CHAPTER II - Chirp The Second

CALEB PLUMMER and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves,

as the Story-books say - and my blessing, with yours to back it I

hope, on the Story-books, for saying anything in this workaday

world! - Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by

themselves, in a little cracked nutshell of a wooden house, which

was, in truth, no better than a pimple on the prominent red-brick

nose of Gruff and Tackleton. The premises of Gruff and Tackleton

were the great feature of the street; but you might have knocked

down Caleb Plummer's dwelling with a hammer or two, and carried off

the pieces in a cart.

If any one had done the dwelling-house of Caleb Plummer the honour

to miss it after such an inroad, it would have been, no doubt, to

commend its demolition as a vast improvement. It stuck to the

premises of Gruff and Tackleton, like a barnacle to a ship's keel,

or a snail to a door, or a little bunch of toadstools to the stem

of a tree.

But, it was the germ from which the full-grown trunk of Gruff and

Tackleton had sprung; and, under its crazy roof, the Gruff before

last, had, in a small way, made toys for a generation of old boys

and girls, who had played with them, and found them out, and broken

them, and gone to sleep.

I have said that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter lived here. I

should have said that Caleb lived here, and his poor Blind Daughter

somewhere else - in an enchanted home of Caleb's furnishing, where

scarcity and shabbiness were not, and trouble never entered. Caleb

was no sorcerer, but in the only magic art that still remains to

us, the magic of devoted, deathless love, Nature had been the

mistress of his study; and from her teaching, all the wonder came.

The Blind Girl never knew that ceilings were discoloured, walls

blotched and bare of plaster here and there, high crevices

unstopped and widening every day, beams mouldering and tending

downward. The Blind Girl never knew that iron was rusting, wood

rotting, paper peeling off; the size, and shape, and true

proportion of the dwelling, withering away. The Blind Girl never

knew that ugly shapes of delf and earthenware were on the board;

that sorrow and faintheartedness were in the house; that Caleb's

scanty hairs were turning greyer and more grey, before her

sightless face. The Blind Girl never knew they had a master, cold,

exacting, and uninterested - never knew that Tackleton was

Tackleton in short; but lived in the belief of an eccentric

humourist who loved to have his jest with them, and who, while he

was the Guardian Angel of their lives, disdained to hear one word

of thankfulness.

And all was Caleb's doing; all the doing of her simple father! But

he too had a Cricket on his Hearth; and listening sadly to its

music when the motherless Blind Child was very young, that Spirit

had inspired him with the thought that even her great deprivation

might be almost changed into a blessing, and the girl made happy by

these little means. For all the Cricket tribe are potent Spirits,

even though the people who hold converse with them do not know it

(which is frequently the case); and there are not in the unseen

world, voices more gentle and more true, that may be so implicitly

relied on, or that are so certain to give none but tenderest

counsel, as the Voices in which the Spirits of the Fireside and the

Hearth address themselves to human kind.

Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual

working-room, which served them for their ordinary living-room as

well; and a strange place it was. There were houses in it,

finished and unfinished, for Dolls of all stations in life.

Suburban tenements for Dolls of moderate means; kitchens and single

apartments for Dolls of the lower classes; capital town residences

for Dolls of high estate. Some of these establishments were

already furnished according to estimate, with a view to the

convenience of Dolls of limited income; others could be fitted on

the most expensive scale, at a moment's notice, from whole shelves

of chairs and tables, sofas, bedsteads, and upholstery. The

nobility and gentry, and public in general, for whose accommodation

these tenements were designed, lay, here and there, in baskets,

staring straight up at the ceiling; but, in denoting their degrees

in society, and confining them to their respective stations (which

experience shows to be lamentably difficult in real life), the

makers of these Dolls had far improved on Nature, who is often

froward and perverse; for, they, not resting on such arbitrary

marks as satin, cotton-print, and bits of rag, had superadded

striking personal differences which allowed of no mistake. Thus,

the Doll-lady of distinction had wax limbs of perfect symmetry; but

only she and her compeers. The next grade in the social scale

being made of leather, and the next of coarse linen stuff. As to

the common-people, they had just so many matches out of tinder-

boxes, for their arms and legs, and there they were - established

in their sphere at once, beyond the possibility of getting out of

it.

There were various other samples of his handicraft, besides Dolls,

in Caleb Plummer's room. There were Noah's Arks, in which the

Birds and Beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, I assure you; though

they could be crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled and

shaken into the smallest compass. By a bold poetical licence, most

of these Noah's Arks had knockers on the doors; inconsistent

appendages, perhaps, as suggestive of morning callers and a

Postman, yet a pleasant finish to the outside of the building.

There were scores of melancholy little carts, which, when the

wheels went round, performed most doleful music. Many small

fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture; no end of cannon,

shields, swords, spears, and guns. There were little tumblers in

red breeches, incessantly swarming up high obstacles of red-tape,

and coming down, head first, on the other side; and there were

innumerable old gentlemen of respectable, not to say venerable,

appearance, insanely flying over horizontal pegs, inserted, for the

purpose, in their own street doors. There were beasts of all

sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed, from the spotted

barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to the

thoroughbred rocker on his highest mettle. As it would have been

hard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were

ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities on the turning of a

handle, so it would have been no easy task to mention any human

folly, vice, or weakness, that had not its type, immediate or

remote, in Caleb Plummer's room. And not in an exaggerated form,

for very little handles will move men and women to as strange

performances, as any Toy was ever made to undertake.

In the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his daughter sat at

work. The Blind Girl busy as a Doll's dressmaker; Caleb painting

and glazing the four-pair front of a desirable family mansion.

The care imprinted in the lines of Caleb's face, and his absorbed

and dreamy manner, which would have sat well on some alchemist or

abstruse student, were at first sight an odd contrast to his

occupation, and the trivialities about him. But, trivial things,

invented and pursued for bread, become very serious matters of

fact; and, apart from this consideration, I am not at all prepared

to say, myself, that if Caleb had been a Lord Chamberlain, or a

Member of Parliament, or a lawyer, or even a great speculator, he

would have dealt in toys one whit less whimsical, while I have a

very great doubt whether they would have been as harmless.

'So you were out in the rain last night, father, in your beautiful

new great-coat,' said Caleb's daughter.

'In my beautiful new great-coat,' answered Caleb, glancing towards

a clothes-line in the room, on which the sack-cloth garment

previously described, was carefully hung up to dry.

'How glad I am you bought it, father!'

'And of such a tailor, too,' said Caleb. 'Quite a fashionable

tailor. It's too good for me.'

The Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed with delight.

'Too good, father! What can be too good for you?'

'I'm half-ashamed to wear it though,' said Caleb, watching the

effect of what he said, upon her brightening face; 'upon my word!

When I hear the boys and people say behind me, "Hal-loa! Here's a

swell!" I don't know which way to look. And when the beggar

wouldn't go away last night; and when I said I was a very common

man, said "No, your Honour! Bless your Honour, don't say that!" I

was quite ashamed. I really felt as if I hadn't a right to wear

it.'

Happy Blind Girl! How merry she was, in her exultation!

'I see you, father,' she said, clasping her hands, 'as plainly, as

if I had the eyes I never want when you are with me. A blue coat -

'

'Bright blue,' said Caleb.

'Yes, yes! Bright blue!' exclaimed the girl, turning up her

radiant face; 'the colour I can just remember in the blessed sky!

You told me it was blue before! A bright blue coat - '

'Made loose to the figure,' suggested Caleb.

'Made loose to the figure!' cried the Blind Girl, laughing

heartily; 'and in it, you, dear father, with your merry eye, your

smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair - looking so young

and handsome!'

'Halloa! Halloa!' said Caleb. 'I shall be vain, presently!'

'I think you are, already,' cried the Blind Girl, pointing at him,

in her glee. 'I know you, father! Ha, ha, ha! I've found you

out, you see!'

How different the picture in her mind, from Caleb, as he sat

observing her! She had spoken of his free step. She was right in

that. For years and years, he had never once crossed that

threshold at his own slow pace, but with a footfall counterfeited

for her ear; and never had he, when his heart was heaviest,

forgotten the light tread that was to render hers so cheerful and

courageous!

Heaven knows! But I think Caleb's vague bewilderment of manner may

have half originated in his having confused himself about himself

and everything around him, for the love of his Blind Daughter. How

could the little man be otherwise than bewildered, after labouring

for so many years to destroy his own identity, and that of all the

objects that had any bearing on it!

'There we are,' said Caleb, falling back a pace or two to form the

better judgment of his work; 'as near the real thing as

sixpenn'orth of halfpence is to sixpence. What a pity that the

whole front of the house opens at once! If there was only a

staircase in it, now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in at!

But that's the worst of my calling, I'm always deluding myself, and

swindling myself.'

'You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired, father?'

'Tired!' echoed Caleb, with a great burst of animation, 'what

should tire me, Bertha? I was never tired. What does it mean?'

To give the greater force to his words, he checked himself in an

involuntary imitation of two half-length stretching and yawning

figures on the mantel-shelf, who were represented as in one eternal

state of weariness from the waist upwards; and hummed a fragment of

a song. It was a Bacchanalian song, something about a Sparkling

Bowl. He sang it with an assumption of a Devil-may-care voice,

that made his face a thousand times more meagre and more thoughtful

than ever.

'What! You're singing, are you?' said Tackleton, putting his head

in at the door. 'Go it! I can't sing.'

Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn't what is generally

termed a singing face, by any means.

'I can't afford to sing,' said Tackleton. 'I'm glad YOU CAN. I

hope you can afford to work too. Hardly time for both, I should

think?'

'If you could only see him, Bertha, how he's winking at me!'

whispered Caleb. 'Such a man to joke! you'd think, if you didn't

know him, he was in earnest - wouldn't you now?'

The Blind Girl smiled and nodded.

'The bird that can sing and won't sing, must be made to sing, they

say,' grumbled Tackleton. 'What about the owl that can't sing, and

oughtn't to sing, and will sing; is there anything that HE should

be made to do?'

'The extent to which he's winking at this moment!' whispered Caleb

to his daughter. 'O, my gracious!'

'Always merry and light-hearted with us!' cried the smiling Bertha.

'O, you're there, are you?' answered Tackleton. 'Poor Idiot!'

He really did believe she was an Idiot; and he founded the belief,

I can't say whether consciously or not, upon her being fond of him.

'Well! and being there, - how are you?' said Tackleton, in his

grudging way.

'Oh! well; quite well. And as happy as even you can wish me to be.

As happy as you would make the whole world, if you could!'

'Poor Idiot!' muttered Tackleton. 'No gleam of reason. Not a

gleam!'

The Blind Girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for a moment in

her own two hands; and laid her cheek against it tenderly, before

releasing it. There was such unspeakable affection and such

fervent gratitude in the act, that Tackleton himself was moved to

say, in a milder growl than usual:

'What's the matter now?'

'I stood it close beside my pillow when I went to sleep last night,

and remembered it in my dreams. And when the day broke, and the

glorious red sun - the RED sun, father?'

'Red in the mornings and the evenings, Bertha,' said poor Caleb,

with a woeful glance at his employer.

'When it rose, and the bright light I almost fear to strike myself

against in walking, came into the room, I turned the little tree

towards it, and blessed Heaven for making things so precious, and

blessed you for sending them to cheer me!'

'Bedlam broke loose!' said Tackleton under his breath. 'We shall

arrive at the strait-waistcoat and mufflers soon. We're getting

on!'

Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared vacantly

before him while his daughter spoke, as if he really were uncertain

(I believe he was) whether Tackleton had done anything to deserve

her thanks, or not. If he could have been a perfectly free agent,

at that moment, required, on pain of death, to kick the Toy-

merchant, or fall at his feet, according to his merits, I believe

it would have been an even chance which course he would have taken.

Yet, Caleb knew that with his own hands he had brought the little

rose-tree home for her, so carefully, and that with his own lips he

had forged the innocent deception which should help to keep her

from suspecting how much, how very much, he every day, denied

himself, that she might be the happier.

'Bertha!' said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a little

cordiality. 'Come here.'

'Oh! I can come straight to you! You needn't guide me!' she

rejoined.

'Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha?'

'If you will!' she answered, eagerly.

How bright the darkened face! How adorned with light, the

listening head!

'This is the day on which little what's-her-name, the spoilt child,

Peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit to you - makes her

fantastic Pic-Nic here; an't it?' said Tackleton, with a strong

expression of distaste for the whole concern.

'Yes,' replied Bertha. 'This is the day.'

'I thought so,' said Tackleton. 'I should like to join the party.'

'Do you hear that, father!' cried the Blind Girl in an ecstasy.

'Yes, yes, I hear it,' murmured Caleb, with the fixed look of a

sleep-walker; 'but I don't believe it. It's one of my lies, I've

no doubt.'

'You see I - I want to bring the Peerybingles a little more into

company with May Fielding,' said Tackleton. 'I am going to be

married to May.'

'Married!' cried the Blind Girl, starting from him.

'She's such a con-founded Idiot,' muttered Tackleton, 'that I was

afraid she'd never comprehend me. Ah, Bertha! Married! Church,

parson, clerk, beadle, glass-coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake,

favours, marrow-bones, cleavers, and all the rest of the

tomfoolery. A wedding, you know; a wedding. Don't you know what a

wedding is?'

'I know,' replied the Blind Girl, in a gentle tone. 'I

understand!'

'Do you?' muttered Tackleton. 'It's more than I expected. Well!

On that account I want to join the party, and to bring May and her

mother. I'll send in a little something or other, before the

afternoon. A cold leg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of

that sort. You'll expect me?'

'Yes,' she answered.

She had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, with her

hands crossed, musing.

'I don't think you will,' muttered Tackleton, looking at her; 'for

you seem to have forgotten all about it, already. Caleb!'

'I may venture to say I'm here, I suppose,' thought Caleb. 'Sir!'

'Take care she don't forget what I've been saying to her.'

'SHE never forgets,' returned Caleb. 'It's one of the few things

she an't clever in.'

'Every man thinks his own geese swans,' observed the Toy-merchant,

with a shrug. 'Poor devil!'

Having delivered himself of which remark, with infinite contempt,

old Gruff and Tackleton withdrew.

Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation. The

gaiety had vanished from her downcast face, and it was very sad.

Three or four times she shook her head, as if bewailing some

remembrance or some loss; but her sorrowful reflections found no

vent in words.

It was not until Caleb had been occupied, some time, in yoking a

team of horses to a waggon by the summary process of nailing the

harness to the vital parts of their bodies, that she drew near to

his working-stool, and sitting down beside him, said:

'Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes, my patient,

willing eyes.'

'Here they are,' said Caleb. 'Always ready. They are more yours

than mine, Bertha, any hour in the four-and-twenty. What shall

your eyes do for you, dear?'

'Look round the room, father.'

'All right,' said Caleb. 'No sooner said than done, Bertha.'

'Tell me about it.'

'It's much the same as usual,' said Caleb. 'Homely, but very snug.

The gay colours on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and

dishes; the shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the

general cheerfulness and neatness of the building; make it very

pretty.'

Cheerful and neat it was wherever Bertha's hands could busy

themselves. But nowhere else, were cheerfulness and neatness

possible, in the old crazy shed which Caleb's fancy so transformed.

'You have your working dress on, and are not so gallant as when you

wear the handsome coat?' said Bertha, touching him.

'Not quite so gallant,' answered Caleb. 'Pretty brisk though.'

'Father,' said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his side, and

stealing one arm round his neck, 'tell me something about May. She

is very fair?'

'She is indeed,' said Caleb. And she was indeed. It was quite a

rare thing to Caleb, not to have to draw on his invention.

'Her hair is dark,' said Bertha, pensively, 'darker than mine. Her

voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have often loved to hear it.

Her shape - '

'There's not a Doll's in all the room to equal it,' said Caleb.

'And her eyes! - '

He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his neck, and from

the arm that clung about him, came a warning pressure which he

understood too well.

He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then fell back upon

the song about the sparkling bowl; his infallible resource in all

such difficulties.

'Our friend, father, our benefactor. I am never tired, you know,

of hearing about him. - Now, was I ever?' she said, hastily.

'Of course not,' answered Caleb, 'and with reason.'

'Ah! With how much reason!' cried the Blind Girl. With such

fervency, that Caleb, though his motives were so pure, could not

endure to meet her face; but dropped his eyes, as if she could have

read in them his innocent deceit.

'Then, tell me again about him, dear father,' said Bertha. 'Many

times again! His face is benevolent, kind, and tender. Honest and

true, I am sure it is. The manly heart that tries to cloak all

favours with a show of roughness and unwillingness, beats in its

every look and glance.'

'And makes it noble!' added Caleb, in his quiet desperation.

'And makes it noble!' cried the Blind Girl. 'He is older than May,

father.'

'Ye-es,' said Caleb, reluctantly. 'He's a little older than May.

But that don't signify.'

'Oh father, yes! To be his patient companion in infirmity and age;

to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his constant friend in

suffering and sorrow; to know no weariness in working for his sake;

to watch him, tend him, sit beside his bed and talk to him awake,

and pray for him asleep; what privileges these would be! What

opportunities for proving all her truth and devotion to him! Would

she do all this, dear father?

'No doubt of it,' said Caleb.

'I love her, father; I can love her from my soul!' exclaimed the

Blind Girl. And saying so, she laid her poor blind face on Caleb's

shoulder, and so wept and wept, that he was almost sorry to have

brought that tearful happiness upon her.

In the mean time, there had been a pretty sharp commotion at John

Peerybingle's, for little Mrs. Peerybingle naturally couldn't think

of going anywhere without the Baby; and to get the Baby under weigh

took time. Not that there was much of the Baby, speaking of it as

a thing of weight and measure, but there was a vast deal to do

about and about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages. For

instance, when the Baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain

point of dressing, and you might have rationally supposed that

another touch or two would finish him off, and turn him out a tip-

top Baby challenging the world, he was unexpectedly extinguished in

a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to

speak) between two blankets for the best part of an hour. From

this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining very much and

roaring violently, to partake of - well? I would rather say, if

you'll permit me to speak generally - of a slight repast. After

which, he went to sleep again. Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of

this interval, to make herself as smart in a small way as ever you

saw anybody in all your life; and, during the same short truce,

Miss Slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so

surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection with herself,

or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, dog's-eared,

independent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least

regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being all alive again,

was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss

Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body, and a sort of

nankeen raised-pie for its head; and so in course of time they all

three got down to the door, where the old horse had already taken

more than the full value of his day's toll out of the Turnpike

Trust, by tearing up the road with his impatient autographs; and

whence Boxer might be dimly seen in the remote perspective,

standing looking back, and tempting him to come on without orders.

As to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping Mrs.

Peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of John, if you

think THAT was necessary. Before you could have seen him lift her

from the ground, there she was in her place, fresh and rosy,

saying, 'John! How CAN you! Think of Tilly!'

If I might be allowed to mention a young lady's legs, on any terms,

I would observe of Miss Slowboy's that there was a fatality about

them which rendered them singularly liable to be grazed; and that

she never effected the smallest ascent or descent, without

recording the circumstance upon them with a notch, as Robinson

Crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar. But as this might

be considered ungenteel, I'll think of it.

'John? You've got the Basket with the Veal and Ham-Pie and things,

and the bottles of Beer?' said Dot. 'If you haven't, you must turn

round again, this very minute.'

'You're a nice little article,' returned the Carrier, 'to be

talking about turning round, after keeping me a full quarter of an

hour behind my time.'

'I am sorry for it, John,' said Dot in a great bustle, 'but I

really could not think of going to Bertha's - I would not do it,

John, on any account - without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and

the bottles of Beer. Way!'

This monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn't mind it at

all.

'Oh DO way, John!' said Mrs. Peerybingle. 'Please!'

'It'll be time enough to do that,' returned John, 'when I begin to

leave things behind me. The basket's here, safe enough.'

'What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not to have said

so, at once, and save me such a turn! I declared I wouldn't go to

Bertha's without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles

of Beer, for any money. Regularly once a fortnight ever since we

have been married, John, have we made our little Pic-Nic there. If

anything was to go wrong with it, I should almost think we were

never to be lucky again.'

'It was a kind thought in the first instance,' said the Carrier:

'and I honour you for it, little woman.'

'My dear John,' replied Dot, turning very red, 'don't talk about

honouring ME. Good Gracious!'

'By the bye - ' observed the Carrier. 'That old gentleman - '

Again so visibly, and instantly embarrassed!

'He's an odd fish,' said the Carrier, looking straight along the

road before them. 'I can't make him out. I don't believe there's

any harm in him.'

'None at all. I'm - I'm sure there's none at all.'

'Yes,' said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face by the

great earnestness of her manner. 'I am glad you feel so certain of

it, because it's a confirmation to me. It's curious that he should

have taken it into his head to ask leave to go on lodging with us;

an't it? Things come about so strangely.'

'So very strangely,' she rejoined in a low voice, scarcely audible.

'However, he's a good-natured old gentleman,' said John, 'and pays

as a gentleman, and I think his word is to be relied upon, like a

gentleman's. I had quite a long talk with him this morning: he

can hear me better already, he says, as he gets more used to my

voice. He told me a great deal about himself, and I told him a

great deal about myself, and a rare lot of questions he asked me.

I gave him information about my having two beats, you know, in my

business; one day to the right from our house and back again;

another day to the left from our house and back again (for he's a

stranger and don't know the names of places about here); and he

seemed quite pleased. "Why, then I shall be returning home to-

night your way," he says, "when I thought you'd be coming in an

exactly opposite direction. That's capital! I may trouble you for

another lift perhaps, but I'll engage not to fall so sound asleep

again." He WAS sound asleep, sure-ly! - Dot! what are you thinking

of?'

'Thinking of, John? I - I was listening to you.'

'O! That's all right!' said the honest Carrier. 'I was afraid,

from the look of your face, that I had gone rambling on so long, as

to set you thinking about something else. I was very near it, I'll

be bound.'

Dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little time, in

silence. But, it was not easy to remain silent very long in John

Peerybingle's cart, for everybody on the road had something to say.

Though it might only be 'How are you!' and indeed it was very often

nothing else, still, to give that back again in the right spirit of

cordiality, required, not merely a nod and a smile, but as

wholesome an action of the lungs withal, as a long-winded

Parliamentary speech. Sometimes, passengers on foot, or horseback,

plodded on a little way beside the cart, for the express purpose of

having a chat; and then there was a great deal to be said, on both

sides.

Then, Boxer gave occasion to more good-natured recognitions of, and

by, the Carrier, than half-a-dozen Christians could have done!

Everybody knew him, all along the road - especially the fowls and

pigs, who when they saw him approaching, with his body all on one

side, and his ears pricked up inquisitively, and that knob of a

tail making the most of itself in the air, immediately withdrew

into remote back settlements, without waiting for the honour of a

nearer acquaintance. He had business everywhere; going down all

the turnings, looking into all the wells, bolting in and out of all

the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the Dame-Schools,

fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the cats,

and trotting into the public-houses like a regular customer.

Wherever he went, somebody or other might have been heard to cry,

'Halloa! Here's Boxer!' and out came that somebody forthwith,

accompanied by at least two or three other somebodies, to give John

Peerybingle and his pretty wife, Good Day.

The packages and parcels for the errand cart, were numerous; and

there were many stoppages to take them in and give them out, which

were not by any means the worst parts of the journey. Some people

were so full of expectation about their parcels, and other people

were so full of wonder about their parcels, and other people were

so full of inexhaustible directions about their parcels, and John

had such a lively interest in all the parcels, that it was as good

as a play. Likewise, there were articles to carry, which required

to be considered and discussed, and in reference to the adjustment

and disposition of which, councils had to be holden by the Carrier

and the senders: at which Boxer usually assisted, in short fits of

the closest attention, and long fits of tearing round and round the

assembled sages and barking himself hoarse. Of all these little

incidents, Dot was the amused and open-eyed spectatress from her

chair in the cart; and as she sat there, looking on - a charming

little portrait framed to admiration by the tilt - there was no

lack of nudgings and glancings and whisperings and envyings among

the younger men. And this delighted John the Carrier, beyond

measure; for he was proud to have his little wife admired, knowing

that she didn't mind it - that, if anything, she rather liked it

perhaps.

The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January weather;

and was raw and cold. But who cared for such trifles? Not Dot,

decidedly. Not Tilly Slowboy, for she deemed sitting in a cart, on

any terms, to be the highest point of human joys; the crowning

circumstance of earthly hopes. Not the Baby, I'll be sworn; for

it's not in Baby nature to be warmer or more sound asleep, though

its capacity is great in both respects, than that blessed young

Peerybingle was, all the way.

You couldn't see very far in the fog, of course; but you could see

a great deal! It's astonishing how much you may see, in a thicker

fog than that, if you will only take the trouble to look for it.

Why, even to sit watching for the Fairy-rings in the fields, and

for the patches of hoar-frost still lingering in the shade, near

hedges and by trees, was a pleasant occupation: to make no mention

of the unexpected shapes in which the trees themselves came

starting out of the mist, and glided into it again. The hedges

were tangled and bare, and waved a multitude of blighted garlands

in the wind; but there was no discouragement in this. It was

agreeable to contemplate; for it made the fireside warmer in

possession, and the summer greener in expectancy. The river looked

chilly; but it was in motion, and moving at a good pace - which was

a great point. The canal was rather slow and torpid; that must be

admitted. Never mind. It would freeze the sooner when the frost

set fairly in, and then there would be skating, and sliding; and

the heavy old barges, frozen up somewhere near a wharf, would smoke

their rusty iron chimney pipes all day, and have a lazy time of it.

In one place, there was a great mound of weeds or stubble burning;

and they watched the fire, so white in the daytime, flaring through

the fog, with only here and there a dash of red in it, until, in

consequence, as she observed, of the smoke 'getting up her nose,'

Miss Slowboy choked - she could do anything of that sort, on the

smallest provocation - and woke the Baby, who wouldn't go to sleep

again. But, Boxer, who was in advance some quarter of a mile or

so, had already passed the outposts of the town, and gained the

corner of the street where Caleb and his daughter lived; and long

before they had reached the door, he and the Blind Girl were on the

pavement waiting to receive them.

Boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions of his own,

in his communication with Bertha, which persuade me fully that he

knew her to be blind. He never sought to attract her attention by

looking at her, as he often did with other people, but touched her

invariably. What experience he could ever have had of blind people

or blind dogs, I don't know. He had never lived with a blind

master; nor had Mr. Boxer the elder, nor Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his

respectable family on either side, ever been visited with

blindness, that I am aware of. He may have found it out for

himself, perhaps, but he had got hold of it somehow; and therefore

he had hold of Bertha too, by the skirt, and kept bold, until Mrs.

Peerybingle and the Baby, and Miss Slowboy, and the basket, were

all got safely within doors.

May Fielding was already come; and so was her mother - a little

querulous chip of an old lady with a peevish face, who, in right of

having preserved a waist like a bedpost, was supposed to be a most

transcendent figure; and who, in consequence of having once been

better off, or of labouring under an impression that she might have

been, if something had happened which never did happen, and seemed

to have never been particularly likely to come to pass - but it's

all the same - was very genteel and patronising indeed. Gruff and

Tackleton was also there, doing the agreeable, with the evident

sensation of being as perfectly at home, and as unquestionably in

his own element, as a fresh young salmon on the top of the Great

Pyramid.

'May! My dear old friend!' cried Dot, running up to meet her.

'What a happiness to see you.'

Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as she; and

it really was, if you'll believe me, quite a pleasant sight to see

them embrace. Tackleton was a man of taste beyond all question.

May was very pretty.

You know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, how, when

it comes into contact and comparison with another pretty face, it

seems for the moment to be homely and faded, and hardly to deserve

the high opinion you have had of it. Now, this was not at all the

case, either with Dot or May; for May's face set off Dot's, and

Dot's face set off May's, so naturally and agreeably, that, as John

Peerybingle was very near saying when he came into the room, they

ought to have been born sisters - which was the only improvement

you could have suggested.

Tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful to relate,

a tart besides - but we don't mind a little dissipation when our

brides are in the case. we don't get married every day - and in

addition to these dainties, there were the Veal and Ham-Pie, and

'things,' as Mrs. Peerybingle called them; which were chiefly nuts

and oranges, and cakes, and such small deer. When the repast was

set forth on the board, flanked by Caleb's contribution, which was

a great wooden bowl of smoking potatoes (he was prohibited, by

solemn compact, from producing any other viands), Tackleton led his

intended mother-in-law to the post of honour. For the better

gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic old soul

had adorned herself with a cap, calculated to inspire the

thoughtless with sentiments of awe. She also wore her gloves. But

let us be genteel, or die!

Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old schoolfellow were side

by side; the good Carrier took care of the bottom of the table.

Miss Slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article

of furniture but the chair she sat on, that she might have nothing

else to knock the Baby's head against.

As Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared at her

and at the company. The venerable old gentlemen at the street

doors (who were all in full action) showed especial interest in the

party, pausing occasionally before leaping, as if they were

listening to the conversation, and then plunging wildly over and

over, a great many times, without halting for breath - as in a

frantic state of delight with the whole proceedings.

Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a fiendish

joy in the contemplation of Tackleton's discomfiture, they had good

reason to be satisfied. Tackleton couldn't get on at all; and the

more cheerful his intended bride became in Dot's society, the less

he liked it, though he had brought them together for that purpose.

For he was a regular dog in the manger, was Tackleton; and when

they laughed and he couldn't, he took it into his head,

immediately, that they must be laughing at him.

'Ah, May!' said Dot. 'Dear dear, what changes! To talk of those

merry school-days makes one young again.'

'Why, you an't particularly old, at any time; are you?' said

Tackleton.

'Look at my sober plodding husband there,' returned Dot. 'He adds

twenty years to my age at least. Don't you, John?'

'Forty,' John replied.

'How many YOU'll add to May's, I am sure I don't know,' said Dot,

laughing. 'But she can't be much less than a hundred years of age

on her next birthday.'

'Ha ha!' laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum, that laugh though.

And he looked as if he could have twisted Dot's neck, comfortably.

'Dear dear!' said Dot. 'Only to remember how we used to talk, at

school, about the husbands we would choose. I don't know how

young, and how handsome, and how gay, and how lively, mine was not

to be! And as to May's! - Ah dear! I don't know whether to laugh

or cry, when I think what silly girls we were.'

May seemed to know which to do; for the colour flushed into her

face, and tears stood in her eyes.

'Even the very persons themselves - real live young men - were

fixed on sometimes,' said Dot. 'We little thought how things would

come about. I never fixed on John I'm sure; I never so much as

thought of him. And if I had told you, you were ever to be married

to Mr. Tackleton, why you'd have slapped me. Wouldn't you, May?'

Though May didn't say yes, she certainly didn't say no, or express

no, by any means.

Tackleton laughed - quite shouted, he laughed so loud. John

Peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary good-natured and contented

manner; but his was a mere whisper of a laugh, to Tackleton's.

'You couldn't help yourselves, for all that. You couldn't resist

us, you see,' said Tackleton. 'Here we are! Here we are!'

'Where are your gay young bridegrooms now!'

'Some of them are dead,' said Dot; 'and some of them forgotten.

Some of them, if they could stand among us at this moment, would

not believe we were the same creatures; would not believe that what

they saw and heard was real, and we COULD forget them so. No! they

would not believe one word of it!'

'Why, Dot!' exclaimed the Carrier. 'Little woman!'

She had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that she stood in

need of some recalling to herself, without doubt. Her husband's

cheek was very gentle, for he merely interfered, as he supposed, to

shield old Tackleton; but it proved effectual, for she stopped, and

said no more. There was an uncommon agitation, even in her

silence, which the wary Tackleton, who had brought his half-shut

eye to bear upon her, noted closely, and remembered to some purpose

too.

May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, with her

eyes cast down, and made no sign of interest in what had passed.

The good lady her mother now interposed, observing, in the first

instance, that girls were girls, and byegones byegones, and that so

long as young people were young and thoughtless, they would

probably conduct themselves like young and thoughtless persons:

with two or three other positions of a no less sound and

incontrovertible character. She then remarked, in a devout spirit,

that she thanked Heaven she had always found in her daughter May, a

dutiful and obedient child; for which she took no credit to

herself, though she had every reason to believe it was entirely

owing to herself. With regard to Mr. Tackleton she said, That he

was in a moral point of view an undeniable individual, and That he

was in an eligible point of view a son-in-law to be desired, no one

in their senses could doubt. (She was very emphatic here.) With

regard to the family into which he was so soon about, after some

solicitation, to be admitted, she believed Mr. Tackleton knew that,

although reduced in purse, it had some pretensions to gentility;

and if certain circumstances, not wholly unconnected, she would go

so far as to say, with the Indigo Trade, but to which she would not

more particularly refer, had happened differently, it might perhaps

have been in possession of wealth. She then remarked that she

would not allude to the past, and would not mention that her

daughter had for some time rejected the suit of Mr. Tackleton; and

that she would not say a great many other things which she did say,

at great length. Finally, she delivered it as the general result

of her observation and experience, that those marriages in which

there was least of what was romantically and sillily called love,

were always the happiest; and that she anticipated the greatest

possible amount of bliss - not rapturous bliss; but the solid,

steady-going article - from the approaching nuptials. She

concluded by informing the company that to-morrow was the day she

had lived for, expressly; and that when it was over, she would

desire nothing better than to be packed up and disposed of, in any

genteel place of burial.

As these remarks were quite unanswerable - which is the happy

property of all remarks that are sufficiently wide of the purpose -

they changed the current of the conversation, and diverted the

general attention to the Veal and Ham-Pie, the cold mutton, the

potatoes, and the tart. In order that the bottled beer might not

be slighted, John Peerybingle proposed To-morrow: the Wedding-Day;

and called upon them to drink a bumper to it, before he proceeded

on his journey.

For you ought to know that he only rested there, and gave the old

horse a bait. He had to go some four of five miles farther on; and

when he returned in the evening, he called for Dot, and took

another rest on his way home. This was the order of the day on all

the Pic-Nic occasions, had been, ever since their institution.

There were two persons present, besides the bride and bridegroom

elect, who did but indifferent honour to the toast. One of these

was Dot, too flushed and discomposed to adapt herself to any small

occurrence of the moment; the other, Bertha, who rose up hurriedly,

before the rest, and left the table.

'Good bye!' said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on his dreadnought

coat. 'I shall be back at the old time. Good bye all!'

'Good bye, John,' returned Caleb.

He seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in the same

unconscious manner; for he stood observing Bertha with an anxious

wondering face, that never altered its expression.

'Good bye, young shaver!' said the jolly Carrier, bending down to

kiss the child; which Tilly Slowboy, now intent upon her knife and

fork, had deposited asleep (and strange to say, without damage) in

a little cot of Bertha's furnishing; 'good bye! Time will come, I

suppose, when YOU'LL turn out into the cold, my little friend, and

leave your old father to enjoy his pipe and his rheumatics in the

chimney-corner; eh? Where's Dot?'

'I'm here, John!' she said, starting.

'Come, come!' returned the Carrier, clapping his sounding hands.

'Where's the pipe?'

'I quite forgot the pipe, John.'

Forgot the pipe! Was such a wonder ever heard of! She! Forgot

the pipe!

'I'll - I'll fill it directly. It's soon done.'

But it was not so soon done, either. It lay in the usual place -

the Carrier's dreadnought pocket - with the little pouch, her own

work, from which she was used to fill it, but her hand shook so,

that she entangled it (and yet her hand was small enough to have

come out easily, I am sure), and bungled terribly. The filling of

the pipe and lighting it, those little offices in which I have

commended her discretion, were vilely done, from first to last.

During the whole process, Tackleton stood looking on maliciously

with the half-closed eye; which, whenever it met hers - or caught

it, for it can hardly be said to have ever met another eye: rather

being a kind of trap to snatch it up - augmented her confusion in a

most remarkable degree.

'Why, what a clumsy Dot you are, this afternoon!' said John. 'I

could have done it better myself, I verify believe!'

With these good-natured words, he strode away, and presently was

heard, in company with Boxer, and the old horse, and the cart,

making lively music down the road. What time the dreamy Caleb

still stood, watching his blind daughter, with the same expression

on his face.

'Bertha!' said Caleb, softly. 'What has happened? How changed you

are, my darling, in a few hours - since this morning. YOU silent

and dull all day! What is it? Tell me!'

'Oh father, father!' cried the Blind Girl, bursting into tears.

'Oh my hard, hard fate!'

Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her.

'But think how cheerful and how happy you have been, Bertha! How

good, and how much loved, by many people.'

'That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Always so mindful of

me! Always so kind to me!'

Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her.

'To be - to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear,' he faltered, 'is a

great affliction; but - '

'I have never felt it!' cried the Blind Girl. 'I have never felt

it, in its fulness. Never! I have sometimes wished that I could

see you, or could see him - only once, dear father, only for one

little minute - that I might know what it is I treasure up,' she

laid her hands upon her breast, 'and hold here! That I might be

sure and have it right! And sometimes (but then I was a child) I

have wept in my prayers at night, to think that when your images

ascended from my heart to Heaven, they might not be the true

resemblance of yourselves. But I have never had these feelings

long. They have passed away and left me tranquil and contented.'

'And they will again,' said Caleb.

'But, father! Oh my good, gentle father, bear with me, if I am

wicked!' said the Blind Girl. 'This is not the sorrow that so

weighs me down!'

Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes overflow; she

was so earnest and pathetic, but he did not understand her, yet.

'Bring her to me,' said Bertha. 'I cannot hold it closed and shut

within myself. Bring her to me, father!'

She knew he hesitated, and said, 'May. Bring May!'

May heard the mention of her name, and coming quietly towards her,

touched her on the arm. The Blind Girl turned immediately, and

held her by both hands.

'Look into my face, Dear heart, Sweet heart!' said Bertha. 'Read

it with your beautiful eyes, and tell me if the truth is written on

it.'

'Dear Bertha, Yes!'

The Blind Girl still, upturning the blank sightless face, down

which the tears were coursing fast, addressed her in these words:

'There is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that is not for your

good, bright May! There is not, in my soul, a grateful

recollection stronger than the deep remembrance which is stored

there, of the many many times when, in the full pride of sight and

beauty, you have had consideration for Blind Bertha, even when we

two were children, or when Bertha was as much a child as ever

blindness can be! Every blessing on your head! Light upon your

happy course! Not the less, my dear May;' and she drew towards

her, in a closer grasp; 'not the less, my bird, because, to-day,

the knowledge that you are to be His wife has wrung my heart almost

to breaking! Father, May, Mary! oh forgive me that it is so, for

the sake of all he has done to relieve the weariness of my dark

life: and for the sake of the belief you have in me, when I call

Heaven to witness that I could not wish him married to a wife more

worthy of his goodness!'

While speaking, she had released May Fielding's hands, and clasped

her garments in an attitude of mingled supplication and love.

Sinking lower and lower down, as she proceeded in her strange

confession, she dropped at last at the feet of her friend, and hid

her blind face in the folds of her dress.

'Great Power!' exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow with the

truth, 'have I deceived her from the cradle, but to break her heart

at last!'

It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, busy

little Dot - for such she was, whatever faults she had, and however

you may learn to hate her, in good time - it was well for all of

them, I say, that she was there: or where this would have ended,

it were hard to tell. But Dot, recovering her self-possession,

interposed, before May could reply, or Caleb say another word.

'Come, come, dear Bertha! come away with me! Give her your arm,

May. So! How composed she is, you see, already; and how good it

is of her to mind us,' said the cheery little woman, kissing her

upon the forehead. 'Come away, dear Bertha. Come! and here's her

good father will come with her; won't you, Caleb? To - be - sure!'

Well, well! she was a noble little Dot in such things, and it must

have been an obdurate nature that could have withstood her

influence. When she had got poor Caleb and his Bertha away, that

they might comfort and console each other, as she knew they only

could, she presently came bouncing back, - the saying is, as fresh

as any daisy; I say fresher - to mount guard over that bridling

little piece of consequence in the cap and gloves, and prevent the

dear old creature from making discoveries.

'So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly,' said she, drawing a chair

to the fire; 'and while I have it in my lap, here's Mrs. Fielding,

Tilly, will tell me all about the management of Babies, and put me

right in twenty points where I'm as wrong as can be. Won't you,

Mrs. Fielding?'

Not even the Welsh Giant, who, according to the popular expression,

was so 'slow' as to perform a fatal surgical operation upon

himself, in emulation of a juggling-trick achieved by his arch-

enemy at breakfast-time; not even he fell half so readily into the

snare prepared for him, as the old lady did into this artful

pitfall. The fact of Tackleton having walked out; and furthermore,

of two or three people having been talking together at a distance,

for two minutes, leaving her to her own resources; was quite enough

to have put her on her dignity, and the bewailment of that

mysterious convulsion in the Indigo trade, for four-and-twenty

hours. But this becoming deference to her experience, on the part

of the young mother, was so irresistible, that after a short

affectation of humility, she began to enlighten her with the best

grace in the world; and sitting bolt upright before the wicked Dot,

she did, in half an hour, deliver more infallible domestic recipes

and precepts, than would (if acted on) have utterly destroyed and

done up that Young Peerybingle, though he had been an Infant

Samson.

To change the theme, Dot did a little needlework - she carried the

contents of a whole workbox in her pocket; however she contrived

it, I don't know - then did a little nursing; then a little more

needlework; then had a little whispering chat with May, while the

old lady dozed; and so in little bits of bustle, which was quite

her manner always, found it a very short afternoon. Then, as it

grew dark, and as it was a solemn part of this Institution of the

Pic-Nic that she should perform all Bertha's household tasks, she

trimmed the fire, and swept the hearth, and set the tea-board out,

and drew the curtain, and lighted a candle. Then she played an air

or two on a rude kind of harp, which Caleb had contrived for

Bertha, and played them very well; for Nature had made her delicate

little ear as choice a one for music as it would have been for

jewels, if she had had any to wear. By this time it was the

established hour for having tea; and Tackleton came back again, to

share the meal, and spend the evening.

Caleb and Bertha had returned some time before, and Caleb had sat

down to his afternoon's work. But he couldn't settle to it, poor

fellow, being anxious and remorseful for his daughter. It was

touching to see him sitting idle on his working-stool, regarding

her so wistfully, and always saying in his face, 'Have I deceived

her from her cradle, but to break her heart!'

When it was night, and tea was done, and Dot had nothing more to do

in washing up the cups and saucers; in a word - for I must come to

it, and there is no use in putting it off - when the time drew nigh

for expecting the Carrier's return in every sound of distant

wheels, her manner changed again, her colour came and went, and she

was very restless. Not as good wives are, when listening for their

husbands. No, no, no. It was another sort of restlessness from

that.

Wheels heard. A horse's feet. The barking of a dog. The gradual

approach of all the sounds. The scratching paw of Boxer at the

door!

'Whose step is that!' cried Bertha, starting up.

'Whose step?' returned the Carrier, standing in the portal, with

his brown face ruddy as a winter berry from the keen night air.

'Why, mine.'

'The other step,' said Bertha. 'The man's tread behind you!'

'She is not to be deceived,' observed the Carrier, laughing. 'Come

along, sir. You'll be welcome, never fear!'

He spoke in a loud tone; and as he spoke, the deaf old gentleman

entered.

'He's not so much a stranger, that you haven't seen him once,

Caleb,' said the Carrier. 'You'll give him house-room till we go?'

'Oh surely, John, and take it as an honour.'

'He's the best company on earth, to talk secrets in,' said John.

'I have reasonable good lungs, but he tries 'em, I can tell you.

Sit down, sir. All friends here, and glad to see you!'

When he had imparted this assurance, in a voice that amply

corroborated what he had said about his lungs, he added in his

natural tone, 'A chair in the chimney-corner, and leave to sit

quite silent and look pleasantly about him, is all he cares for.

He's easily pleased.'

Bertha had been listening intently. She called Caleb to her side,

when he had set the chair, and asked him, in a low voice, to

describe their visitor. When he had done so (truly now; with

scrupulous fidelity), she moved, for the first time since he had

come in, and sighed, and seemed to have no further interest

concerning him.

The Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was, and

fonder of his little wife than ever.

'A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon!' he said, encircling her

with his rough arm, as she stood, removed from the rest; 'and yet I

like her somehow. See yonder, Dot!'

He pointed to the old man. She looked down. I think she trembled.

'He's - ha ha ha! - he's full of admiration for you!' said the

Carrier. 'Talked of nothing else, the whole way here. Why, he's a

brave old boy. I like him for it!'

'I wish he had had a better subject, John,' she said, with an

uneasy glance about the room. At Tackleton especially.

'A better subject!' cried the jovial John. 'There's no such thing.

Come, off with the great-coat, off with the thick shawl, off with

the heavy wrappers! and a cosy half-hour by the fire! My humble

service, Mistress. A game at cribbage, you and I? That's hearty.

The cards and board, Dot. And a glass of beer here, if there's any

left, small wife!'

His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who accepting it with

gracious readiness, they were soon engaged upon the game. At

first, the Carrier looked about him sometimes, with a smile, or now

and then called Dot to peep over his shoulder at his hand, and

advise him on some knotty point. But his adversary being a rigid

disciplinarian, and subject to an occasional weakness in respect of

pegging more than she was entitled to, required such vigilance on

his part, as left him neither eyes nor ears to spare. Thus, his

whole attention gradually became absorbed upon the cards; and he

thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his shoulder restored

him to a consciousness of Tackleton.

'I am sorry to disturb you - but a word, directly.'

'I'm going to deal,' returned the Carrier. 'It's a crisis.'

'It is,' said Tackleton. 'Come here, man!'

There was that in his pale face which made the other rise

immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what the matter was.

'Hush! John Peerybingle,' said Tackleton. 'I am sorry for this.

I am indeed. I have been afraid of it. I have suspected it from

the first.'

'What is it?' asked the Carrier, with a frightened aspect.

'Hush! I'll show you, if you'll come with me.'

The Carrier accompanied him, without another word. They went

across a yard, where the stars were shining, and by a little side-

door, into Tackleton's own counting-house, where there was a glass

window, commanding the ware-room, which was closed for the night.

There was no light in the counting-house itself, but there were

lamps in the long narrow ware-room; and consequently the window was

bright.

'A moment!' said Tackleton. 'Can you bear to look through that

window, do you think?'

'Why not?' returned the Carrier.

'A moment more,' said Tackleton. 'Don't commit any violence. It's

of no use. It's dangerous too. You're a strong-made man; and you

might do murder before you know it.'

The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as if he

had been struck. In one stride he was at the window, and he saw -

Oh Shadow on the Hearth! Oh truthful Cricket! Oh perfidious Wife!

He saw her, with the old man - old no longer, but erect and gallant

- bearing in his hand the false white hair that had won his way

into their desolate and miserable home. He saw her listening to

him, as he bent his head to whisper in her ear; and suffering him

to clasp her round the waist, as they moved slowly down the dim

wooden gallery towards the door by which they had entered it. He

saw them stop, and saw her turn - to have the face, the face he

loved so, so presented to his view! - and saw her, with her own

hands, adjust the lie upon his head, laughing, as she did it, at

his unsuspicious nature!

He clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it would have

beaten down a lion. But opening it immediately again, he spread it

out before the eyes of Tackleton (for he was tender of her, even

then), and so, as they passed out, fell down upon a desk, and was

as weak as any infant.

He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse and parcels,

when she came into the room, prepared for going home.

'Now, John, dear! Good night, May! Good night, Bertha!'

Could she kiss them? Could she be blithe and cheerful in her

parting? Could she venture to reveal her face to them without a

blush? Yes. Tackleton observed her closely, and she did all this.

Tilly was hushing the Baby, and she crossed and re-crossed

Tackleton, a dozen times, repeating drowsily:

'Did the knowledge that it was to be its wifes, then, wring its

hearts almost to breaking; and did its fathers deceive it from its

cradles but to break its hearts at last!'

'Now, Tilly, give me the Baby! Good night, Mr. Tackleton. Where's

John, for goodness' sake?'

'He's going to walk beside the horse's head,' said Tackleton; who

helped her to her seat.

'My dear John. Walk? To-night?'

The muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign in the

affirmative; and the false stranger and the little nurse being in

their places, the old horse moved off. Boxer, the unconscious

Boxer, running on before, running back, running round and round the

cart, and barking as triumphantly and merrily as ever.

When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May and her mother

home, poor Caleb sat down by the fire beside his daughter; anxious

and remorseful at the core; and still saying in his wistful

contemplation of her, 'Have I deceived her from her cradle, but to

break her heart at last!'

The toys that had been set in motion for the Baby, had all stopped,

and run down, long ago. In the faint light and silence, the

imperturbably calm dolls, the agitated rocking-horses with

distended eyes and nostrils, the old gentlemen at the street-doors,

standing half doubled up upon their failing knees and ankles, the

wry-faced nut-crackers, the very Beasts upon their way into the

Ark, in twos, like a Boarding School out walking, might have been

imagined to be stricken motionless with fantastic wonder, at Dot

being false, or Tackleton beloved, under any combination of

circumstances.

Read next: CHAPTER III - Chirp the Third

Read previous: CHAPTER I - Chrip the First

Table of content of Cricket on the Hearth



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book