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diff --git a/old/tcoth11h.htm b/old/tcoth11h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd05b0a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tcoth11h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4116 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> +<title>The Cricket on the Hearth</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The Cricket on the Hearth, by Charles Dickens</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cricket on the Hearth, by Charles Dickens +(#10 in our series by Charles Dickens) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Cricket on the Hearth + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: October, 1996 [EBook #678] +[This file was first posted on September 25, 1996] +[Most recently updated: September 8, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p> +<a name="startoftext"></a> +Transcribed from the Charles Scribner’s Sons “Works of Charles +Dickens” edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER I - Chirp the First<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows that. +I wouldn’t set my own opinion against the opinion of Mrs. Peerybingle, +unless I were quite sure, on any account whatever. Nothing should +induce me. But, this is a question of act. And the fact +is, that the kettle began it, at least five minutes before the Cricket +gave any sign of being in existence. Contradict me, and I’ll +say ten.<br> +<br> +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?<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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 <i>would</i> 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.<br> +<br> +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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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! -<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +Where the baby came from, or how Mrs. Peerybingle got hold of it in +that flash of time, <i>I</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.<br> +<br> +‘Oh goodness, John!’ said Mrs. P. ‘What a state +you are in with the weather!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘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 <i>did</i> like it, very much.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘An’t he beautiful, John? Don’t he look precious +in his sleep?’<br> +<br> +‘Very precious,’ said John. ‘Very much so. +He generally <i>is</i> asleep, an’t he?’<br> +<br> +‘Lor, John! Good gracious no!’<br> +<br> +‘Oh,’ said John, pondering. ‘I thought his eyes +was generally shut. Halloa!’<br> +<br> +‘Goodness, John, how you startle one!’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘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.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘Not to quite know it,’ John returned. ‘I was +very near it once. But I should only have spoilt it, I dare say.’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘Don’t let the dear child fall under the grate, Tilly, whatever +you do!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Heyday!’ said John, in his slow way. ‘It’s +merrier than ever, to-night, I think.’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +O yes. John remembered. I should think so!<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘Why so do I then,’ said the Carrier. ‘So do +I, Dot.’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘And so do I,’ repeated John. ‘But, Dot? +<i>I</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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘Oh yes,’ John said. ‘A good many.’<br> +<br> +‘Why what’s this round box? Heart alive, John, it’s +a wedding-cake!’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘And it weighs I don’t know what - whole hundredweights!’ +cried Dot, making a great demonstration of trying to lift it.<br> +<br> +‘Whose is it, John? Where is it going?’<br> +<br> +‘Read the writing on the other side,’ said John.<br> +<br> +‘Why, John! My Goodness, John!’<br> +<br> +‘Ah! who’d have thought it!’ John returned.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +John nodded.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘And that is really to come about!’ said Dot. ‘Why, +she and I were girls at school together, John.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘And he’s as old! As unlike her! - Why, how many years +older than you, is Gruff and Tackleton, John?’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room was not so cheerful +as it had been. Nothing like it.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘The old gentleman?’<br> +<br> +‘In the cart,’ said John. ‘He was asleep, among +the straw, the last time I saw him. I’ve very nearly remembered +him, twice, since I came in; but he went out of my head again. +Holloa! Yahip there! Rouse up! That’s my hearty!’<br> +<br> +John said these latter words outside the door, whither he had hurried +with the candle in his hand.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘Sitting in the open air, John!’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘He’s going, John, I think!’<br> +<br> +Not at all. He was only going to speak.<br> +<br> +‘If you please, I was to be left till called for,’ said +the Stranger, mildly. ‘Don’t mind me.’<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +The Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity. The Stranger +raised his head; and glancing from the latter to the former, said,<br> +<br> +‘Your daughter, my good friend?’<br> +<br> +‘Wife,’ returned John.<br> +<br> +‘Niece?’ said the Stranger.<br> +<br> +‘Wife,’ roared John.<br> +<br> +‘Indeed?’ observed the Stranger. ‘Surely? +Very young!’<br> +<br> +He quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. But, before he +could have read two lines, he again interrupted himself to say:<br> +<br> +‘Baby, yours?’<br> +<br> +John gave him a gigantic nod; equivalent to an answer in the affirmative, +delivered through a speaking trumpet.<br> +<br> +‘Girl?’<br> +<br> +‘Bo-o-oy!’ roared John.<br> +<br> +‘Also very young, eh?’<br> +<br> +Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. ‘Two months and three +da-ays! Vaccinated just six weeks ago-o! Took very fine-ly! +Considered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful chi-ild! Equal +to the general run of children at five months o-old! Takes notice, +in a way quite wonderful! May seem impossible to you, but feels +his legs al-ready!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Hark! He’s called for, sure enough,’ said John. +‘There’s somebody at the door. Open it, Tilly.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘All thriving, Caleb,’ replied Dot. ‘I am sure +you need only look at the dear child, for one, to know that.’<br> +<br> +‘And I’m sure I need only look at you for another,’ +said Caleb.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Or at John for another,’ said Caleb. ‘Or at +Tilly, as far as that goes. Or certainly at Boxer.’<br> +<br> +‘Busy just now, Caleb?’ asked the Carrier.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘There it is!’ he said, adjusting it with great care. +‘Not so much as a leaf damaged. Full of buds!’<br> +<br> +Caleb’s dull eye brightened, as he took it, and thanked him.<br> +<br> +‘Dear, Caleb,’ said the Carrier. ‘Very dear +at this season.’<br> +<br> +‘Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, whatever it cost,’ +returned the little man. ‘Anything else, John?’<br> +<br> +‘A small box,’ replied the Carrier. ‘Here you +are!’<br> +<br> +‘“For Caleb Plummer,”’ said the little man, +spelling out the direction. ‘“With Cash.” +With Cash, John? I don’t think it’s for me.’<br> +<br> +‘With Care,’ returned the Carrier, looking over his shoulder. +‘Where do you make out cash?’<br> +<br> +‘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>I</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.’<br> +<br> +‘I wish it was, or could be!’ cried the Carrier.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘I’ll damage you,’ said John, ‘if you inquire. +Dot! Very near?’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘I think not,’ said the Carrier. ‘Try again.’<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘Not he,’ returned the Carrier. ‘He’s +too busy, courting.’<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘Why, Caleb! what a question!’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘I should be astonished at your paying compliments, Mr. Tackleton,’ +said Dot, not with the best grace in the world; ‘but for your +condition.’<br> +<br> +‘You know all about it then?’<br> +<br> +‘I have got myself to believe it, somehow,’ said Dot.<br> +<br> +‘After a hard struggle, I suppose?’<br> +<br> +‘Very.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘In three days’ time. Next Thursday. The last +day of the first month in the year. That’s my wedding-day,’ +said Tackleton.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘That’s my wedding-day!’ said Tackleton, rattling +his money.<br> +<br> +‘Why, it’s our wedding-day too,’ exclaimed the Carrier.<br> +<br> +‘Ha ha!’ laughed Tackleton. ‘Odd! You’re +just such another couple. Just!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘How in the same boat?’ inquired the Carrier.<br> +<br> +‘A little disparity, you know,’ said Tackleton, with another +nudge. ‘Come and spend an evening with us, beforehand.’<br> +<br> +‘Why?’ demanded John, astonished at this pressing hospitality.<br> +<br> +‘Why?’ returned the other. ‘That’s a new +way of receiving an invitation. Why, for pleasure - sociability, +you know, and all that!’<br> +<br> +‘I thought you were never sociable,’ said John, in his plain +way.<br> +<br> +‘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 - ’<br> +<br> +‘No, we don’t know better,’ interposed John. +‘What are you talking about?’<br> +<br> +‘Well! We <i>don’t</i> 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?’<br> +<br> +‘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 - ’<br> +<br> +‘Bah! what’s home?’ cried Tackleton. ‘Four +walls and a ceiling! (why don’t you kill that Cricket? <i>I</i> +would! I always do. I hate their noise.) There are +four walls and a ceiling at my house. Come to me!’<br> +<br> +‘You kill your Crickets, eh?’ said John.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘Do you mean to say she don’t, then?’ asked the Carrier.<br> +<br> +‘Don’t!’ cried Tackleton, with a short, sharp laugh. +‘Don’t what?’<br> +<br> +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?’<br> +<br> +‘Ah you dog! You’re joking,’ said Tackleton.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know,’ said Tackleton; +‘and that, as I am not a man of sentiment, is quite enough for +<i>me</i>. But do you think there’s anything more in it?’<br> +<br> +‘I think,’ observed the Carrier, ‘that I should chuck +any man out of window, who said there wasn’t.’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +The Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and uncertain, in spite +of himself. He couldn’t help showing it, in his manner.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Dot!’ cried the Carrier. ‘Mary! Darling! +What’s the matter?’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Mary!’ exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his arms. +‘Are you ill! What is it? Tell me, dear!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘I’m better, John,’ she said. ‘I’m +quite well now - I -’<br> +<br> +‘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?<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘Not ugly enough,’ said Tackleton.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘Not half ugly enough,’ said Tackleton. ‘Nothing +in him at all! Come! Bring that box! All right now, +I hope?’<br> +<br> +‘Quite gone!’ said the little woman, waving him hurriedly +away. ‘Good night!’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +So, with another sharp look round the room, he went out at the door; +followed by Caleb with the wedding-cake on his head.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘He don’t belong to them, you see,’ said John. +‘I must give him a hint to go.’<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘Yes, yes,’ cried Dot. ‘Yes! Certainly!’<br> +<br> +‘Oh!’ said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this +consent.<br> +<br> +‘Well! I don’t object; but, still I’m not quite +sure that - ’<br> +<br> +‘Hush!’ she interrupted. ‘Dear John!’<br> +<br> +‘Why, he’s stone deaf,’ urged John.<br> +<br> +‘I know he is, but - Yes, sir, certainly. Yes! certainly! +I’ll make him up a bed, directly, John.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘And frighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting by the fires. +What frightened Dot, I wonder!’ mused the Carrier, pacing to and +fro.<br> +<br> +He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the Toy-merchant, and +yet they filled him with a vague, indefinite uneasiness. For, +Tackleton was quick and sly; and he had that painful sense, himself, +of being of slow perception, that a broken hint was always worrying +to him. He certainly had no intention in his mind of linking anything +that Tackleton had said, with the unusual conduct of his wife, but the +two subjects of reflection came into his mind together, and he could +not keep them asunder.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +She always <i>would</i> sit on that little stool. I think she +must have had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling little +stool.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<br> +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!’<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER II - Chirp The Second<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘So you were out in the rain last night, father, in your beautiful +new great-coat,’ said Caleb’s daughter.<br> +<br> +‘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.<br> +<br> +‘How glad I am you bought it, father!’<br> +<br> +‘And of such a tailor, too,’ said Caleb. ‘Quite +a fashionable tailor. It’s too good for me.’<br> +<br> +The Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed with delight.<br> +<br> +‘Too good, father! What can be too good for you?’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +Happy Blind Girl! How merry she was, in her exultation!<br> +<br> +‘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 - ’<br> +<br> +‘Bright blue,’ said Caleb.<br> +<br> +‘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 +- ’<br> +<br> +‘Made loose to the figure,’ suggested Caleb.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘Halloa! Halloa!’ said Caleb. ‘I shall +be vain, presently!’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired, father?’<br> +<br> +‘Tired!’ echoed Caleb, with a great burst of animation, +‘what should tire me, Bertha? <i>I</i> was never tired. +What does it mean?’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘What! You’re singing, are you?’ said Tackleton, +putting his head in at the door. ‘Go it! <i>I</i> +can’t sing.’<br> +<br> +Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn’t what is +generally termed a singing face, by any means.<br> +<br> +‘I can’t afford to sing,’ said Tackleton. ‘I’m +glad <i>you can</i>. I hope you can afford to work too. +Hardly time for both, I should think?’<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +The Blind Girl smiled and nodded.<br> +<br> +‘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 <i>he</i> should be made to do?’<br> +<br> +‘The extent to which he’s winking at this moment!’ +whispered Caleb to his daughter. ‘O, my gracious!’<br> +<br> +‘Always merry and light-hearted with us!’ cried the smiling +Bertha.<br> +<br> +‘O, you’re there, are you?’ answered Tackleton. +‘Poor Idiot!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Well! and being there, - how are you?’ said Tackleton, +in his grudging way.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘Poor Idiot!’ muttered Tackleton. ‘No gleam +of reason. Not a gleam!’<br> +<br> +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:<br> +<br> +‘What’s the matter now?’<br> +<br> +‘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 <i>red</i> sun, father?’<br> +<br> +‘Red in the mornings and the evenings, Bertha,’ said poor +Caleb, with a woeful glance at his employer.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘Bedlam broke loose!’ said Tackleton under his breath. +‘We shall arrive at the strait-waistcoat and mufflers soon. +We’re getting on!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Bertha!’ said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a little +cordiality. ‘Come here.’<br> +<br> +‘Oh! I can come straight to you! You needn’t +guide me!’ she rejoined.<br> +<br> +‘Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha?’<br> +<br> +‘If you will!’ she answered, eagerly.<br> +<br> +How bright the darkened face! How adorned with light, the listening +head!<br> +<br> +‘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.<br> +<br> +‘Yes,’ replied Bertha. ‘This is the day.’<br> +<br> +‘I thought so,’ said Tackleton. ‘I should like +to join the party.’<br> +<br> +‘Do you hear that, father!’ cried the Blind Girl in an ecstasy.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘Married!’ cried the Blind Girl, starting from him.<br> +<br> +‘She’s such a con-founded Idiot,’ muttered Tackleton, +‘that I was afraid she’d never comprehend me. Ah, +Bertha! Married! Church, parson, clerk, beadle, glass-coach, +bells, breakfast, bride-cake, favours, marrow-bones, cleavers, and all +the rest of the tomfoolery. A wedding, you know; a wedding. +Don’t you know what a wedding is?’<br> +<br> +‘I know,’ replied the Blind Girl, in a gentle tone. +‘I understand!’<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘Yes,’ she answered.<br> +<br> +She had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, with her hands +crossed, musing.<br> +<br> +‘I don’t think you will,’ muttered Tackleton, looking +at her; ‘for you seem to have forgotten all about it, already. +Caleb!’<br> +<br> +‘I may venture to say I’m here, I suppose,’ thought +Caleb. ‘Sir!’<br> +<br> +‘Take care she don’t forget what I’ve been saying +to her.’<br> +<br> +‘<i>She</i> never forgets,’ returned Caleb. ‘It’s +one of the few things she an’t clever in.’<br> +<br> +‘Every man thinks his own geese swans,’ observed the Toy-merchant, +with a shrug. ‘Poor devil!’<br> +<br> +Having delivered himself of which remark, with infinite contempt, old +Gruff and Tackleton withdrew.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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:<br> +<br> +‘Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes, my patient, +willing eyes.’<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘Look round the room, father.’<br> +<br> +‘All right,’ said Caleb. ‘No sooner said than +done, Bertha.’<br> +<br> +‘Tell me about it.’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘You have your working dress on, and are not so gallant as when +you wear the handsome coat?’ said Bertha, touching him.<br> +<br> +‘Not quite so gallant,’ answered Caleb. ‘Pretty +brisk though.’<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘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.<br> +<br> +‘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 - ’<br> +<br> +‘There’s not a Doll’s in all the room to equal it,’ +said Caleb. ‘And her eyes! - ’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Our friend, father, our benefactor. I am never tired, you +know, of hearing about him. - Now, was I ever?’ she said, hastily.<br> +<br> +‘Of course not,’ answered Caleb, ‘and with reason.’<br> +<br> +‘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.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘And makes it noble!’ added Caleb, in his quiet desperation.<br> +<br> +‘And makes it noble!’ cried the Blind Girl. ‘He +is older than May, father.’<br> +<br> +‘Ye-es,’ said Caleb, reluctantly. ‘He’s +a little older than May. But that don’t signify.’<br> +<br> +‘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?<br> +<br> +‘No doubt of it,’ said Caleb.<br> +<br> +‘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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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 <i>that</i> +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 <i>can</i> you! Think of Tilly!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +This monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn’t mind +it at all.<br> +<br> +‘Oh <i>do</i> way, John!’ said Mrs. Peerybingle. ‘Please!’<br> +<br> +‘It’ll be time enough to do that,’ returned John, +‘when I begin to leave things behind me. The basket’s +here, safe enough.’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘It was a kind thought in the first instance,’ said the +Carrier: ‘and I honour you for it, little woman.’<br> +<br> +‘My dear John,’ replied Dot, turning very red, ‘don’t +talk about honouring <i>me</i>. Good Gracious!’<br> +<br> +‘By the bye - ’ observed the Carrier. ‘That +old gentleman - ’<br> +<br> +Again so visibly, and instantly embarrassed!<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘None at all. I’m - I’m sure there’s none +at all.’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘So very strangely,’ she rejoined in a low voice, scarcely +audible.<br> +<br> +‘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 <i>was</i> sound asleep, +sure-ly! - Dot! what are you thinking of?’<br> +<br> +‘Thinking of, John? I - I was listening to you.’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘May! My dear old friend!’ cried Dot, running up to +meet her. ‘What a happiness to see you.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Ah, May!’ said Dot. ‘Dear dear, what changes! +To talk of those merry school-days makes one young again.’<br> +<br> +‘Why, you an’t particularly old, at any time; are you?’ +said Tackleton.<br> +<br> +‘Look at my sober plodding husband there,’ returned Dot. +‘He adds twenty years to my age at least. Don’t you, +John?’<br> +<br> +‘Forty,’ John replied.<br> +<br> +‘How many <i>you</i>’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.’<br> +<br> +‘Ha ha!’ laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum, that +laugh though. And he looked as if he could have twisted Dot’s +neck, comfortably.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +May seemed to know which to do; for the colour flushed into her face, +and tears stood in her eyes.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +Though May didn’t say yes, she certainly didn’t say no, +or express no, by any means.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘You couldn’t help yourselves, for all that. You couldn’t +resist us, you see,’ said Tackleton. ‘Here we are! +Here we are!’<br> +<br> +‘Where are your gay young bridegrooms now!’<br> +<br> +‘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 <i>could</i> forget them +so. No! they would not believe one word of it!’<br> +<br> +‘Why, Dot!’ exclaimed the Carrier. ‘Little woman!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +For you ought to know that he only rested there, and gave the old horse +a bait. He had to go some four of five miles farther on; and when +he returned in the evening, he called for Dot, and took another rest +on his way home. This was the order of the day on all the Pic-Nic +occasions, had been, ever since their institution.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Good bye!’ said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on his +dreadnought coat. ‘I shall be back at the old time. +Good bye all!’<br> +<br> +‘Good bye, John,’ returned Caleb.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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 <i>you’ll</i> 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?’<br> +<br> +‘I’m here, John!’ she said, starting.<br> +<br> +‘Come, come!’ returned the Carrier, clapping his sounding +hands. ‘Where’s the pipe?’<br> +<br> +‘I quite forgot the pipe, John.’<br> +<br> +Forgot the pipe! Was such a wonder ever heard of! She! +Forgot the pipe!<br> +<br> +‘I’ll - I’ll fill it directly. It’s soon +done.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Why, what a clumsy Dot you are, this afternoon!’ said John. +‘I could have done it better myself, I verify believe!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Bertha!’ said Caleb, softly. ‘What has happened? +How changed you are, my darling, in a few hours - since this morning. +<i>You</i> silent and dull all day! What is it? Tell me!’<br> +<br> +‘Oh father, father!’ cried the Blind Girl, bursting into +tears. ‘Oh my hard, hard fate!’<br> +<br> +Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her.<br> +<br> +‘But think how cheerful and how happy you have been, Bertha! +How good, and how much loved, by many people.’<br> +<br> +‘That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Always so mindful +of me! Always so kind to me!’<br> +<br> +Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her.<br> +<br> +‘To be - to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear,’ he faltered, +‘is a great affliction; but - ’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘And they will again,’ said Caleb.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes overflow; she was +so earnest and pathetic, but he did not understand her, yet.<br> +<br> +‘Bring her to me,’ said Bertha. ‘I cannot hold +it closed and shut within myself. Bring her to me, father!’<br> +<br> +She knew he hesitated, and said, ‘May. Bring May!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘Dear Bertha, Yes!’<br> +<br> +The Blind Girl still, upturning the blank sightless face, down which +the tears were coursing fast, addressed her in these words:<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Great Power!’ exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow +with the truth, ‘have I deceived her from the cradle, but to break +her heart at last!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +‘Whose step is that!’ cried Bertha, starting up.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘The other step,’ said Bertha. ‘The man’s +tread behind you!’<br> +<br> +‘She is not to be deceived,’ observed the Carrier, laughing. +‘Come along, sir. You’ll be welcome, never fear!’<br> +<br> +He spoke in a loud tone; and as he spoke, the deaf old gentleman entered.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘Oh surely, John, and take it as an honour.’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +The Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was, and fonder +of his little wife than ever.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +He pointed to the old man. She looked down. I think she +trembled.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘I wish he had had a better subject, John,’ she said, with +an uneasy glance about the room. At Tackleton especially.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘I am sorry to disturb you - but a word, directly.’<br> +<br> +‘I’m going to deal,’ returned the Carrier. ‘It’s +a crisis.’<br> +<br> +‘It is,’ said Tackleton. ‘Come here, man!’<br> +<br> +There was that in his pale face which made the other rise immediately, +and ask him, in a hurry, what the matter was.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘What is it?’ asked the Carrier, with a frightened aspect.<br> +<br> +‘Hush! I’ll show you, if you’ll come with me.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘A moment!’ said Tackleton. ‘Can you bear to +look through that window, do you think?’<br> +<br> +‘Why not?’ returned the Carrier.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +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 -<br> +<br> +Oh Shadow on the Hearth! Oh truthful Cricket! Oh perfidious +Wife!<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse and parcels, +when she came into the room, prepared for going home.<br> +<br> +‘Now, John, dear! Good night, May! Good night, Bertha!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +Tilly was hushing the Baby, and she crossed and re-crossed Tackleton, +a dozen times, repeating drowsily:<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘Now, Tilly, give me the Baby! Good night, Mr. Tackleton. +Where’s John, for goodness’ sake?’<br> +<br> +‘He’s going to walk beside the horse’s head,’ +said Tackleton; who helped her to her seat.<br> +<br> +‘My dear John. Walk? To-night?’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER III - Chirp the Third<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +He was the younger man! Yes, yes; some lover who had won the heart +that <i>he</i> 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!<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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!’<br> +<br> +He reversed the gun to beat the stock up the door; he already held it +lifted in the air; some indistinct design was in his thoughts of calling +out to him to fly, for God’s sake, by the window -<br> +<br> +When, suddenly, the struggling fire illumined the whole chimney with +a glow of light; and the Cricket on the Hearth began to Chirp!<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, and stood in Fairy +shape before him.<br> +<br> +‘“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.”’<br> +<br> +‘She said so!’ cried the Carrier. ‘True!’<br> +<br> +‘“This has been a happy home, John; and I love the Cricket +for its sake!”’<br> +<br> +‘It has been, Heaven knows,’ returned the Carrier. +‘She made it happy, always, - until now.’<br> +<br> +‘So gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful, busy, and +light-hearted!’ said the Voice.<br> +<br> +‘Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did,’ returned +the Carrier.<br> +<br> +The Voice, correcting him, said ‘do.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +The Figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its hand and said:<br> +<br> +‘Upon your own hearth - ’<br> +<br> +‘The hearth she has blighted,’ interposed the Carrier.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘And pleads for her?’ inquired the Carrier.<br> +<br> +‘All things that speak the language of your hearth and home, must +plead for her!’ returned the Cricket. ‘For they speak +the truth.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +His thoughts were constant to her image. It was always there.<br> +<br> +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!’<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +Again the staring figures turned upon him all at once, and seemed to +say, ‘Is this the wife who has forsaken you!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘John Peerybingle!’ said Tackleton, with an air of condolence. +‘My good fellow, how do you find yourself this morning?’<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +The Carrier having brought it from his stable, and set it before him, +they turned into the house.<br> +<br> +‘You are not married before noon,’ he said, ‘I think?’<br> +<br> +‘No,’ answered Tackleton. ‘Plenty of time. +Plenty of time.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +This philanthropic wish, Miss Slowboy emphasised with various new raps +and kicks at the door; which led to no result whatever.<br> +<br> +‘Shall I go?’ said Tackleton. ‘It’s curious.’<br> +<br> +The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door, signed to him to +go if he would.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘John Peerybingle,’ said Tackleton, in his ear. ‘I +hope there has been nothing - nothing rash in the night?’<br> +<br> +The Carrier turned upon him quickly.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘Oh! - Well, I think he has got off pretty easy,’ said Tackleton, +taking a chair.<br> +<br> +The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too, and shaded his +face with his hand, for some little time, before proceeding.<br> +<br> +‘You showed me last night,’ he said at length, ‘my +wife; my wife that I love; secretly - ’<br> +<br> +‘And tenderly,’ insinuated Tackleton.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘I confess to having had my suspicions always,’ said Tackleton. +‘And that has made me objectionable here, I know.’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with his foot, before +resuming.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘Hah!’ said Tackleton, with a significant shake of the head.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘To be sure,’ said Tackleton. ‘Giddiness, frivolity, +fickleness, love of admiration! Not considered! All left +out of sight! Hah!’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +The Toy-merchant gazed at him in astonishment. He went on in a +softer tone:<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +The Toy-merchant gazed at him, without winking. Even the half-shut +eye was open now.<br> +<br> +‘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>I</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!’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +And here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding, who certainly +made no sort of show of being fond of <i>him.<br> +<br> +</i>‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘Here alone?’ said Tackleton. ‘Oh! Then +you do mean to take some notice of this?’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘Make <i>her</i> 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.’<br> +<br> +The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the Toy-merchant, and shook +him like a reed.<br> +<br> +‘Listen to me!’ he said. ‘And take care that +you hear me right. Listen to me. Do I speak plainly?’<br> +<br> +‘Very plainly indeed,’ answered Tackleton.<br> +<br> +‘As if I meant it?’<br> +<br> +‘Very much as if you meant it.’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +Staunch Cricket on the Hearth! Loyal household Fairies!<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘If that is your opinion’ - Tackleton began.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘I have spoken plainly?’ said the Carrier, accompanying +him to the door.<br> +<br> +‘Oh quite!’<br> +<br> +‘And you’ll remember what I have said?’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘The better for us both,’ returned the Carrier. ‘Good +bye. I give you joy!’<br> +<br> +‘I wish I could give it to <i>you</i>,’ 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.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Ow if you please don’t!’ said Tilly. ‘It’s +enough to dead and bury the Baby, so it is if you please.’<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Mary!’ said Bertha. ‘Not at the marriage!’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +He put his arms about her and hugged her, as a child might have hugged +one of his own dolls.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘ 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.’<br> +<br> +The Carrier’s Wife was silent. Caleb answered for her.<br> +<br> +‘They were wrong,’ he said.<br> +<br> +‘I knew it!’ cried Bertha, proudly. ‘I told +them so. I scorned to hear a word! Blame <i>her</i> with +justice!’ she pressed the hand between her own, and the soft cheek +against her face. ‘No! I am not so blind as that.’<br> +<br> +Her father went on one side of her, while Dot remained upon the other: +holding her hand.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘A confession, father?’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and repeated ‘Cruel!’<br> +<br> +‘He accuses himself too strongly, Bertha,’ said Dot. +‘You’ll say so, presently. You’ll be the first +to tell him so.’<br> +<br> +‘He cruel to me!’ cried Bertha, with a smile of incredulity.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still; but drew back, +and clung closer to her friend.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘But living people are not fancies!’ she said hurriedly, +and turning very pale, and still retiring from him. ‘You +can’t change them.’<br> +<br> +‘I have done so, Bertha,’ pleaded Caleb. ‘There +is one person that you know, my dove - ’<br> +<br> +‘Oh father! why do you say, I know?’ she answered, in a +term of keen reproach. ‘What and whom do <i>I</i> know! +I who have no leader! I so miserably blind.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply but in his +penitence and sorrow.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +She heard the Cricket-voice more plainly soon, and was conscious, through +her blindness, of the Presence hovering about her father.<br> +<br> +‘Mary,’ said the Blind Girl, ‘tell me what my home +is. What it truly is.’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the Carrier’s +little wife aside.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘No.’<br> +<br> +‘Who then?’<br> +<br> +Dot saw she knew, already, and was silent. The Blind Girl spread +her hands before her face again. But in quite another manner now.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘No, Bertha, indeed!’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘Yes, yes. She will. Go on.’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +The Blind Girl broke away from her; and throwing herself upon her knees +before him, took the grey head to her breast.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +There were no words for Caleb’s emotion.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +Caleb managed to articulate ‘My Bertha!’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +‘The fresh smart father in the blue coat, Bertha,’ said +poor Caleb. ‘He’s gone!’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Father,’ said Bertha, hesitating. ‘Mary.’<br> +<br> +‘Yes, my dear,’ returned Caleb. ‘Here she is.’<br> +<br> +‘There is no change in <i>her</i>. You never told me anything +of <i>her</i> that was not true?’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +‘Yes. Coming very fast.’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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!’ -<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Is it over?’ cried Dot.<br> +<br> +‘Yes!’<br> +<br> +‘Happily over?’<br> +<br> +‘Yes!’<br> +<br> +‘Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb? Did you ever hear +the like of it before?’ cried Dot.<br> +<br> +‘If my boy in the Golden South Americas was alive’ - said +Caleb, trembling.<br> +<br> +‘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<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +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!<br> +<br> +The Carrier, entering, started back. And well he might, to find +himself in such good company.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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:<br> +<br> +‘Edward! Was it you?’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘I was the man,’ said Edward.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept far away +from him, replied, ‘Well! that’s but fair. I will.’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘You had!’ exclaimed the Carrier. ‘You!’<br> +<br> +‘Indeed I had,’ returned the other. ‘And she +returned it. I have ever since believed she did, and now I am +sure she did.’<br> +<br> +‘Heaven help me!’ said the Carrier. ‘This is +worse than all.’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +Little woman, how she sobbed again! John Peerybingle would have +caught her in his arms. But no; she wouldn’t let him.<br> +<br> +‘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?’<br> +<br> +John was going to make another rush at this appeal; but she stopped +him again.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘Hooroar!’ said Caleb with unusual vigour. ‘My +opinion!’<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. But she was +very nearly too late.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +You maybe sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect rapture; and you +may be sure Dot was likewise; and you may be sure they all were, inclusive +of Miss Slowboy, who wept copiously for joy, and wishing to include +her young charge in the general interchange of congratulations, handed +round the Baby to everybody in succession, as if it were something to +drink.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +‘But I can’t spare her,’ returned Edward. ‘I +couldn’t think of it.’<br> +<br> +‘What do you mean, you vagabond?’ said Tackleton.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +The look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and the start he gave!<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +Tackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took a little piece of +silver-paper, apparently containing a ring, from his waistcoat-pocket.<br> +<br> +‘Miss Slowboy,’ said Tackleton. ‘Will you have +the kindness to throw that in the fire? Thank’ee.’<br> +<br> +‘It was a previous engagement, quite an old engagement, that prevented +my wife from keeping her appointment with you, I assure you,’ +said Edward.<br> +<br> +‘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.<br> +<br> +‘Oh certainly!’ said Tackleton. ‘Oh to be sure. +Oh it’s all right. It’s quite correct. Mrs. +Edward Plummer, I infer?’<br> +<br> +‘That’s the name,’ returned the bridegroom.<br> +<br> +‘Ah, I shouldn’t have known you, sir,’ said Tackleton, +scrutinising his face narrowly, and making a low bow. ‘I +give you joy, sir!’<br> +<br> +‘Thank’ee.’<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +And, by-the-by, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, just as he finished +the last verse.<br> +<br> +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:<br> +<br> +‘Mr. Tackleton’s compliments, and as he hasn’t got +no use for the cake himself, p’raps you’ll eat it.’<br> +<br> +And with those words, he walked off.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘Mr. Tackleton’s compliments, and he’s sent a few +toys for the Babby. They ain’t ugly.’<br> +<br> +After the delivery of which expressions, he retired again.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘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!’<br> +<br> +He was at home in five minutes. You never saw such a fellow. +What <i>had</i> 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!<br> +<br> +‘John! you won’t send me home this evening; will you?’ +whispered Dot.<br> +<br> +He had been very near it though!<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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>I</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 <i>her</i> dancing days were over, after that; +and everybody said the same, except May; May was ready.<br> +<br> +So, May and Edward got up, amid great applause, to dance alone; and +Bertha plays her liveliest tune.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp; +and how the kettle hums!<br> +<br> +* * * * *<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH ***<br> +<pre> + +******This file should be named tcoth11h.htm or tcoth11h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, tcoth12h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, tcoth10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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