"CHAPTER I—Chirp the First\n\n\nThe kettle began it! Don’t tell me what Mrs. Peerybingle said. I know\nbetter. Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it on record to the end of time that\nshe couldn’t say which of them began it; but, I say the kettle did. I\nought to know, I hope! The kettle began it, full five minutes by the\nlittle waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner, before the Cricket uttered a\nchirp.\n\nAs if the clock hadn’t finished striking, and the convulsive little\nHaymaker at the top of it, jerking away right and left with a scythe in\nfront of a Moorish Palace, hadn’t mowed down half an acre of imaginary\ngrass before the Cricket joined in at all!\n\nWhy, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows that. I wouldn’t set\nmy own opinion against the opinion of Mrs. Peerybingle, unless I were\nquite sure, on any account whatever. Nothing should induce me. But,\nthis is a question of fact. And the fact is, that the kettle began it, at\nleast five minutes before the Cricket gave any sign of being in\nexistence. Contradict me, and I’ll say ten.\n\nLet me narrate exactly how it happened. I should have proceeded to do so\nin my very first word, but for this plain consideration—if I am to tell a\nstory I must begin at the beginning; and how is it possible to begin at\nthe beginning, without beginning at the kettle?\n\nIt appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of skill, you must\nunderstand, between the kettle and the Cricket. And this is what led to\nit, and how it came about.\n\nMrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and clicking over the\nwet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable rough impressions\nof the first proposition in Euclid all about the yard—Mrs. Peerybingle\nfilled the kettle at the water-butt. Presently returning, less the\npattens (and a good deal less, for they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle\nwas but short), she set the kettle on the fire. In doing which she lost\nher temper, or mislaid it for an instant; for, the water being\nuncomfortably cold, and in that slippy, slushy, sleety sort of state\nwherein it seems to penetrate through every kind of substance, patten\nrings included—had laid hold of Mrs. Peerybingle’s toes, and even\nsplashed her legs. And when we rather plume ourselves (with reason too)\nupon our legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in point of\nstockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear.\n\nBesides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It wouldn’t allow\nitself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn’t hear of accommodating\nitself kindly to the knobs of coal; it _would_ lean forward with a\ndrunken air, and dribble, a very Idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. It\nwas quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. To sum\nup all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle’s fingers, first of all\nturned topsy-turvy, and then, with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of\na better cause, dived sideways in—down to the very bottom of the kettle.\nAnd the hull of the Royal George has never made half the monstrous\nresistance to coming out of the water, which the lid of that kettle\nemployed against Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again.\n\nIt looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carrying its handle\nwith an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and mockingly at\nMrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, ‘I won’t boil. Nothing shall induce\nme!’\n\nBut Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good humour, dusted her chubby little\nhands against each other, and sat down before the kettle, laughing.\nMeantime, the jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and gleaming on the\nlittle Haymaker at the top of the Dutch clock, until one might have\nthought he stood stock still before the Moorish Palace, and nothing was\nin motion but the flame.\n\nHe was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two to the second, all\nright and regular. But, his sufferings when the clock was going to\nstrike, were frightful to behold; and, when a Cuckoo looked out of a\ntrap-door in the Palace, and gave note six times, it shook him, each\ntime, like a spectral voice—or like a something wiry, plucking at his\nlegs.\n\nIt was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise among the\nweights and ropes below him had quite subsided, that this terrified\nHaymaker became himself again. Nor was he startled without reason; for\nthese rattling, bony skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting in their\noperation, and I wonder very much how any set of men, but most of all how\nDutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them. There is a popular\nbelief that Dutchmen love broad cases and much clothing for their own\nlower selves; and they might know better than to leave their clocks so\nvery lank and unprotected, surely.\n\nNow it was, you observe, that the kettle began to spend the evening. Now\nit was, that the kettle, growing mellow and musical, began to have\nirrepressible gurglings in its throat, and to indulge in short vocal\nsnorts, which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn’t quite made up its\nmind yet, to be good company. Now it was, that after two or three such\nvain attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off all\nmoroseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of song so cosy and\nhilarious, as never maudlin nightingale yet formed the least idea of.\n\nSo plain too! Bless you, you might have understood it like a book—better\nthan some books you and I could name, perhaps. With its warm breath\ngushing forth in a light cloud which merrily and gracefully ascended a\nfew feet, then hung about the chimney-corner as its own domestic Heaven,\nit trolled its song with that strong energy of cheerfulness, that its\niron body hummed and stirred upon the fire; and the lid itself, the\nrecently rebellious lid—such is the influence of a bright\nexample—performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and dumb young\ncymbal that had never known the use of its twin brother.\n\nThat this song of the kettle’s was a song of invitation and welcome to\nsomebody out of doors: to somebody at that moment coming on, towards the\nsnug small home and the crisp fire: there is no doubt whatever. Mrs.\nPeerybingle knew it, perfectly, as she sat musing before the hearth.\nIt’s a dark night, sang the kettle, and the rotten leaves are lying by\nthe way; and, above, all is mist and darkness, and, below, all is mire\nand clay; and there’s only one relief in all the sad and murky air; and I\ndon’t know that it is one, for it’s nothing but a glare; of deep and\nangry crimson, where the sun and wind together; set a brand upon the\nclouds for being guilty of such weather; and the widest open country is a\nlong dull streak of black; and there’s hoar-frost on the finger-post, and\nthaw upon the track; and the ice it isn’t water, and the water isn’t\nfree; and you couldn’t say that anything is what it ought to be; but he’s\ncoming, coming, coming!—\n\nAnd here, if you like, the Cricket DID chime in! with a Chirrup, Chirrup,\nChirrup of such magnitude, by way of chorus; with a voice so astoundingly\ndisproportionate to its size, as compared with the kettle; (size! you\ncouldn’t see it!) that if it had then and there burst itself like an\novercharged gun, if it had fallen a victim on the spot, and chirruped its\nlittle body into fifty pieces, it would have seemed a natural and\ninevitable consequence, for which it had expressly laboured.\n\nThe kettle had had the last of its solo performance. It persevered with\nundiminished ardour; but the Cricket took first fiddle and kept it. Good\nHeaven, how it chirped! Its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded\nthrough the house, and seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like a\nstar. There was an indescribable little trill and tremble in it, at its\nloudest, which suggested its being carried off its legs, and made to leap\nagain, by its own intense enthusiasm. Yet they went very well together,\nthe Cricket and the kettle. The burden of the song was still the same;\nand louder, louder, louder still, they sang it in their emulation.\n\nThe fair little listener—for fair she was, and young: though something of\nwhat is called the dumpling shape; but I don’t myself object to\nthat—lighted a candle, glanced at the Haymaker on the top of the clock,\nwho was getting in a pretty average crop of minutes; and looked out of\nthe window, where she saw nothing, owing to the darkness, but her own\nface imaged in the glass. And my opinion is (and so would yours have\nbeen), that she might have looked a long way, and seen nothing half so\nagreeable. When she came back, and sat down in her former seat, the\nCricket and the kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of\ncompetition. The kettle’s weak side clearly being, that he didn’t know\nwhen he was beat.\n\nThere was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp, chirp, chirp!\nCricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle making play in the\ndistance, like a great top. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket round the\ncorner. Hum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle sticking to him in his own way; no\nidea of giving in. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket fresher than ever.\nHum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, chirp!\nCricket going in to finish him. Hum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle not to be\nfinished. Until at last they got so jumbled together, in the\nhurry-skurry, helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the kettle\nchirped and the Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the kettle\nhummed, or they both chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a\nclearer head than yours or mine to have decided with anything like\ncertainty. But, of this, there is no doubt: that, the kettle and the\nCricket, at one and the same moment, and by some power of amalgamation\nbest known to themselves, sent, each, his fireside song of comfort\nstreaming into a ray of the candle that shone out through the window, and\na long way down the lane. And this light, bursting on a certain person\nwho, on the instant, approached towards it through the gloom, expressed\nthe whole thing to him, literally in a twinkling, and cried, ‘Welcome\nhome, old fellow! Welcome home, my boy!’\n\nThis end attained, the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and was\ntaken off the fire. Mrs. Peerybingle then went running to the door,\nwhere, what with the wheels of a cart, the tramp of a horse, the voice of\na man, the tearing in and out of an excited dog, and the surprising and\nmysterious appearance of a baby, there was soon the very What’s-his-name\nto pay.\n\nWhere the baby came from, or how Mrs. Peerybingle got hold of it in that\nflash of time, _I_ don’t know. But a live baby there was, in Mrs.\nPeerybingle’s arms; and a pretty tolerable amount of pride she seemed to\nhave in it, when she was drawn gently to the fire, by a sturdy figure of\na man, much taller and much older than herself, who had to stoop a long\nway down, to kiss her. But she was worth the trouble. Six foot six,\nwith the lumbago, might have done it.\n\n‘Oh goodness, John!’ said Mrs. P. ‘What a state you are in with the\nweather!’\n\nHe was something the worse for it, undeniably. The thick mist hung in\nclots upon his eyelashes like candied thaw; and between the fog and fire\ntogether, there were rainbows in his very whiskers.\n\n‘Why, you see, Dot,’ John made answer, slowly, as he unrolled a shawl\nfrom about his throat; and warmed his hands; ‘it—it an’t exactly summer\nweather. So, no wonder.’\n\n‘I wish you wouldn’t call me Dot, John. I don’t like it,’ said Mrs.\nPeerybingle: pouting in a way that clearly showed she _did_ like it, very\nmuch.\n\n‘Why what else are you?’ returned John, looking down upon her with a\nsmile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze as his huge hand and arm\ncould give. ‘A dot and’—here he glanced at the baby—‘a dot and carry—I\nwon’t say it, for fear I should spoil it; but I was very near a joke. I\ndon’t know as ever I was nearer.’\n\nHe was often near to something or other very clever, by his own account:\nthis lumbering, slow, honest John; this John so heavy, but so light of\nspirit; so rough upon the surface, but so gentle at the core; so dull\nwithout, so quick within; so stolid, but so good! Oh Mother Nature, give\nthy children the true poetry of heart that hid itself in this poor\nCarrier’s breast—he was but a Carrier by the way—and we can bear to have\nthem talking prose, and leading lives of prose; and bear to bless thee\nfor their company!\n\nIt was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure, and her baby in her\narms: a very doll of a baby: glancing with a coquettish thoughtfulness at\nthe fire, and inclining her delicate little head just enough on one side\nto let it rest in an odd, half-natural, half-affected, wholly nestling\nand agreeable manner, on the great rugged figure of the Carrier. It was\npleasant to see him, with his tender awkwardness, endeavouring to adapt\nhis rude support to her slight need, and make his burly middle-age a\nleaning-staff not inappropriate to her blooming youth. It was pleasant\nto observe how Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the background for the baby,\ntook special cognizance (though in her earliest teens) of this grouping;\nand stood with her mouth and eyes wide open, and her head thrust forward,\ntaking it in as if it were air. Nor was it less agreeable to observe how\nJohn the Carrier, reference being made by Dot to the aforesaid baby,\nchecked his hand when on the point of touching the infant, as if he\nthought he might crack it; and bending down, surveyed it from a safe\ndistance, with a kind of puzzled pride, such as an amiable mastiff might\nbe supposed to show, if he found himself, one day, the father of a young\ncanary.\n\n‘An’t he beautiful, John? Don’t he look precious in his sleep?’\n\n‘Very precious,’ said John. ‘Very much so. He generally _is_ asleep,\nan’t he?’\n\n‘Lor, John! Good gracious no!’\n\n‘Oh,’ said John, pondering. ‘I thought his eyes was generally shut.\nHalloa!’\n\n‘Goodness, John, how you startle one!’\n\n‘It an’t right for him to turn ’em up in that way!’ said the astonished\nCarrier, ‘is it? See how he’s winking with both of ’em at once! And\nlook at his mouth! Why he’s gasping like a gold and silver fish!’\n\n‘You don’t deserve to be a father, you don’t,’ said Dot, with all the\ndignity of an experienced matron. ‘But how should you know what little\ncomplaints children are troubled with, John! You wouldn’t so much as\nknow their names, you stupid fellow.’ And when she had turned the baby\nover on her left arm, and had slapped its back as a restorative, she\npinched her husband’s ear, laughing.\n\n‘No,’ said John, pulling off his outer coat. ‘It’s very true, Dot. I\ndon’t know much about it. I only know that I’ve been fighting pretty\nstiffly with the wind to-night. It’s been blowing north-east, straight\ninto the cart, the whole way home.’\n\n‘Poor old man, so it has!’ cried Mrs. Peerybingle, instantly becoming\nvery active. ‘Here! Take the precious darling, Tilly, while I make\nmyself of some use. Bless it, I could smother it with kissing it, I\ncould! Hie then, good dog! Hie, Boxer, boy! Only let me make the tea\nfirst, John; and then I’ll help you with the parcels, like a busy bee.\n“How doth the little”—and all the rest of it, you know, John. Did you\never learn “how doth the little,” when you went to school, John?’\n\n‘Not to quite know it,’ John returned. ‘I was very near it once. But I\nshould only have spoilt it, I dare say.’\n\n‘Ha ha,’ laughed Dot. She had the blithest little laugh you ever heard.\n‘What a dear old darling of a dunce you are, John, to be sure!’\n\nNot at all disputing this position, John went out to see that the boy\nwith the lantern, which had been dancing to and fro before the door and\nwindow, like a Will of the Wisp, took due care of the horse; who was\nfatter than you would quite believe, if I gave you his measure, and so\nold that his birthday was lost in the mists of antiquity. Boxer, feeling\nthat his attentions were due to the family in general, and must be\nimpartially distributed, dashed in and out with bewildering inconstancy;\nnow, describing a circle of short barks round the horse, where he was\nbeing rubbed down at the stable-door; now feigning to make savage rushes\nat his mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now,\neliciting a shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the\nfire, by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her countenance;\nnow, exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the baby; now, going round and\nround upon the hearth, and lying down as if he had established himself\nfor the night; now, getting up again, and taking that nothing of a\nfag-end of a tail of his, out into the weather, as if he had just\nremembered an appointment, and was off, at a round trot, to keep it.\n\n‘There! There’s the teapot, ready on the hob!’ said Dot; as briskly busy\nas a child at play at keeping house. ‘And there’s the old knuckle of\nham; and there’s the butter; and there’s the crusty loaf, and all!\nHere’s the clothes-basket for the small parcels, John, if you’ve got any\nthere—where are you, John?’\n\n‘Don’t let the dear child fall under the grate, Tilly, whatever you do!’\n\nIt may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her rejecting the caution\nwith some vivacity, that she had a rare and surprising talent for getting\nthis baby into difficulties and had several times imperilled its short\nlife, in a quiet way peculiarly her own. She was of a spare and straight\nshape, this young lady, insomuch that her garments appeared to be in\nconstant danger of sliding off those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which\nthey were loosely hung. Her costume was remarkable for the partial\ndevelopment, on all possible occasions, of some flannel vestment of a\nsingular structure; also for affording glimpses, in the region of the\nback, of a corset, or pair of stays, in colour a dead-green. Being\nalways in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed,\nbesides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress’s perfections and\nthe baby’s, Miss Slowboy, in her little errors of judgment, may be said\nto have done equal honour to her head and to her heart; and though these\ndid less honour to the baby’s head, which they were the occasional means\nof bringing into contact with deal doors, dressers, stair-rails,\nbed-posts, and other foreign substances, still they were the honest\nresults of Tilly Slowboy’s constant astonishment at finding herself so\nkindly treated, and installed in such a comfortable home. For, the\nmaternal and paternal Slowboy were alike unknown to Fame, and Tilly had\nbeen bred by public charity, a foundling; which word, though only\ndiffering from fondling by one vowel’s length, is very different in\nmeaning, and expresses quite another thing.\n\nTo have seen little Mrs. Peerybingle come back with her husband, tugging\nat the clothes-basket, and making the most strenuous exertions to do\nnothing at all (for he carried it), would have amused you almost as much\nas it amused him. It may have entertained the Cricket too, for anything\nI know; but, certainly, it now began to chirp again, vehemently.\n\n‘Heyday!’ said John, in his slow way. ‘It’s merrier than ever, to-night,\nI think.’\n\n‘And it’s sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always has done so.\nTo have a Cricket on the Hearth, is the luckiest thing in all the world!’\n\nJohn looked at her as if he had very nearly got the thought into his\nhead, that she was his Cricket in chief, and he quite agreed with her.\nBut, it was probably one of his narrow escapes, for he said nothing.\n\n‘The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John, was on that night\nwhen you brought me home—when you brought me to my new home here; its\nlittle mistress. Nearly a year ago. You recollect, John?’\n\nO yes. John remembered. I should think so!\n\n‘Its chirp was such a welcome to me! It seemed so full of promise and\nencouragement. It seemed to say, you would be kind and gentle with me,\nand would not expect (I had a fear of that, John, then) to find an old\nhead on the shoulders of your foolish little wife.’\n\nJohn thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then the head, as\nthough he would have said No, no; he had had no such expectation; he had\nbeen quite content to take them as they were. And really he had reason.\nThey were very comely.\n\n‘It spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say so; for you have ever\nbeen, I am sure, the best, the most considerate, the most affectionate of\nhusbands to me. This has been a happy home, John; and I love the Cricket\nfor its sake!’\n\n‘Why so do I then,’ said the Carrier. ‘So do I, Dot.’\n\n‘I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the many thoughts its\nharmless music has given me. Sometimes, in the twilight, when I have\nfelt a little solitary and down-hearted, John—before baby was here to\nkeep me company and make the house gay—when I have thought how lonely you\nwould be if I should die; how lonely I should be if I could know that you\nhad lost me, dear; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp upon the hearth, has seemed to\ntell me of another little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me, before\nwhose coming sound my trouble vanished like a dream. And when I used to\nfear—I did fear once, John, I was very young you know—that ours might\nprove to be an ill-assorted marriage, I being such a child, and you more\nlike my guardian than my husband; and that you might not, however hard\nyou tried, be able to learn to love me, as you hoped and prayed you\nmight; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp has cheered me up again, and filled me\nwith new trust and confidence. I was thinking of these things to-night,\ndear, when I sat expecting you; and I love the Cricket for their sake!’\n\n‘And so do I,’ repeated John. ‘But, Dot? _I_ hope and pray that I might\nlearn to love you? How you talk! I had learnt that, long before I\nbrought you here, to be the Cricket’s little mistress, Dot!’\n\nShe laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up at him with an\nagitated face, as if she would have told him something. Next moment she\nwas down upon her knees before the basket, speaking in a sprightly voice,\nand busy with the parcels.\n\n‘There are not many of them to-night, John, but I saw some goods behind\nthe cart, just now; and though they give more trouble, perhaps, still\nthey pay as well; so we have no reason to grumble, have we? Besides, you\nhave been delivering, I dare say, as you came along?’\n\n‘Oh yes,’ John said. ‘A good many.’\n\n‘Why what’s this round box? Heart alive, John, it’s a wedding-cake!’\n\n‘Leave a woman alone to find out that,’ said John, admiringly. ‘Now a\nman would never have thought of it. Whereas, it’s my belief that if you\nwas to pack a wedding-cake up in a tea-chest, or a turn-up bedstead, or a\npickled salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a woman would be sure to find\nit out directly. Yes; I called for it at the pastry-cook’s.’\n\n‘And it weighs I don’t know what—whole hundredweights!’ cried Dot, making\na great demonstration of trying to lift it.\n\n‘Whose is it, John? Where is it going?’\n\n‘Read the writing on the other side,’ said John.\n\n‘Why, John! My Goodness, John!’\n\n‘Ah! who’d have thought it!’ John returned.\n\n‘You never mean to say,’ pursued Dot, sitting on the floor and shaking\nher head at him, ‘that it’s Gruff and Tackleton the toymaker!’\n\nJohn nodded.\n\nMrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least. Not in assent—in\ndumb and pitying amazement; screwing up her lips the while with all their\nlittle force (they were never made for screwing up; I am clear of that),\nand looking the good Carrier through and through, in her abstraction.\nMiss Slowboy, in the mean time, who had a mechanical power of reproducing\nscraps of current conversation for the delectation of the baby, with all\nthe sense struck out of them, and all the nouns changed into the plural\nnumber, inquired aloud of that young creature, Was it Gruffs and\nTackletons the toymakers then, and Would it call at Pastry-cooks for\nwedding-cakes, and Did its mothers know the boxes when its fathers\nbrought them homes; and so on.\n\n‘And that is really to come about!’ said Dot. ‘Why, she and I were girls\nat school together, John.’\n\nHe might have been thinking of her, or nearly thinking of her, perhaps,\nas she was in that same school time. He looked upon her with a\nthoughtful pleasure, but he made no answer.\n\n‘And he’s as old! As unlike her!—Why, how many years older than you, is\nGruff and Tackleton, John?’\n\n‘How many more cups of tea shall I drink to-night at one sitting, than\nGruff and Tackleton ever took in four, I wonder!’ replied John,\ngood-humouredly, as he drew a chair to the round table, and began at the\ncold ham. ‘As to eating, I eat but little; but that little I enjoy,\nDot.’\n\nEven this, his usual sentiment at meal times, one of his innocent\ndelusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, and flatly contradicted\nhim), awoke no smile in the face of his little wife, who stood among the\nparcels, pushing the cake-box slowly from her with her foot, and never\nonce looked, though her eyes were cast down too, upon the dainty shoe she\ngenerally was so mindful of. Absorbed in thought, she stood there,\nheedless alike of the tea and John (although he called to her, and rapped\nthe table with his knife to startle her), until he rose and touched her\non the arm; when she looked at him for a moment, and hurried to her place\nbehind the teaboard, laughing at her negligence. But, not as she had\nlaughed before. The manner and the music were quite changed.\n\nThe Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room was not so cheerful as\nit had been. Nothing like it.\n\n‘So, these are all the parcels, are they, John?’ she said, breaking a\nlong silence, which the honest Carrier had devoted to the practical\nillustration of one part of his favourite sentiment—certainly enjoying\nwhat he ate, if it couldn’t be admitted that he ate but little. ‘So,\nthese are all the parcels; are they, John?’\n\n‘That’s all,’ said John. ‘Why—no—I—’ laying down his knife and fork, and\ntaking a long breath. ‘I declare—I’ve clean forgotten the old\ngentleman!’\n\n‘The old gentleman?’\n\n‘In the cart,’ said John. ‘He was asleep, among the straw, the last time\nI saw him. I’ve very nearly remembered him, twice, since I came in; but\nhe went out of my head again. Halloa! Yahip there! Rouse up! That’s\nmy hearty!’\n\nJohn said these latter words outside the door, whither he had hurried\nwith the candle in his hand.\n\nMiss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference to The Old\nGentleman, and connecting in her mystified imagination certain\nassociations of a religious nature with the phrase, was so disturbed,\nthat hastily rising from the low chair by the fire to seek protection\nnear the skirts of her mistress, and coming into contact as she crossed\nthe doorway with an ancient Stranger, she instinctively made a charge or\nbutt at him with the only offensive instrument within her reach. This\ninstrument happening to be the baby, great commotion and alarm ensued,\nwhich the sagacity of Boxer rather tended to increase; for, that good\ndog, more thoughtful than its master, had, it seemed, been watching the\nold gentleman in his sleep, lest he should walk off with a few young\npoplar trees that were tied up behind the cart; and he still attended on\nhim very closely, worrying his gaiters in fact, and making dead sets at\nthe buttons.\n\n‘You’re such an undeniable good sleeper, sir,’ said John, when\ntranquillity was restored; in the mean time the old gentleman had stood,\nbareheaded and motionless, in the centre of the room; ‘that I have half a\nmind to ask you where the other six are—only that would be a joke, and I\nknow I should spoil it. Very near though,’ murmured the Carrier, with a\nchuckle; ‘very near!’\n\nThe Stranger, who had long white hair, good features, singularly bold and\nwell defined for an old man, and dark, bright, penetrating eyes, looked\nround with a smile, and saluted the Carrier’s wife by gravely inclining\nhis head.\n\nHis garb was very quaint and odd—a long, long way behind the time. Its\nhue was brown, all over. In his hand he held a great brown club or\nwalking-stick; and striking this upon the floor, it fell asunder, and\nbecame a chair. On which he sat down, quite composedly.\n\n‘There!’ said the Carrier, turning to his wife. ‘That’s the way I found\nhim, sitting by the roadside! Upright as a milestone. And almost as\ndeaf.’\n\n‘Sitting in the open air, John!’\n\n‘In the open air,’ replied the Carrier, ‘just at dusk. “Carriage Paid,”\nhe said; and gave me eighteenpence. Then he got in. And there he is.’\n\n‘He’s going, John, I think!’\n\nNot at all. He was only going to speak.\n\n‘If you please, I was to be left till called for,’ said the Stranger,\nmildly. ‘Don’t mind me.’\n\nWith that, he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large pockets,\nand a book from another, and leisurely began to read. Making no more of\nBoxer than if he had been a house lamb!\n\nThe Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity. The Stranger\nraised his head; and glancing from the latter to the former, said,\n\n‘Your daughter, my good friend?’\n\n‘Wife,’ returned John.\n\n‘Niece?’ said the Stranger.\n\n‘Wife,’ roared John.\n\n‘Indeed?’ observed the Stranger. ‘Surely? Very young!’\n\nHe quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. But, before he could\nhave read two lines, he again interrupted himself to say:\n\n‘Baby, yours?’\n\nJohn gave him a gigantic nod; equivalent to an answer in the affirmative,\ndelivered through a speaking trumpet.\n\n‘Girl?’\n\n‘Bo-o-oy!’ roared John.\n\n‘Also very young, eh?’\n\nMrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. ‘Two months and three da-ays!\nVaccinated just six weeks ago-o! Took very fine-ly! Considered, by the\ndoctor, a remarkably beautiful chi-ild! Equal to the general run of\nchildren at five months o-old! Takes notice, in a way quite won-der-ful!\nMay seem impossible to you, but feels his legs al-ready!’\n\nHere the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these short\nsentences into the old man’s ear, until her pretty face was crimsoned,\nheld up the Baby before him as a stubborn and triumphant fact; while\nTilly Slowboy, with a melodious cry of ‘Ketcher, Ketcher’—which sounded\nlike some unknown words, adapted to a popular Sneeze—performed some\ncow-like gambols round that all unconscious Innocent.\n\n‘Hark! He’s called for, sure enough,’ said John. ‘There’s somebody at\nthe door. Open it, Tilly.’\n\nBefore she could reach it, however, it was opened from without; being a\nprimitive sort of door, with a latch, that any one could lift if he\nchose—and a good many people did choose, for all kinds of neighbours\nliked to have a cheerful word or two with the Carrier, though he was no\ngreat talker himself. Being opened, it gave admission to a little,\nmeagre, thoughtful, dingy-faced man, who seemed to have made himself a\ngreat-coat from the sack-cloth covering of some old box; for, when he\nturned to shut the door, and keep the weather out, he disclosed upon the\nback of that garment, the inscription G & T in large black capitals.\nAlso the word GLASS in bold characters.\n\n‘Good evening, John!’ said the little man. ‘Good evening, Mum. Good\nevening, Tilly. Good evening, Unbeknown! How’s Baby, Mum? Boxer’s\npretty well I hope?’\n\n‘All thriving, Caleb,’ replied Dot. ‘I am sure you need only look at the\ndear child, for one, to know that.’\n\n‘And I’m sure I need only look at you for another,’ said Caleb.\n\nHe didn’t look at her though; he had a wandering and thoughtful eye which\nseemed to be always projecting itself into some other time and place, no\nmatter what he said; a description which will equally apply to his voice.\n\n‘Or at John for another,’ said Caleb. ‘Or at Tilly, as far as that goes.\nOr certainly at Boxer.’\n\n‘Busy just now, Caleb?’ asked the Carrier.\n\n‘Why, pretty well, John,’ he returned, with the distraught air of a man\nwho was casting about for the Philosopher’s stone, at least. ‘Pretty\nmuch so. There’s rather a run on Noah’s Arks at present. I could have\nwished to improve upon the Family, but I don’t see how it’s to be done at\nthe price. It would be a satisfaction to one’s mind, to make it clearer\nwhich was Shems and Hams, and which was Wives. Flies an’t on that scale\nneither, as compared with elephants you know! Ah! well! Have you got\nanything in the parcel line for me, John?’\n\nThe Carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had taken off; and\nbrought out, carefully preserved in moss and paper, a tiny flower-pot.\n\n‘There it is!’ he said, adjusting it with great care. ‘Not so much as a\nleaf damaged. Full of buds!’\n\nCaleb’s dull eye brightened, as he took it, and thanked him.\n\n‘Dear, Caleb,’ said the Carrier. ‘Very dear at this season.’\n\n‘Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, whatever it cost,’ returned\nthe little man. ‘Anything else, John?’\n\n‘A small box,’ replied the Carrier. ‘Here you are!’\n\n‘“For Caleb Plummer,”’ said the little man, spelling out the direction.\n‘“With Cash.” With Cash, John? I don’t think it’s for me.’\n\n‘With Care,’ returned the Carrier, looking over his shoulder. ‘Where do\nyou make out cash?’\n\n‘Oh! To be sure!’ said Caleb. ‘It’s all right. With care! Yes, yes;\nthat’s mine. It might have been with cash, indeed, if my dear Boy in the\nGolden South Americas had lived, John. You loved him like a son; didn’t\nyou? You needn’t say you did. _I_ know, of course. “Caleb Plummer.\nWith care.” Yes, yes, it’s all right. It’s a box of dolls’ eyes for my\ndaughter’s work. I wish it was her own sight in a box, John.’\n\n‘I wish it was, or could be!’ cried the Carrier.\n\n‘Thank’ee,’ said the little man. ‘You speak very hearty. To think that\nshe should never see the Dolls—and them a-staring at her, so bold, all\nday long! That’s where it cuts. What’s the damage, John?’\n\n‘I’ll damage you,’ said John, ‘if you inquire. Dot! Very near?’\n\n‘Well! it’s like you to say so,’ observed the little man. ‘It’s your\nkind way. Let me see. I think that’s all.’\n\n‘I think not,’ said the Carrier. ‘Try again.’\n\n‘Something for our Governor, eh?’ said Caleb, after pondering a little\nwhile. ‘To be sure. That’s what I came for; but my head’s so running on\nthem Arks and things! He hasn’t been here, has he?’\n\n‘Not he,’ returned the Carrier. ‘He’s too busy, courting.’\n\n‘He’s coming round though,’ said Caleb; ‘for he told me to keep on the\nnear side of the road going home, and it was ten to one he’d take me up.\nI had better go, by the bye.—You couldn’t have the goodness to let me\npinch Boxer’s tail, Mum, for half a moment, could you?’\n\n‘Why, Caleb! what a question!’\n\n‘Oh never mind, Mum,’ said the little man. ‘He mightn’t like it perhaps.\nThere’s a small order just come in, for barking dogs; and I should wish\nto go as close to Natur’ as I could, for sixpence. That’s all. Never\nmind, Mum.’\n\nIt happened opportunely, that Boxer, without receiving the proposed\nstimulus, began to bark with great zeal. But, as this implied the\napproach of some new visitor, Caleb, postponing his study from the life\nto a more convenient season, shouldered the round box, and took a hurried\nleave. He might have spared himself the trouble, for he met the visitor\nupon the threshold.\n\n‘Oh! You are here, are you? Wait a bit. I’ll take you home. John\nPeerybingle, my service to you. More of my service to your pretty wife.\nHandsomer every day! Better too, if possible! And younger,’ mused the\nspeaker, in a low voice; ‘that’s the Devil of it!’\n\n‘I should be astonished at your paying compliments, Mr. Tackleton,’ said\nDot, not with the best grace in the world; ‘but for your condition.’\n\n‘You know all about it then?’\n\n‘I have got myself to believe it, somehow,’ said Dot.\n\n‘After a hard struggle, I suppose?’\n\n‘Very.’\n\nTackleton the Toy-merchant, pretty generally known as Gruff and\nTackleton—for that was the firm, though Gruff had been bought out long\nago; only leaving his name, and as some said his nature, according to its\nDictionary meaning, in the business—Tackleton the Toy-merchant, was a man\nwhose vocation had been quite misunderstood by his Parents and Guardians.\nIf they had made him a Money Lender, or a sharp Attorney, or a Sheriff’s\nOfficer, or a Broker, he might have sown his discontented oats in his\nyouth, and, after having had the full run of himself in ill-natured\ntransactions, might have turned out amiable, at last, for the sake of a\nlittle freshness and novelty. But, cramped and chafing in the peaceable\npursuit of toy-making, he was a domestic Ogre, who had been living on\nchildren all his life, and was their implacable enemy. He despised all\ntoys; wouldn’t have bought one for the world; delighted, in his malice,\nto insinuate grim expressions into the faces of brown-paper farmers who\ndrove pigs to market, bellmen who advertised lost lawyers’ consciences,\nmovable old ladies who darned stockings or carved pies; and other like\nsamples of his stock in trade. In appalling masks; hideous, hairy,\nred-eyed Jacks in Boxes; Vampire Kites; demoniacal Tumblers who wouldn’t\nlie down, and were perpetually flying forward, to stare infants out of\ncountenance; his soul perfectly revelled. They were his only relief, and\nsafety-valve. He was great in such inventions. Anything suggestive of a\nPony-nightmare was delicious to him. He had even lost money (and he took\nto that toy very kindly) by getting up Goblin slides for magic-lanterns,\nwhereon the Powers of Darkness were depicted as a sort of supernatural\nshell-fish, with human faces. In intensifying the portraiture of Giants,\nhe had sunk quite a little capital; and, though no painter himself, he\ncould indicate, for the instruction of his artists, with a piece of\nchalk, a certain furtive leer for the countenances of those monsters,\nwhich was safe to destroy the peace of mind of any young gentleman\nbetween the ages of six and eleven, for the whole Christmas or Midsummer\nVacation.\n\nWhat he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in other things. You may\neasily suppose, therefore, that within the great green cape, which\nreached down to the calves of his legs, there was buttoned up to the chin\nan uncommonly pleasant fellow; and that he was about as choice a spirit,\nand as agreeable a companion, as ever stood in a pair of\nbull-headed-looking boots with mahogany-coloured tops.\n\nStill, Tackleton, the toy-merchant, was going to be married. In spite of\nall this, he was going to be married. And to a young wife too, a\nbeautiful young wife.\n\nHe didn’t look much like a bridegroom, as he stood in the Carrier’s\nkitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and his\nhat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked down into\nthe bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic ill-conditioned self\npeering out of one little corner of one little eye, like the concentrated\nessence of any number of ravens. But, a Bridegroom he designed to be.\n\n‘In three days’ time. Next Thursday. The last day of the first month in\nthe year. That’s my wedding-day,’ said Tackleton.\n\nDid I mention that he had always one eye wide open, and one eye nearly\nshut; and that the one eye nearly shut, was always the expressive eye? I\ndon’t think I did.\n\n‘That’s my wedding-day!’ said Tackleton, rattling his money.\n\n‘Why, it’s our wedding-day too,’ exclaimed the Carrier.\n\n‘Ha ha!’ laughed Tackleton. ‘Odd! You’re just such another couple.\nJust!’\n\nThe indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion is not to be\ndescribed. What next? His imagination would compass the possibility of\njust such another Baby, perhaps. The man was mad.\n\n‘I say! A word with you,’ murmured Tackleton, nudging the Carrier with\nhis elbow, and taking him a little apart. ‘You’ll come to the wedding?\nWe’re in the same boat, you know.’\n\n‘How in the same boat?’ inquired the Carrier.\n\n‘A little disparity, you know,’ said Tackleton, with another nudge.\n‘Come and spend an evening with us, beforehand.’\n\n‘Why?’ demanded John, astonished at this pressing hospitality.\n\n‘Why?’ returned the other. ‘That’s a new way of receiving an invitation.\nWhy, for pleasure—sociability, you know, and all that!’\n\n‘I thought you were never sociable,’ said John, in his plain way.\n\n‘Tchah! It’s of no use to be anything but free with you, I see,’ said\nTackleton. ‘Why, then, the truth is you have a—what tea-drinking people\ncall a sort of a comfortable appearance together, you and your wife. We\nknow better, you know, but—’\n\n‘No, we don’t know better,’ interposed John. ‘What are you talking\nabout?’\n\n‘Well! We _don’t_ know better, then,’ said Tackleton. ‘We’ll agree that\nwe don’t. As you like; what does it matter? I was going to say, as you\nhave that sort of appearance, your company will produce a favourable\neffect on Mrs. Tackleton that will be. And, though I don’t think your\ngood lady’s very friendly to me, in this matter, still she can’t help\nherself from falling into my views, for there’s a compactness and\ncosiness of appearance about her that always tells, even in an\nindifferent case. You’ll say you’ll come?’\n\n‘We have arranged to keep our Wedding-Day (as far as that goes) at home,’\nsaid John. ‘We have made the promise to ourselves these six months. We\nthink, you see, that home—’\n\n‘Bah! what’s home?’ cried Tackleton. ‘Four walls and a ceiling! (why\ndon’t you kill that Cricket? _I_ would! I always do. I hate their\nnoise.) There are four walls and a ceiling at my house. Come to me!’\n\n‘You kill your Crickets, eh?’ said John.\n\n‘Scrunch ’em, sir,’ returned the other, setting his heel heavily on the\nfloor. ‘You’ll say you’ll come? It’s as much your interest as mine, you\nknow, that the women should persuade each other that they’re quiet and\ncontented, and couldn’t be better off. I know their way. Whatever one\nwoman says, another woman is determined to clinch, always. There’s that\nspirit of emulation among ’em, sir, that if your wife says to my wife,\n“I’m the happiest woman in the world, and mine’s the best husband in the\nworld, and I dote on him,” my wife will say the same to yours, or more,\nand half believe it.’\n\n‘Do you mean to say she don’t, then?’ asked the Carrier.\n\n‘Don’t!’ cried Tackleton, with a short, sharp laugh. ‘Don’t what?’\n\nThe Carrier had some faint idea of adding, ‘dote upon you.’ But,\nhappening to meet the half-closed eye, as it twinkled upon him over the\nturned-up collar of the cape, which was within an ace of poking it out,\nhe felt it such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to be doted on,\nthat he substituted, ‘that she don’t believe it?’\n\n‘Ah you dog! You’re joking,’ said Tackleton.\n\nBut the Carrier, though slow to understand the full drift of his meaning,\neyed him in such a serious manner, that he was obliged to be a little\nmore explanatory.\n\n‘I have the humour,’ said Tackleton: holding up the fingers of his left\nhand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply ‘there I am, Tackleton to\nwit:’ ‘I have the humour, sir, to marry a young wife, and a pretty wife:’\nhere he rapped his little finger, to express the Bride; not sparingly,\nbut sharply; with a sense of power. ‘I’m able to gratify that humour and\nI do. It’s my whim. But—now look there!’\n\nHe pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully, before the fire;\nleaning her dimpled chin upon her hand, and watching the bright blaze.\nThe Carrier looked at her, and then at him, and then at her, and then at\nhim again.\n\n‘She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know,’ said Tackleton; ‘and that,\nas I am not a man of sentiment, is quite enough for _me_. But do you\nthink there’s anything more in it?’\n\n‘I think,’ observed the Carrier, ‘that I should chuck any man out of\nwindow, who said there wasn’t.’\n\n‘Exactly so,’ returned the other with an unusual alacrity of assent. ‘To\nbe sure! Doubtless you would. Of course. I’m certain of it. Good\nnight. Pleasant dreams!’\n\nThe Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and uncertain, in spite\nof himself. He couldn’t help showing it, in his manner.\n\n‘Good night, my dear friend!’ said Tackleton, compassionately. ‘I’m off.\nWe’re exactly alike, in reality, I see. You won’t give us to-morrow\nevening? Well! Next day you go out visiting, I know. I’ll meet you\nthere, and bring my wife that is to be. It’ll do her good. You’re\nagreeable? Thank’ee. What’s that!’\n\nIt was a loud cry from the Carrier’s wife: a loud, sharp, sudden cry,\nthat made the room ring, like a glass vessel. She had risen from her\nseat, and stood like one transfixed by terror and surprise. The Stranger\nhad advanced towards the fire to warm himself, and stood within a short\nstride of her chair. But quite still.\n\n‘Dot!’ cried the Carrier. ‘Mary! Darling! What’s the matter?’\n\nThey were all about her in a moment. Caleb, who had been dozing on the\ncake-box, in the first imperfect recovery of his suspended presence of\nmind, seized Miss Slowboy by the hair of her head, but immediately\napologised.\n\n‘Mary!’ exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his arms. ‘Are you ill!\nWhat is it? Tell me, dear!’\n\nShe only answered by beating her hands together, and falling into a wild\nfit of laughter. Then, sinking from his grasp upon the ground, she\ncovered her face with her apron, and wept bitterly. And then she laughed\nagain, and then she cried again, and then she said how cold it was, and\nsuffered him to lead her to the fire, where she sat down as before. The\nold man standing, as before, quite still.\n\n‘I’m better, John,’ she said. ‘I’m quite well now—I—’\n\n‘John!’ But John was on the other side of her. Why turn her face\ntowards the strange old gentleman, as if addressing him! Was her brain\nwandering?\n\n‘Only a fancy, John dear—a kind of shock—a something coming suddenly\nbefore my eyes—I don’t know what it was. It’s quite gone, quite gone.’\n\n‘I’m glad it’s gone,’ muttered Tackleton, turning the expressive eye all\nround the room. ‘I wonder where it’s gone, and what it was. Humph!\nCaleb, come here! Who’s that with the grey hair?’\n\n‘I don’t know, sir,’ returned Caleb in a whisper. ‘Never see him before,\nin all my life. A beautiful figure for a nut-cracker; quite a new model.\nWith a screw-jaw opening down into his waistcoat, he’d be lovely.’\n\n‘Not ugly enough,’ said Tackleton.\n\n‘Or for a firebox, either,’ observed Caleb, in deep contemplation, ‘what\na model! Unscrew his head to put the matches in; turn him heels up’ards\nfor the light; and what a firebox for a gentleman’s mantel-shelf, just as\nhe stands!’\n\n‘Not half ugly enough,’ said Tackleton. ‘Nothing in him at all! Come!\nBring that box! All right now, I hope?’\n\n‘Oh quite gone! Quite gone!’ said the little woman, waving him hurriedly\naway. ‘Good night!’\n\n‘Good night,’ said Tackleton. ‘Good night, John Peerybingle! Take care\nhow you carry that box, Caleb. Let it fall, and I’ll murder you! Dark\nas pitch, and weather worse than ever, eh? Good night!’\n\nSo, with another sharp look round the room, he went out at the door;\nfollowed by Caleb with the wedding-cake on his head.\n\nThe Carrier had been so much astounded by his little wife, and so busily\nengaged in soothing and tending her, that he had scarcely been conscious\nof the Stranger’s presence, until now, when he again stood there, their\nonly guest.\n\n‘He don’t belong to them, you see,’ said John. ‘I must give him a hint\nto go.’\n\n‘I beg your pardon, friend,’ said the old gentleman, advancing to him;\n‘the more so, as I fear your wife has not been well; but the Attendant\nwhom my infirmity,’ he touched his ears and shook his head, ‘renders\nalmost indispensable, not having arrived, I fear there must be some\nmistake. The bad night which made the shelter of your comfortable cart\n(may I never have a worse!) so acceptable, is still as bad as ever.\nWould you, in your kindness, suffer me to rent a bed here?’\n\n‘Yes, yes,’ cried Dot. ‘Yes! Certainly!’\n\n‘Oh!’ said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this consent.\n\n‘Well! I don’t object; but, still I’m not quite sure that—’\n\n‘Hush!’ she interrupted. ‘Dear John!’\n\n‘Why, he’s stone deaf,’ urged John.\n\n‘I know he is, but—Yes, sir, certainly. Yes! certainly! I’ll make him\nup a bed, directly, John.’\n\nAs she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and the\nagitation of her manner, were so strange that the Carrier stood looking\nafter her, quite confounded.\n\n‘Did its mothers make it up a Beds then!’ cried Miss Slowboy to the Baby;\n‘and did its hair grow brown and curly, when its caps was lifted off, and\nfrighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting by the fires!’\n\nWith that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, which is often\nincidental to a state of doubt and confusion, the Carrier as he walked\nslowly to and fro, found himself mentally repeating even these absurd\nwords, many times. So many times that he got them by heart, and was\nstill conning them over and over, like a lesson, when Tilly, after\nadministering as much friction to the little bald head with her hand as\nshe thought wholesome (according to the practice of nurses), had once\nmore tied the Baby’s cap on.\n\n‘And frighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting by the fires. What\nfrightened Dot, I wonder!’ mused the Carrier, pacing to and fro.\n\nHe scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the Toy-merchant, and yet\nthey filled him with a vague, indefinite uneasiness. For, Tackleton was\nquick and sly; and he had that painful sense, himself, of being a man of slow\nperception, that a broken hint was always worrying to him. He certainly\nhad no intention in his mind of linking anything that Tackleton had said,\nwith the unusual conduct of his wife, but the two subjects of reflection\ncame into his mind together, and he could not keep them asunder.\n\nThe bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining all refreshment\nbut a cup of tea, retired. Then, Dot—quite well again, she said, quite\nwell again—arranged the great chair in the chimney-corner for her\nhusband; filled his pipe and gave it him; and took her usual little stool\nbeside him on the hearth.\n\nShe always _would_ sit on that little stool. I think she must have had a\nkind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling little stool.\n\nShe was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, I should say, in\nthe four quarters of the globe. To see her put that chubby little finger\nin the bowl, and then blow down the pipe to clear the tube, and, when she\nhad done so, affect to think that there was really something in the tube,\nand blow a dozen times, and hold it to her eye like a telescope, with a\nmost provoking twist in her capital little face, as she looked down it,\nwas quite a brilliant thing. As to the tobacco, she was perfect mistress\nof the subject; and her lighting of the pipe, with a wisp of paper, when\nthe Carrier had it in his mouth—going so very near his nose, and yet not\nscorching it—was Art, high Art.\n\nAnd the Cricket and the kettle, turning up again, acknowledged it! The\nbright fire, blazing up again, acknowledged it! The little Mower on the\nclock, in his unheeded work, acknowledged it! The Carrier, in his\nsmoothing forehead and expanding face, acknowledged it, the readiest of\nall.\n\nAnd as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe, and as the\nDutch clock ticked, and as the red fire gleamed, and as the Cricket\nchirped; that Genius of his Hearth and Home (for such the Cricket was)\ncame out, in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned many forms of Home\nabout him. Dots of all ages, and all sizes, filled the chamber. Dots\nwho were merry children, running on before him gathering flowers, in the\nfields; coy Dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of\nhis own rough image; newly-married Dots, alighting at the door, and\ntaking wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots,\nattended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened;\nmatronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching Dots of daughters, as\nthey danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, encircled and beset by troops of\nrosy grandchildren; withered Dots, who leaned on sticks, and tottered as\nthey crept along. Old Carriers too, appeared, with blind old Boxers\nlying at their feet; and newer carts with younger drivers (‘Peerybingle\nBrothers’ on the tilt); and sick old Carriers, tended by the gentlest\nhands; and graves of dead and gone old Carriers, green in the churchyard.\nAnd as the Cricket showed him all these things—he saw them plainly,\nthough his eyes were fixed upon the fire—the Carrier’s heart grew light\nand happy, and he thanked his Household Gods with all his might, and\ncared no more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do.\n\n * * * * *\n\nBut, what was that young figure of a man, which the same Fairy Cricket\nset so near Her stool, and which remained there, singly and alone? Why\ndid it linger still, so near her, with its arm upon the chimney-piece,\never repeating ‘Married! and not to me!’\n\nO Dot! O failing Dot! There is no place for it in all your husband’s\nvisions; why has its shadow fallen on his hearth!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II—Chirp the Second\n\n\nCaleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves, as\nthe Story-books say—and my blessing, with yours to back it I hope, on the\nStory-books, for saying anything in this workaday world!—Caleb Plummer\nand his Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves, in a little cracked\nnutshell of a wooden house, which was, in truth, no better than a pimple\non the prominent red-brick nose of Gruff and Tackleton. The premises of\nGruff and Tackleton were the great feature of the street; but you might\nhave knocked down Caleb Plummer’s dwelling with a hammer or two, and\ncarried off the pieces in a cart.\n\nIf any one had done the dwelling-house of Caleb Plummer the honour to\nmiss it after such an inroad, it would have been, no doubt, to commend\nits demolition as a vast improvement. It stuck to the premises of Gruff\nand Tackleton, like a barnacle to a ship’s keel, or a snail to a door, or\na little bunch of toadstools to the stem of a tree.\n\nBut, it was the germ from which the full-grown trunk of Gruff and\nTackleton had sprung; and, under its crazy roof, the Gruff before last,\nhad, in a small way, made toys for a generation of old boys and girls,\nwho had played with them, and found them out, and broken them, and gone\nto sleep.\n\nI have said that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter lived here. I should\nhave said that Caleb lived here, and his poor Blind Daughter somewhere\nelse—in an enchanted home of Caleb’s furnishing, where scarcity and\nshabbiness were not, and trouble never entered. Caleb was no sorcerer,\nbut in the only magic art that still remains to us, the magic of devoted,\ndeathless love, Nature had been the mistress of his study; and from her\nteaching, all the wonder came.\n\nThe Blind Girl never knew that ceilings were discoloured, walls blotched\nand bare of plaster here and there, high crevices unstopped and widening\nevery day, beams mouldering and tending downward. The Blind Girl never\nknew that iron was rusting, wood rotting, paper peeling off; the size,\nand shape, and true proportion of the dwelling, withering away. The\nBlind Girl never knew that ugly shapes of delf and earthenware were on\nthe board; that sorrow and faintheartedness were in the house; that\nCaleb’s scanty hairs were turning greyer and more grey, before her\nsightless face. The Blind Girl never knew they had a master, cold,\nexacting, and uninterested—never knew that Tackleton was Tackleton in\nshort; but lived in the belief of an eccentric humourist who loved to\nhave his jest with them, and who, while he was the Guardian Angel of\ntheir lives, disdained to hear one word of thankfulness.\n\nAnd all was Caleb’s doing; all the doing of her simple father! But he\ntoo had a Cricket on his Hearth; and listening sadly to its music when\nthe motherless Blind Child was very young, that Spirit had inspired him\nwith the thought that even her great deprivation might be almost changed\ninto a blessing, and the girl made happy by these little means. For all\nthe Cricket tribe are potent Spirits, even though the people who hold\nconverse with them do not know it (which is frequently the case); and\nthere are not in the unseen world, voices more gentle and more true, that\nmay be so implicitly relied on, or that are so certain to give none but\ntenderest counsel, as the Voices in which the Spirits of the Fireside and\nthe Hearth address themselves to human kind.\n\nCaleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual working-room,\nwhich served them for their ordinary living-room as well; and a strange\nplace it was. There were houses in it, finished and unfinished, for\nDolls of all stations in life. Suburban tenements for Dolls of moderate\nmeans; kitchens and single apartments for Dolls of the lower classes;\ncapital town residences for Dolls of high estate. Some of these\nestablishments were already furnished according to estimate, with a view\nto the convenience of Dolls of limited income; others could be fitted on\nthe most expensive scale, at a moment’s notice, from whole shelves of\nchairs and tables, sofas, bedsteads, and upholstery. The nobility and\ngentry, and public in general, for whose accommodation these tenements\nwere designed, lay, here and there, in baskets, staring straight up at\nthe ceiling; but, in denoting their degrees in society, and confining\nthem to their respective stations (which experience shows to be\nlamentably difficult in real life), the makers of these Dolls had far\nimproved on Nature, who is often froward and perverse; for, they, not\nresting on such arbitrary marks as satin, cotton-print, and bits of rag,\nhad superadded striking personal differences which allowed of no mistake.\nThus, the Doll-lady of distinction had wax limbs of perfect symmetry; but\nonly she and her compeers. The next grade in the social scale being made\nof leather, and the next of coarse linen stuff. As to the common-people,\nthey had just so many matches out of tinder-boxes, for their arms and\nlegs, and there they were—established in their sphere at once, beyond the\npossibility of getting out of it.\n\nThere were various other samples of his handicraft, besides Dolls, in\nCaleb Plummer’s room. There were Noah’s Arks, in which the Birds and\nBeasts were an uncommonly tight fit, I assure you; though they could be\ncrammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled and shaken into the smallest\ncompass. By a bold poetical licence, most of these Noah’s Arks had\nknockers on the doors; inconsistent appendages, perhaps, as suggestive of\nmorning callers and a Postman, yet a pleasant finish to the outside of\nthe building. There were scores of melancholy little carts, which, when\nthe wheels went round, performed most doleful music. Many small fiddles,\ndrums, and other instruments of torture; no end of cannon, shields,\nswords, spears, and guns. There were little tumblers in red breeches,\nincessantly swarming up high obstacles of red-tape, and coming down, head\nfirst, on the other side; and there were innumerable old gentlemen of\nrespectable, not to say venerable, appearance, insanely flying over\nhorizontal pegs, inserted, for the purpose, in their own street doors.\nThere were beasts of all sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed,\nfrom the spotted barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to\nthe thoroughbred rocker on his highest mettle. As it would have been\nhard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were ever\nready to commit all sorts of absurdities on the turning of a handle, so\nit would have been no easy task to mention any human folly, vice, or\nweakness, that had not its type, immediate or remote, in Caleb Plummer’s\nroom. And not in an exaggerated form, for very little handles will move\nmen and women to as strange performances, as any Toy was ever made to\nundertake.\n\nIn the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his daughter sat at work.\nThe Blind Girl busy as a Doll’s dressmaker; Caleb painting and glazing\nthe four-pair front of a desirable family mansion.\n\nThe care imprinted in the lines of Caleb’s face, and his absorbed and\ndreamy manner, which would have sat well on some alchemist or abstruse\nstudent, were at first sight an odd contrast to his occupation, and the\ntrivialities about him. But, trivial things, invented and pursued for\nbread, become very serious matters of fact; and, apart from this\nconsideration, I am not at all prepared to say, myself, that if Caleb had\nbeen a Lord Chamberlain, or a Member of Parliament, or a lawyer, or even\na great speculator, he would have dealt in toys one whit less whimsical,\nwhile I have a very great doubt whether they would have been as harmless.\n\n‘So you were out in the rain last night, father, in your beautiful new\ngreat-coat,’ said Caleb’s daughter.\n\n‘In my beautiful new great-coat,’ answered Caleb, glancing towards a\nclothes-line in the room, on which the sack-cloth garment previously\ndescribed, was carefully hung up to dry.\n\n‘How glad I am you bought it, father!’\n\n‘And of such a tailor, too,’ said Caleb. ‘Quite a fashionable tailor.\nIt’s too good for me.’\n\nThe Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed with delight.\n\n‘Too good, father! What can be too good for you?’\n\n‘I’m half-ashamed to wear it though,’ said Caleb, watching the effect of\nwhat he said, upon her brightening face; ‘upon my word! When I hear the\nboys and people say behind me, “Hal-loa! Here’s a swell!” I don’t know\nwhich way to look. And when the beggar wouldn’t go away last night; and\nwhen I said I was a very common man, said “No, your Honour! Bless your\nHonour, don’t say that!” I was quite ashamed. I really felt as if I\nhadn’t a right to wear it.’\n\nHappy Blind Girl! How merry she was, in her exultation!\n\n‘I see you, father,’ she said, clasping her hands, ‘as plainly, as if I\nhad the eyes I never want when you are with me. A blue coat—’\n\n‘Bright blue,’ said Caleb.\n\n‘Yes, yes! Bright blue!’ exclaimed the girl, turning up her radiant\nface; ‘the colour I can just remember in the blessed sky! You told me it\nwas blue before! A bright blue coat—’\n\n‘Made loose to the figure,’ suggested Caleb.\n\n‘Made loose to the figure!’ cried the Blind Girl, laughing heartily; ‘and\nin it, you, dear father, with your merry eye, your smiling face, your\nfree step, and your dark hair—looking so young and handsome!’\n\n‘Halloa! Halloa!’ said Caleb. ‘I shall be vain, presently!’\n\n‘I think you are, already,’ cried the Blind Girl, pointing at him, in her\nglee. ‘I know you, father! Ha, ha, ha! I’ve found you out, you see!’\n\nHow different the picture in her mind, from Caleb, as he sat observing\nher! She had spoken of his free step. She was right in that. For years\nand years, he had never once crossed that threshold at his own slow pace,\nbut with a footfall counterfeited for her ear; and never had he, when his\nheart was heaviest, forgotten the light tread that was to render hers so\ncheerful and courageous!\n\nHeaven knows! But I think Caleb’s vague bewilderment of manner may have\nhalf originated in his having confused himself about himself and\neverything around him, for the love of his Blind Daughter. How could the\nlittle man be otherwise than bewildered, after labouring for so many\nyears to destroy his own identity, and that of all the objects that had\nany bearing on it!\n\n‘There we are,’ said Caleb, falling back a pace or two to form the better\njudgment of his work; ‘as near the real thing as sixpenn’orth of\nhalfpence is to sixpence. What a pity that the whole front of the house\nopens at once! If there was only a staircase in it, now, and regular\ndoors to the rooms to go in at! But that’s the worst of my calling, I’m\nalways deluding myself, and swindling myself.’\n\n‘You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired, father?’\n\n‘Tired!’ echoed Caleb, with a great burst of animation, ‘what should tire\nme, Bertha? _I_ was never tired. What does it mean?’\n\nTo give the greater force to his words, he checked himself in an\ninvoluntary imitation of two half-length stretching and yawning figures\non the mantel-shelf, who were represented as in one eternal state of\nweariness from the waist upwards; and hummed a fragment of a song. It\nwas a Bacchanalian song, something about a Sparkling Bowl. He sang it\nwith an assumption of a Devil-may-care voice, that made his face a\nthousand times more meagre and more thoughtful than ever.\n\n‘What! You’re singing, are you?’ said Tackleton, putting his head in at\nthe door. ‘Go it! _I_ can’t sing.’\n\nNobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn’t what is generally\ntermed a singing face, by any means.\n\n‘I can’t afford to sing,’ said Tackleton. ‘I’m glad _you can_. I hope\nyou can afford to work too. Hardly time for both, I should think?’\n\n‘If you could only see him, Bertha, how he’s winking at me!’ whispered\nCaleb. ‘Such a man to joke! you’d think, if you didn’t know him, he was\nin earnest—wouldn’t you now?’\n\nThe Blind Girl smiled and nodded.\n\n‘The bird that can sing and won’t sing, must be made to sing, they say,’\ngrumbled Tackleton. ‘What about the owl that can’t sing, and oughtn’t to\nsing, and will sing; is there anything that _he_ should be made to do?’\n\n‘The extent to which he’s winking at this moment!’ whispered Caleb to his\ndaughter. ‘O, my gracious!’\n\n‘Always merry and light-hearted with us!’ cried the smiling Bertha.\n\n‘O, you’re there, are you?’ answered Tackleton. ‘Poor Idiot!’\n\nHe really did believe she was an Idiot; and he founded the belief, I\ncan’t say whether consciously or not, upon her being fond of him.\n\n‘Well! and being there,—how are you?’ said Tackleton, in his grudging\nway.\n\n‘Oh! well; quite well. And as happy as even you can wish me to be. As\nhappy as you would make the whole world, if you could!’\n\n‘Poor Idiot!’ muttered Tackleton. ‘No gleam of reason. Not a gleam!’\n\nThe Blind Girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for a moment in her\nown two hands; and laid her cheek against it tenderly, before releasing\nit. There was such unspeakable affection and such fervent gratitude in\nthe act, that Tackleton himself was moved to say, in a milder growl than\nusual:\n\n‘What’s the matter now?’\n\n‘I stood it close beside my pillow when I went to sleep last night, and\nremembered it in my dreams. And when the day broke, and the glorious red\nsun—the _red_ sun, father?’\n\n‘Red in the mornings and the evenings, Bertha,’ said poor Caleb, with a\nwoeful glance at his employer.\n\n‘When it rose, and the bright light I almost fear to strike myself\nagainst in walking, came into the room, I turned the little tree towards\nit, and blessed Heaven for making things so precious, and blessed you for\nsending them to cheer me!’\n\n‘Bedlam broke loose!’ said Tackleton under his breath. ‘We shall arrive\nat the strait-waistcoat and mufflers soon. We’re getting on!’\n\nCaleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared vacantly\nbefore him while his daughter spoke, as if he really were uncertain (I\nbelieve he was) whether Tackleton had done anything to deserve her\nthanks, or not. If he could have been a perfectly free agent, at that\nmoment, required, on pain of death, to kick the Toy-merchant, or fall at\nhis feet, according to his merits, I believe it would have been an even\nchance which course he would have taken. Yet, Caleb knew that with his\nown hands he had brought the little rose-tree home for her, so carefully,\nand that with his own lips he had forged the innocent deception which\nshould help to keep her from suspecting how much, how very much, he every\nday, denied himself, that she might be the happier.\n\n‘Bertha!’ said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a little cordiality.\n‘Come here.’\n\n‘Oh! I can come straight to you! You needn’t guide me!’ she rejoined.\n\n‘Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha?’\n\n‘If you will!’ she answered, eagerly.\n\nHow bright the darkened face! How adorned with light, the listening\nhead!\n\n‘This is the day on which little what’s-her-name, the spoilt child,\nPeerybingle’s wife, pays her regular visit to you—makes her fantastic\nPic-Nic here; an’t it?’ said Tackleton, with a strong expression of\ndistaste for the whole concern.\n\n‘Yes,’ replied Bertha. ‘This is the day.’\n\n‘I thought so,’ said Tackleton. ‘I should like to join the party.’\n\n‘Do you hear that, father!’ cried the Blind Girl in an ecstasy.\n\n‘Yes, yes, I hear it,’ murmured Caleb, with the fixed look of a\nsleep-walker; ‘but I don’t believe it. It’s one of my lies, I’ve no\ndoubt.’\n\n‘You see I—I want to bring the Peerybingles a little more into company\nwith May Fielding,’ said Tackleton. ‘I am going to be married to May.’\n\n‘Married!’ cried the Blind Girl, starting from him.\n\n‘She’s such a con-founded Idiot,’ muttered Tackleton, ‘that I was afraid\nshe’d never comprehend me. Ah, Bertha! Married! Church, parson, clerk,\nbeadle, glass-coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake, favours, marrow-bones,\ncleavers, and all the rest of the tom-foolery. A wedding, you know; a\nwedding. Don’t you know what a wedding is?’\n\n‘I know,’ replied the Blind Girl, in a gentle tone. ‘I understand!’\n\n‘Do you?’ muttered Tackleton. ‘It’s more than I expected. Well! On\nthat account I want to join the party, and to bring May and her mother.\nI’ll send in a little something or other, before the afternoon. A cold\nleg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of that sort. You’ll expect\nme?’\n\n‘Yes,’ she answered.\n\nShe had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, with her hands\ncrossed, musing.\n\n‘I don’t think you will,’ muttered Tackleton, looking at her; ‘for you\nseem to have forgotten all about it, already. Caleb!’\n\n‘I may venture to say I’m here, I suppose,’ thought Caleb. ‘Sir!’\n\n‘Take care she don’t forget what I’ve been saying to her.’\n\n‘_She_ never forgets,’ returned Caleb. ‘It’s one of the few things she\nan’t clever in.’\n\n‘Every man thinks his own geese swans,’ observed the Toy-merchant, with a\nshrug. ‘Poor devil!’\n\nHaving delivered himself of which remark, with infinite contempt, old\nGruff and Tackleton withdrew.\n\nBertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation. The gaiety\nhad vanished from her downcast face, and it was very sad. Three or four\ntimes she shook her head, as if bewailing some remembrance or some loss;\nbut her sorrowful reflections found no vent in words.\n\nIt was not until Caleb had been occupied, some time, in yoking a team of\nhorses to a waggon by the summary process of nailing the harness to the\nvital parts of their bodies, that she drew near to his working-stool, and\nsitting down beside him, said:\n\n‘Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes, my patient, willing\neyes.’\n\n‘Here they are,’ said Caleb. ‘Always ready. They are more yours than\nmine, Bertha, any hour in the four-and-twenty. What shall your eyes do\nfor you, dear?’\n\n‘Look round the room, father.’\n\n‘All right,’ said Caleb. ‘No sooner said than done, Bertha.’\n\n‘Tell me about it.’\n\n‘It’s much the same as usual,’ said Caleb. ‘Homely, but very snug. The\ngay colours on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and dishes;\nthe shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the general\ncheerfulness and neatness of the building; make it very pretty.’\n\nCheerful and neat it was wherever Bertha’s hands could busy themselves.\nBut nowhere else, were cheerfulness and neatness possible, in the old\ncrazy shed which Caleb’s fancy so transformed.\n\n‘You have your working dress on, and are not so gallant as when you wear\nthe handsome coat?’ said Bertha, touching him.\n\n‘Not quite so gallant,’ answered Caleb. ‘Pretty brisk though.’\n\n‘Father,’ said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his side, and stealing\none arm round his neck, ‘tell me something about May. She is very fair?’\n\n‘She is indeed,’ said Caleb. And she was indeed. It was quite a rare\nthing to Caleb, not to have to draw on his invention.\n\n‘Her hair is dark,’ said Bertha, pensively, ‘darker than mine. Her voice\nis sweet and musical, I know. I have often loved to hear it. Her\nshape—’\n\n‘There’s not a Doll’s in all the room to equal it,’ said Caleb. ‘And her\neyes!—’\n\nHe stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his neck, and from the arm\nthat clung about him, came a warning pressure which he understood too\nwell.\n\nHe coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then fell back upon the\nsong about the sparkling bowl; his infallible resource in all such\ndifficulties.\n\n‘Our friend, father, our benefactor. I am never tired, you know, of\nhearing about him.—Now, was I ever?’ she said, hastily.\n\n‘Of course not,’ answered Caleb, ‘and with reason.’\n\n‘Ah! With how much reason!’ cried the Blind Girl. With such fervency,\nthat Caleb, though his motives were so pure, could not endure to meet her\nface; but dropped his eyes, as if she could have read in them his\ninnocent deceit.\n\n‘Then, tell me again about him, dear father,’ said Bertha. ‘Many times\nagain! His face is benevolent, kind, and tender. Honest and true, I am\nsure it is. The manly heart that tries to cloak all favours with a show\nof roughness and unwillingness, beats in its every look and glance.’\n\n‘And makes it noble!’ added Caleb, in his quiet desperation.\n\n‘And makes it noble!’ cried the Blind Girl. ‘He is older than May,\nfather.’\n\n‘Ye-es,’ said Caleb, reluctantly. ‘He’s a little older than May. But\nthat don’t signify.’\n\n‘Oh father, yes! To be his patient companion in infirmity and age; to be\nhis gentle nurse in sickness, and his constant friend in suffering and\nsorrow; to know no weariness in working for his sake; to watch him, tend\nhim, sit beside his bed and talk to him awake, and pray for him asleep;\nwhat privileges these would be! What opportunities for proving all her\ntruth and devotion to him! Would she do all this, dear father?\n\n‘No doubt of it,’ said Caleb.\n\n‘I love her, father; I can love her from my soul!’ exclaimed the Blind\nGirl. And saying so, she laid her poor blind face on Caleb’s shoulder,\nand so wept and wept, that he was almost sorry to have brought that\ntearful happiness upon her.\n\nIn the mean time, there had been a pretty sharp commotion at John\nPeerybingle’s, for little Mrs. Peerybingle naturally couldn’t think of\ngoing anywhere without the Baby; and to get the Baby under weigh took\ntime. Not that there was much of the Baby, speaking of it as a thing of\nweight and measure, but there was a vast deal to do about and about it,\nand it all had to be done by easy stages. For instance, when the Baby\nwas got, by hook and by crook, to a certain point of dressing, and you\nmight have rationally supposed that another touch or two would finish him\noff, and turn him out a tip-top Baby challenging the world, he was\nunexpectedly extinguished in a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed; where\nhe simmered (so to speak) between two blankets for the best part of an\nhour. From this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining very\nmuch and roaring violently, to partake of—well? I would rather say, if\nyou’ll permit me to speak generally—of a slight repast. After which, he\nwent to sleep again. Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of this interval,\nto make herself as smart in a small way as ever you saw anybody in all\nyour life; and, during the same short truce, Miss Slowboy insinuated\nherself into a spencer of a fashion so surprising and ingenious, that it\nhad no connection with herself, or anything else in the universe, but was\na shrunken, dog’s-eared, independent fact, pursuing its lonely course\nwithout the least regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being all\nalive again, was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and\nMiss Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body, and a sort of\nnankeen raised-pie for its head; and so in course of time they all three\ngot down to the door, where the old horse had already taken more than the\nfull value of his day’s toll out of the Turnpike Trust, by tearing up the\nroad with his impatient autographs; and whence Boxer might be dimly seen\nin the remote perspective, standing looking back, and tempting him to\ncome on without orders.\n\nAs to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping Mrs. Peerybingle into\nthe cart, you know very little of John, if you think _that_ was\nnecessary. Before you could have seen him lift her from the ground,\nthere she was in her place, fresh and rosy, saying, ‘John! How _can_\nyou! Think of Tilly!’\n\nIf I might be allowed to mention a young lady’s legs, on any terms, I\nwould observe of Miss Slowboy’s that there was a fatality about them\nwhich rendered them singularly liable to be grazed; and that she never\neffected the smallest ascent or descent, without recording the\ncircumstance upon them with a notch, as Robinson Crusoe marked the days\nupon his wooden calendar. But as this might be considered ungenteel,\nI’ll think of it.\n\n‘John? You’ve got the Basket with the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and\nthe bottles of Beer?’ said Dot. ‘If you haven’t, you must turn round\nagain, this very minute.’\n\n‘You’re a nice little article,’ returned the Carrier, ‘to be talking\nabout turning round, after keeping me a full quarter of an hour behind my\ntime.’\n\n‘I am sorry for it, John,’ said Dot in a great bustle, ‘but I really\ncould not think of going to Bertha’s—I would not do it, John, on any\naccount—without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer.\nWay!’\n\nThis monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn’t mind it at all.\n\n‘Oh _do_ way, John!’ said Mrs. Peerybingle. ‘Please!’\n\n‘It’ll be time enough to do that,’ returned John, ‘when I begin to leave\nthings behind me. The basket’s here, safe enough.’\n\n‘What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not to have said so, at\nonce, and save me such a turn! I declared I wouldn’t go to Bertha’s\nwithout the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer, for any\nmoney. Regularly once a fortnight ever since we have been married, John,\nhave we made our little Pic-Nic there. If anything was to go wrong with\nit, I should almost think we were never to be lucky again.’\n\n‘It was a kind thought in the first instance,’ said the Carrier: ‘and I\nhonour you for it, little woman.’\n\n‘My dear John,’ replied Dot, turning very red, ‘don’t talk about\nhonouring _me_. Good Gracious!’\n\n‘By the bye—’ observed the Carrier. ‘That old gentleman—’\n\nAgain so visibly, and instantly embarrassed!\n\n‘He’s an odd fish,’ said the Carrier, looking straight along the road\nbefore them. ‘I can’t make him out. I don’t believe there’s any harm in\nhim.’\n\n‘None at all. I’m—I’m sure there’s none at all.’\n\n‘Yes,’ said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face by the great\nearnestness of her manner. ‘I am glad you feel so certain of it, because\nit’s a confirmation to me. It’s curious that he should have taken it\ninto his head to ask leave to go on lodging with us; an’t it? Things\ncome about so strangely.’\n\n‘So very strangely,’ she rejoined in a low voice, scarcely audible.\n\n‘However, he’s a good-natured old gentleman,’ said John, ‘and pays as a\ngentleman, and I think his word is to be relied upon, like a gentleman’s.\nI had quite a long talk with him this morning: he can hear me better\nalready, he says, as he gets more used to my voice. He told me a great\ndeal about himself, and I told him a great deal about myself, and a rare\nlot of questions he asked me. I gave him information about my having two\nbeats, you know, in my business; one day to the right from our house and\nback again; another day to the left from our house and back again (for\nhe’s a stranger and don’t know the names of places about here); and he\nseemed quite pleased. “Why, then I shall be returning home to-night your\nway,” he says, “when I thought you’d be coming in an exactly opposite\ndirection. That’s capital! I may trouble you for another lift perhaps,\nbut I’ll engage not to fall so sound asleep again.” He _was_ sound\nasleep, sure-ly!—Dot! what are you thinking of?’\n\n‘Thinking of, John? I—I was listening to you.’\n\n‘O! That’s all right!’ said the honest Carrier. ‘I was afraid, from the\nlook of your face, that I had gone rambling on so long, as to set you\nthinking about something else. I was very near it, I’ll be bound.’\n\nDot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little time, in silence.\nBut, it was not easy to remain silent very long in John Peerybingle’s\ncart, for everybody on the road had something to say. Though it might\nonly be ‘How are you!’ and indeed it was very often nothing else, still,\nto give that back again in the right spirit of cordiality, required, not\nmerely a nod and a smile, but as wholesome an action of the lungs withal,\nas a long-winded Parliamentary speech. Sometimes, passengers on foot, or\nhorseback, plodded on a little way beside the cart, for the express\npurpose of having a chat; and then there was a great deal to be said, on\nboth sides.\n\nThen, Boxer gave occasion to more good-natured recognitions of, and by,\nthe Carrier, than half-a-dozen Christians could have done! Everybody\nknew him, all along the road—especially the fowls and pigs, who when they\nsaw him approaching, with his body all on one side, and his ears pricked\nup inquisitively, and that knob of a tail making the most of itself in\nthe air, immediately withdrew into remote back settlements, without\nwaiting for the honour of a nearer acquaintance. He had business\neverywhere; going down all the turnings, looking into all the wells,\nbolting in and out of all the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the\nDame-Schools, fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the\ncats, and trotting into the public-houses like a regular customer.\nWherever he went, somebody or other might have been heard to cry,\n‘Halloa! Here’s Boxer!’ and out came that somebody forthwith,\naccompanied by at least two or three other somebodies, to give John\nPeerybingle and his pretty wife, Good Day.\n\nThe packages and parcels for the errand cart, were numerous; and there\nwere many stoppages to take them in and give them out, which were not by\nany means the worst parts of the journey. Some people were so full of\nexpectation about their parcels, and other people were so full of wonder\nabout their parcels, and other people were so full of inexhaustible\ndirections about their parcels, and John had such a lively interest in\nall the parcels, that it was as good as a play. Likewise, there were\narticles to carry, which required to be considered and discussed, and in\nreference to the adjustment and disposition of which, councils had to be\nholden by the Carrier and the senders: at which Boxer usually assisted,\nin short fits of the closest attention, and long fits of tearing round\nand round the assembled sages and barking himself hoarse. Of all these\nlittle incidents, Dot was the amused and open-eyed spectatress from her\nchair in the cart; and as she sat there, looking on—a charming little\nportrait framed to admiration by the tilt—there was no lack of nudgings\nand glancings and whisperings and envyings among the younger men. And\nthis delighted John the Carrier, beyond measure; for he was proud to have\nhis little wife admired, knowing that she didn’t mind it—that, if\nanything, she rather liked it perhaps.\n\nThe trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January weather; and was\nraw and cold. But who cared for such trifles? Not Dot, decidedly. Not\nTilly Slowboy, for she deemed sitting in a cart, on any terms, to be the\nhighest point of human joys; the crowning circumstance of earthly hopes.\nNot the Baby, I’ll be sworn; for it’s not in Baby nature to be warmer or\nmore sound asleep, though its capacity is great in both respects, than\nthat blessed young Peerybingle was, all the way.\n\nYou couldn’t see very far in the fog, of course; but you could see a\ngreat deal! It’s astonishing how much you may see, in a thicker fog than\nthat, if you will only take the trouble to look for it. Why, even to sit\nwatching for the Fairy-rings in the fields, and for the patches of\nhoar-frost still lingering in the shade, near hedges and by trees, was a\npleasant occupation: to make no mention of the unexpected shapes in which\nthe trees themselves came starting out of the mist, and glided into it\nagain. The hedges were tangled and bare, and waved a multitude of\nblighted garlands in the wind; but there was no discouragement in this.\nIt was agreeable to contemplate; for it made the fireside warmer in\npossession, and the summer greener in expectancy. The river looked\nchilly; but it was in motion, and moving at a good pace—which was a great\npoint. The canal was rather slow and torpid; that must be admitted.\nNever mind. It would freeze the sooner when the frost set fairly in, and\nthen there would be skating, and sliding; and the heavy old barges,\nfrozen up somewhere near a wharf, would smoke their rusty iron chimney\npipes all day, and have a lazy time of it.\n\nIn one place, there was a great mound of weeds or stubble burning; and\nthey watched the fire, so white in the daytime, flaring through the fog,\nwith only here and there a dash of red in it, until, in consequence, as\nshe observed, of the smoke ‘getting up her nose,’ Miss Slowboy choked—she\ncould do anything of that sort, on the smallest provocation—and woke the\nBaby, who wouldn’t go to sleep again. But, Boxer, who was in advance\nsome quarter of a mile or so, had already passed the outposts of the\ntown, and gained the corner of the street where Caleb and his daughter\nlived; and long before they had reached the door, he and the Blind Girl\nwere on the pavement waiting to receive them.\n\nBoxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions of his own, in his\ncommunication with Bertha, which persuade me fully that he knew her to be\nblind. He never sought to attract her attention by looking at her, as he\noften did with other people, but touched her invariably. What experience\nhe could ever have had of blind people or blind dogs, I don’t know. He\nhad never lived with a blind master; nor had Mr. Boxer the elder, nor\nMrs. Boxer, nor any of his respectable family on either side, ever been\nvisited with blindness, that I am aware of. He may have found it out for\nhimself, perhaps, but he had got hold of it somehow; and therefore he had\nhold of Bertha too, by the skirt, and kept hold, until Mrs. Peerybingle\nand the Baby, and Miss Slowboy, and the basket, were all got safely\nwithin doors.\n\nMay Fielding was already come; and so was her mother—a little querulous\nchip of an old lady with a peevish face, who, in right of having\npreserved a waist like a bedpost, was supposed to be a most transcendent\nfigure; and who, in consequence of having once been better off, or of\nlabouring under an impression that she might have been, if something had\nhappened which never did happen, and seemed to have never been\nparticularly likely to come to pass—but it’s all the same—was very\ngenteel and patronising indeed. Gruff and Tackleton was also there,\ndoing the agreeable, with the evident sensation of being as perfectly at\nhome, and as unquestionably in his own element, as a fresh young salmon\non the top of the Great Pyramid.\n\n‘May! My dear old friend!’ cried Dot, running up to meet her. ‘What a\nhappiness to see you.’\n\nHer old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as she; and it\nreally was, if you’ll believe me, quite a pleasant sight to see them\nembrace. Tackleton was a man of taste beyond all question. May was very\npretty.\n\nYou know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, how, when it\ncomes into contact and comparison with another pretty face, it seems for\nthe moment to be homely and faded, and hardly to deserve the high opinion\nyou have had of it. Now, this was not at all the case, either with Dot\nor May; for May’s face set off Dot’s, and Dot’s face set off May’s, so\nnaturally and agreeably, that, as John Peerybingle was very near saying\nwhen he came into the room, they ought to have been born sisters—which\nwas the only improvement you could have suggested.\n\nTackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful to relate, a tart\nbesides—but we don’t mind a little dissipation when our brides are in the\ncase; we don’t get married every day—and in addition to these dainties,\nthere were the Veal and Ham-Pie, and ‘things,’ as Mrs. Peerybingle called\nthem; which were chiefly nuts and oranges, and cakes, and such small\ndeer. When the repast was set forth on the board, flanked by Caleb’s\ncontribution, which was a great wooden bowl of smoking potatoes (he was\nprohibited, by solemn compact, from producing any other viands),\nTackleton led his intended mother-in-law to the post of honour. For the\nbetter gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic old soul\nhad adorned herself with a cap, calculated to inspire the thoughtless\nwith sentiments of awe. She also wore her gloves. But let us be\ngenteel, or die!\n\nCaleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old schoolfellow were side by\nside; the good Carrier took care of the bottom of the table. Miss\nSlowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article of furniture\nbut the chair she sat on, that she might have nothing else to knock the\nBaby’s head against.\n\nAs Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared at her and\nat the company. The venerable old gentlemen at the street doors (who\nwere all in full action) showed especial interest in the party, pausing\noccasionally before leaping, as if they were listening to the\nconversation, and then plunging wildly over and over, a great many times,\nwithout halting for breath—as in a frantic state of delight with the\nwhole proceedings.\n\nCertainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a fiendish joy in\nthe contemplation of Tackleton’s discomfiture, they had good reason to be\nsatisfied. Tackleton couldn’t get on at all; and the more cheerful his\nintended bride became in Dot’s society, the less he liked it, though he\nhad brought them together for that purpose. For he was a regular dog in\nthe manger, was Tackleton; and when they laughed and he couldn’t, he took\nit into his head, immediately, that they must be laughing at him.\n\n‘Ah, May!’ said Dot. ‘Dear dear, what changes! To talk of those merry\nschool-days makes one young again.’\n\n‘Why, you an’t particularly old, at any time; are you?’ said Tackleton.\n\n‘Look at my sober plodding husband there,’ returned Dot. ‘He adds twenty\nyears to my age at least. Don’t you, John?’\n\n‘Forty,’ John replied.\n\n‘How many _you_’ll add to May’s, I am sure I don’t know,’ said Dot,\nlaughing. ‘But she can’t be much less than a hundred years of age on her\nnext birthday.’\n\n‘Ha ha!’ laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum, that laugh though. And he\nlooked as if he could have twisted Dot’s neck, comfortably.\n\n‘Dear dear!’ said Dot. ‘Only to remember how we used to talk, at school,\nabout the husbands we would choose. I don’t know how young, and how\nhandsome, and how gay, and how lively, mine was not to be! And as to\nMay’s!—Ah dear! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, when I think what\nsilly girls we were.’\n\nMay seemed to know which to do; for the colour flushed into her face, and\ntears stood in her eyes.\n\n‘Even the very persons themselves—real live young men—were fixed on\nsometimes,’ said Dot. ‘We little thought how things would come about. I\nnever fixed on John I’m sure; I never so much as thought of him. And if\nI had told you, you were ever to be married to Mr. Tackleton, why you’d\nhave slapped me. Wouldn’t you, May?’\n\nThough May didn’t say yes, she certainly didn’t say no, or express no, by\nany means.\n\nTackleton laughed—quite shouted, he laughed so loud. John Peerybingle\nlaughed too, in his ordinary good-natured and contented manner; but his\nwas a mere whisper of a laugh, to Tackleton’s.\n\n‘You couldn’t help yourselves, for all that. You couldn’t resist us, you\nsee,’ said Tackleton. ‘Here we are! Here we are!’\n\n‘Where are your gay young bridegrooms now!’\n\n‘Some of them are dead,’ said Dot; ‘and some of them forgotten. Some of\nthem, if they could stand among us at this moment, would not believe we\nwere the same creatures; would not believe that what they saw and heard\nwas real, and we _could_ forget them so. No! they would not believe one\nword of it!’\n\n‘Why, Dot!’ exclaimed the Carrier. ‘Little woman!’\n\nShe had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that she stood in need of\nsome recalling to herself, without doubt. Her husband’s check was very\ngentle, for he merely interfered, as he supposed, to shield old\nTackleton; but it proved effectual, for she stopped, and said no more.\nThere was an uncommon agitation, even in her silence, which the wary\nTackleton, who had brought his half-shut eye to bear upon her, noted\nclosely, and remembered to some purpose too.\n\nMay uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, with her eyes cast\ndown, and made no sign of interest in what had passed. The good lady her\nmother now interposed, observing, in the first instance, that girls were\ngirls, and byegones byegones, and that so long as young people were young\nand thoughtless, they would probably conduct themselves like young and\nthoughtless persons: with two or three other positions of a no less sound\nand incontrovertible character. She then remarked, in a devout spirit,\nthat she thanked Heaven she had always found in her daughter May, a\ndutiful and obedient child; for which she took no credit to herself,\nthough she had every reason to believe it was entirely owing to herself.\nWith regard to Mr. Tackleton she said, That he was in a moral point of\nview an undeniable individual, and That he was in an eligible point of\nview a son-in-law to be desired, no one in their senses could doubt.\n(She was very emphatic here.) With regard to the family into which he\nwas so soon about, after some solicitation, to be admitted, she believed\nMr. Tackleton knew that, although reduced in purse, it had some\npretensions to gentility; and if certain circumstances, not wholly\nunconnected, she would go so far as to say, with the Indigo Trade, but to\nwhich she would not more particularly refer, had happened differently, it\nmight perhaps have been in possession of wealth. She then remarked that\nshe would not allude to the past, and would not mention that her daughter\nhad for some time rejected the suit of Mr. Tackleton; and that she would\nnot say a great many other things which she did say, at great length.\nFinally, she delivered it as the general result of her observation and\nexperience, that those marriages in which there was least of what was\nromantically and sillily called love, were always the happiest; and that\nshe anticipated the greatest possible amount of bliss—not rapturous\nbliss; but the solid, steady-going article—from the approaching nuptials.\nShe concluded by informing the company that to-morrow was the day she had\nlived for, expressly; and that when it was over, she would desire nothing\nbetter than to be packed up and disposed of, in any genteel place of\nburial.\n\nAs these remarks were quite unanswerable—which is the happy property of\nall remarks that are sufficiently wide of the purpose—they changed the\ncurrent of the conversation, and diverted the general attention to the\nVeal and Ham-Pie, the cold mutton, the potatoes, and the tart. In order\nthat the bottled beer might not be slighted, John Peerybingle proposed\nTo-morrow: the Wedding-Day; and called upon them to drink a bumper to it,\nbefore he proceeded on his journey.\n\nFor you ought to know that he only rested there, and gave the old horse a\nbait. He had to go some four or five miles farther on; and when he\nreturned in the evening, he called for Dot, and took another rest on his\nway home. This was the order of the day on all the Pic-Nic occasions,\nhad been, ever since their institution.\n\nThere were two persons present, besides the bride and bridegroom elect,\nwho did but indifferent honour to the toast. One of these was Dot, too\nflushed and discomposed to adapt herself to any small occurrence of the\nmoment; the other, Bertha, who rose up hurriedly, before the rest, and\nleft the table.\n\n‘Good bye!’ said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on his dreadnought coat.\n‘I shall be back at the old time. Good bye all!’\n\n‘Good bye, John,’ returned Caleb.\n\nHe seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in the same unconscious\nmanner; for he stood observing Bertha with an anxious wondering face,\nthat never altered its expression.\n\n‘Good bye, young shaver!’ said the jolly Carrier, bending down to kiss\nthe child; which Tilly Slowboy, now intent upon her knife and fork, had\ndeposited asleep (and strange to say, without damage) in a little cot of\nBertha’s furnishing; ‘good bye! Time will come, I suppose, when _you’ll_\nturn out into the cold, my little friend, and leave your old father to\nenjoy his pipe and his rheumatics in the chimney-corner; eh? Where’s\nDot?’\n\n‘I’m here, John!’ she said, starting.\n\n‘Come, come!’ returned the Carrier, clapping his sounding hands.\n‘Where’s the pipe?’\n\n‘I quite forgot the pipe, John.’\n\nForgot the pipe! Was such a wonder ever heard of! She! Forgot the\npipe!\n\n‘I’ll—I’ll fill it directly. It’s soon done.’\n\nBut it was not so soon done, either. It lay in the usual place—the\nCarrier’s dreadnought pocket—with the little pouch, her own work, from\nwhich she was used to fill it, but her hand shook so, that she entangled\nit (and yet her hand was small enough to have come out easily, I am\nsure), and bungled terribly. The filling of the pipe and lighting it,\nthose little offices in which I have commended her discretion, were\nvilely done, from first to last. During the whole process, Tackleton\nstood looking on maliciously with the half-closed eye; which, whenever it\nmet hers—or caught it, for it can hardly be said to have ever met another\neye: rather being a kind of trap to snatch it up—augmented her confusion\nin a most remarkable degree.\n\n‘Why, what a clumsy Dot you are, this afternoon!’ said John. ‘I could\nhave done it better myself, I verily believe!’\n\nWith these good-natured words, he strode away, and presently was heard,\nin company with Boxer, and the old horse, and the cart, making lively\nmusic down the road. What time the dreamy Caleb still stood, watching\nhis blind daughter, with the same expression on his face.\n\n‘Bertha!’ said Caleb, softly. ‘What has happened? How changed you are,\nmy darling, in a few hours—since this morning. _You_ silent and dull all\nday! What is it? Tell me!’\n\n‘Oh father, father!’ cried the Blind Girl, bursting into tears. ‘Oh my\nhard, hard fate!’\n\nCaleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her.\n\n‘But think how cheerful and how happy you have been, Bertha! How good,\nand how much loved, by many people.’\n\n‘That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Always so mindful of me!\nAlways so kind to me!’\n\nCaleb was very much perplexed to understand her.\n\n‘To be—to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear,’ he faltered, ‘is a great\naffliction; but—’\n\n‘I have never felt it!’ cried the Blind Girl. ‘I have never felt it, in\nits fulness. Never! I have sometimes wished that I could see you, or\ncould see him—only once, dear father, only for one little minute—that I\nmight know what it is I treasure up,’ she laid her hands upon her breast,\n‘and hold here! That I might be sure and have it right! And sometimes\n(but then I was a child) I have wept in my prayers at night, to think\nthat when your images ascended from my heart to Heaven, they might not be\nthe true resemblance of yourselves. But I have never had these feelings\nlong. They have passed away and left me tranquil and contented.’\n\n‘And they will again,’ said Caleb.\n\n‘But, father! Oh my good, gentle father, bear with me, if I am wicked!’\nsaid the Blind Girl. ‘This is not the sorrow that so weighs me down!’\n\nHer father could not choose but let his moist eyes overflow; she was so\nearnest and pathetic, but he did not understand her, yet.\n\n‘Bring her to me,’ said Bertha. ‘I cannot hold it closed and shut within\nmyself. Bring her to me, father!’\n\nShe knew he hesitated, and said, ‘May. Bring May!’\n\nMay heard the mention of her name, and coming quietly towards her,\ntouched her on the arm. The Blind Girl turned immediately, and held her\nby both hands.\n\n‘Look into my face, Dear heart, Sweet heart!’ said Bertha. ‘Read it with\nyour beautiful eyes, and tell me if the truth is written on it.’\n\n‘Dear Bertha, Yes!’\n\nThe Blind Girl still, upturning the blank sightless face, down which the\ntears were coursing fast, addressed her in these words:\n\n‘There is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that is not for your good,\nbright May! There is not, in my soul, a grateful recollection stronger\nthan the deep remembrance which is stored there, of the many many times\nwhen, in the full pride of sight and beauty, you have had consideration\nfor Blind Bertha, even when we two were children, or when Bertha was as\nmuch a child as ever blindness can be! Every blessing on your head!\nLight upon your happy course! Not the less, my dear May;’ and she drew\ntowards her, in a closer grasp; ‘not the less, my bird, because, to-day,\nthe knowledge that you are to be His wife has wrung my heart almost to\nbreaking! Father, May, Mary! oh forgive me that it is so, for the sake\nof all he has done to relieve the weariness of my dark life: and for the\nsake of the belief you have in me, when I call Heaven to witness that I\ncould not wish him married to a wife more worthy of his goodness!’\n\nWhile speaking, she had released May Fielding’s hands, and clasped her\ngarments in an attitude of mingled supplication and love. Sinking lower\nand lower down, as she proceeded in her strange confession, she dropped\nat last at the feet of her friend, and hid her blind face in the folds of\nher dress.\n\n‘Great Power!’ exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow with the truth,\n‘have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last!’\n\nIt was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, busy little\nDot—for such she was, whatever faults she had, and however you may learn\nto hate her, in good time—it was well for all of them, I say, that she\nwas there: or where this would have ended, it were hard to tell. But\nDot, recovering her self-possession, interposed, before May could reply,\nor Caleb say another word.\n\n‘Come, come, dear Bertha! come away with me! Give her your arm, May.\nSo! How composed she is, you see, already; and how good it is of her to\nmind us,’ said the cheery little woman, kissing her upon the forehead.\n‘Come away, dear Bertha. Come! and here’s her good father will come with\nher; won’t you, Caleb? To—be—sure!’\n\nWell, well! she was a noble little Dot in such things, and it must have\nbeen an obdurate nature that could have withstood her influence. When\nshe had got poor Caleb and his Bertha away, that they might comfort and\nconsole each other, as she knew they only could, she presently came\nbouncing back,—the saying is, as fresh as any daisy; I say fresher—to\nmount guard over that bridling little piece of consequence in the cap and\ngloves, and prevent the dear old creature from making discoveries.\n\n‘So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly,’ said she, drawing a chair to the\nfire; ‘and while I have it in my lap, here’s Mrs. Fielding, Tilly, will\ntell me all about the management of Babies, and put me right in twenty\npoints where I’m as wrong as can be. Won’t you, Mrs. Fielding?’\n\nNot even the Welsh Giant, who, according to the popular expression, was\nso ‘slow’ as to perform a fatal surgical operation upon himself, in\nemulation of a juggling-trick achieved by his arch-enemy at\nbreakfast-time; not even he fell half so readily into the snare prepared\nfor him, as the old lady did into this artful pitfall. The fact of\nTackleton having walked out; and furthermore, of two or three people\nhaving been talking together at a distance, for two minutes, leaving her\nto her own resources; was quite enough to have put her on her dignity,\nand the bewailment of that mysterious convulsion in the Indigo trade, for\nfour-and-twenty hours. But this becoming deference to her experience, on\nthe part of the young mother, was so irresistible, that after a short\naffectation of humility, she began to enlighten her with the best grace\nin the world; and sitting bolt upright before the wicked Dot, she did, in\nhalf an hour, deliver more infallible domestic recipes and precepts, than\nwould (if acted on) have utterly destroyed and done up that Young\nPeerybingle, though he had been an Infant Samson.\n\nTo change the theme, Dot did a little needlework—she carried the contents\nof a whole workbox in her pocket; however she contrived it, I don’t\nknow—then did a little nursing; then a little more needlework; then had a\nlittle whispering chat with May, while the old lady dozed; and so in\nlittle bits of bustle, which was quite her manner always, found it a very\nshort afternoon. Then, as it grew dark, and as it was a solemn part of\nthis Institution of the Pic-Nic that she should perform all Bertha’s\nhousehold tasks, she trimmed the fire, and swept the hearth, and set the\ntea-board out, and drew the curtain, and lighted a candle. Then she\nplayed an air or two on a rude kind of harp, which Caleb had contrived\nfor Bertha, and played them very well; for Nature had made her delicate\nlittle ear as choice a one for music as it would have been for jewels, if\nshe had had any to wear. By this time it was the established hour for\nhaving tea; and Tackleton came back again, to share the meal, and spend\nthe evening.\n\nCaleb and Bertha had returned some time before, and Caleb had sat down to\nhis afternoon’s work. But he couldn’t settle to it, poor fellow, being\nanxious and remorseful for his daughter. It was touching to see him\nsitting idle on his working-stool, regarding her so wistfully, and always\nsaying in his face, ‘Have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break\nher heart!’\n\nWhen it was night, and tea was done, and Dot had nothing more to do in\nwashing up the cups and saucers; in a word—for I must come to it, and\nthere is no use in putting it off—when the time drew nigh for expecting\nthe Carrier’s return in every sound of distant wheels, her manner changed\nagain, her colour came and went, and she was very restless. Not as good\nwives are, when listening for their husbands. No, no, no. It was\nanother sort of restlessness from that.\n\nWheels heard. A horse’s feet. The barking of a dog. The gradual\napproach of all the sounds. The scratching paw of Boxer at the door!\n\n‘Whose step is that!’ cried Bertha, starting up.\n\n‘Whose step?’ returned the Carrier, standing in the portal, with his\nbrown face ruddy as a winter berry from the keen night air. ‘Why, mine.’\n\n‘The other step,’ said Bertha. ‘The man’s tread behind you!’\n\n‘She is not to be deceived,’ observed the Carrier, laughing. ‘Come\nalong, sir. You’ll be welcome, never fear!’\n\nHe spoke in a loud tone; and as he spoke, the deaf old gentleman entered.\n\n‘He’s not so much a stranger, that you haven’t seen him once, Caleb,’\nsaid the Carrier. ‘You’ll give him house-room till we go?’\n\n‘Oh surely, John, and take it as an honour.’\n\n‘He’s the best company on earth, to talk secrets in,’ said John. ‘I have\nreasonable good lungs, but he tries ’em, I can tell you. Sit down, sir.\nAll friends here, and glad to see you!’\n\nWhen he had imparted this assurance, in a voice that amply corroborated\nwhat he had said about his lungs, he added in his natural tone, ‘A chair\nin the chimney-corner, and leave to sit quite silent and look pleasantly\nabout him, is all he cares for. He’s easily pleased.’\n\nBertha had been listening intently. She called Caleb to her side, when\nhe had set the chair, and asked him, in a low voice, to describe their\nvisitor. When he had done so (truly now; with scrupulous fidelity), she\nmoved, for the first time since he had come in, and sighed, and seemed to\nhave no further interest concerning him.\n\nThe Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was, and fonder of\nhis little wife than ever.\n\n‘A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon!’ he said, encircling her with his\nrough arm, as she stood, removed from the rest; ‘and yet I like her\nsomehow. See yonder, Dot!’\n\nHe pointed to the old man. She looked down. I think she trembled.\n\n‘He’s—ha ha ha!—he’s full of admiration for you!’ said the Carrier.\n‘Talked of nothing else, the whole way here. Why, he’s a brave old boy.\nI like him for it!’\n\n‘I wish he had had a better subject, John,’ she said, with an uneasy\nglance about the room. At Tackleton especially.\n\n‘A better subject!’ cried the jovial John. ‘There’s no such thing.\nCome, off with the great-coat, off with the thick shawl, off with the\nheavy wrappers! and a cosy half-hour by the fire! My humble service,\nMistress. A game at cribbage, you and I? That’s hearty. The cards and\nboard, Dot. And a glass of beer here, if there’s any left, small wife!’\n\nHis challenge was addressed to the old lady, who accepting it with\ngracious readiness, they were soon engaged upon the game. At first, the\nCarrier looked about him sometimes, with a smile, or now and then called\nDot to peep over his shoulder at his hand, and advise him on some knotty\npoint. But his adversary being a rigid disciplinarian, and subject to an\noccasional weakness in respect of pegging more than she was entitled to,\nrequired such vigilance on his part, as left him neither eyes nor ears to\nspare. Thus, his whole attention gradually became absorbed upon the\ncards; and he thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his shoulder\nrestored him to a consciousness of Tackleton.\n\n‘I am sorry to disturb you—but a word, directly.’\n\n‘I’m going to deal,’ returned the Carrier. ‘It’s a crisis.’\n\n‘It is,’ said Tackleton. ‘Come here, man!’\n\nThere was that in his pale face which made the other rise immediately,\nand ask him, in a hurry, what the matter was.\n\n‘Hush! John Peerybingle,’ said Tackleton. ‘I am sorry for this. I am\nindeed. I have been afraid of it. I have suspected it from the first.’\n\n‘What is it?’ asked the Carrier, with a frightened aspect.\n\n‘Hush! I’ll show you, if you’ll come with me.’\n\nThe Carrier accompanied him, without another word. They went across a\nyard, where the stars were shining, and by a little side-door, into\nTackleton’s own counting-house, where there was a glass window,\ncommanding the ware-room, which was closed for the night. There was no\nlight in the counting-house itself, but there were lamps in the long\nnarrow ware-room; and consequently the window was bright.\n\n‘A moment!’ said Tackleton. ‘Can you bear to look through that window,\ndo you think?’\n\n‘Why not?’ returned the Carrier.\n\n‘A moment more,’ said Tackleton. ‘Don’t commit any violence. It’s of no\nuse. It’s dangerous too. You’re a strong-made man; and you might do\nmurder before you know it.’\n\nThe Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as if he had been\nstruck. In one stride he was at the window, and he saw—\n\nOh Shadow on the Hearth! Oh truthful Cricket! Oh perfidious Wife!\n\nHe saw her, with the old man—old no longer, but erect and gallant—bearing\nin his hand the false white hair that had won his way into their desolate\nand miserable home. He saw her listening to him, as he bent his head to\nwhisper in her ear; and suffering him to clasp her round the waist, as\nthey moved slowly down the dim wooden gallery towards the door by which\nthey had entered it. He saw them stop, and saw her turn—to have the\nface, the face he loved so, so presented to his view!—and saw her, with\nher own hands, adjust the lie upon his head, laughing, as she did it, at\nhis unsuspicious nature!\n\nHe clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it would have beaten\ndown a lion. But opening it immediately again, he spread it out before\nthe eyes of Tackleton (for he was tender of her, even then), and so, as\nthey passed out, fell down upon a desk, and was as weak as any infant.\n\nHe was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse and parcels, when\nshe came into the room, prepared for going home.\n\n‘Now, John, dear! Good night, May! Good night, Bertha!’\n\nCould she kiss them? Could she be blithe and cheerful in her parting?\nCould she venture to reveal her face to them without a blush? Yes.\nTackleton observed her closely, and she did all this.\n\nTilly was hushing the Baby, and she crossed and re-crossed Tackleton, a\ndozen times, repeating drowsily:\n\n‘Did the knowledge that it was to be its wifes, then, wring its hearts\nalmost to breaking; and did its fathers deceive it from its cradles but\nto break its hearts at last!’\n\n‘Now, Tilly, give me the Baby! Good night, Mr. Tackleton. Where’s John,\nfor goodness’ sake?’\n\n‘He’s going to walk beside the horse’s head,’ said Tackleton; who helped\nher to her seat.\n\n‘My dear John. Walk? To-night?’\n\nThe muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign in the affirmative;\nand the false stranger and the little nurse being in their places, the\nold horse moved off. Boxer, the unconscious Boxer, running on before,\nrunning back, running round and round the cart, and barking as\ntriumphantly and merrily as ever.\n\nWhen Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May and her mother home,\npoor Caleb sat down by the fire beside his daughter; anxious and\nremorseful at the core; and still saying in his wistful contemplation of\nher, ‘Have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart at\nlast!’\n\nThe toys that had been set in motion for the Baby, had all stopped, and\nrun down, long ago. In the faint light and silence, the imperturbably\ncalm dolls, the agitated rocking-horses with distended eyes and nostrils,\nthe old gentlemen at the street-doors, standing half doubled up upon\ntheir failing knees and ankles, the wry-faced nut-crackers, the very\nBeasts upon their way into the Ark, in twos, like a Boarding School out\nwalking, might have been imagined to be stricken motionless with\nfantastic wonder, at Dot being false, or Tackleton beloved, under any\ncombination of circumstances.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III—Chirp the Third\n\n\nThe Dutch clock in the corner struck Ten, when the Carrier sat down by\nhis fireside. So troubled and grief-worn, that he seemed to scare the\nCuckoo, who, having cut his ten melodious announcements as short as\npossible, plunged back into the Moorish Palace again, and clapped his\nlittle door behind him, as if the unwonted spectacle were too much for\nhis feelings.\n\nIf the little Haymaker had been armed with the sharpest of scythes, and\nhad cut at every stroke into the Carrier’s heart, he never could have\ngashed and wounded it, as Dot had done.\n\nIt was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up and held together by\ninnumerable threads of winning remembrance, spun from the daily working\nof her many qualities of endearment; it was a heart in which she had\nenshrined herself so gently and so closely; a heart so single and so\nearnest in its Truth, so strong in right, so weak in wrong; that it could\ncherish neither passion nor revenge at first, and had only room to hold\nthe broken image of its Idol.\n\nBut, slowly, slowly, as the Carrier sat brooding on his hearth, now cold\nand dark, other and fiercer thoughts began to rise within him, as an\nangry wind comes rising in the night. The Stranger was beneath his\noutraged roof. Three steps would take him to his chamber-door. One blow\nwould beat it in. ‘You might do murder before you know it,’ Tackleton\nhad said. How could it be murder, if he gave the villain time to grapple\nwith him hand to hand! He was the younger man.\n\nIt was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind. It was\nan angry thought, goading him to some avenging act, that should change\nthe cheerful house into a haunted place which lonely travellers would\ndread to pass by night; and where the timid would see shadows struggling\nin the ruined windows when the moon was dim, and hear wild noises in the\nstormy weather.\n\nHe was the younger man! Yes, yes; some lover who had won the heart that\n_he_ had never touched. Some lover of her early choice, of whom she had\nthought and dreamed, for whom she had pined and pined, when he had\nfancied her so happy by his side. O agony to think of it!\n\nShe had been above-stairs with the Baby, getting it to bed. As he sat\nbrooding on the hearth, she came close beside him, without his\nknowledge—in the turning of the rack of his great misery, he lost all\nother sounds—and put her little stool at his feet. He only knew it, when\nhe felt her hand upon his own, and saw her looking up into his face.\n\nWith wonder? No. It was his first impression, and he was fain to look\nat her again, to set it right. No, not with wonder. With an eager and\ninquiring look; but not with wonder. At first it was alarmed and\nserious; then, it changed into a strange, wild, dreadful smile of\nrecognition of his thoughts; then, there was nothing but her clasped\nhands on her brow, and her bent head, and falling hair.\n\nThough the power of Omnipotence had been his to wield at that moment, he\nhad too much of its diviner property of Mercy in his breast, to have\nturned one feather’s weight of it against her. But he could not bear to\nsee her crouching down upon the little seat where he had often looked on\nher, with love and pride, so innocent and gay; and, when she rose and\nleft him, sobbing as she went, he felt it a relief to have the vacant\nplace beside him rather than her so long-cherished presence. This in\nitself was anguish keener than all, reminding him how desolate he was\nbecome, and how the great bond of his life was rent asunder.\n\nThe more he felt this, and the more he knew he could have better borne to\nsee her lying prematurely dead before him with their little child upon\nher breast, the higher and the stronger rose his wrath against his enemy.\nHe looked about him for a weapon.\n\nThere was a gun, hanging on the wall. He took it down, and moved a pace\nor two towards the door of the perfidious Stranger’s room. He knew the\ngun was loaded. Some shadowy idea that it was just to shoot this man\nlike a wild beast, seized him, and dilated in his mind until it grew into\na monstrous demon in complete possession of him, casting out all milder\nthoughts and setting up its undivided empire.\n\nThat phrase is wrong. Not casting out his milder thoughts, but artfully\ntransforming them. Changing them into scourges to drive him on. Turning\nwater into blood, love into hate, gentleness into blind ferocity. Her\nimage, sorrowing, humbled, but still pleading to his tenderness and mercy\nwith resistless power, never left his mind; but, staying there, it urged\nhim to the door; raised the weapon to his shoulder; fitted and nerved his\nfinger to the trigger; and cried ‘Kill him! In his bed!’\n\nHe reversed the gun to beat the stock upon the door; he already held it\nlifted in the air; some indistinct design was in his thoughts of calling\nout to him to fly, for God’s sake, by the window—\n\nWhen, suddenly, the struggling fire illumined the whole chimney with a\nglow of light; and the Cricket on the Hearth began to Chirp!\n\nNo sound he could have heard, no human voice, not even hers, could so\nhave moved and softened him. The artless words in which she had told him\nof her love for this same Cricket, were once more freshly spoken; her\ntrembling, earnest manner at the moment, was again before him; her\npleasant voice—O what a voice it was, for making household music at the\nfireside of an honest man!—thrilled through and through his better\nnature, and awoke it into life and action.\n\nHe recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his sleep, awakened from\na frightful dream; and put the gun aside. Clasping his hands before his\nface, he then sat down again beside the fire, and found relief in tears.\n\nThe Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, and stood in Fairy\nshape before him.\n\n‘“I love it,”’ said the Fairy Voice, repeating what he well remembered,\n‘“for the many times I have heard it, and the many thoughts its harmless\nmusic has given me.”’\n\n‘She said so!’ cried the Carrier. ‘True!’\n\n‘“This has been a happy home, John; and I love the Cricket for its\nsake!”’\n\n‘It has been, Heaven knows,’ returned the Carrier. ‘She made it happy,\nalways,—until now.’\n\n‘So gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful, busy, and\nlight-hearted!’ said the Voice.\n\n‘Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did,’ returned the Carrier.\n\nThe Voice, correcting him, said ‘do.’\n\nThe Carrier repeated ‘as I did.’ But not firmly. His faltering tongue\nresisted his control, and would speak in its own way, for itself and him.\n\nThe Figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its hand and said:\n\n‘Upon your own hearth—’\n\n‘The hearth she has blighted,’ interposed the Carrier.\n\n‘The hearth she has—how often!—blessed and brightened,’ said the Cricket;\n‘the hearth which, but for her, were only a few stones and bricks and\nrusty bars, but which has been, through her, the Altar of your Home; on\nwhich you have nightly sacrificed some petty passion, selfishness, or\ncare, and offered up the homage of a tranquil mind, a trusting nature,\nand an overflowing heart; so that the smoke from this poor chimney has\ngone upward with a better fragrance than the richest incense that is\nburnt before the richest shrines in all the gaudy temples of this\nworld!—Upon your own hearth; in its quiet sanctuary; surrounded by its\ngentle influences and associations; hear her! Hear me! Hear everything\nthat speaks the language of your hearth and home!’\n\n‘And pleads for her?’ inquired the Carrier.\n\n‘All things that speak the language of your hearth and home, must plead\nfor her!’ returned the Cricket. ‘For they speak the truth.’\n\nAnd while the Carrier, with his head upon his hands, continued to sit\nmeditating in his chair, the Presence stood beside him, suggesting his\nreflections by its power, and presenting them before him, as in a glass\nor picture. It was not a solitary Presence. From the hearthstone, from\nthe chimney, from the clock, the pipe, the kettle, and the cradle; from\nthe floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the stairs; from the cart without,\nand the cupboard within, and the household implements; from every thing\nand every place with which she had ever been familiar, and with which she\nhad ever entwined one recollection of herself in her unhappy husband’s\nmind; Fairies came trooping forth. Not to stand beside him as the\nCricket did, but to busy and bestir themselves. To do all honour to her\nimage. To pull him by the skirts, and point to it when it appeared. To\ncluster round it, and embrace it, and strew flowers for it to tread on.\nTo try to crown its fair head with their tiny hands. To show that they\nwere fond of it and loved it; and that there was not one ugly, wicked or\naccusatory creature to claim knowledge of it—none but their playful and\napproving selves.\n\nHis thoughts were constant to her image. It was always there.\n\nShe sat plying her needle, before the fire, and singing to herself. Such\na blithe, thriving, steady little Dot! The fairy figures turned upon him\nall at once, by one consent, with one prodigious concentrated stare, and\nseemed to say, ‘Is this the light wife you are mourning for!’\n\nThere were sounds of gaiety outside, musical instruments, and noisy\ntongues, and laughter. A crowd of young merry-makers came pouring in,\namong whom were May Fielding and a score of pretty girls. Dot was the\nfairest of them all; as young as any of them too. They came to summon\nher to join their party. It was a dance. If ever little foot were made\nfor dancing, hers was, surely. But she laughed, and shook her head, and\npointed to her cookery on the fire, and her table ready spread: with an\nexulting defiance that rendered her more charming than she was before.\nAnd so she merrily dismissed them, nodding to her would-be partners, one\nby one, as they passed, but with a comical indifference, enough to make\nthem go and drown themselves immediately if they were her admirers—and\nthey must have been so, more or less; they couldn’t help it. And yet\nindifference was not her character. O no! For presently, there came a\ncertain Carrier to the door; and bless her what a welcome she bestowed\nupon him!\n\nAgain the staring figures turned upon him all at once, and seemed to say,\n‘Is this the wife who has forsaken you!’\n\nA shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture: call it what you will. A\ngreat shadow of the Stranger, as he first stood underneath their roof;\ncovering its surface, and blotting out all other objects. But the nimble\nFairies worked like bees to clear it off again. And Dot again was there.\nStill bright and beautiful.\n\nRocking her little Baby in its cradle, singing to it softly, and resting\nher head upon a shoulder which had its counterpart in the musing figure\nby which the Fairy Cricket stood.\n\nThe night—I mean the real night: not going by Fairy clocks—was wearing\nnow; and in this stage of the Carrier’s thoughts, the moon burst out, and\nshone brightly in the sky. Perhaps some calm and quiet light had risen\nalso, in his mind; and he could think more soberly of what had happened.\n\nAlthough the shadow of the Stranger fell at intervals upon the\nglass—always distinct, and big, and thoroughly defined—it never fell so\ndarkly as at first. Whenever it appeared, the Fairies uttered a general\ncry of consternation, and plied their little arms and legs, with\ninconceivable activity, to rub it out. And whenever they got at Dot\nagain, and showed her to him once more, bright and beautiful, they\ncheered in the most inspiring manner.\n\nThey never showed her, otherwise than beautiful and bright, for they were\nHousehold Spirits to whom falsehood is annihilation; and being so, what\nDot was there for them, but the one active, beaming, pleasant little\ncreature who had been the light and sun of the Carrier’s Home!\n\nThe Fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed her, with the\nBaby, gossiping among a knot of sage old matrons, and affecting to be\nwondrous old and matronly herself, and leaning in a staid, demure old way\nupon her husband’s arm, attempting—she! such a bud of a little woman—to\nconvey the idea of having abjured the vanities of the world in general,\nand of being the sort of person to whom it was no novelty at all to be a\nmother; yet in the same breath, they showed her, laughing at the Carrier\nfor being awkward, and pulling up his shirt-collar to make him smart, and\nmincing merrily about that very room to teach him how to dance!\n\nThey turned, and stared immensely at him when they showed her with the\nBlind Girl; for, though she carried cheerfulness and animation with her\nwheresoever she went, she bore those influences into Caleb Plummer’s\nhome, heaped up and running over. The Blind Girl’s love for her, and\ntrust in her, and gratitude to her; her own good busy way of setting\nBertha’s thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for filling up each\nmoment of the visit in doing something useful to the house, and really\nworking hard while feigning to make holiday; her bountiful provision of\nthose standing delicacies, the Veal and Ham-Pie and the bottles of Beer;\nher radiant little face arriving at the door, and taking leave; the\nwonderful expression in her whole self, from her neat foot to the crown\nof her head, of being a part of the establishment—a something necessary\nto it, which it couldn’t be without; all this the Fairies revelled in,\nand loved her for. And once again they looked upon him all at once,\nappealingly, and seemed to say, while some among them nestled in her\ndress and fondled her, ‘Is this the wife who has betrayed your\nconfidence!’\n\nMore than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful night, they\nshowed her to him sitting on her favourite seat, with her bent head, her\nhands clasped on her brow, her falling hair. As he had seen her last.\nAnd when they found her thus, they neither turned nor looked upon him,\nbut gathered close round her, and comforted and kissed her, and pressed\non one another to show sympathy and kindness to her, and forgot him\naltogether.\n\nThus the night passed. The moon went down; the stars grew pale; the cold\nday broke; the sun rose. The Carrier still sat, musing, in the chimney\ncorner. He had sat there, with his head upon his hands, all night. All\nnight the faithful Cricket had been Chirp, Chirp, Chirping on the Hearth.\nAll night he had listened to its voice. All night the household Fairies\nhad been busy with him. All night she had been amiable and blameless in\nthe glass, except when that one shadow fell upon it.\n\nHe rose up when it was broad day, and washed and dressed himself. He\ncouldn’t go about his customary cheerful avocations—he wanted spirit for\nthem—but it mattered the less, that it was Tackleton’s wedding-day, and\nhe had arranged to make his rounds by proxy. He thought to have gone\nmerrily to church with Dot. But such plans were at an end. It was their\nown wedding-day too. Ah! how little he had looked for such a close to\nsuch a year!\n\nThe Carrier had expected that Tackleton would pay him an early visit; and\nhe was right. He had not walked to and fro before his own door, many\nminutes, when he saw the Toy-merchant coming in his chaise along the\nroad. As the chaise drew nearer, he perceived that Tackleton was dressed\nout sprucely for his marriage, and that he had decorated his horse’s head\nwith flowers and favours.\n\nThe horse looked much more like a bridegroom than Tackleton, whose\nhalf-closed eye was more disagreeably expressive than ever. But the\nCarrier took little heed of this. His thoughts had other occupation.\n\n‘John Peerybingle!’ said Tackleton, with an air of condolence. ‘My good\nfellow, how do you find yourself this morning?’\n\n‘I have had but a poor night, Master Tackleton,’ returned the Carrier,\nshaking his head: ‘for I have been a good deal disturbed in my mind. But\nit’s over now! Can you spare me half an hour or so, for some private\ntalk?’\n\n‘I came on purpose,’ returned Tackleton, alighting. ‘Never mind the\nhorse. He’ll stand quiet enough, with the reins over this post, if\nyou’ll give him a mouthful of hay.’\n\nThe Carrier having brought it from his stable, and set it before him,\nthey turned into the house.\n\n‘You are not married before noon,’ he said, ‘I think?’\n\n‘No,’ answered Tackleton. ‘Plenty of time. Plenty of time.’\n\nWhen they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was rapping at the\nStranger’s door; which was only removed from it by a few steps. One of\nher very red eyes (for Tilly had been crying all night long, because her\nmistress cried) was at the keyhole; and she was knocking very loud; and\nseemed frightened.\n\n‘If you please I can’t make nobody hear,’ said Tilly, looking round. ‘I\nhope nobody an’t gone and been and died if you please!’\n\nThis philanthropic wish, Miss Slowboy emphasised with various new raps\nand kicks at the door; which led to no result whatever.\n\n‘Shall I go?’ said Tackleton. ‘It’s curious.’\n\nThe Carrier, who had turned his face from the door, signed to him to go\nif he would.\n\nSo Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy’s relief; and he too kicked and\nknocked; and he too failed to get the least reply. But he thought of\ntrying the handle of the door; and as it opened easily, he peeped in,\nlooked in, went in, and soon came running out again.\n\n‘John Peerybingle,’ said Tackleton, in his ear. ‘I hope there has been\nnothing—nothing rash in the night?’\n\nThe Carrier turned upon him quickly.\n\n‘Because he’s gone!’ said Tackleton; ‘and the window’s open. I don’t see\nany marks—to be sure it’s almost on a level with the garden: but I was\nafraid there might have been some—some scuffle. Eh?’\n\nHe nearly shut up the expressive eye altogether; he looked at him so\nhard. And he gave his eye, and his face, and his whole person, a sharp\ntwist. As if he would have screwed the truth out of him.\n\n‘Make yourself easy,’ said the Carrier. ‘He went into that room last\nnight, without harm in word or deed from me, and no one has entered it\nsince. He is away of his own free will. I’d go out gladly at that door,\nand beg my bread from house to house, for life, if I could so change the\npast that he had never come. But he has come and gone. And I have done\nwith him!’\n\n‘Oh!—Well, I think he has got off pretty easy,’ said Tackleton, taking a\nchair.\n\nThe sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too, and shaded his\nface with his hand, for some little time, before proceeding.\n\n‘You showed me last night,’ he said at length, ‘my wife; my wife that I\nlove; secretly—’\n\n‘And tenderly,’ insinuated Tackleton.\n\n‘Conniving at that man’s disguise, and giving him opportunities of\nmeeting her alone. I think there’s no sight I wouldn’t have rather seen\nthan that. I think there’s no man in the world I wouldn’t have rather\nhad to show it me.’\n\n‘I confess to having had my suspicions always,’ said Tackleton. ‘And\nthat has made me objectionable here, I know.’\n\n‘But as you did show it me,’ pursued the Carrier, not minding him; ‘and\nas you saw her, my wife, my wife that I love’—his voice, and eye, and\nhand, grew steadier and firmer as he repeated these words: evidently in\npursuance of a steadfast purpose—‘as you saw her at this disadvantage, it\nis right and just that you should also see with my eyes, and look into my\nbreast, and know what my mind is, upon the subject. For it’s settled,’\nsaid the Carrier, regarding him attentively. ‘And nothing can shake it\nnow.’\n\nTackleton muttered a few general words of assent, about its being\nnecessary to vindicate something or other; but he was overawed by the\nmanner of his companion. Plain and unpolished as it was, it had a\nsomething dignified and noble in it, which nothing but the soul of\ngenerous honour dwelling in the man could have imparted.\n\n‘I am a plain, rough man,’ pursued the Carrier, ‘with very little to\nrecommend me. I am not a clever man, as you very well know. I am not a\nyoung man. I loved my little Dot, because I had seen her grow up, from a\nchild, in her father’s house; because I knew how precious she was;\nbecause she had been my life, for years and years. There’s many men I\ncan’t compare with, who never could have loved my little Dot like me, I\nthink!’\n\nHe paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with his foot, before\nresuming.\n\n‘I often thought that though I wasn’t good enough for her, I should make\nher a kind husband, and perhaps know her value better than another; and\nin this way I reconciled it to myself, and came to think it might be\npossible that we should be married. And in the end it came about, and we\nwere married.’\n\n‘Hah!’ said Tackleton, with a significant shake of the head.\n\n‘I had studied myself; I had had experience of myself; I knew how much I\nloved her, and how happy I should be,’ pursued the Carrier. ‘But I had\nnot—I feel it now—sufficiently considered her.’\n\n‘To be sure,’ said Tackleton. ‘Giddiness, frivolity, fickleness, love of\nadmiration! Not considered! All left out of sight! Hah!’\n\n‘You had best not interrupt me,’ said the Carrier, with some sternness,\n‘till you understand me; and you’re wide of doing so. If, yesterday, I’d\nhave struck that man down at a blow, who dared to breathe a word against\nher, to-day I’d set my foot upon his face, if he was my brother!’\n\nThe Toy-merchant gazed at him in astonishment. He went on in a softer\ntone:\n\n‘Did I consider,’ said the Carrier, ‘that I took her—at her age, and with\nher beauty—from her young companions, and the many scenes of which she\nwas the ornament; in which she was the brightest little star that ever\nshone, to shut her up from day to day in my dull house, and keep my\ntedious company? Did I consider how little suited I was to her sprightly\nhumour, and how wearisome a plodding man like me must be, to one of her\nquick spirit? Did I consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me,\nthat I loved her, when everybody must, who knew her? Never. I took\nadvantage of her hopeful nature and her cheerful disposition; and I\nmarried her. I wish I never had! For her sake; not for mine!’\n\nThe Toy-merchant gazed at him, without winking. Even the half-shut eye\nwas open now.\n\n‘Heaven bless her!’ said the Carrier, ‘for the cheerful constancy with\nwhich she tried to keep the knowledge of this from me! And Heaven help\nme, that, in my slow mind, I have not found it out before! Poor child!\nPoor Dot! _I_ not to find it out, who have seen her eyes fill with\ntears, when such a marriage as our own was spoken of! I, who have seen\nthe secret trembling on her lips a hundred times, and never suspected it\ntill last night! Poor girl! That I could ever hope she would be fond of\nme! That I could ever believe she was!’\n\n‘She made a show of it,’ said Tackleton. ‘She made such a show of it,\nthat to tell you the truth it was the origin of my misgivings.’\n\nAnd here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding, who certainly made\nno sort of show of being fond of _him_.\n\n‘She has tried,’ said the poor Carrier, with greater emotion than he had\nexhibited yet; ‘I only now begin to know how hard she has tried, to be my\ndutiful and zealous wife. How good she has been; how much she has done;\nhow brave and strong a heart she has; let the happiness I have known\nunder this roof bear witness! It will be some help and comfort to me,\nwhen I am here alone.’\n\n‘Here alone?’ said Tackleton. ‘Oh! Then you do mean to take some notice\nof this?’\n\n‘I mean,’ returned the Carrier, ‘to do her the greatest kindness, and\nmake her the best reparation, in my power. I can release her from the\ndaily pain of an unequal marriage, and the struggle to conceal it. She\nshall be as free as I can render her.’\n\n‘Make _her_ reparation!’ exclaimed Tackleton, twisting and turning his\ngreat ears with his hands. ‘There must be something wrong here. You\ndidn’t say that, of course.’\n\nThe Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the Toy-merchant, and shook\nhim like a reed.\n\n‘Listen to me!’ he said. ‘And take care that you hear me right. Listen\nto me. Do I speak plainly?’\n\n‘Very plainly indeed,’ answered Tackleton.\n\n‘As if I meant it?’\n\n‘Very much as if you meant it.’\n\n‘I sat upon that hearth, last night, all night,’ exclaimed the Carrier.\n‘On the spot where she has often sat beside me, with her sweet face\nlooking into mine. I called up her whole life, day by day. I had her\ndear self, in its every passage, in review before me. And upon my soul\nshe is innocent, if there is One to judge the innocent and guilty!’\n\nStaunch Cricket on the Hearth! Loyal household Fairies!\n\n‘Passion and distrust have left me!’ said the Carrier; ‘and nothing but\nmy grief remains. In an unhappy moment some old lover, better suited to\nher tastes and years than I; forsaken, perhaps, for me, against her will;\nreturned. In an unhappy moment, taken by surprise, and wanting time to\nthink of what she did, she made herself a party to his treachery, by\nconcealing it. Last night she saw him, in the interview we witnessed.\nIt was wrong. But otherwise than this she is innocent if there is truth\non earth!’\n\n‘If that is your opinion’—Tackleton began.\n\n‘So, let her go!’ pursued the Carrier. ‘Go, with my blessing for the\nmany happy hours she has given me, and my forgiveness for any pang she\nhas caused me. Let her go, and have the peace of mind I wish her!\nShe’ll never hate me. She’ll learn to like me better, when I’m not a\ndrag upon her, and she wears the chain I have riveted, more lightly.\nThis is the day on which I took her, with so little thought for her\nenjoyment, from her home. To-day she shall return to it, and I will\ntrouble her no more. Her father and mother will be here to-day—we had\nmade a little plan for keeping it together—and they shall take her home.\nI can trust her, there, or anywhere. She leaves me without blame, and\nshe will live so I am sure. If I should die—I may perhaps while she is\nstill young; I have lost some courage in a few hours—she’ll find that I\nremembered her, and loved her to the last! This is the end of what you\nshowed me. Now, it’s over!’\n\n‘O no, John, not over. Do not say it’s over yet! Not quite yet. I have\nheard your noble words. I could not steal away, pretending to be\nignorant of what has affected me with such deep gratitude. Do not say\nit’s over, ‘till the clock has struck again!’\n\nShe had entered shortly after Tackleton, and had remained there. She\nnever looked at Tackleton, but fixed her eyes upon her husband. But she\nkept away from him, setting as wide a space as possible between them; and\nthough she spoke with most impassioned earnestness, she went no nearer to\nhim even then. How different in this from her old self!\n\n‘No hand can make the clock which will strike again for me the hours that\nare gone,’ replied the Carrier, with a faint smile. ‘But let it be so,\nif you will, my dear. It will strike soon. It’s of little matter what\nwe say. I’d try to please you in a harder case than that.’\n\n‘Well!’ muttered Tackleton. ‘I must be off, for when the clock strikes\nagain, it’ll be necessary for me to be upon my way to church. Good\nmorning, John Peerybingle. I’m sorry to be deprived of the pleasure of\nyour company. Sorry for the loss, and the occasion of it too!’\n\n‘I have spoken plainly?’ said the Carrier, accompanying him to the door.\n\n‘Oh quite!’\n\n‘And you’ll remember what I have said?’\n\n‘Why, if you compel me to make the observation,’ said Tackleton,\npreviously taking the precaution of getting into his chaise; ‘I must say\nthat it was so very unexpected, that I’m far from being likely to forget\nit.’\n\n‘The better for us both,’ returned the Carrier. ‘Good bye. I give you\njoy!’\n\n‘I wish I could give it to _you_,’ said Tackleton. ‘As I can’t;\nthank’ee. Between ourselves, (as I told you before, eh?) I don’t much\nthink I shall have the less joy in my married life, because May hasn’t\nbeen too officious about me, and too demonstrative. Good bye! Take care\nof yourself.’\n\nThe Carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller in the distance\nthan his horse’s flowers and favours near at hand; and then, with a deep\nsigh, went strolling like a restless, broken man, among some neighbouring\nelms; unwilling to return until the clock was on the eve of striking.\n\nHis little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously; but often dried her\neyes and checked herself, to say how good he was, how excellent he was!\nand once or twice she laughed; so heartily, triumphantly, and\nincoherently (still crying all the time), that Tilly was quite horrified.\n\n‘Ow if you please don’t!’ said Tilly. ‘It’s enough to dead and bury the\nBaby, so it is if you please.’\n\n‘Will you bring him sometimes, to see his father, Tilly,’ inquired her\nmistress, drying her eyes; ‘when I can’t live here, and have gone to my\nold home?’\n\n‘Ow if you please don’t!’ cried Tilly, throwing back her head, and\nbursting out into a howl—she looked at the moment uncommonly like Boxer.\n‘Ow if you please don’t! Ow, what has everybody gone and been and done\nwith everybody, making everybody else so wretched! Ow-w-w-w!’\n\nThe soft-hearted Slowboy trailed off at this juncture, into such a\ndeplorable howl, the more tremendous from its long suppression, that she\nmust infallibly have awakened the Baby, and frightened him into something\nserious (probably convulsions), if her eyes had not encountered Caleb\nPlummer, leading in his daughter. This spectacle restoring her to a\nsense of the proprieties, she stood for some few moments silent, with her\nmouth wide open; and then, posting off to the bed on which the Baby lay\nasleep, danced in a weird, Saint Vitus manner on the floor, and at the\nsame time rummaged with her face and head among the bedclothes,\napparently deriving much relief from those extraordinary operations.\n\n‘Mary!’ said Bertha. ‘Not at the marriage!’\n\n‘I told her you would not be there, mum,’ whispered Caleb. ‘I heard as\nmuch last night. But bless you,’ said the little man, taking her\ntenderly by both hands, ‘I don’t care for what they say. I don’t believe\nthem. There an’t much of me, but that little should be torn to pieces\nsooner than I’d trust a word against you!’\n\nHe put his arms about her and hugged her, as a child might have hugged\none of his own dolls.\n\n‘Bertha couldn’t stay at home this morning,’ said Caleb. ‘She was\nafraid, I know, to hear the bells ring, and couldn’t trust herself to be\nso near them on their wedding-day. So we started in good time, and came\nhere. I have been thinking of what I have done,’ said Caleb, after a\nmoment’s pause; ‘I have been blaming myself till I hardly knew what to do\nor where to turn, for the distress of mind I have caused her; and I’ve\ncome to the conclusion that I’d better, if you’ll stay with me, mum, the\nwhile, tell her the truth. You’ll stay with me the while?’ he inquired,\ntrembling from head to foot. ‘I don’t know what effect it may have upon\nher; I don’t know what she’ll think of me; I don’t know that she’ll ever\ncare for her poor father afterwards. But it’s best for her that she\nshould be undeceived, and I must bear the consequences as I deserve!’\n\n‘Mary,’ said Bertha, ‘where is your hand! Ah! Here it is here it is!’\npressing it to her lips, with a smile, and drawing it through her arm.\n‘I heard them speaking softly among themselves, last night, of some blame\nagainst you. They were wrong.’\n\nThe Carrier’s Wife was silent. Caleb answered for her.\n\n‘They were wrong,’ he said.\n\n‘I knew it!’ cried Bertha, proudly. ‘I told them so. I scorned to hear\na word! Blame _her_ with justice!’ she pressed the hand between her own,\nand the soft cheek against her face. ‘No! I am not so blind as that.’\n\nHer father went on one side of her, while Dot remained upon the other:\nholding her hand.\n\n‘I know you all,’ said Bertha, ‘better than you think. But none so well\nas her. Not even you, father. There is nothing half so real and so true\nabout me, as she is. If I could be restored to sight this instant, and\nnot a word were spoken, I could choose her from a crowd! My sister!’\n\n‘Bertha, my dear!’ said Caleb, ‘I have something on my mind I want to\ntell you, while we three are alone. Hear me kindly! I have a confession\nto make to you, my darling.’\n\n‘A confession, father?’\n\n‘I have wandered from the truth and lost myself, my child,’ said Caleb,\nwith a pitiable expression in his bewildered face. ‘I have wandered from\nthe truth, intending to be kind to you; and have been cruel.’\n\nShe turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and repeated ‘Cruel!’\n\n‘He accuses himself too strongly, Bertha,’ said Dot. ‘You’ll say so,\npresently. You’ll be the first to tell him so.’\n\n‘He cruel to me!’ cried Bertha, with a smile of incredulity.\n\n‘Not meaning it, my child,’ said Caleb. ‘But I have been; though I never\nsuspected it, till yesterday. My dear blind daughter, hear me and\nforgive me! The world you live in, heart of mine, doesn’t exist as I\nhave represented it. The eyes you have trusted in, have been false to\nyou.’\n\nShe turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still; but drew back, and\nclung closer to her friend.\n\n‘Your road in life was rough, my poor one,’ said Caleb, ‘and I meant to\nsmooth it for you. I have altered objects, changed the characters of\npeople, invented many things that never have been, to make you happier.\nI have had concealments from you, put deceptions on you, God forgive me!\nand surrounded you with fancies.’\n\n‘But living people are not fancies!’ she said hurriedly, and turning very\npale, and still retiring from him. ‘You can’t change them.’\n\n‘I have done so, Bertha,’ pleaded Caleb. ‘There is one person that you\nknow, my dove—’\n\n‘Oh father! why do you say, I know?’ she answered, in a term of keen\nreproach. ‘What and whom do _I_ know! I who have no leader! I so\nmiserably blind.’\n\nIn the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands, as if she were\ngroping her way; then spread them, in a manner most forlorn and sad, upon\nher face.\n\n‘The marriage that takes place to-day,’ said Caleb, ‘is with a stern,\nsordid, grinding man. A hard master to you and me, my dear, for many\nyears. Ugly in his looks, and in his nature. Cold and callous always.\nUnlike what I have painted him to you in everything, my child. In\neverything.’\n\n‘Oh why,’ cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it seemed, almost beyond\nendurance, ‘why did you ever do this! Why did you ever fill my heart so\nfull, and then come in like Death, and tear away the objects of my love!\nO Heaven, how blind I am! How helpless and alone!’\n\nHer afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply but in his\npenitence and sorrow.\n\nShe had been but a short time in this passion of regret, when the Cricket\non the Hearth, unheard by all but her, began to chirp. Not merrily, but\nin a low, faint, sorrowing way. It was so mournful that her tears began\nto flow; and when the Presence which had been beside the Carrier all\nnight, appeared behind her, pointing to her father, they fell down like\nrain.\n\nShe heard the Cricket-voice more plainly soon, and was conscious, through\nher blindness, of the Presence hovering about her father.\n\n‘Mary,’ said the Blind Girl, ‘tell me what my home is. What it truly\nis.’\n\n‘It is a poor place, Bertha; very poor and bare indeed. The house will\nscarcely keep out wind and rain another winter. It is as roughly\nshielded from the weather, Bertha,’ Dot continued in a low, clear voice,\n‘as your poor father in his sack-cloth coat.’\n\nThe Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the Carrier’s little wife\naside.\n\n‘Those presents that I took such care of; that came almost at my wish,\nand were so dearly welcome to me,’ she said, trembling; ‘where did they\ncome from? Did you send them?’\n\n‘No.’\n\n‘Who then?’\n\nDot saw she knew, already, and was silent. The Blind Girl spread her\nhands before her face again. But in quite another manner now.\n\n‘Dear Mary, a moment. One moment? More this way. Speak softly to me.\nYou are true, I know. You’d not deceive me now; would you?’\n\n‘No, Bertha, indeed!’\n\n‘No, I am sure you would not. You have too much pity for me. Mary, look\nacross the room to where we were just now—to where my father is—my\nfather, so compassionate and loving to me—and tell me what you see.’\n\n‘I see,’ said Dot, who understood her well, ‘an old man sitting in a\nchair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back, with his face resting on his\nhand. As if his child should comfort him, Bertha.’\n\n‘Yes, yes. She will. Go on.’\n\n‘He is an old man, worn with care and work. He is a spare, dejected,\nthoughtful, grey-haired man. I see him now, despondent and bowed down,\nand striving against nothing. But, Bertha, I have seen him many times\nbefore, and striving hard in many ways for one great sacred object. And\nI honour his grey head, and bless him!’\n\nThe Blind Girl broke away from her; and throwing herself upon her knees\nbefore him, took the grey head to her breast.\n\n‘It is my sight restored. It is my sight!’ she cried. ‘I have been\nblind, and now my eyes are open. I never knew him! To think I might\nhave died, and never truly seen the father who has been so loving to me!’\n\nThere were no words for Caleb’s emotion.\n\n‘There is not a gallant figure on this earth,’ exclaimed the Blind Girl,\nholding him in her embrace, ‘that I would love so dearly, and would\ncherish so devotedly, as this! The greyer, and more worn, the dearer,\nfather! Never let them say I am blind again. There’s not a furrow in\nhis face, there’s not a hair upon his head, that shall be forgotten in my\nprayers and thanks to Heaven!’\n\nCaleb managed to articulate ‘My Bertha!’\n\n‘And in my blindness, I believed him,’ said the girl, caressing him with\ntears of exquisite affection, ‘to be so different! And having him beside\nme, day by day, so mindful of me—always, never dreamed of this!’\n\n‘The fresh smart father in the blue coat, Bertha,’ said poor Caleb.\n‘He’s gone!’\n\n‘Nothing is gone,’ she answered. ‘Dearest father, no! Everything is\nhere—in you. The father that I loved so well; the father that I never\nloved enough, and never knew; the benefactor whom I first began to\nreverence and love, because he had such sympathy for me; All are here in\nyou. Nothing is dead to me. The soul of all that was most dear to me is\nhere—here, with the worn face, and the grey head. And I am NOT blind,\nfather, any longer!’\n\nDot’s whole attention had been concentrated, during this discourse, upon\nthe father and daughter; but looking, now, towards the little Haymaker in\nthe Moorish meadow, she saw that the clock was within a few minutes of\nstriking, and fell, immediately, into a nervous and excited state.\n\n‘Father,’ said Bertha, hesitating. ‘Mary.’\n\n‘Yes, my dear,’ returned Caleb. ‘Here she is.’\n\n‘There is no change in _her_. You never told me anything of _her_ that\nwas not true?’\n\n‘I should have done it, my dear, I am afraid,’ returned Caleb, ‘if I\ncould have made her better than she was. But I must have changed her for\nthe worse, if I had changed her at all. Nothing could improve her,\nBertha.’\n\nConfident as the Blind Girl had been when she asked the question, her\ndelight and pride in the reply and her renewed embrace of Dot, were\ncharming to behold.\n\n‘More changes than you think for, may happen though, my dear,’ said Dot.\n‘Changes for the better, I mean; changes for great joy to some of us.\nYou mustn’t let them startle you too much, if any such should ever\nhappen, and affect you? Are those wheels upon the road? You’ve a quick\near, Bertha. Are they wheels?’\n\n‘Yes. Coming very fast.’\n\n‘I—I—I know you have a quick ear,’ said Dot, placing her hand upon her\nheart, and evidently talking on, as fast as she could to hide its\npalpitating state, ‘because I have noticed it often, and because you were\nso quick to find out that strange step last night. Though why you should\nhave said, as I very well recollect you did say, Bertha, “Whose step is\nthat!” and why you should have taken any greater observation of it than\nof any other step, I don’t know. Though as I said just now, there are\ngreat changes in the world: great changes: and we can’t do better than\nprepare ourselves to be surprised at hardly anything.’\n\nCaleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that she spoke to him, no less\nthan to his daughter. He saw her, with astonishment, so fluttered and\ndistressed that she could scarcely breathe; and holding to a chair, to\nsave herself from falling.\n\n‘They are wheels indeed!’ she panted. ‘Coming nearer! Nearer! Very\nclose! And now you hear them stopping at the garden-gate! And now you\nhear a step outside the door—the same step, Bertha, is it not!—and now!’—\n\nShe uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and running up to Caleb\nput her hands upon his eyes, as a young man rushed into the room, and\nflinging away his hat into the air, came sweeping down upon them.\n\n‘Is it over?’ cried Dot.\n\n‘Yes!’\n\n‘Happily over?’\n\n‘Yes!’\n\n‘Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb? Did you ever hear the like of\nit before?’ cried Dot.\n\n‘If my boy in the Golden South Americas was alive’—said Caleb, trembling.\n\n‘He is alive!’ shrieked Dot, removing her hands from his eyes, and\nclapping them in ecstasy; ‘look at him! See where he stands before you,\nhealthy and strong! Your own dear son! Your own dear living, loving\nbrother, Bertha!’\n\nAll honour to the little creature for her transports! All honour to her\ntears and laughter, when the three were locked in one another’s arms!\nAll honour to the heartiness with which she met the sunburnt\nsailor-fellow, with his dark streaming hair, half-way, and never turned\nher rosy little mouth aside, but suffered him to kiss it, freely, and to\npress her to his bounding heart!\n\nAnd honour to the Cuckoo too—why not!—for bursting out of the trap-door\nin the Moorish Palace like a house-breaker, and hiccoughing twelve times\non the assembled company, as if he had got drunk for joy!\n\nThe Carrier, entering, started back. And well he might, to find himself\nin such good company.\n\n‘Look, John!’ said Caleb, exultingly, ‘look here! My own boy from the\nGolden South Americas! My own son! Him that you fitted out, and sent\naway yourself! Him that you were always such a friend to!’\n\nThe Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but, recoiling, as some\nfeature in his face awakened a remembrance of the Deaf Man in the Cart,\nsaid:\n\n‘Edward! Was it you?’\n\n‘Now tell him all!’ cried Dot. ‘Tell him all, Edward; and don’t spare\nme, for nothing shall make me spare myself in his eyes, ever again.’\n\n‘I was the man,’ said Edward.\n\n‘And could you steal, disguised, into the house of your old friend?’\nrejoined the Carrier. ‘There was a frank boy once—how many years is it,\nCaleb, since we heard that he was dead, and had it proved, we\nthought?—who never would have done that.’\n\n‘There was a generous friend of mine, once; more a father to me than a\nfriend;’ said Edward, ‘who never would have judged me, or any other man,\nunheard. You were he. So I am certain you will hear me now.’\n\nThe Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept far away from\nhim, replied, ‘Well! that’s but fair. I will.’\n\n‘You must know that when I left here, a boy,’ said Edward, ‘I was in\nlove, and my love was returned. She was a very young girl, who perhaps\n(you may tell me) didn’t know her own mind. But I knew mine, and I had a\npassion for her.’\n\n‘You had!’ exclaimed the Carrier. ‘You!’\n\n‘Indeed I had,’ returned the other. ‘And she returned it. I have ever\nsince believed she did, and now I am sure she did.’\n\n‘Heaven help me!’ said the Carrier. ‘This is worse than all.’\n\n‘Constant to her,’ said Edward, ‘and returning, full of hope, after many\nhardships and perils, to redeem my part of our old contract, I heard,\ntwenty miles away, that she was false to me; that she had forgotten me;\nand had bestowed herself upon another and a richer man. I had no mind to\nreproach her; but I wished to see her, and to prove beyond dispute that\nthis was true. I hoped she might have been forced into it, against her\nown desire and recollection. It would be small comfort, but it would be\nsome, I thought, and on I came. That I might have the truth, the real\ntruth; observing freely for myself, and judging for myself, without\nobstruction on the one hand, or presenting my own influence (if I had\nany) before her, on the other; I dressed myself unlike myself—you know\nhow; and waited on the road—you know where. You had no suspicion of me;\nneither had—had she,’ pointing to Dot, ‘until I whispered in her ear at\nthat fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me.’\n\n‘But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had come back,’ sobbed Dot,\nnow speaking for herself, as she had burned to do, all through this\nnarrative; ‘and when she knew his purpose, she advised him by all means\nto keep his secret close; for his old friend John Peerybingle was much\ntoo open in his nature, and too clumsy in all artifice—being a clumsy man\nin general,’ said Dot, half laughing and half crying—‘to keep it for him.\nAnd when she—that’s me, John,’ sobbed the little woman—‘told him all, and\nhow his sweetheart had believed him to be dead; and how she had at last\nbeen over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage which the silly, dear\nold thing called advantageous; and when she—that’s me again, John—told\nhim they were not yet married (though close upon it), and that it would\nbe nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for there was no love on her\nside; and when he went nearly mad with joy to hear it; then she—that’s me\nagain—said she would go between them, as she had often done before in old\ntimes, John, and would sound his sweetheart and be sure that what she—me\nagain, John—said and thought was right. And it was right, John! And\nthey were brought together, John! And they were married, John, an hour\nago! And here’s the Bride! And Gruff and Tackleton may die a bachelor!\nAnd I’m a happy little woman, May, God bless you!’\n\nShe was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything to the purpose;\nand never so completely irresistible as in her present transports. There\nnever were congratulations so endearing and delicious, as those she\nlavished on herself and on the Bride.\n\nAmid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest Carrier had stood,\nconfounded. Flying, now, towards her, Dot stretched out her hand to stop\nhim, and retreated as before.\n\n‘No, John, no! Hear all! Don’t love me any more, John, till you’ve\nheard every word I have to say. It was wrong to have a secret from you,\nJohn. I’m very sorry. I didn’t think it any harm, till I came and sat\ndown by you on the little stool last night. But when I knew by what was\nwritten in your face, that you had seen me walking in the gallery with\nEdward, and when I knew what you thought, I felt how giddy and how wrong\nit was. But oh, dear John, how could you, could you, think so!’\n\nLittle woman, how she sobbed again! John Peerybingle would have caught\nher in his arms. But no; she wouldn’t let him.\n\n‘Don’t love me yet, please, John! Not for a long time yet! When I was\nsad about this intended marriage, dear, it was because I remembered May\nand Edward such young lovers; and knew that her heart was far away from\nTackleton. You believe that, now. Don’t you, John?’\n\nJohn was going to make another rush at this appeal; but she stopped him\nagain.\n\n‘No; keep there, please, John! When I laugh at you, as I sometimes do,\nJohn, and call you clumsy and a dear old goose, and names of that sort,\nit’s because I love you, John, so well, and take such pleasure in your\nways, and wouldn’t see you altered in the least respect to have you made\na King to-morrow.’\n\n‘Hooroar!’ said Caleb with unusual vigour. ‘My opinion!’\n\n‘And when I speak of people being middle-aged, and steady, John, and\npretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot sort of way,\nit’s only because I’m such a silly little thing, John, that I like,\nsometimes, to act a kind of Play with Baby, and all that: and make\nbelieve.’\n\nShe saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. But she was very\nnearly too late.\n\n‘No, don’t love me for another minute or two, if you please, John! What\nI want most to tell you, I have kept to the last. My dear, good,\ngenerous John, when we were talking the other night about the Cricket, I\nhad it on my lips to say, that at first I did not love you quite so\ndearly as I do now; that when I first came home here, I was half afraid I\nmightn’t learn to love you every bit as well as I hoped and prayed I\nmight—being so very young, John! But, dear John, every day and hour I\nloved you more and more. And if I could have loved you better than I do,\nthe noble words I heard you say this morning, would have made me. But I\ncan’t. All the affection that I had (it was a great deal, John) I gave\nyou, as you well deserve, long, long ago, and I have no more left to\ngive. Now, my dear husband, take me to your heart again! That’s my\nhome, John; and never, never think of sending me to any other!’\n\nYou never will derive so much delight from seeing a glorious little woman\nin the arms of a third party, as you would have felt if you had seen Dot\nrun into the Carrier’s embrace. It was the most complete, unmitigated,\nsoul-fraught little piece of earnestness that ever you beheld in all your\ndays.\n\nYou may be sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect rapture; and you may\nbe sure Dot was likewise; and you may be sure they all were, inclusive of\nMiss Slowboy, who wept copiously for joy, and wishing to include her\nyoung charge in the general interchange of congratulations, handed round\nthe Baby to everybody in succession, as if it were something to drink.\n\nBut, now, the sound of wheels was heard again outside the door; and\nsomebody exclaimed that Gruff and Tackleton was coming back. Speedily\nthat worthy gentleman appeared, looking warm and flustered.\n\n‘Why, what the Devil’s this, John Peerybingle!’ said Tackleton. ‘There’s\nsome mistake. I appointed Mrs. Tackleton to meet me at the church, and\nI’ll swear I passed her on the road, on her way here. Oh! here she is!\nI beg your pardon, sir; I haven’t the pleasure of knowing you; but if you\ncan do me the favour to spare this young lady, she has rather a\nparticular engagement this morning.’\n\n‘But I can’t spare her,’ returned Edward. ‘I couldn’t think of it.’\n\n‘What do you mean, you vagabond?’ said Tackleton.\n\n‘I mean, that as I can make allowance for your being vexed,’ returned the\nother, with a smile, ‘I am as deaf to harsh discourse this morning, as I\nwas to all discourse last night.’\n\nThe look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and the start he gave!\n\n‘I am sorry, sir,’ said Edward, holding out May’s left hand, and\nespecially the third finger; ‘that the young lady can’t accompany you to\nchurch; but as she has been there once, this morning, perhaps you’ll\nexcuse her.’\n\nTackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took a little piece of\nsilver-paper, apparently containing a ring, from his waistcoat-pocket.\n\n‘Miss Slowboy,’ said Tackleton. ‘Will you have the kindness to throw\nthat in the fire? Thank’ee.’\n\n‘It was a previous engagement, quite an old engagement, that prevented my\nwife from keeping her appointment with you, I assure you,’ said Edward.\n\n‘Mr. Tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge that I revealed it\nto him faithfully; and that I told him, many times, I never could forget\nit,’ said May, blushing.\n\n‘Oh certainly!’ said Tackleton. ‘Oh to be sure. Oh it’s all right.\nIt’s quite correct. Mrs. Edward Plummer, I infer?’\n\n‘That’s the name,’ returned the bridegroom.\n\n‘Ah, I shouldn’t have known you, sir,’ said Tackleton, scrutinising his\nface narrowly, and making a low bow. ‘I give you joy, sir!’\n\n‘Thank’ee.’\n\n‘Mrs. Peerybingle,’ said Tackleton, turning suddenly to where she stood\nwith her husband; ‘I am sorry. You haven’t done me a very great\nkindness, but, upon my life I am sorry. You are better than I thought\nyou. John Peerybingle, I am sorry. You understand me; that’s enough.\nIt’s quite correct, ladies and gentlemen all, and perfectly satisfactory.\nGood morning!’\n\nWith these words he carried it off, and carried himself off too: merely\nstopping at the door, to take the flowers and favours from his horse’s\nhead, and to kick that animal once, in the ribs, as a means of informing\nhim that there was a screw loose in his arrangements.\n\nOf course it became a serious duty now, to make such a day of it, as\nshould mark these events for a high Feast and Festival in the Peerybingle\nCalendar for evermore. Accordingly, Dot went to work to produce such an\nentertainment, as should reflect undying honour on the house and on every\none concerned; and in a very short space of time, she was up to her\ndimpled elbows in flour, and whitening the Carrier’s coat, every time he\ncame near her, by stopping him to give him a kiss. That good fellow\nwashed the greens, and peeled the turnips, and broke the plates, and\nupset iron pots full of cold water on the fire, and made himself useful\nin all sorts of ways: while a couple of professional assistants, hastily\ncalled in from somewhere in the neighbourhood, as on a point of life or\ndeath, ran against each other in all the doorways and round all the\ncorners, and everybody tumbled over Tilly Slowboy and the Baby,\neverywhere. Tilly never came out in such force before. Her ubiquity was\nthe theme of general admiration. She was a stumbling-block in the\npassage at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a man-trap in the kitchen at\nhalf-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the garret at five-and-twenty\nminutes to three. The Baby’s head was, as it were, a test and touchstone\nfor every description of matter,—animal, vegetable, and mineral. Nothing\nwas in use that day that didn’t come, at some time or other, into close\nacquaintance with it.\n\nThen, there was a great Expedition set on foot to go and find out Mrs.\nFielding; and to be dismally penitent to that excellent gentlewoman; and\nto bring her back, by force, if needful, to be happy and forgiving. And\nwhen the Expedition first discovered her, she would listen to no terms at\nall, but said, an unspeakable number of times, that ever she should have\nlived to see the day! and couldn’t be got to say anything else, except,\n‘Now carry me to the grave:’ which seemed absurd, on account of her not\nbeing dead, or anything at all like it. After a time, she lapsed into a\nstate of dreadful calmness, and observed, that when that unfortunate\ntrain of circumstances had occurred in the Indigo Trade, she had foreseen\nthat she would be exposed, during her whole life, to every species of\ninsult and contumely; and that she was glad to find it was the case; and\nbegged they wouldn’t trouble themselves about her,—for what was she? oh,\ndear! a nobody!—but would forget that such a being lived, and would take\ntheir course in life without her. From this bitterly sarcastic mood, she\npassed into an angry one, in which she gave vent to the remarkable\nexpression that the worm would turn if trodden on; and, after that, she\nyielded to a soft regret, and said, if they had only given her their\nconfidence, what might she not have had it in her power to suggest!\nTaking advantage of this crisis in her feelings, the Expedition embraced\nher; and she very soon had her gloves on, and was on her way to John\nPeerybingle’s in a state of unimpeachable gentility; with a paper parcel\nat her side containing a cap of state, almost as tall, and quite as\nstiff, as a mitre.\n\nThen, there were Dot’s father and mother to come, in another little\nchaise; and they were behind their time; and fears were entertained; and\nthere was much looking out for them down the road; and Mrs. Fielding\nalways would look in the wrong and morally impossible direction; and\nbeing apprised thereof, hoped she might take the liberty of looking where\nshe pleased. At last they came: a chubby little couple, jogging along in\na snug and comfortable little way that quite belonged to the Dot family;\nand Dot and her mother, side by side, were wonderful to see. They were\nso like each other.\n\nThen, Dot’s mother had to renew her acquaintance with May’s mother; and\nMay’s mother always stood on her gentility; and Dot’s mother never stood\non anything but her active little feet. And old Dot—so to call Dot’s\nfather, I forgot it wasn’t his right name, but never mind—took liberties,\nand shook hands at first sight, and seemed to think a cap but so much\nstarch and muslin, and didn’t defer himself at all to the Indigo Trade,\nbut said there was no help for it now; and, in Mrs. Fielding’s summing\nup, was a good-natured kind of man—but coarse, my dear.\n\nI wouldn’t have missed Dot, doing the honours in her wedding-gown, my\nbenison on her bright face! for any money. No! nor the good Carrier, so\njovial and so ruddy, at the bottom of the table. Nor the brown, fresh\nsailor-fellow, and his handsome wife. Nor any one among them. To have\nmissed the dinner would have been to miss as jolly and as stout a meal as\nman need eat; and to have missed the overflowing cups in which they drank\nThe Wedding-Day, would have been the greatest miss of all.\n\nAfter dinner, Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling Bowl. As I’m a\nliving man, hoping to keep so, for a year or two, he sang it through.\n\nAnd, by-the-by, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, just as he\nfinished the last verse.\n\nThere was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering in, without saying\nwith your leave, or by your leave, with something heavy on his head.\nSetting this down in the middle of the table, symmetrically in the centre\nof the nuts and apples, he said:\n\n‘Mr. Tackleton’s compliments, and as he hasn’t got no use for the cake\nhimself, p’raps you’ll eat it.’\n\nAnd with those words, he walked off.\n\nThere was some surprise among the company, as you may imagine. Mrs.\nFielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, suggested that the cake\nwas poisoned, and related a narrative of a cake, which, within her\nknowledge, had turned a seminary for young ladies, blue. But she was\noverruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut by May, with much ceremony\nand rejoicing.\n\nI don’t think any one had tasted it, when there came another tap at the\ndoor, and the same man appeared again, having under his arm a vast\nbrown-paper parcel.\n\n‘Mr. Tackleton’s compliments, and he’s sent a few toys for the Babby.\nThey ain’t ugly.’\n\nAfter the delivery of which expressions, he retired again.\n\nThe whole party would have experienced great difficulty in finding words\nfor their astonishment, even if they had had ample time to seek them.\nBut they had none at all; for the messenger had scarcely shut the door\nbehind him, when there came another tap, and Tackleton himself walked in.\n\n‘Mrs. Peerybingle!’ said the Toy-merchant, hat in hand. ‘I’m sorry. I’m\nmore sorry than I was this morning. I have had time to think of it.\nJohn Peerybingle! I’m sour by disposition; but I can’t help being\nsweetened, more or less, by coming face to face with such a man as you.\nCaleb! This unconscious little nurse gave me a broken hint last night,\nof which I have found the thread. I blush to think how easily I might\nhave bound you and your daughter to me, and what a miserable idiot I was,\nwhen I took her for one! Friends, one and all, my house is very lonely\nto-night. I have not so much as a Cricket on my Hearth. I have scared\nthem all away. Be gracious to me; let me join this happy party!’\n\nHe was at home in five minutes. You never saw such a fellow. What _had_\nhe been doing with himself all his life, never to have known, before, his\ngreat capacity of being jovial! Or what had the Fairies been doing with\nhim, to have effected such a change!\n\n‘John! you won’t send me home this evening; will you?’ whispered Dot.\n\nHe had been very near it though!\n\nThere wanted but one living creature to make the party complete; and, in\nthe twinkling of an eye, there he was, very thirsty with hard running,\nand engaged in hopeless endeavours to squeeze his head into a narrow\npitcher. He had gone with the cart to its journey’s end, very much\ndisgusted with the absence of his master, and stupendously rebellious to\nthe Deputy. After lingering about the stable for some little time,\nvainly attempting to incite the old horse to the mutinous act of\nreturning on his own account, he had walked into the tap-room and laid\nhimself down before the fire. But suddenly yielding to the conviction\nthat the Deputy was a humbug, and must be abandoned, he had got up again,\nturned tail, and come home.\n\nThere was a dance in the evening. With which general mention of that\nrecreation, I should have left it alone, if I had not some reason to\nsuppose that it was quite an original dance, and one of a most uncommon\nfigure. It was formed in an odd way; in this way.\n\nEdward, that sailor-fellow—a good free dashing sort of a fellow he\nwas—had been telling them various marvels concerning parrots, and mines,\nand Mexicans, and gold dust, when all at once he took it in his head to\njump up from his seat and propose a dance; for Bertha’s harp was there,\nand she had such a hand upon it as you seldom hear. Dot (sly little\npiece of affectation when she chose) said her dancing days were over; _I_\nthink because the Carrier was smoking his pipe, and she liked sitting by\nhim, best. Mrs. Fielding had no choice, of course, but to say _her_\ndancing days were over, after that; and everybody said the same, except\nMay; May was ready.\n\nSo, May and Edward got up, amid great applause, to dance alone; and\nBertha plays her liveliest tune.\n\nWell! if you’ll believe me, they have not been dancing five minutes, when\nsuddenly the Carrier flings his pipe away, takes Dot round the waist,\ndashes out into the room, and starts off with her, toe and heel, quite\nwonderfully. Tackleton no sooner sees this, than he skims across to Mrs.\nFielding, takes her round the waist, and follows suit. Old Dot no sooner\nsees this, than up he is, all alive, whisks off Mrs. Dot in the middle of\nthe dance, and is the foremost there. Caleb no sooner sees this, than he\nclutches Tilly Slowboy by both hands and goes off at score; Miss Slowboy,\nfirm in the belief that diving hotly in among the other couples, and\neffecting any number of concussions with them, is your only principle of\nfooting it.\n\nHark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp; and\nhow the kettle hums!\n\n * * * * *\n\nBut what is this! Even as I listen to them, blithely, and turn towards\nDot, for one last glimpse of a little figure very pleasant to me, she and\nthe rest have vanished into air, and I am left alone. A Cricket sings\nupon the Hearth; a broken child’s-toy lies upon the ground; and nothing\nelse remains."