+'Hooroar!' said Caleb with unusual vigour.  'My opinion!'
+
+'And when I speak of people being middle-aged, and steady, John, 
+and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot 
+sort of way, it's only because I'm such a silly little thing, John, 
+that I like, sometimes, to act a kind of Play with Baby, and all 
+that:  and make believe.'
+
+She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again.  But she was 
+very nearly too late.
+
+'No, don't love me for another minute or two, if you please, John!  
+What I want most to tell you, I have kept to the last.  My dear, 
+good, generous John, when we were talking the other night about the 
+Cricket, I had it on my lips to say, that at first I did not love 
+you quite so dearly as I do now; that when I first came home here, 
+I was half afraid I mightn't learn to love you every bit as well as 
+I hoped and prayed I might - being so very young, John!  But, dear 
+John, every day and hour I loved you more and more.  And if I could 
+have loved you better than I do, the noble words I heard you say 
+this morning, would have made me.  But I can't.  All the affection 
+that I had (it was a great deal, John) I gave you, as you well 
+deserve, long, long ago, and I have no more left to give.  Now, my 
+dear husband, take me to your heart again!  That's my home, John; 
+and never, never think of sending me to any other!'
+
+You never will derive so much delight from seeing a glorious little 
+woman in the arms of a third party, as you would have felt if you 
+had seen Dot run into the Carrier's embrace.  It was the most 
+complete, unmitigated, soul-fraught little piece of earnestness 
+that ever you beheld in all your days.
+
+You maybe sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect rapture; and 
+you may be sure Dot was likewise; and you may be sure they all 
+were, inclusive of Miss Slowboy, who wept copiously for joy, and 
+wishing to include her young charge in the general interchange of 
+congratulations, handed round the Baby to everybody in succession, 
+as if it were something to drink.
+
+But, now, the sound of wheels was heard again outside the door; and 
+somebody exclaimed that Gruff and Tackleton was coming back.  
+Speedily that worthy gentleman appeared, looking warm and 
+flustered.
+
+'Why, what the Devil's this, John Peerybingle!' said Tackleton.  
+'There's some mistake.  I appointed Mrs. Tackleton to meet me at 
+the church, and I'll swear I passed her on the road, on her way 
+here.  Oh! here she is!  I beg your pardon, sir; I haven't the 
+pleasure of knowing you; but if you can do me the favour to spare 
+this young lady, she has rather a particular engagement this 
+morning.'
+
+'But I can't spare her,' returned Edward.  'I couldn't think of 
+it.'
+
+'What do you mean, you vagabond?' said Tackleton.
+
+'I mean, that as I can make allowance for your being vexed,' 
+returned the other, with a smile, 'I am as deaf to harsh discourse 
+this morning, as I was to all discourse last night.'
+
+The look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and the start he gave!
+
+'I am sorry, sir,' said Edward, holding out May's left hand, and 
+especially the third finger; 'that the young lady can't accompany 
+you to church; but as she has been there once, this morning, 
+perhaps you'll excuse her.'
+
+Tackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took a little piece 
+of silver-paper, apparently containing a ring, from his waistcoat-
+pocket.
+
+'Miss Slowboy,' said Tackleton.  'Will you have the kindness to 
+throw that in the fire?  Thank'ee.'
+
+'It was a previous engagement, quite an old engagement, that 
+prevented my wife from keeping her appointment with you, I assure 
+you,' said Edward.
+
+'Mr. Tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge that I 
+revealed it to him faithfully; and that I told him, many times, I 
+never could forget it,' said May, blushing.
+
+'Oh certainly!' said Tackleton.  'Oh to be sure.  Oh it's all 
+right.  It's quite correct.  Mrs. Edward Plummer, I infer?'
+
+'That's the name,' returned the bridegroom.
+
+'Ah, I shouldn't have known you, sir,' said Tackleton, scrutinising 
+his face narrowly, and making a low bow.  'I give you joy, sir!'
+
+'Thank'ee.'
+
+'Mrs. Peerybingle,' said Tackleton, turning suddenly to where she 
+stood with her husband; 'I am sorry.  You haven't done me a very 
+great kindness, but, upon my life I am sorry.  You are better than 
+I thought you.  John Peerybingle, I am sorry.  You understand me; 
+that's enough.  It's quite correct, ladies and gentlemen all, and 
+perfectly satisfactory.  Good morning!'
+
+With these words he carried it off, and carried himself off too:  
+merely stopping at the door, to take the flowers and favours from 
+his horse's head, and to kick that animal once, in the ribs, as a 
+means of informing him that there was a screw loose in his 
+arrangements.
+
+Of course it became a serious duty now, to make such a day of it, 
+as should mark these events for a high Feast and Festival in the 
+Peerybingle Calendar for evermore.  Accordingly, Dot went to work 
+to produce such an entertainment, as should reflect undying honour 
+on the house and on every one concerned; and in a very short space 
+of time, she was up to her dimpled elbows in flour, and whitening 
+the Carrier's coat, every time he came near her, by stopping him to 
+give him a kiss.  That good fellow washed the greens, and peeled 
+the turnips, and broke the plates, and upset iron pots full of cold 
+water on the fire, and made himself useful in all sorts of ways:  
+while a couple of professional assistants, hastily called in from 
+somewhere in the neighbourhood, as on a point of life or death, ran 
+against each other in all the doorways and round all the corners, 
+and everybody tumbled over Tilly Slowboy and the Baby, everywhere.  
+Tilly never came out in such force before.  Her ubiquity was the 
+theme of general admiration.  She was a stumbling-block in the 
+passage at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a man-trap in the 
+kitchen at half-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the garret at 
+five-and-twenty minutes to three.  The Baby's head was, as it were, 
+a test and touchstone for every description of matter, - animal, 
+vegetable, and mineral.  Nothing was in use that day that didn't 
+come, at some time or other, into close acquaintance with it.
+
+Then, there was a great Expedition set on foot to go and find out 
+Mrs. Fielding; and to be dismally penitent to that excellent 
+gentlewoman; and to bring her back, by force, if needful, to be 
+happy and forgiving.  And when the Expedition first discovered her, 
+she would listen to no terms at all, but said, an unspeakable 
+number of times, that ever she should have lived to see the day! 
+and couldn't be got to say anything else, except, 'Now carry me to 
+the grave:' which seemed absurd, on account of her not being dead, 
+or anything at all like it.  After a time, she lapsed into a state 
+of dreadful calmness, and observed, that when that unfortunate 
+train of circumstances had occurred in the Indigo Trade, she had 
+foreseen that she would be exposed, during her whole life, to every 
+species of insult and contumely; and that she was glad to find it 
+was the case; and begged they wouldn't trouble themselves about 
+her, - for what was she? oh, dear! a nobody! - but would forget 
+that such a being lived, and would take their course in life 
+without her.  From this bitterly sarcastic mood, she passed into an 
+angry one, in which she gave vent to the remarkable expression that 
+the worm would turn if trodden on; and, after that, she yielded to 
+a soft regret, and said, if they had only given her their 
+confidence, what might she not have had it in her power to suggest!  
+Taking advantage of this crisis in her feelings, the Expedition 
+embraced her; and she very soon had her gloves on, and was on her 
+way to John Peerybingle's in a state of unimpeachable gentility; 
+with a paper parcel at her side containing a cap of state, almost 
+as tall, and quite as stiff, as a mitre.
+
+Then, there were Dot's father and mother to come, in another little 
+chaise; and they were behind their time; and fears were 
+entertained; and there was much looking out for them down the road; 
+and Mrs. Fielding always would look in the wrong and morally 
+impossible direction; and being apprised thereof, hoped she might 
+take the liberty of looking where she pleased.  At last they came:  
+a chubby little couple, jogging along in a snug and comfortable 
+little way that quite belonged to the Dot family; and Dot and her 
+mother, side by side, were wonderful to see.  They were so like 
+each other.
+
+Then, Dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance with May's mother; 
+and May's mother always stood on her gentility; and Dot's mother 
+never stood on anything but her active little feet.  And old Dot - 
+so to call Dot's father, I forgot it wasn't his right name, but 
+never mind - took liberties, and shook hands at first sight, and 
+seemed to think a cap but so much starch and muslin, and didn't 
+defer himself at all to the Indigo Trade, but said there was no 
+help for it now; and, in Mrs. Fielding's summing up, was a good-
+natured kind of man - but coarse, my dear.
+
+I wouldn't have missed Dot, doing the honours in her wedding-gown, 
+my benison on her bright face! for any money.  No! nor the good 
+Carrier, so jovial and so ruddy, at the bottom of the table.  Nor 
+the brown, fresh sailor-fellow, and his handsome wife.  Nor any one 
+among them.  To have missed the dinner would have been to miss as 
+jolly and as stout a meal as man need eat; and to have missed the 
+overflowing cups in which they drank The Wedding-Day, would have 
+been the greatest miss of all.
+
+After dinner, Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling Bowl.  As I'm 
+a living man, hoping to keep so, for a year or two, he sang it 
+through.
+
+And, by-the-by, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, just as he 
+finished the last verse.
+
+There was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering in, without 
+saying with your leave, or by your leave, with something heavy on 
+his head.  Setting this down in the middle of the table, 
+symmetrically in the centre of the nuts and apples, he said:
+
+'Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and as he hasn't got no use for the 
+cake himself, p'raps you'll eat it.'
+
+And with those words, he walked off.
+
+There was some surprise among the company, as you may imagine.  
+Mrs. Fielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, suggested that 
+the cake was poisoned, and related a narrative of a cake, which, 
+within her knowledge, had turned a seminary for young ladies, blue.  
+But she was overruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut by May, 
+with much ceremony and rejoicing.
+
+I don't think any one had tasted it, when there came another tap at 
+the door, and the same man appeared again, having under his arm a 
+vast brown-paper parcel.
+
+'Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and he's sent a few toys for the 
+Babby.  They ain't ugly.'
+
+After the delivery of which expressions, he retired again.
+
+The whole party would have experienced great difficulty in finding 
+words for their astonishment, even if they had had ample time to 
+seek them.  But they had none at all; for the messenger had 
+scarcely shut the door behind him, when there came another tap, and 
+Tackleton himself walked in.
+
+'Mrs. Peerybingle!' said the Toy-merchant, hat in hand.  'I'm 
+sorry.  I'm more sorry than I was this morning.  I have had time to 
+think of it.  John Peerybingle!  I'm sour by disposition; but I 
+can't help being sweetened, more or less, by coming face to face 
+with such a man as you.  Caleb!  This unconscious little nurse gave 
+me a broken hint last night, of which I have found the thread.  I 
+blush to think how easily I might have bound you and your daughter 
+to me, and what a miserable idiot I was, when I took her for one!  
+Friends, one and all, my house is very lonely to-night.  I have not 
+so much as a Cricket on my Hearth.  I have scared them all away.  
+Be gracious to me; let me join this happy party!'
+
+He was at home in five minutes.  You never saw such a fellow.  What 
+HAD he been doing with himself all his life, never to have known, 
+before, his great capacity of being jovial!  Or what had the 
+Fairies been doing with him, to have effected such a change!
+
+'John! you won't send me home this evening; will you?' whispered 
+Dot.
+
+He had been very near it though!
+
+There wanted but one living creature to make the party complete; 
+and, in the twinkling of an eye, there he was, very thirsty with 
+hard running, and engaged in hopeless endeavours to squeeze his 
+head into a narrow pitcher.  He had gone with the cart to its 
+journey's end, very much disgusted with the absence of his master, 
+and stupendously rebellious to the Deputy.  After lingering about 
+the stable for some little time, vainly attempting to incite the 
+old horse to the mutinous act of returning on his own account, he 
+had walked into the tap-room and laid himself down before the fire.  
+But suddenly yielding to the conviction that the Deputy was a 
+humbug, and must be abandoned, he had got up again, turned tail, 
+and come home.
+
+There was a dance in the evening.  With which general mention of 
+that recreation, I should have left it alone, if I had not some 
+reason to suppose that it was quite an original dance, and one of a 
+most uncommon figure.  It was formed in an odd way; in this way.
+
+Edward, that sailor-fellow - a good free dashing sort of a fellow 
+he was - had been telling them various marvels concerning parrots, 
+and mines, and Mexicans, and gold dust, when all at once he took it 
+in his head to jump up from his seat and propose a dance; for 
+Bertha's harp was there, and she had such a hand upon it as you 
+seldom hear.  Dot (sly little piece of affectation when she chose) 
+said her dancing days were over; I think because the Carrier was 
+smoking his pipe, and she liked sitting by him, best.  Mrs. 
+Fielding had no choice, of course, but to say HER dancing days were 
+over, after that; and everybody said the same, except May; May was 
+ready.
+
+So, May and Edward got up, amid great applause, to dance alone; and 
+Bertha plays her liveliest tune.
+
+Well! if you'll believe me, they have not been dancing five 
+minutes, when suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe away, takes Dot 
+round the waist, dashes out into the room, and starts off with her, 
+toe and heel, quite wonderfully.  Tackleton no sooner sees this, 
+than he skims across to Mrs. Fielding, takes her round the waist, 
+and follows suit.  Old Dot no sooner sees this, than up he is, all 
+alive, whisks off Mrs. Dot in the middle of the dance, and is the 
+foremost there.  Caleb no sooner sees this, than he clutches Tilly 
+Slowboy by both hands and goes off at score; Miss Slowboy, firm in 
+the belief that diving hotly in among the other couples, and 
+effecting any number of concussions with them, is your only 
+principle of footing it.
+
+Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp; 
+and how the kettle hums!
+
+* * * * *
+
+But what is this!  Even as I listen to them, blithely, and turn 
+towards Dot, for one last glimpse of a little figure very pleasant 
+to me, she and the rest have vanished into air, and I am left 
+alone.  A Cricket sings upon the Hearth; a broken child's-toy lies 
+upon the ground; and nothing else remains.
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Cricket on the Hearth
+