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diff --git a/678-0.txt b/678-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e18f959 --- /dev/null +++ b/678-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3915 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Cricket on the Hearth, by Charles Dickens + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Cricket on the Hearth + A Fairy Tale of Home + + +Author: Charles Dickens + + + +Release Date: November 9, 2012 [eBook #678] +[This file was first posted on September 25, 1996] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH*** + + +Transcribed from the Charles Scribner’s Sons “Works of Charles Dickens” +edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Frontispiece to The Cricket on the Hearth] + + + + + + THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH + A Fairy Tale of Home + + + TO + LORD JEFFREY + THIS LITTLE STORY IS INSCRIBED + WITH + THE AFFECTION AND ATTACHMENT OF HIS FRIEND + + THE AUTHOR + +_December_, 1845 + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER I—Chirp 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 fact. 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. Halloa! 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 won-der-ful! +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?’ + +‘Oh quite gone! 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 a man 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 tom-foolery. 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 hold, 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 check 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 or 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 verily 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 her 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 upon 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 may be 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 EBOOK THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH*** + + +******* This file should be named 678-0.txt or 678-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/7/678 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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