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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cricket on the Hearth, by Charles Dickens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Cricket on the Hearth
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Illustrator: George Alfred Williams
+
+Release Date: March 10, 2007 [EBook #20795]
+[Last updated: December 23, 2012]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jason Isbell, Emma Morgan Isbell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: Italic sections are surrounded by underscores (_).]
+
+THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH
+By CHARLES DICKENS
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY
+GEORGE ALFRED WILLIAMS
+
+New York
+THE PLATT & PECK CO.
+
+Copyright, 1905, by THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The combined qualities of the realist and the idealist which Dickens
+possessed to a remarkable degree, together with his naturally jovial
+attitude toward life in general, seem to have given him a remarkably
+happy feeling toward Christmas, though the privations and hardships of
+his boyhood could have allowed him but little real experience with this
+day of days.
+
+Dickens gave his first formal expression to his Christmas thoughts in
+his series of small books, the first of which was the famous "Christmas
+Carol," the one perfect chrysolite. The success of the book was
+immediate. Thackeray wrote of it: "Who can listen to objections
+regarding such a book as this? It seems to me a national benefit, and to
+every man or woman who reads it, a personal kindness."
+
+This volume was put forth in a very attractive manner, with
+illustrations by John Leech, who was the first artist to make these
+characters live, and his drawings were varied and spirited.
+
+There followed upon this four others: "The Chimes," "The Cricket on the
+Hearth," "The Battle of Life," and "The Haunted Man," with illustrations
+on their first appearance by Doyle, Maclise, and others. The five are
+known to-day as the "Christmas Books." Of them all the "Carol" is the
+best known and loved, and "The Cricket on the Hearth," although third in
+the series, is perhaps next in point of popularity, and is especially
+familiar to Americans through Joseph Jefferson's characterisation of
+Caleb Plummer.
+
+Dickens seems to have put his whole self into these glowing little
+stories. Whoever sees but a clever ghost story in the "Christmas Carol"
+misses its chief charm and lesson, for there is a different meaning in
+the movements of Scrooge and his attendant spirits. A new life is
+brought to Scrooge when he, "running to his window, opened it and put
+out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring cold;
+cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sun-light; Heavenly sky;
+sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!" All this
+brightness has its attendant shadow, and deep from the childish heart
+comes that true note of pathos, the ever memorable toast of Tiny Tim,
+"God bless Us, Every One!" "The Cricket on the Hearth" strikes a
+different note. Charmingly, poetically, the sweet chirping of the little
+cricket is associated with human feelings and actions, and at the crisis
+of the story decides the fate and fortune of the carrier and his wife.
+
+Dickens's greatest gift was characterization, and no English writer,
+save Shakespeare, has drawn so many and so varied characters. It would
+be as absurd to interpret all of these as caricatures as to deny Dickens
+his great and varied powers of creation. Dickens exaggerated many of his
+comic and satirical characters, as was his right, for caricature and
+satire are very closely related, while exaggeration is the very essence
+of comedy. But there remains a host of characters marked by humour and
+pathos. Yet the pictorial presentation of Dickens's characters has ever
+tended toward the grotesque. The interpretations in this volume aim to
+eliminate the grosser phases of the caricature in favour of the more
+human. If the interpretations seem novel, if Scrooge be not as he has
+been pictured, it is because a more human Scrooge was desired--a Scrooge
+not wholly bad, a Scrooge of a better heart, a Scrooge to whom the
+resurrection described in this story was possible. It has been the
+illustrator's whole aim to make these people live in some form more
+fully consistent with their types.
+
+                                       GEORGE ALFRED WILLIAMS.
+_Chatham, N.J._
+
+
+
+
+THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH
+
+Table of Contents
+
+
+_Chirp the First_                                               103
+_Chirp the Second_                                              132
+_Chirp the Third_                                               165
+
+
+
+
+List of Illustrations
+
+
+_"Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes, my patient,
+willing eyes."_                                                   103
+
+_"A dot and--" here he glanced at the baby--"A dot and carry--I
+won't say it, for fear I should spoil it; but I was very near
+a joke."_                                                         108
+
+_Tilly Slowboy_                                                   112
+
+_"That's the way I found him, sitting by the roadside! Upright as
+a milestone."_                                                    118
+
+_When suddenly, the struggling fire illuminated the whole chimney
+with a glow of light; and the Cricket on the Hearth began
+to chirp!_                                                        166
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH
+
+A FAIRY TALE OF HOME
+
+CHIRP THE FIRST
+
+
+The kettle began it! Don't tell me what Mrs. Peerybingle said. I know
+better. Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it on record to the end of time that
+she couldn't say which of them began it; but I say the kettle did. I
+ought to know, I hope? The kettle began it, full five minutes by the
+little waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner, before the Cricket uttered
+a chirp.
+
+As if the clock hadn't finished striking, and the convulsive little
+Hay-maker at the top of it, jerking away right and left with a scythe in
+front of a Moorish Palace, hadn't mowed down half an acre of imaginary
+grass before the Cricket joined in at all!
+
+Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows that I wouldn't set my
+own opinion against the opinion of Mrs. Peerybingle, unless I were quite
+sure, on any account whatever. Nothing should induce me. But, this is a
+question of fact. And the fact is, that the kettle began it at least
+five minutes before the Cricket gave any sign of being in existence.
+Contradict me, and I'll say ten.
+
+Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should have proceeded to do
+so, in my very first word, but for this plain consideration--if I am to
+tell a story I must begin at the beginning; and how is it possible to
+begin at the beginning without beginning at the kettle?
+
+It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of skill, you
+must understand, between the kettle and the Cricket. And this is what
+led to it, and how it came about.
+
+Mrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and clicking over the
+wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable rough
+impressions of the first proposition in Euclid all about the yard--Mrs.
+Peerybingle filled the kettle at the water-butt. Presently returning,
+less the pattens (and a good deal less, for they were tall, and Mrs.
+Peerybingle was but short), she set the kettle on the fire. In doing
+which she lost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant; for, the water
+being uncomfortably cold, and in that slippy, slushy, sleety sort of
+state wherein it seems to penetrate through every kind of substance,
+patten rings included--had laid hold of Mrs. Peerybingle's toes, and
+even splashed her legs. And when we rather plume ourselves (with reason
+too) upon our legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in point of
+stockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear.
+
+Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It wouldn't allow
+itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn't hear of accommodating
+itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it _would_ lean forward with a
+drunken air, and dribble, a very Idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. It
+was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. To sum
+up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle's fingers, first of all
+turned topsy-turvy, and then, with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of
+a better cause, dived sideways in--down to the very bottom of the
+kettle. And the hull of the Royal George has never made half the
+monstrous resistance to coming out of the water which the lid of that
+kettle employed against Mrs. Peerybingle before she got it up again.
+
+It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carrying its handle
+with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and mockingly at
+Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, "I won't boil. Nothing shall induce
+me!"
+
+But, Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good-humour, dusted her chubby
+little hands against each other, and sat down before the kettle
+laughing. Meantime, the jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and
+gleaming on the little Hay-maker at the top of the Dutch clock, until
+one might have thought he stood stock-still before the Moorish Palace,
+and nothing was in motion but the flame.
+
+He was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two to the second, all
+right and regular. But his sufferings when the clock was going to strike
+were frightful to behold; and when a Cuckoo looked out of a trap-door in
+the Palace, and gave note six times, it shook him, each time, like a
+spectral voice--or like a something wiry plucking at his legs.
+
+It was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise among the
+weights and ropes below him had quite subsided that this terrified
+Hay-maker became himself again. Nor was he startled without reason; for
+these rattling, bony skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting in their
+operation, and I wonder very much how any set of men, but most of all
+how Dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them. There is a popular
+belief that Dutchmen love broad cases and much clothing for their own
+lower selves; and they might know better than to leave their clocks so
+very lank and unprotected, surely.
+
+Now it was, you observe, that the kettle began to spend the evening. Now
+it was that the kettle, growing mellow and musical, began to have
+irrepressible gurglings in its throat, and to indulge in short vocal
+snorts, which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn't quite made up its
+mind yet to be good company. Now it was that after two or three such
+vain attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off all
+moroseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of song so cosy and
+hilarious as never maudlin nightingale yet formed the least idea of.
+
+So plain, too! Bless you, you might have understood it like a
+book--better than some books you and I could name, perhaps. With its
+warm breath gushing forth in a light cloud which merrily and gracefully
+ascended a few feet, then hung about the chimney-corner as its own
+domestic Heaven, it trolled its song with that strong energy of
+cheerfulness, that its iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire; and
+the lid itself, the recently rebellious lid--such is the influence of a
+bright example--performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and
+dumb young cymbal that had never known the use of its twin brother.
+
+That this song of the kettle's was a song of invitation and welcome to
+somebody out of doors: to somebody at that moment coming on towards the
+snug small home and the crisp fire: there is no doubt whatever. Mrs.
+Peerybingle knew it perfectly, as she sat musing before the hearth. It's
+a dark night, sang the kettle, and the rotten leaves are lying by the
+way; and, above, all is mist and darkness, and, below, all is mire and
+clay; and there's only one relief in all the sad and murky air; and I
+don't know that it is one, for it's nothing but a glare; of deep and
+angry crimson, where the sun and wind together; set a brand upon the
+clouds for being guilty of such weather; and the widest open country is
+a long dull streak of black; and there's hoar frost on the finger-post,
+and thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn't water, and the water isn't
+free; and you couldn't say that anything is what it ought to be; but
+he's coming, coming, coming!--
+
+And here, if you like, the Cricket DID chime in! with a Chirrup,
+Chirrup, Chirrup of such magnitude, by way of chorus; with a voice so
+astoundingly disproportionate to its size, as compared with the kettle;
+(size! you couldn't see it!) that, if it had then and there burst itself
+like an overcharged gun, if it had fallen a victim on the spot, and
+chirruped its little body into fifty pieces, it would have seemed a
+natural and inevitable consequence, for which it had expressly laboured.
+
+The kettle had had the last of its solo performance. It persevered with
+undiminished ardour; but the Cricket took first fiddle, and kept it.
+Good Heaven, how it chirped! Its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded
+through the house, and seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like a
+star. There was an indescribable little trill and tremble in it at its
+loudest, which suggested its being carried off its legs, and made to
+leap again, by its own intense enthusiasm. Yet they went very well
+together, the Cricket and the kettle. The burden of the song was still
+the same; and louder, louder, louder still, they sang it in their
+emulation.
+
+The fair little listener--for fair she was, and young; though something
+of what is called the dumpling shape; but I don't myself object to
+that--lighted a candle, glanced at the Hay-maker on the top of the
+clock, who was getting in a pretty average crop of minutes; and looked
+out of the window, where she saw nothing, owing to the darkness, but her
+own face imaged in the glass. And my opinion is (and so would yours have
+been) that she might have looked a long way and seen nothing half so
+agreeable. When she came back, and sat down in her former seat, the
+Cricket and the kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of
+competition. The kettle's weak side clearly being that he didn't know
+when he was beat.
+
+There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp, chirp, chirp!
+Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum--m--m! Kettle making play in the
+distance, like a great top. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket round the
+corner. Hum, hum, hum--m--m! Kettle sticking to him in his own way; no
+idea of giving in. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket fresher than ever. Hum,
+hum, hum--m--m! Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket
+going in to finish him. Hum, hum, hum--m--m! Kettle not to be finished.
+Until at last they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry,
+helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the kettle chirped and the
+Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the kettle hummed, or they
+both chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer head than
+yours or mine to have decided with anything like certainty. But of this
+there is no doubt: that, the kettle and the Cricket, at one and the same
+moment, and by some power of amalgamation best known to themselves,
+sent, each, his fireside song of comfort streaming into a ray of the
+candle that shone out through the window, and a long way down the lane.
+And this light, bursting on a certain person who, on the instant,
+approached towards it through the gloom, expressed the whole thing to
+him, literally in a twinkling, and cried, "Welcome home, old fellow!
+Welcome home, my boy!"
+
+This end attained, the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and was
+taken off the fire. Mrs. Peerybingle then went running to the door,
+where, what with the wheels of a cart, the tramp of a horse, the voice
+of a man, the tearing in and out of an excited dog, and the surprising
+and mysterious appearance of a baby, there was soon the very
+What's-his-name to play.
+
+Where the baby came from, or how Mrs. Peerybingle got hold of it in that
+flash of time, _I_ don't know. But a live baby there was in Mrs.
+Peerybingle's arms; and a pretty tolerable amount of pride she seemed to
+have in it, when she was drawn gently to the fire, by a sturdy figure of
+a man, much taller and much older than herself, who had to stoop a long
+way down to kiss her. But she was worth the trouble. Six foot six, with
+the lumbago, might have done it.
+
+"Oh goodness, John!" said Mrs. P. "What a state you're in with the
+weather!"
+
+[Illustration: _"A dot and"--here he glanced at the baby--"a dot and
+carry--I won't say it, for fear I should spoil it; but I was very near a
+joke."_]
+
+He was something the worse for it undeniably. The thick mist hung in
+clots upon his eyelashes like candied thaw; and, between the fog and
+fire together, there were rainbows in his very whiskers.
+
+"Why, you see, Dot," John made answer slowly, as he unrolled a shawl
+from about his throat, and warmed his hands; "it--it an't exactly summer
+weather. So no wonder."
+
+"I wish you wouldn't call me Dot, John. I don't like it," said Mrs.
+Peerybingle: pouting in a way that clearly showed she _did_ like it very
+much.
+
+"Why, what else are you?" returned John, looking down upon her with a
+smile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze as his huge hand and arm
+could give. "A dot and"--here he glanced at the baby--"a dot and
+carry--I won't say it, for fear I should spoil it; but I was very near a
+joke. I don't know as ever I was nearer."
+
+He was often near to something or other very clever, by his own account:
+this lumbering, slow, honest John; this John so heavy, but so light of
+spirit; so rough upon the surface, but so gentle at the core; so dull
+without, so quick within; so stolid, but so good! Oh, Mother Nature,
+give thy children the true poetry of heart that hid itself in this poor
+Carrier's breast--he was but a Carrier, by the way--and we can bear to
+have them talking prose, and leading lives of prose; and bear to bless
+thee for their company!
+
+It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure and her baby in her
+arms: a very doll of a baby: glancing with a coquettish thoughtfulness
+at the fire, and inclining her delicate little head just enough on one
+side to let it rest in an odd, half-natural, half-affected, wholly
+nestling and agreeable manner, on the great rugged figure of the
+Carrier. It was pleasant to see him, with his tender awkwardness,
+endeavouring to adapt his rude support to her slight need, and make his
+burly middle age a leaning-staff not inappropriate to her blooming
+youth. It was pleasant to observe how Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the
+background for the baby, took special cognizance (though in her
+earliest teens) of this grouping; and stood with her mouth and eyes wide
+open, and her head thrust forward, taking it in as if it were air. Nor
+was it less agreeable to observe how John the Carrier, reference being
+made by Dot to the aforesaid baby, checked his hand when on the point of
+touching the infant, as if he thought he might crack it; and, bending
+down, surveyed it from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled pride,
+such as an amiable mastiff might be supposed to show if he found
+himself, one day, the father of a young canary.
+
+"An't he beautiful, John? Don't he look precious in his sleep?"
+
+"Very precious," said John. "Very much so. He generally _is_ asleep,
+an't he?"
+
+"Lor, John! Good gracious, no!"
+
+"Oh!" said John, pondering. "I thought his eyes was generally shut.
+Halloa!"
+
+"Goodness, John, how you startle one!"
+
+"It an't right for him to turn 'em up in that way," said the astonished
+Carrier, "is it? See how he's winking with both of 'em at once! and look
+at his mouth! Why, he's gasping like a gold and silver fish!"
+
+"You don't deserve to be a father, you don't," said Dot, with all the
+dignity of an experienced matron. "But how should you know what little
+complaints children are troubled with, John? You wouldn't so much as
+know their names, you stupid fellow." And when she had turned the baby
+over on her left arm, and had slapped its back as a restorative, she
+pinched her husband's ear, laughing.
+
+"No," said John, pulling off his outer coat. "It's very true, Dot. I
+don't know much about it. I only know that I've been fighting pretty
+stiffly with the wind to-night. It's been blowing north-east, straight
+into the cart, the whole way home."
+
+"Poor old man, so it has!" cried Mrs. Peerybingle, instantly becoming
+very active. "Here, take the precious darling, Tilly, while I make
+myself of some use. Bless it, I could smother it with kissing it, I
+could! Hie then, good dog! Hie, Boxer, boy! Only let me make the tea
+first, John; and then I'll help you with the parcels, like a busy bee.
+'How doth the little'--and all the rest of it, you know, John. Did you
+ever learn 'How doth the little,' when you went to school, John?"
+
+"Not to quite know it," John returned. "I was very near it once. But I
+should only have spoilt it, I dare say."
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Dot. She had the blithest little laugh you ever heard.
+"What a dear old darling of a dunce you are, John, to be sure!"
+
+Not at all disputing this position, John went out to see that the boy
+with the lantern, which had been dancing to and fro before the door and
+window, like a Will of the Wisp, took due care of the horse; who was
+fatter than you would quite believe, if I gave you his measure, and so
+old that his birthday was lost in the mists of antiquity. Boxer, feeling
+that his attentions were due to the family in general, and must be
+impartially distributed, dashed in and out with bewildering inconstancy;
+now describing a circle of short barks round the horse, where he was
+being rubbed down at the stable door; now feigning to make savage rushes
+at his mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now
+eliciting a shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the
+fire, by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her
+countenance; now exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the baby; now going
+round and round upon the hearth, and lying down as if he had established
+himself for the night; now getting up again, and taking that nothing of
+a fag-end of a tail of his out into the weather, as if he had just
+remembered an appointment, and was off at a round trot, to keep it.
+
+"There! There's the teapot, ready on the hob!" said Dot; as briskly busy
+as a child at play at keeping house. "And there's the cold knuckle of
+ham; and there's the butter; and there's the crusty loaf, and all!
+Here's a clothes basket for the small parcels, John, if you've got any
+there. Where are you, John? Don't let the dear child fall under the
+grate, Tilly, whatever you do!"
+
+It may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her rejecting the caution
+with some vivacity, that she had a rare and surprising talent for
+getting this baby into difficulties: and had several times imperilled
+its short life in a quiet way peculiarly her own. She was of a spare and
+straight shape, this young lady, insomuch that her garments appeared to
+be in constant danger of sliding off those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on
+which they were loosely hung. Her costume was remarkable for the partial
+development, on all possible occasions, of some flannel vestment of a
+singular structure; also for affording glimpses, in the region of the
+back, of a corset, or a pair of stays, in colour a dead green. Being
+always in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed,
+besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's perfections
+and the baby's, Miss Slowboy, in her little errors of judgment, may be
+said to have done equal honour to her head and to her heart; and though
+these did less honour to the baby's head, which they were the occasional
+means of bringing into contact with deal doors, dressers, stair-rails,
+bed-posts, and other foreign substances, still they were the honest
+results of Tilly Slowboy's constant astonishment at finding herself so
+kindly treated, and installed in such a comfortable home. For the
+maternal and paternal Slowboy were alike unknown to Fame, and Tilly had
+been bred by public charity, a foundling; which word, though only
+differing from fondling by one vowel's length, is very different in
+meaning, and expresses quite another thing.
+
+To have seen little Mrs. Peerybingle come back with her husband, tugging
+at the clothes basket, and making the most strenuous exertions to do
+nothing at all (for he carried it), would have amused you almost as much
+as it amused him. It may have entertained the Cricket, too, for
+anything I know; but, certainly, it now began to chirp again vehemently.
+
+[Illustration: _Tilly Slowboy._]
+
+"Heyday!" said John in his slow way. "It's merrier than ever to-night, I
+think."
+
+"And it's sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always has done so. To
+have a Cricket on the Hearth is the luckiest thing in all the world!"
+
+John looked at her as if he had very nearly got the thought into his
+head that she was his Cricket in chief, and he quite agreed with her.
+But it was probably one of his narrow escapes, for he said nothing.
+
+"The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John, was on that
+night when you brought me home--when you brought me to my new home here;
+its little mistress. Nearly a year ago. You recollect, John?"
+
+Oh, yes! John remembered. I should think so!
+
+"Its chirp was such a welcome to me! It seemed so full of promise and
+encouragement. It seemed to say, you would be kind and gentle with me,
+and would not expect (I had a fear of that, John, then) to find an old
+head on the shoulders of your foolish little wife."
+
+John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then the head, as
+though he would have said No, no; he had had no such expectation; he had
+been quite content to take them as they were. And really he had reason.
+They were very comely.
+
+"It spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say so: for you have ever
+been, I am sure, the best, the most considerate, the most affectionate
+of husbands to me. This has been a happy home, John; and I love the
+Cricket for its sake!"
+
+"Why, so do I, then," said the Carrier. "So do I, Dot."
+
+"I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the many thoughts its
+harmless music has given me. Sometimes, in the twilight, when I have
+felt a little solitary and down-hearted, John--before baby was here, to
+keep me company and make the house gay--when I have thought how lonely
+you would be if I should die; how lonely I should be, if I could know
+that you had lost me, dear; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp upon the hearth has
+seemed to tell me of another little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me,
+before whose coming sound my trouble vanished like a dream. And when I
+used to fear--I did fear once, John; I was very young, you know--that
+ours might prove to be an ill-assorted marriage, I being such a child,
+and you more like my guardian than my husband; and that you might not,
+however hard you tried, be able to learn to love me, as you hoped and
+prayed you might; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp has cheered me up again, and
+filled me with new trust and confidence. I was thinking of these things
+to-night, dear, when I sat expecting you; and I love the Cricket for
+their sake!"
+
+"And so do I," repeated John. "But, Dot! _I_ hope and pray that I might
+learn to love you? How you talk! I had learnt that long before I brought
+you here, to be the Cricket's little mistress, Dot!"
+
+She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up at him with an
+agitated face, as if she would have told him something. Next moment, she
+was down upon her knees before the basket; speaking in a sprightly
+voice, and busy with the parcels.
+
+"There are not many of them to-night, John, but I saw some goods behind
+the cart just now; and though they give more trouble, perhaps, still
+they pay as well; so we have no reason to grumble, have we? Besides, you
+have been delivering, I dare say, as you came along?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" John said. "A good many."
+
+"Why, what's this round box? Heart alive, John, it's a wedding-cake!"
+
+"Leave a woman alone to find out that," said John admiringly. "Now, a
+man would never have thought of it! Whereas, it's my belief that if you
+was to pack a wedding-cake up in a tea-chest, or a turn-up bedstead, or
+a pickled-salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a woman would be sure to
+find it out directly. Yes; I called for it at the pastrycook's."
+
+"And it weighs I don't know what--whole hundredweights!" cried Dot,
+making a great demonstration of trying to lift it. "Whose is it, John?
+Where is it going?"
+
+"Read the writing on the other side," said John.
+
+"Why, John! My Goodness, John!"
+
+"Ah! who'd have thought it?" John returned.
+
+"You never mean to say," pursued Dot, sitting on the floor and shaking
+her head at him, "that it's Gruff and Tackleton the toymaker!"
+
+John nodded.
+
+Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least. Not in assent--in
+dumb and pitying amazement; screwing up her lips, the while, with all
+their little force (they were never made for screwing up; I am clear of
+that), and looking the good Carrier through and through, in her
+abstraction. Miss Slowboy, in the meantime, who had a mechanical power
+of reproducing scraps of current conversation for the delectation of the
+baby, with all the sense struck out of them, and all the nouns changed
+into the plural number, inquired aloud of that young creature, Was it
+Gruffs and Tackletons the toymakers then, and Would it call at
+Pastrycooks for wedding-cakes, and Did its mothers know the boxes when
+its fathers brought them home; and so on.
+
+"And that is really to come about!" said Dot. "Why, she and I were girls
+at school together, John."
+
+He might have been thinking of her, or nearly thinking of her, perhaps,
+as she was in that same school-time. He looked upon her with a
+thoughtful pleasure, but he made no answer.
+
+"And he's as old! As unlike her!--Why, how many years older than you is
+Gruff and Tackleton, John?"
+
+"How many more cups of tea shall I drink to-night, at one sitting, than
+Gruff and Tackleton ever took in four, I wonder?" replied John
+good-humouredly, as he drew a chair to the round table, and began at
+the cold ham. "As to eating, I eat but little; but that little I enjoy,
+Dot."
+
+Even this, his usual sentiment at meal-times, one of his innocent
+delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, and flatly
+contradicted him), awoke no smile in the face of his little wife, who
+stood among the parcels, pushing the cake-box slowly from her with her
+foot, and never once looked, though her eyes were cast down too, upon
+the dainty shoe she generally was so mindful of. Absorbed in thought,
+she stood there, heedless alike of the tea and John (although he called
+to her and rapped the table with his knife to startle her), until he
+rose and touched her on the arm; when she looked at him for a moment,
+and hurried to her place behind the tea-board, laughing at her
+negligence. But not as she had laughed before. The manner and the music
+were quite changed.
+
+The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow, the room was not so cheerful as
+it had been. Nothing like it.
+
+"So, these are all the parcels, are they, John?" she said, breaking a
+long silence, which the honest Carrier had devoted to the practical
+illustration of one part of his favourite sentiment--certainly enjoying
+what he ate, if it couldn't be admitted that he ate but little. "So
+these are all the parcels, are they, John?"
+
+"That's all," said John. "Why--no--I"--laying down his knife and fork,
+and taking a long breath--"I declare--I've clean forgotten the old
+gentleman!"
+
+"The old gentleman?"
+
+"In the cart," said John. "He was asleep among the straw, the last time
+I saw him. I've very nearly remembered him, twice, since I came in; but
+he went out of my head again. Halloa! Yahip there! Rouse up! That's my
+hearty!"
+
+John said these latter words outside the door, whither he had hurried
+with the candle in his hand.
+
+Miss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference to The Old
+Gentleman, and connecting, in her mystified imagination, certain
+associations of a religious nature with the phrase, was so disturbed,
+that hastily rising from the low chair by the fire to seek protection
+near the skirt of her mistress, and coming into contact, as she crossed
+the doorway, with an ancient Stranger, she instinctively made a charge
+or butt at him with the only offensive instrument within her reach. This
+instrument happening to be the baby, great commotion and alarm ensued,
+which the sagacity of Boxer rather tended to increase; for that good
+dog, more thoughtful than his master, had, it seemed, been watching the
+old gentleman in his sleep, lest he should walk off with a few young
+poplar-trees that were tied up behind the cart; and he still attended on
+him very closely, worrying his gaiters, in fact, and making dead sets at
+the buttons.
+
+"You're such an undeniably good sleeper, sir," said John, when
+tranquillity was restored (in the meantime the old gentleman had stood,
+bareheaded and motionless, in the centre of the room), "that I have half
+a mind to ask you where the other six are--only that would be a joke,
+and I know I should spoil it. Very near, though," murmured the Carrier
+with a chuckle; "very near!"
+
+The Stranger, who had long white hair, good features, singularly bold
+and well defined for an old man, and dark, bright, penetrating eyes,
+looked round with a smile, and saluted the Carrier's wife by gravely
+inclining his head.
+
+His garb was very quaint and odd--a long, long way behind the time. Its
+hue was brown, all over. In his hand he held a great brown club or
+walking-stick; and, striking this upon the floor, it fell asunder, and
+became a chair. On which he sat down quite composedly.
+
+"There!" said the Carrier, turning to his wife. "That's the way I found
+him, sitting by the roadside! Upright as a milestone. And almost as
+deaf."
+
+"Sitting in the open air, John?"
+
+"In the open air," replied the Carrier, "just at dusk. 'Carriage Paid,'
+he said; and gave me eighteen-pence. Then he got in. And there he is."
+
+"He's going, John, I think!"
+
+Not at all. He was only going to speak.
+
+"If you please, I was to be left till called for," said the Stranger
+mildly. "Don't mind me."
+
+With that he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large pockets,
+and a book from another, and leisurely began to read. Making no more of
+Boxer than if he had been a house lamb!
+
+The Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity. The Stranger
+raised his head; and, glancing from the latter to the former, said:
+
+"Your daughter, my good friend?"
+
+"Wife," returned John.
+
+"Niece?" said the Stranger.
+
+"Wife!" roared John.
+
+"Indeed?" observed the Stranger. "Surely? Very young!"
+
+He quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. But, before he could
+have read two lines, he again interrupted himself to say:
+
+"Baby yours?"
+
+John gave him a gigantic nod: equivalent to an answer in the
+affirmative, delivered through a speaking trumpet.
+
+"Girl?"
+
+"Bo-o-oy!" roared John.
+
+"Also very young, eh?"
+
+Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. "Two months and three da-ays.
+Vaccinated just six weeks ago-o! Took very fine-ly! Considered, by the
+doctor, a remarkably beautiful chi-ild! Equal to the general run of
+children at five months o-ld! Takes notice in a way quite wonder-ful!
+May seem impossible to you, but feels his legs al-ready!"
+
+[Illustration: _"That's the way I found him, sitting by the roadside!
+Upright as a milestone."_]
+
+Here, the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these short
+sentences into the old man's ear, until her pretty face was crimsoned,
+held up the Baby before him as a stubborn and triumphant fact; while
+Tilly Slowboy, with a melodious cry of "Ketcher, Ketcher"--which sounded
+like some unknown words, adapted to a popular Sneeze--performed some
+cow-like gambols around that all unconscious Innocent.
+
+"Hark! He's called for, sure enough," said John. "There's somebody at
+the door. Open it, Tilly."
+
+Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from without; being a
+primitive sort of door, with a latch that any one could lift if he
+chose--and a good many people did choose, for all kinds of neighbours
+liked to have a cheerful word or two with the Carrier, though he was no
+great talker himself. Being opened, it gave admission to a little,
+meagre, thoughtful, dingy-faced man, who seemed to have made himself a
+great-coat from the sackcloth covering of some old box; for, when he
+turned to shut the door and keep the weather out, he disclosed upon the
+back of that garment the inscription G & T in large black capitals. Also
+the word GLASS in bold characters.
+
+"Good evening, John!" said the little man. "Good evening, mum! Good
+evening, Tilly! Good evening, Unbeknown! How's Baby, mum? Boxer's pretty
+well I hope?"
+
+"All thriving, Caleb," replied Dot. "I am sure you need only look at the
+dear child, for one, to know that."
+
+"And I'm sure I need only look at you for another," said Caleb.
+
+He didn't look at her, though; he had a wandering and thoughtful eye,
+which seemed to be always projecting itself into some other time and
+place, no matter what he said; a description which will equally apply to
+his voice.
+
+"Or at John for another," said Caleb. "Or at Tilly, as far as that goes.
+Or certainly at Boxer."
+
+"Busy just now, Caleb?" asked the Carrier.
+
+"Why, pretty well, John," he returned, with the distraught air of a man
+who was casting about for the Philosopher's stone, at least. "Pretty
+much so. There's rather a run on Noah's Arks at present. I could have
+wished to improve on the Family, but I don't see how it's to be done at
+the price. It would be a satisfaction to one's mind to make it clearer
+which was Shems and Hams, and which was Wives. Flies an't on that scale,
+neither, as compared with elephants, you know! Ah, well! Have you got
+anything in the parcel line for me, John?"
+
+The Carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had taken off; and
+brought out, carefully preserved in moss and paper, a tiny flower-pot.
+
+"There it is!" he said, adjusting it with great care. "Not so much as a
+leaf damaged. Full of buds!"
+
+Caleb's dull eye brightened as he took it, and thanked him.
+
+"Dear, Caleb," said the Carrier. "Very dear at this season."
+
+"Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, what ever it cost," returned
+the little man. "Anything else, John?"
+
+"A small box," replied the Carrier. "Here you are!"
+
+"'For Caleb Plummer,'" said the little man, spelling out the direction.
+"'With Cash.' With Cash, John? I don't think it's for me."
+
+"With Care," returned the Carrier, looking over his shoulder. "Where do
+you make out cash?"
+
+"Oh! To be sure!" said Caleb. "It's all right. With care! Yes, yes;
+that's mine. It might have been with cash, indeed, if my dear Boy in the
+Golden South Americas had lived, John. You loved him like a son; didn't
+you? You needn't say you did. _I_ know, of course. 'Caleb Plummer. With
+care.' Yes, yes, it's all right. It's a box of dolls' eyes for my
+daughters' work. I wish it was her own sight in a box, John."
+
+"I wish it was, or could be!" cried the Carrier.
+
+"Thankee," said the little man. "You speak very hearty. To think that
+she should never see the Dolls--and them a staring at her, so bold, all
+day long! That's where it cuts. What's the damage, John?"
+
+"I'll damage you," said John, "if you inquire. Dot! Very near?"
+
+"Well! it's like you to say so," observed the little man. "It's your
+kind way. Let me see. I think that's all."
+
+"I think not," said the Carrier. "Try again."
+
+"Something for our Governor, eh?" said Caleb after pondering a little
+while. "To be sure. That's what I came for; but my head's so running on
+them Arks and things! He hasn't been here, has he?"
+
+"Not he," returned the Carrier. "He's too busy, courting."
+
+"He's coming round, though," said Caleb; "for he told me to keep on the
+near side of the road going home, and it was ten to one he'd take me up.
+I had better go, by-the-bye.--You couldn't have the goodness to let me
+pinch Boxer's tail, mum, for half a moment, could you?"
+
+"Why, Caleb, what a question!"
+
+"Oh, never mind, mum!" said the little man. "He mightn't like it,
+perhaps. There's a small order just come in for barking dogs; and I
+should wish to go as close to Natur' as I could for sixpence. That's
+all. Never mind, mum."
+
+It happened opportunely that Boxer, without receiving the proposed
+stimulus, began to bark with great zeal. But, as this implied the
+approach of some new visitor, Caleb, postponing his study from the life
+to a more convenient season, shouldered the round box, and took a
+hurried leave. He might have spared himself the trouble, for he met the
+visitor upon the threshold.
+
+"Oh! You are here, are you? Wait a bit. I'll take you home. John
+Peerybingle, my service to you. More of my service to your pretty wife.
+Handsomer every day! Better too, if possible! And younger," mused the
+speaker in a low voice, "that's the devil of it!"
+
+"I should be astonished at your paying compliments, Mr. Tackleton," said
+Dot, not with the best grace in the world, "but for your condition."
+
+"You know all about it, then?"
+
+"I have got myself to believe it somehow," said Dot.
+
+"After a hard struggle, I suppose?"
+
+"Very."
+
+Tackleton the Toy merchant, pretty generally known as Gruff and
+Tackleton--for that was the firm, though Gruff had been bought out long
+ago; only leaving his name, and, as some said, his nature, according to
+its Dictionary meaning, in the business--Tackleton the Toy merchant was
+a man whose vocation had been quite misunderstood by his Parents and
+Guardians. If they had made him a Money Lender, or a sharp Attorney, or
+a Sheriff's Officer, or a Broker, he might have sown his discontented
+oats in his youth, and, after having had the full run of himself in
+ill-natured transactions, might have turned out amiable, at last, for
+the sake of a little freshness and novelty. But, cramped and chafing in
+the peaceable pursuit of toymaking, he was a domestic Ogre, who had been
+living on children all his life, and was their implacable enemy. He
+despised all toys; wouldn't have bought one for the world; delighted, in
+his malice, to insinuate grim expressions into the faces of brown-paper
+farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen who advertised lost lawyers'
+consciences, movable old ladies who darned stockings or carved pies; and
+other like samples of his stock-in-trade. In appalling masks; hideous,
+hairy, red-eyed Jacks in Boxes; Vampire Kites; demoniacal Tumblers who
+wouldn't lie down, and were perpetually flying forward, to stare infants
+out of countenance; his soul perfectly revelled. They were his only
+relief, and safety-valve. He was great in such inventions. Anything
+suggestive of a Pony nightmare was delicious to him. He had even lost
+money (and he took to that toy very kindly) by getting up Goblin slides
+for magic lanterns, whereon the Powers of Darkness were depicted as a
+sort of supernatural shell-fish, with human faces. In intensifying the
+portraiture of Giants, he had sunk quite a little capital; and, though
+no painter himself, he could indicate, for the instruction of his
+artists, with a piece of chalk, a certain furtive leer for the
+countenances of those monsters, which was safe to destroy the peace of
+mind of any young gentleman between the ages of six and eleven, for the
+whole Christmas or Midsummer Vacation.
+
+What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in other things. You may
+easily suppose, therefore, that within the great green cape, which
+reached down to the calves of his legs, there was buttoned up to the
+chin an uncommonly pleasant fellow; and that he was about as choice a
+spirit, and as agreeable a companion, as ever stood in a pair of
+bull-headed-looking boots with mahogany-coloured tops.
+
+Still, Tackleton, the toy merchant, was going to be married. In spite of
+all this, he was going to be married. And to a young wife too, a
+beautiful young wife.
+
+He didn't look much like a Bridegroom, as he stood in the Carrier's
+kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and his
+hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked down into
+the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic, ill-conditioned
+self peering out of one little corner of one little eye, like the
+concentrated essence of any number of ravens. But a Bridegroom he
+designed to be.
+
+"In three days' time. Next Thursday. The last day of the first month in
+the year. That's my wedding-day," said Tackleton.
+
+Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open, and one eye nearly
+shut; and that the one eye nearly shut was always the expressive eye? I
+don't think I did.
+
+"That's my wedding-day!" said Tackleton, rattling his money.
+
+"Why, it's our wedding-day too," exclaimed the Carrier.
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Tackleton. "Odd! You're just such another couple.
+Just!"
+
+The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion is not to be
+described. What next? His imagination would compass the possibility of
+just such another Baby, perhaps. The man was mad.
+
+"I say! A word with you," murmured Tackleton, nudging the Carrier with
+his elbow, and taking him a little apart. "You'll come to the wedding?
+We're in the same boat, you know."
+
+"How in the same boat?" inquired the Carrier.
+
+"A little disparity, you know," said Tackleton with another nudge. "Come
+and spend an evening with us beforehand."
+
+"Why?" demanded John, astonished at this pressing hospitality.
+
+"Why?" returned the other. "That's a new way of receiving an invitation.
+Why, for pleasure--sociability, you know, and all that."
+
+"I thought you were never sociable," said John in his plain way.
+
+"Tchah! It's of no use to be anything but free with you, I see," said
+Tackleton. "Why, then, the truth is, you have a--what tea-drinking
+people call a sort of a comfortable appearance together, you and your
+wife. We know better, you know, but----"
+
+"No, we don't know better," interposed John. "What are you talking
+about?"
+
+"Well! We _don't_ know better, then," said Tackleton. "We'll agree that
+we don't. As you like; what does it matter? I was going to say, as you
+have that sort of appearance, your company will produce a favourable
+effect on Mrs. Tackleton that will be. And, though I don't think your
+good lady's very friendly to me in this matter, still she can't help
+herself from falling into my views, for there's a compactness and
+cosiness of appearance about her that always tells, even in an
+indifferent case. You'll say you'll come?"
+
+"We have arranged to keep our Wedding-day (as far as that goes) at
+home," said John. "We have made the promise to ourselves these six
+months. We think, you see, that home--"
+
+"Bah! what's home?" cried Tackleton. "Four walls and a ceiling! (Why
+don't you kill that Cricket? _I_ would! I always do. I hate their
+noise.) There are four walls and a ceiling at my house. Come to me!"
+
+"You kill your Crickets, eh?" said John.
+
+"Scrunch 'em, sir," returned the other, setting his heel heavily on the
+floor. "You'll say you'll come? It's as much your interest as mine, you
+know, that the women should persuade each other that they're quiet and
+contented, and couldn't be better off. I know their way. Whatever one
+woman says, another woman is determined to clinch always. There's that
+spirit of emulation among 'em, sir, that if your wife says to my wife,
+'I'm the happiest woman in the world, and mine's the best husband in the
+world, and I dote on him,' my wife will say the same to yours, or more,
+and half believe it."
+
+"Do you mean to say she don't, then?" asked the Carrier.
+
+"Don't!" cried Tackleton with a short, sharp laugh. "Don't what?"
+
+The Carrier had some faint idea of adding, "dote upon you." But,
+happening to meet the half-closed eye, as it twinkled upon him over the
+turned-up collar of the cape, which was within an ace of poking it out,
+he felt it such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to be doted on,
+that he substituted, "that she don't believe it?"
+
+"Ah, you dog! You're joking," said Tackleton.
+
+But the Carrier, though slow to understand the full drift of his
+meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner, that he was obliged to be a
+little more explanatory.
+
+"I have the humour," said Tackleton: holding up the fingers of his left
+hand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply, "There I am, Tackleton to
+wit": "I have the humour, sir, to marry a young wife, and a pretty
+wife": here he rapped his little finger, to express the Bride; not
+sparingly, but sharply; with a sense of power. "I'm able to gratify that
+humour, and I do. It's my whim. But--now look there!"
+
+He pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully before the fire:
+leaning her dimpled chin upon her hand, and watching the bright blaze.
+The Carrier looked at her, and then at him, and then at her, and then at
+him again.
+
+"She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know," said Tackleton; "and that,
+as I am not a man of sentiment, is quite enough for _me_. But do you
+think there's anything more in it?"
+
+"I think," observed the Carrier, "that I should chuck any man out of
+window who said there wasn't."
+
+"Exactly so," returned the other with an unusual alacrity of assent. "To
+be sure! Doubtless you would. Of course. I'm certain of it. Good night.
+Pleasant dreams!"
+
+The Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and uncertain, in spite
+of himself. He couldn't help showing it in his manner.
+
+"Good night, my dear friend!" said Tackleton compassionately. "I'm off.
+We're exactly alike in reality, I see. You won't give us to-morrow
+evening? Well! Next day you go out visiting, I know. I'll meet you
+there, and bring my wife that is to be. It'll do her good. You're
+agreeable? Thankee. What's that?"
+
+It was a loud cry from the Carrier's wife: a loud, sharp, sudden cry,
+that made the room ring like a glass vessel. She had risen from her
+seat, and stood like one transfixed by terror and surprise. The Stranger
+had advanced towards the fire to warm himself, and stood within a short
+stride of her chair. But quite still.
+
+"Dot!" cried the Carrier. "Mary! Darling! What's the matter?"
+
+They were all about her in a moment. Caleb, who had been dozing on the
+cake-box, in the first imperfect recovery of his suspended presence of
+mind, seized Miss Slowboy by the hair of her head, but immediately
+apologised.
+
+"Mary!" exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his arms. "Are you ill?
+What is it? Tell me dear!"
+
+She only answered by beating her hands together, and falling into a wild
+fit of laughter. Then, sinking from his grasp upon the ground, she
+covered her face with her apron, and wept bitterly. And then, she
+laughed again, and then she cried again, and then she said how cold she
+was, and suffered him to lead her to the fire, where she sat down as
+before. The old man standing, as before, quite still.
+
+"I'm better, John," she said. "I'm quite well now--I----"
+
+"John!" But John was on the other side of her. Why turn her face towards
+the strange old gentleman, as if addressing him. Was her brain
+wandering?
+
+"Only a fancy, John dear--a kind of shock--a something coming suddenly
+before my eyes--I don't know what it was. It's quite gone, quite gone."
+
+"I'm glad it's gone," muttered Tackleton, turning the expressive eye all
+round the room. "I wonder where it's gone, and what it was. Humph!
+Caleb, come here! Who's that with the grey hair?"
+
+"I don't know, sir," returned Caleb in a whisper. "Never see him before
+in all my life. A beautiful figure for a nut-cracker; quite a new model.
+With a screw-jaw opening down into his waistcoat, he'd be lovely."
+
+"Not ugly enough," said Tackleton.
+
+"Or for a fire-box either," observed Caleb in deep contemplation, "what
+a model! Unscrew his head to put the matches in; turn him heels up'ards
+for the light; and what a fire-box for a gentleman's mantel-shelf, just
+as he stands!"
+
+"Not half ugly enough," said Tackleton. "Nothing in him at all. Come!
+Bring that box! All right now, I hope?"
+
+"Oh, quite gone! Quite gone!" said the little woman, waving him
+hurriedly away. "Good night!"
+
+"Good night!" said Tackleton. "Good night, John Peerybingle! Take care
+how you carry that box, Caleb. Let it fall, and I'll murder you! Dark as
+pitch, and weather worse than ever, eh? Good night!"
+
+So, with another sharp look round the room, he went out at the door;
+followed by Caleb with the wedding-cake on his head.
+
+The Carrier had been so much astounded by his little wife, and so busily
+engaged in soothing and tending her, that he had scarcely been conscious
+of the Stranger's presence until now, when he again stood there, their
+only guest.
+
+"He don't belong to them, you see," said John. "I must give him a hint
+to go."
+
+"I beg your pardon, friend," said the old gentleman, advancing to him;
+"the more so as I fear your wife has not been well; but the Attendant
+whom my infirmity," he touched his ears, and shook his head, "renders
+almost indispensable, not having arrived, I fear there must be some
+mistake. The bad night which made the shelter of your comfortable cart
+(may I never have a worse!) so acceptable, is still as bad as ever.
+Would you, in your kindness, suffer me to rent a bed here?"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried Dot. "Yes! Certainly!"
+
+"Oh!" said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this consent.
+"Well! I don't object; but still I'm not quite sure that----"
+
+"Hush!" she interrupted. "Dear John!"
+
+"Why, he's stone deaf," urged John.
+
+"I know he is, but----Yes, sir, certainly. Yes, certainly! I'll make him
+up a bed directly, John."
+
+As she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and the
+agitation of her manner, were so strange, that the Carrier stood looking
+after her, quite confounded.
+
+"Did its mothers make it up a Beds, then!" cried Miss Slowboy to the
+Baby; "and did its hair grow brown and curly when its caps was lifted
+off, and frighten it, a precious Pets, a sitting by the fires!"
+
+With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, which is
+often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, the Carrier, as he
+walked slowly to and fro, found himself mentally repeating even these
+absurd words, many times. So many times, that he got them by heart, and
+was still conning them over and over, like a lesson, when Tilly, after
+administering as much friction to the little bald head with her hand as
+she thought wholesome (according to the practice of nurses), had once
+more tied the Baby's cap on.
+
+"And frighten it, a precious Pets, a sitting by the fires. What
+frightened Dot, I wonder?" mused the Carrier, pacing to and fro.
+
+He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the toy merchant, and
+yet they filled him with a vague, indefinite uneasiness. For Tackleton
+was quick and sly; and he had that painful sense, himself, of being a
+man of slow perception, that a broken hint was always worrying to him.
+He certainly had no intention in his mind of linking anything that
+Tackleton had said with the unusual conduct of his wife, but the two
+subjects of reflection came into his mind together, and he could not
+keep them asunder.
+
+The bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining all refreshment
+but a cup of tea, retired. Then, Dot--quite well again, she said, quite
+well again--arranged the great chair in the chimney-corner for her
+husband; filled his pipe and gave it him; and took her usual little
+stool beside him on the hearth.
+
+She always _would_ sit on that little stool. I think she must have had a
+kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling little stool.
+
+She was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, I should say, in
+the four quarters of the globe. To see her put that chubby little finger
+in the bowl, and then blow down the pipe to clear the tube, and, when
+she had done so, affect to think that there was really something in the
+tube, and blow a dozen times, and hold it to her eye like a telescope,
+with a most provoking twist in her capital little face, as she looked
+down it, was quite a brilliant thing. As to the tobacco, she was perfect
+mistress of the subject; and her lighting of the pipe, with a wisp of
+paper, when the Carrier had it in his mouth--going so very near his
+nose, and yet not scorching it--was Art, high Art.
+
+And the Cricket and the Kettle, turning up again, acknowledged it! The
+bright fire, blazing up again, acknowledged it! The little Mower on the
+clock, in his unheeded work, acknowledged it! The Carrier, in his
+smoothing forehead and expanding face, acknowledged it, the readiest of
+all.
+
+And as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe, and as the
+Dutch clock ticked, and as the red fire gleamed, and as the Cricket
+chirped, that Genius of his Hearth and Home (for such the Cricket was)
+came out, in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned many forms of Home
+about him. Dots of all ages and all sizes filled the chamber. Dots who
+were merry children, running on before him, gathering flowers in the
+fields; coy Dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of
+his own rough image; newly-married Dots, alighting at the door, and
+taking wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots,
+attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened;
+matronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching Dots of daughters, as
+they danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, encircled and beset by troops of
+rosy grandchildren; withered Dots, who leaned on sticks, and tottered as
+they crept along. Old Carriers, too, appeared with blind old Boxers
+lying at their feet; and newer carts with younger drivers ("Peerybingle
+Brothers" on the tilt); and sick old Carriers, tended by the gentlest
+hands; and graves of dead and gone old Carriers, green in the
+churchyard. And as the Cricket showed him all these things--he saw them
+plainly, though his eyes were fixed upon the fire--the Carrier's heart
+grew light and happy, and he thanked his Household Gods with all his
+might, and cared no more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do.
+
+        *     *     *     *     *
+
+But what was that young figure of a man, which the same Fairy Cricket
+set so near Her stool, and which remained there, singly and alone? Why
+did it linger still, so near her, with its arm upon the chimney-piece,
+ever repeating "Married! and not to me!"
+
+Oh, Dot! Oh, failing Dot! There is no place for it in all your husband's
+visions. Why has its shadow fallen on his hearth?
+
+
+
+
+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 work-a-day 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 faint-heartedness 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 humorist, 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 humankind.
+
+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 thorough-bred 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 sackcloth 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, 'Halloa! 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.
+
+"Yes! 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. "Oh, my gracious!"
+
+"Always merry and light-hearted with us!" cried the smiling Bertha.
+
+"Oh! 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 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
+Picnic 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'm 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, bridecake, 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 her 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 meantime 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 way 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 tiptop 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 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 declare 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 Picnic 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 good 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."
+
+"Oh! 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
+elsewhere; 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 hope.
+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 Fairyrings in the fields, and for the patches of hoar
+frost still lingering in the shade, near hedges and by trees, was a
+pleasant occupation, to make no mention of the unexpected shapes in
+which the trees themselves came starting out of the mist, and glided
+into it again. The hedges were tangled and bare, and waved a multitude
+of blighted garlands in the wind; but there was no discouragement in
+this. It was agreeable to contemplate; for it made the fireside warmer
+in possession, and the summer greener in expectancy. The river looked
+chilly; but it was in motion, and moving at a good pace--which was a
+great point. The canal was rather slow and torpid; that must be
+admitted. Never mind. It would freeze the sooner when the frost set
+fairly in, and then there would be skating and sliding; and the heavy
+old barges, frozen up somewhere near a wharf, would smoke their rusty
+iron chimney-pipes all day, and have a lazy time of it.
+
+In one place there was a great mound of weeds or stubble burning; and
+they watched the fire, so white in the daytime, flaring through the fog,
+with only here and there a dash of red in it, until, in consequence, as
+she observed, of the smoke "getting up her nose," Miss Slowboy
+choked--she could do anything of that sort, on the smallest
+provocation--and woke the Baby, who wouldn't go to sleep again. But
+Boxer, who was in advance some quarter of a mile or so, had already
+passed the outposts of the town, and gained the corner of the street
+where Caleb and his daughter lived; and, long before they had reached
+the door, he and the Blind Girl were on the pavement waiting to receive
+them.
+
+Boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions of his own, in his
+communication with Bertha, which persuade me fully that he knew her to
+be blind. He never sought to attract her attention by looking at her, as
+he often did with other people, but touched her invariably. What
+experience he could ever have had of blind people or blind dogs I don't
+know. He had never lived with a blind master; nor had Mr. Boxer the
+elder, nor Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his respectable family on either side,
+ever been visited with blindness, that I am aware of. He may have found
+it out for himself, perhaps, but he had got hold of it somehow; and
+therefore he had hold of Bertha too, by the skirt, and kept hold, until
+Mrs. Peerybingle and the Baby, and Miss Slowboy and the basket, were all
+got safely within doors.
+
+May Fielding was already come; and so was her mother--a little querulous
+chip of an old lady with a peevish face, who, in right of having
+preserved a waist like a bedpost, was supposed to be a most transcendent
+figure; and who, in consequence of having once been better off, or of
+labouring under an impression that she might have been, if something had
+happened which never did happen, and seemed to have never been
+particularly likely to come to pass--but it's all the same--was very
+genteel and patronising indeed. Gruff and Tackleton was also there,
+doing the agreeable, with the evident sensation of being as perfectly at
+home, and as unquestionably in his own element, as a fresh young salmon
+on the top of the Great Pyramid.
+
+"May! My dear old friend!" cried Dot, running up to meet her. "What a
+happiness to see you!"
+
+Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as she; and it
+really was, if you'll believe me, quite a pleasant sight to see them
+embrace. Tackleton was a man of taste, beyond all question. May was very
+pretty.
+
+You know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, how, when it
+comes into contact and comparison with another pretty face, it seems for
+the moment to be homely and faded, and hardly to deserve the high
+opinion you have had of it. Now, this was not at all the case, either
+with Dot or May; for May's face set off Dot's, and Dot's face set off
+May's, so naturally and agreeably, that, as John Peerybingle was very
+near saying when he came into the room, they ought to have been born
+sisters--which was the only improvement you could have suggested.
+
+Tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful to relate, a
+tart besides--but we don't mind a little dissipation when our brides are
+in the case; we don't get married every day--and, in addition to these
+dainties, there were the Veal and Ham Pie, and "things," as Mrs.
+Peerybingle called them; which were chiefly nuts and oranges, and cakes,
+and such small deer. When the repast was set forth on the board, flanked
+by Caleb's contribution, which was a great wooden bowl of smoking
+potatoes (he was prohibited, by solemn compact, from producing any other
+viands), Tackleton led his intended mother-in-law to the post of honour.
+For the better gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic
+old soul had adorned herself with a cap, calculated to inspire the
+thoughtless with sentiments of awe. She also wore her gloves. But let us
+be genteel, or die!
+
+Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old schoolfellow were side by
+side; the good Carrier took care of the bottom of the table. Miss
+Slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article of
+furniture but the chair she sat on, that she might have nothing else to
+knock the Baby's head against.
+
+As Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared at her and
+at the company. The venerable old gentlemen at the street-doors (who
+were all in full action) showed especial interest in the party, pausing
+occasionally before leaping, as if they were listening to the
+conversation, and then plunging wildly over and over, a great many
+times, without halting for breath--as in a frantic state of delight with
+the whole proceedings.
+
+Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a fiendish joy
+in the contemplation of Tackleton's discomfiture, they had good reason
+to be satisfied. Tackleton couldn't get on at all; and the more cheerful
+his intended bride became in Dot's society, the less he liked it, though
+he had brought them together for that purpose. For he was a regular dog
+in the manger, was Tackleton; and, when they laughed and he couldn't, he
+took it into his head, immediately, that they must be laughing at him.
+
+"Ah, May!" said Dot. "Dear, dear, what changes! To talk of those merry
+school days makes one young again."
+
+"Why, you an't particularly old at any time, are you?" said Tackleton.
+
+"Look at my sober, plodding husband there," returned Dot. "He adds
+twenty years to my age at least. Don't you, John?"
+
+"Forty," John replied.
+
+"How many _you_'ll add to Mary'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 flashed into her face,
+and tears stood in her eyes.
+
+"Even the very persons themselves--real live young men--we fixed on
+sometimes," said Dot. "We little thought how things would come about. I
+never fixed on John, I'm sure; I never so much as thought of him. And,
+if I had told you you were ever to be married to Mr. Tackleton, why,
+you'd have slapped me. Wouldn't you, May?"
+
+Though May didn't say yes, she certainly didn't say no, or express no,
+by any means.
+
+Tackleton laughed--quite shouted, he laughed so loud. John Peerybingle
+laughed too, in his ordinary good-natured and contented manner; but his
+was a mere whisper of a laugh to Tackleton's.
+
+"You couldn't help yourselves, for all that. You couldn't resist us, you
+see," said Tackleton. "Here we are! Here we are! Where are your gay
+young bridegrooms now?"
+
+"Some of them are dead," said Dot; "and some of them forgotten. Some of
+them, if they could stand among us at this moment, would not believe we
+were the same creatures; would not believe that what they saw and heard
+was real, and we _could_ forget them so. No! they would not believe one
+word of it!"
+
+"Why, Dot!" exclaimed the Carrier. "Little woman!"
+
+She had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that she stood in need of
+some recalling to herself, without doubt. Her husband's check was very
+gentle, for he merely interfered, as he supposed, to shield old
+Tackleton; but it proved effectual, for she stopped, and said no more.
+There was an uncommon agitation, even in her silence, which the wary
+Tackleton, who had brought his half-shut eye to bear upon her, noted
+closely, and remembered to some purpose too.
+
+May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, with her eyes
+cast down, and made no sign of interest in what had passed. The good
+lady her mother now interposed, observing, in the first instance, that
+girls were girls, and bygones bygones, 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 that if certain
+circumstances, not wholly unconnected, she would go so far as to say,
+with the Indigo Trade, but to which she would not more particularly
+refer, had happened differently, it might perhaps have been in
+possession of wealth. She then remarked that she would not allude to the
+past, and would not mention that her daughter had for some time rejected
+the suit of Mr. Tackleton; and that she would not say a great many other
+things which she did say at great length. Finally, she delivered it as
+the general result of her observation and experience, that those
+marriages in which there was least of what was romantically and sillily
+called love, were always the happiest; and that she anticipated the
+greatest possible amount of bliss--not rapturous bliss; but the solid,
+steady-going article--from the approaching nuptials. She concluded by
+informing the company that to-morrow was the day she had lived for
+expressly; and that, when it was over, she would desire nothing better
+than to be packed up and disposed of in any genteel place of burial.
+
+As these remarks were quite unanswerable--which is the happy property of
+all remarks that are sufficiently wide of the purpose--they changed the
+current of the conversation, and diverted the general attention to the
+Veal and Ham Pie, the cold mutton, the potatoes, and the tart. In order
+that the bottled beer might not be slighted, John Peerybingle proposed
+To-morrow: the Wedding-day; and called upon them to drink a bumper to
+it, before he proceeded on his journey.
+
+For you ought to know that he only rested there, and gave the old horse
+a bait. He had to go some four or five miles farther on; and, when he
+returned in the evening, he called for Dot, and took another rest on his
+way home. This was the order of the day on all the Picnic occasions, and
+had been ever since their institution.
+
+There were two persons present, besides the bride and bridegroom elect,
+who did but indifferent honour to the toast. One of these was Dot, too
+flushed and discomposed to adapt herself to any small occurrence of the
+moment; the other, Bertha, who rose up hurriedly before the rest, and
+left the table.
+
+"Good-bye!" said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on his dreadnought
+coat. "I shall be back at the old time. Good-bye all!"
+
+"Good-bye, John," returned Caleb.
+
+He seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in the same
+unconscious manner; for he stood observing Bertha with an anxious
+wondering face, that never altered its expression.
+
+"Good-bye, young shaver!" said the jolly Carrier, bending down to kiss
+the child; which Tilly Slowboy, now intent upon her knife and fork, had
+deposited asleep (and, strange to say, without damage) in a little cot
+of Bertha's furnishing; "good-bye! Time will come, I suppose, when
+_you_'ll turn out into the cold, my little friend, and leave your old
+father to enjoy his pipe and his rheumatics in the chimney-corner; eh?
+Where's Dot?"
+
+"I'm here, John!" she said, starting.
+
+"Come, come!" returned the Carrier, clapping his sounding hands.
+"Where's the pipe?"
+
+"I quite forgot the pipe, John."
+
+Forgot the pipe! Was such a wonder ever heard of? She! Forgot the pipe!
+
+"I'll--I'll fill it directly. It's soon done."
+
+But it was not so soon done, either. It lay in the usual place--the
+Carrier's dreadnought pocket--with the little pouch, her own work, from
+which she was used to fill it; but her hand shook so, that she entangled
+it (and yet her hand was small enough to have come out easily, I am
+sure), and bungled terribly. The filling of the pipe and lighting it,
+those little offices in which I have commended her discretion, were
+vilely done from first to last. During the whole process, Tackleton
+stood looking on maliciously with the half-closed eye; which, whenever
+it met hers--or caught it, for it can hardly be said to have ever met
+another eye: rather being a kind of trap to snatch it up--augmented her
+confusion in a most remarkable degree.
+
+"Why, what a clumsy Dot you are this afternoon!" said John. "I could
+have done it better myself, I verily believe!"
+
+With these good-natured words, he strode away, and presently was heard,
+in company with Boxer, and the old horse, and the cart, making lively
+music down the road. What time the dreamy Caleb still stood, watching
+his blind daughter, with the same expression on his face.
+
+"Bertha!" said Caleb, softly. "What has happened? How changed you are,
+my darling, in a few hours--since this morning! _You_ silent and dull
+all day! What is it? Tell me!"
+
+"Oh, father, father!" cried the Blind Girl, bursting into tears. "Oh, my
+hard, hard fate!"
+
+Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her.
+
+"But think how cheerful and how happy you have been, Bertha! How good,
+and how much loved, by many people."
+
+"That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Always so mindful of me!
+Always so kind to me!"
+
+Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her.
+
+"To be--to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear," he faltered, "is a great
+affliction; but----"
+
+"I have never felt it!" cried the Blind Girl. "I have never felt it in
+its fulness. Never! I have sometimes wished that I could see you, or
+could see him--only once, dear father, only for one little minute--that
+I might know what it is I treasure up," she laid her hands upon her
+breast, "and hold here! That I might be sure I have it right! And
+sometimes (but then I was a child) I have wept in my prayers at night,
+to think that, when your images ascended from my heart to Heaven, they
+might not be the true resemblance of yourselves. But I have never had
+these feelings long. They have passed away, and left me tranquil and
+contented."
+
+"And they will again," said Caleb.
+
+"But, father! Oh, my good gentle father, bear with me, if I am wicked!"
+said the Blind Girl. "This is not the sorrow that so weighs me down!"
+
+Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes overflow; she was so
+earnest and pathetic. But he did not understand her yet.
+
+"Bring her to me," said Bertha. "I cannot hold it closed and shut within
+myself. Bring her to me, father!"
+
+She knew he hesitated, and said, "May. Bring May!"
+
+May heard the mention of her name, and, coming quietly towards her,
+touched her on the arm. The Blind Girl turned immediately, and held her
+by both hands.
+
+"Look into my face, Dear heart, Sweet heart!" said Bertha. "Read it
+with your beautiful eyes, and tell me if the truth is written on it."
+
+"Dear Bertha, yes!"
+
+The Blind Girl, still upturning the blank sightless face, down which the
+tears were coursing fast, addressed her in these words:
+
+"There is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that is not for your good,
+bright May! There is not, in my soul, a grateful recollection stronger
+than the deep remembrance which is stored there of the many many times
+when, in the full pride of sight and beauty, you have had consideration
+for Blind Bertha, even when we two were children, or when Bertha was as
+much a child as ever blindness can be! Every blessing on your head!
+Light upon your happy course! Not the less, my dear May,"--and she drew
+towards her in a closer grasp,--"not the less, my bird, because, to-day,
+the knowledge that you are to be His wife has wrung my heart almost to
+breaking! Father, May, Mary! Oh, forgive me that it is so, for the sake
+of all he has done to relieve the weariness of my dark life: and for the
+sake of the belief you have in me, when I call Heaven to witness that I
+could not wish him married to a wife more worthy of his goodness!"
+
+While speaking, she had released May Fielding's hands, and clasped her
+garments in an attitude of mingled supplication and love. Sinking lower
+and lower down, as she proceeded in her strange confession, she dropped
+at last at the feet of her friend, and hid her blind face in the folds
+of her dress.
+
+"Great Power!" exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow with the truth,
+"have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last?"
+
+It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, busy little
+Dot--for such she was, whatever faults she had, and however you may
+learn to hate her, in good time--it was well for all of them, I say,
+that she was there, or where this would have ended, it were hard to
+tell. But Dot, recovering her self-possession, interposed, before May
+could reply, or Caleb say another word.
+
+"Come, come, dear Bertha! come away with me! Give her your arm, May! So.
+How composed she is, you see, already; and how good it is of her to mind
+us," said the cheery little woman, kissing her upon the forehead. "Come
+away, dear Bertha! Come! and here's her good father will come with her,
+won't you, Caleb? To--be--sure!"
+
+Well, well! she was a noble little Dot in such things, and it must have
+been an obdurate nature that could have withstood her influence. When
+she had got poor Caleb and his Bertha away, that they might comfort and
+console each other, as she knew they only could, she presently came
+bouncing back,--the saying is, as fresh as any daisy; _I_ say
+fresher--to mount guard over that bridling little piece of consequence
+in the cap and gloves, and prevent the dear old creature from making
+discoveries.
+
+"So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly," said she, drawing a chair to the
+fire; "and while I have it in my lap, here's Mrs. Fielding, Tilly, will
+tell me all about the management of Babies, and put me right in twenty
+points where I'm as wrong as can be. Won't you, Mrs. Fielding?"
+
+Not even the Welsh Giant, who, according to the popular expression, was
+so "slow" as to perform a fatal surgical operation upon himself, in
+emulation of a juggling trick achieved by his arch enemy at
+breakfast-time; not even he fell half so readily into the snare prepared
+for him as the old lady 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 Picnic 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 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 recrossed Tackleton a
+dozen times, repeating drowsily:
+
+"Did the knowledge that it was to be its wives, 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHIRP THE THIRD
+
+
+The Dutch clock in the corner struck Ten when the Carrier sat down by
+his fireside. So troubled and grief-worn that he seemed to scare the
+Cuckoo, who, having cut his ten melodious announcements as short as
+possible, plunged back into the Moorish Palace again, and clapped his
+little door behind him, as if the unwonted spectacle were too much for
+his feelings.
+
+If the little Hay-maker had been armed with the sharpest of scythes, and
+had cut at every stroke into the Carrier's heart, he never could have
+gashed and wounded it as Dot had done.
+
+It was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up and held together by
+innumerable threads of winning remembrance, spun from the daily working
+of her many qualities of endearment; it was a heart in which she had
+enshrined herself so gently and so closely; a heart so single and so
+earnest in its Truth, so strong in right, so weak in wrong,--that it
+could cherish neither passion nor revenge at first, and had only room to
+hold the broken image of its Idol.
+
+But, slowly, slowly, as the Carrier sat brooding on his hearth, now cold
+and dark, other and fiercer thoughts began to rise within him, as an
+angry wind comes rising in the night. The Stranger was beneath his
+outraged roof. Three steps would take him to his chamber door. One blow
+would beat it in. "You might do murder before you know it," Tackleton
+had said. How could it be murder, if he gave the villain time to grapple
+with him hand to hand? He was the younger man.
+
+It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind. It was
+an angry thought, goading him to some avenging act, that should change
+the cheerful house into a haunted place which lonely travellers would
+dread to pass by night; and where the timid would see shadows struggling
+in the ruined windows when the moon was dim, and hear wild noises in the
+stormy weather.
+
+He was the younger man! Yes, yes; some lover who had won the heart that
+_he_ had never touched. Some lover of her early choice, of whom she had
+thought and dreamed, for whom she had pined and pined, when he had
+fancied her so happy by his side. Oh, agony to think of it!
+
+She had been above-stairs with the Baby; getting it to bed. As he sat
+brooding on the hearth, she came close beside him, without his
+knowledge--in the turning of the rack of his great misery, he lost all
+other sounds--and put her little stool at his feet. He only knew it when
+he felt her hand upon his own, and saw her looking up into his face.
+
+With wonder? No. It was his first impression, and he was fain to look at
+her again, to set it right. No, not with wonder. With an eager and
+inquiring look; but not with wonder. At first it was alarmed and
+serious; then, it changed into a strange, wild, dreadful smile of
+recognition of his thoughts; then, there was nothing but her clasped
+hands on her brow, and her bent head, and falling hair.
+
+Though the power of Omnipotence had been his to wield at that moment, he
+had too much of its diviner property of Mercy in his breast, to have
+turned one feather's weight of it against her. But he could not bear to
+see her crouching down upon the little seat where he had often looked on
+her, with love and pride, so innocent and gay; and, when she rose and
+left him, sobbing as she went, he felt it a relief to have the vacant
+place beside him rather than her so long-cherished presence. This in
+itself was anguish keener than all, reminding him how desolate he was
+become, and how the great bond of his life was rent asunder.
+
+[Illustration: _When suddenly, the struggling fire illuminated the whole
+chimney with a glow of light; and the Cricket on the Hearth began to
+Chirp!_]
+
+The more he felt this, and the more he knew he could have better borne
+to see her lying prematurely dead before him with her little child upon
+her breast, the higher and the stronger rose his wrath against his
+enemy. He looked about him for a weapon.
+
+There was a gun hanging on the wall. He took it down, and moved a pace
+or two towards the door of the perfidious Stranger's room. He knew the
+gun was loaded. Some shadowy idea that it was just to shoot this man
+like a wild beast seized him, and dilated in his mind until it grew into
+a monstrous demon in complete possession of him, casting out all milder
+thoughts, and setting up its undivided empire.
+
+That phrase is wrong. Not casting out his milder thoughts, but artfully
+transforming them. Changing them into scourges to drive him on. Turning
+water into blood, love into hate, gentleness into blind ferocity. Her
+image, sorrowing, humbled, but still pleading to his tenderness and
+mercy with resistless power, never left his mind; but, staying there, it
+urged him to the door; raised the weapon to his shoulder; fitted and
+nerved his fingers to the trigger; and cried "Kill him! In his bed!"
+
+He reversed the gun to beat the stock upon the door; he already held it
+lifted in the air; some indistinct design was in his thoughts of calling
+out to him to fly, for God's sake, by the window----
+
+When suddenly, the struggling fire illuminated the whole chimney with a
+glow of light; and the Cricket on the Hearth began to Chirp!
+
+No sound he could have heard, no human voice, not even hers, could so
+have moved and softened him. The artless words in which she had told him
+of her love for this same Cricket were once more freshly spoken; her
+trembling, earnest manner at the moment was again before him; her
+pleasant voice--oh, what a voice it was for making household music at
+the fireside of an honest man!--thrilled through and through his better
+nature, and awoke it into life and action.
+
+He recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his sleep, awakened
+from a frightful dream; and put the gun aside. Clasping his hands before
+his face, he then sat down again beside the fire, and found relief in
+tears.
+
+The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, and stood in Fairy
+shape before him.
+
+"'I love it,'" said the Fairy Voice, repeating what he well remembered,
+"'for the many times I have heard it, and the many thoughts its harmless
+music has given me.'"
+
+"She said so!" cried the Carrier. "True!"
+
+"'This has been a happy home, John! and I love the Cricket for its
+sake!'"
+
+"It has been, Heaven knows," returned the Carrier. "She made it happy,
+always,--until now."
+
+"So gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful, busy, and
+light-hearted!" said the Voice.
+
+"Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did," returned the Carrier.
+
+The Voice, correcting him, said "do."
+
+The Carrier repeated "as I did." But not firmly. His faltering tongue
+resisted his control, and would speak in its own way for itself and him.
+
+The Figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its hand and said:
+
+"Upon your own hearth----"
+
+"The hearth she has blighted," interposed the Carrier.
+
+"The hearth she has--how often!--blessed and brightened," said the
+Cricket; "the hearth which, but for her, were only a few stones and
+bricks and rusty bars, but which has been, through her, the Altar of
+your Home; on which you have nightly sacrificed some petty passion,
+selfishness, or care, and offered up the homage of a tranquil mind, a
+trusting nature, and an overflowing heart; so that the smoke from this
+poor chimney has gone upward with a better fragrance than the richest
+incense that is burnt before the richest shrines in all the gaudy
+temples of this world!--Upon your own hearth; in its quiet sanctuary;
+surrounded by its gentle influences and associations; hear her! Hear me!
+Hear everything that speaks the language of your hearth and home!"
+
+"And pleads for her?" inquired the Carrier.
+
+"All things that speak the language of your hearth and home _must_ plead
+for her!" returned the Cricket. "For they speak the truth."
+
+And while the Carrier, with his head upon his hands, continued to sit
+meditating in his chair, the Presence stood beside him, suggesting his
+reflections by its power, and presenting them before him, as in a glass
+or picture. It was not a solitary Presence. From the hearth-stone, from
+the chimney, from the clock, the pipe, the kettle, and the cradle; from
+the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the stairs; from the cart
+without, and the cupboard within, and the household implements; from
+everything and every place with which she had ever been familiar, and
+with which she had ever entwined one recollection of herself in her
+unhappy husband's mind,--Fairies came trooping forth. Not to stand
+beside him as the Cricket did, but to busy and bestir themselves. To do
+all honour to her image. To pull him by the skirts, and point to it when
+it appeared. To cluster round it, and embrace it, and strew flowers for
+it to tread on. To try to crown its fair head with their tiny hands. To
+show that they were fond of it, and loved it; and that there was not one
+ugly, wicked, or accusatory creature to claim knowledge of it--none but
+their playful and approving selves.
+
+His thoughts were constant to her image. It was always there.
+
+She sat plying her needle, before the fire, and singing to herself. Such
+a blithe, thriving, steady little Dot! The Fairy figures turned upon him
+all at once, by one consent, with one prodigious concentrated stare, and
+seemed to say, "Is this the light wife you are mourning for?"
+
+There were sounds of gaiety outside, musical instruments, and noisy
+tongues, and laughter. A crowd of young merry-makers came pouring in,
+among whom were May Fielding and a score of pretty girls. Dot was the
+fairest of them all; as young as any of them too. They came to summon
+her to join their party. It was a dance. If ever little foot were made
+for dancing, hers was, surely. But she laughed, and shook her head, and
+pointed to her cookery on the fire, and her table ready spread; with an
+exulting defiance that rendered her more charming than she was before.
+And so she merrily dismissed them, nodding to her would-be partners, one
+by one, as they passed out, with a comical indifference, enough to make
+them go and drown themselves immediately if they were her admirers--and
+they must have been so, more or less; they couldn't help it. And yet
+indifference was not her character. Oh no! For presently there came a
+certain Carrier to the door; and, bless her, what a welcome she bestowed
+upon him!
+
+Again the staring figures turned upon him all at once, and seemed to
+say, "Is this the wife who has forsaken you?"
+
+A shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture: call it what you will. A
+great shadow of the Stranger, as he first stood underneath their roof;
+covering its surface, and blotting out all other objects. But, the
+nimble Fairies worked like bees to clear it off again. And Dot again was
+there. Still bright and beautiful.
+
+Rocking her little Baby in its cradle, singing to it softly, and resting
+her head upon a shoulder which had its counterpart in the musing figure
+by which the Fairy Cricket stood.
+
+The night--I mean the real night: not going by Fairy clocks--was wearing
+now; and, in this stage of the Carrier's thoughts, the moon burst out,
+and shone brightly in the sky. Perhaps some calm and quiet light had
+risen also in his mind; and he could think more soberly of what had
+happened.
+
+Although the shadow of the Stranger fell at intervals upon the
+glass--always distinct, and big, and thoroughly defined--it never fell
+so darkly as at first. Whenever it appeared, the Fairies uttered a
+general cry of consternation, and plied their little arms and legs with
+inconceivable activity to rub it out. And whenever they got at Dot
+again, and showed her to him once more, bright and beautiful, they
+cheered in the most inspiring manner.
+
+They never showed her otherwise than beautiful and bright, for they were
+Household Spirits to whom falsehood is an annihilation; and being so,
+what Dot was there for them, but the one active, beaming, pleasant
+little creature who had been the light and sun of the Carrier's Home?
+
+The Fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed her, with the
+Baby, gossipping among a knot of sage old matrons, and affecting to be
+wondrous old and matronly herself, and leaning in a staid demure old way
+upon her husband's arm, attempting--she! such a bud of a little
+woman--to convey the idea of having abjured the vanities of the world in
+general, and of being the sort of person to whom it was no novelty at
+all to be a mother; yet, in the same breath, they showed her laughing at
+the Carrier for being awkward, and pulling up his shirt collar to make
+him smart, and mincing merrily about that very room to teach him how to
+dance!
+
+They turned, and stared immensely at him when they showed her with the
+Blind Girl; for, though she carried cheerfulness and animation with her
+wheresoever she went, she bore those influences into Caleb Plummer's
+home, heaped up and running over. The Blind Girl's love for her, and
+trust in her, and gratitude to her; her own good busy way of setting
+Bertha's thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for filling up each
+moment of the visit in doing something useful to the house, and really
+working hard while feigning to make holiday; her bountiful provision of
+those standing delicacies, the Veal and Ham Pie and the bottles of Beer;
+her radiant little face arriving at the door, and taking leave; the
+wonderful expression in her whole self, from her neat foot to the crown
+of her head, of being a part of the establishment--a something necessary
+to it, which it couldn't be without,--all this the Fairies revelled in,
+and loved her for. And once again they looked upon him all at once,
+appealingly, and seemed to say, while some among them nestled in her
+dress and fondled her, "Is this the wife who has betrayed your
+confidence?"
+
+More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful night, they
+showed her to him sitting on her favourite seat, with her bent head, her
+hands clasped on her brow, her falling hair. As he had seen her last.
+And when they found her thus, they neither turned nor looked upon him,
+but gathered close round her, and comforted and kissed her, and pressed
+on one another, to show sympathy and kindness to her, and forgot him
+altogether.
+
+Thus the night passed. The moon went down; the stars grew pale; the cold
+day broke; the sun rose. The Carrier still sat, musing, in the
+chimney-corner. He had sat there, with his head upon his hands, all
+night. All night the faithful Cricket had been Chirp, Chirp, Chirping on
+the Hearth. All night he had listened to its voice. All night the
+Household Fairies had been busy with him. All night she had been amiable
+and blameless in the glass, except when that one shadow fell upon it.
+
+He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and dressed himself. He
+couldn't go about his customary cheerful avocations--he wanted spirit
+for them--but it mattered the less that it was Tackleton's wedding-day,
+and he had arranged to make his rounds by proxy. He had thought to have
+gone merrily to church with Dot. But such plans were at an end. It was
+their own wedding-day too. Ah! how little he had looked for such a close
+to such a year!
+
+The Carrier expected that Tackleton would pay him an early visit; and he
+was right. He had not walked to and fro before his own door many
+minutes, when he saw the toy merchant coming in his chaise along the
+road. As the chaise drew nearer, he perceived that Tackleton was dressed
+out sprucely for his marriage, and that he had decorated his horse's
+head with flowers and favours.
+
+The horse looked much more like a bridegroom than Tackleton, whose
+half-closed eye was more disagreeably expressive than ever. But the
+Carrier took little heed of this. His thoughts had other occupation.
+
+"John Peerybingle!" said Tackleton with an air of condolence. "My good
+fellow, how do you find yourself this morning?"
+
+"I have had but a poor night, Master Tackleton," returned the Carrier,
+shaking his head: "for I have been a good deal disturbed in my mind. But
+it's over now! Can you spare me half an hour or so, for some private
+talk?"
+
+"I came on purpose," returned Tackleton, alighting. "Never mind the
+horse. He'll stand quiet enough, with the reins over this post, if
+you'll give him a mouthful of hay."
+
+The Carrier having brought it from his stable and set it before him,
+they turned into the house.
+
+"You are not married before noon," he said, "I think?"
+
+"No," answered Tackleton. "Plenty of time. Plenty of time."
+
+When they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was rapping at the
+Stranger's door; which was only removed from it by a few steps. One of
+her very red eyes (for Tilly had been crying all night long, because her
+mistress cried) was at the keyhole; and she was knocking very loud, and
+seemed frightened.
+
+"If you please I can't make nobody hear," said Tilly, looking round. "I
+hope nobody an't gone and been and died if you please!"
+
+This philanthropic wish Miss Slowboy emphasized with various new raps
+and kicks at the door, which led to no result whatever.
+
+"Shall I go?" said Tackleton. "It's curious."
+
+The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door, signed him to go if
+he would.
+
+So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy's relief; and he too kicked and
+knocked; and he too failed to get the least reply. But he thought of
+trying the handle of the door; and, as it opened easily, he peeped in,
+looked in, went in, and soon came running out again.
+
+"John Peerybingle," said Tackleton in his ear, "I hope there has been
+nothing--nothing rash in the night?"
+
+The Carrier turned upon him quickly.
+
+"Because he's gone!" said Tackleton; "and the window's open. I don't see
+any marks--to be sure, it's almost on a level with the garden: but I was
+afraid there might have been some--some scuffle. Eh?"
+
+He nearly shut up the expressive eye altogether; he looked at him so
+hard. And he gave his eye, and his face, and his whole person, a sharp
+twist. As if he would have screwed the truth out of him.
+
+"Make yourself easy," said the Carrier. "He went into that room last
+night, without harm in word or deed from me, and no one has entered it
+since. He is away of his own free-will. I'd go out gladly at that door,
+and beg my bread from house to house, for life, if I could so change the
+past that he had never come. But he has come and gone. And I have done
+with him!"
+
+"Oh!--Well, I think he has got off pretty easy," said Tackleton, taking
+a chair.
+
+The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too, and shaded his
+face with his hand, for some little time, before proceeding.
+
+"You showed me last night," he said at length, "my wife--my wife that I
+love--secretly----"
+
+"And tenderly," insinuated Tackleton.
+
+"--Conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him opportunities of
+meeting her alone. I think there's no sight I wouldn't have rather seen
+than that. I think there's no man in the world I wouldn't have rather
+had to show it me."
+
+"I confess to having had my suspicions always," said Tackleton. "And
+that has made me objectionable here, I know."
+
+"But, as you did show it me," pursued the Carrier, not minding him; "and
+as you saw her, my wife, my wife that I love"--his voice, and eye, and
+hand grew steadier and firmer as he repeated these words: evidently in
+pursuance of a steadfast purpose--"as you saw her at this disadvantage,
+it is right and just that you should also see with my eyes, and look
+into my breast, and know what my mind is upon the subject. For it's
+settled," said the Carrier, regarding him attentively. "And nothing can
+shake it now."
+
+Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent about its being
+necessary to vindicate something or other; but he was overawed by the
+manner of his companion. Plain and unpolished as it was, it had a
+something dignified and noble in it, which nothing but the soul of
+generous honour dwelling in the man could have imparted.
+
+"I am a plain, rough man," pursued the Carrier "with very little to
+recommend me. I am not a clever man, as you very well know. I am not a
+young man. I loved my little Dot, because I had seen her grow up, from a
+child, in her father's house; because I knew how precious she was;
+because she had been my life for years and years. There's many men I
+can't compare with, who never could have loved my little Dot like me, I
+think!"
+
+He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with his foot, before
+resuming:
+
+"I often thought that though I wasn't good enough for her, I should make
+her a kind husband, and perhaps know her value better than another; and
+in this way I reconciled it to myself, and came to think it might be
+possible that we should be married. And, in the end, it came about, and
+we _were_ married!"
+
+"Hah!" said Tackleton with a significant shake of his head.
+
+"I had studied myself; I had had experience of myself; I knew how much I
+loved her, and how happy I should be," pursued the Carrier. "But I had
+not--I feel it now--sufficiently considered her."
+
+"To be sure," said Tackleton. "Giddiness, frivolity, fickleness, love of
+admiration! Not considered! All left out of sight! Hah!"
+
+"You had best not interrupt me," said the Carrier with some sternness,
+"till you understand me; and you're wide of doing so. If, yesterday, I'd
+have struck that man down at a blow, who dared to breathe a word against
+her, to-day I'd set my foot upon his face, if he was my brother!"
+
+The toy merchant gazed at him in astonishment. He went on in a softer
+tone:
+
+"Did I consider," said the Carrier, "that I took her--at her age, and
+with her beauty--from her young companions, and the many scenes of which
+she was the ornament; in which she was the brightest little star that
+ever shone, to shut her up from day to day in my dull house, and keep my
+tedious company? Did I consider how little suited I was to her sprightly
+humour, and how wearisome a plodding man like me must be to one of her
+quick spirit? Did I consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me,
+that I loved her, when everybody must who knew her? Never. I took
+advantage of her hopeful nature and her cheerful disposition; and I
+married her. I wish I never had! For her sake; not for mine!"
+
+The toy merchant gazed at him without winking. Even the half-shut eye
+was open now.
+
+"Heaven bless her!" said the Carrier, "for the cheerful constancy with
+which she has tried to keep the knowledge of this from me! And Heaven
+help me, that, in my slow mind, I have not found it out before! Poor
+child! Poor Dot! _I_ not to find it out, who have seen her eyes fill
+with tears when such a marriage as our own was spoken of! I, who have
+seen the secret trembling on her lips a hundred times, and never
+suspected it, till last night! Poor girl! That I could ever hope she
+would be fond of me! That I could ever believe she was!"
+
+"She made a show of it," said Tackleton. "She made such a show of it,
+that, to tell you the truth, it was the origin of my misgivings."
+
+And here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding, who certainly made
+no sort of show of being fond of _him_.
+
+"She has tried," said the poor Carrier with greater emotion than he had
+exhibited yet; "I only now begin to know how hard she has tried, to be
+my dutiful and zealous wife. How good she has been; how much she has
+done; how brave and strong a heart she has; let the happiness I have
+known under this roof bear witness! It will be some help and comfort to
+me when I am here alone."
+
+"Here alone?" said Tackleton. "Oh! Then you do mean to take some notice
+of this?"
+
+"I mean," returned the Carrier, "to do her the greatest kindness, and
+make her the best reparation, in my power. I can release her from the
+daily pain of an unequal marriage, and the struggle to conceal it. She
+shall be as free as I can render her."
+
+"Make _her_ reparation!" exclaimed Tackleton, twisting and turning his
+great ears with his hands. "There must be something wrong here. You
+didn't say that, of course."
+
+The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the toy merchant, and shook
+him like a reed.
+
+"Listen to me!" he said. "And take care that you hear me right. Listen
+to me. Do I speak plainly?"
+
+"Very plainly indeed," answered Tackleton.
+
+"As if I meant it?"
+
+"Very much as if you meant it."
+
+"I sat upon that hearth, last night, all night," exclaimed the Carrier.
+"On the spot where she has often sat beside me, with her sweet face
+looking into mine. I called up her whole life day by day. I had her dear
+self, in its every passage, in review before me. And, upon my soul, she
+is innocent, if there is One to judge the innocent and guilty!"
+
+Staunch Cricket on the Hearth! Loyal Household Fairies!
+
+"Passion and distrust have left me!" said the Carrier; "and nothing but
+my grief remains. In an unhappy moment some old lover, better suited to
+her tastes and years than I, forsaken, perhaps, for me, against her
+will, returned. In an unhappy moment, taken by surprise, and wanting
+time to think of what she did, she made herself a party to his treachery
+by concealing it. Last night she saw him, in the interview we witnessed.
+It was wrong. But, otherwise than this, she is innocent, if there is
+truth on earth!"
+
+"If that is your opinion----" Tackleton began.
+
+"So, let her go!" pursued the Carrier. "Go, with my blessing for the
+many happy hours she has given me, and my forgiveness for any pang she
+has caused me. Let her go, and have the peace of mind I wish her! She'll
+never hate me. She'll learn to like me better when I'm not a drag upon
+her, and she wears the chain I have riveted more lightly. This is the
+day on which I took her, with so little thought for her enjoyment, from
+her home. To-day she shall return to it, and I will trouble her no more.
+Her father and mother will be here to-day--we had made a little plan for
+keeping it together--and they shall take her home. I can trust her
+there, or anywhere. She leaves me without blame, and she will live so I
+am sure. If I should die--I may perhaps while she is still young; I have
+lost some courage in a few hours--she'll find that I remembered her, and
+loved her to the last! This is the end of what you showed me. Now, it's
+over!"
+
+"Oh no, John, not over! Do not say it's over yet! Not quite yet. I have
+heard your noble words. I could not steal away, pretending to be
+ignorant of what has affected me with such deep gratitude. Do not say
+it's over till the clock has struck again!"
+
+She had entered shortly after Tackleton, and had remained there. She
+never looked at Tackleton, but fixed her eyes upon her husband. But she
+kept away from him, setting as wide a space as possible between them;
+and, though she spoke with most impassioned earnestness, she went no
+nearer to him even then. How different in this from her old self!
+
+"No hand can make the clock which will strike again for me the hours
+that are gone," replied the Carrier with a faint smile. "But let it be
+so, if you will, my dear. It will strike soon. It's of little matter
+what we say. I'd try to please you in a harder case than that."
+
+"Well!" muttered Tackleton. "I must be off, for, when the clock strikes
+again, it'll be necessary for me to be upon my way to church. Good
+morning, John Peerybingle. I'm sorry to be deprived of the pleasure of
+your company. Sorry for the loss, and the occasion of it too!"
+
+"I have spoken plainly?" said the Carrier, accompanying him to the door.
+
+"Oh, quite!"
+
+"And you'll remember what I have said?"
+
+"Why, if you compel me to make the observation," said Tackleton,
+previously taking the precaution of getting into his chaise, "I must say
+that it was so very unexpected, that I'm far from being likely to forget
+it."
+
+"The better for us both," returned the Carrier. "Good-bye. I give you
+joy!"
+
+"I wish I could give it to _you_," said Tackleton. "As I can't, thankee.
+Between ourselves (as I told you before, eh?) I don't much think I shall
+have the less joy in my married life because May hasn't been too
+officious about me, and too demonstrative. Good-bye! Take care of
+yourself."
+
+The Carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller in the distance
+than his horse's flowers and favours near at hand; and then, with a deep
+sigh, went strolling like a restless, broken man, among some
+neighbouring elms; unwilling to return until the clock was on the eve of
+striking.
+
+His little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously; but often dried her
+eyes and checked herself, to say how good he was, how excellent he was!
+and once or twice she laughed; so heartily, triumphantly, and
+incoherently (still crying all the time), that Tilly was quite
+horrified.
+
+"Ow, if you please, don't!" said Tilly. "It's enough to dead and bury
+the Baby, so it is if you please."
+
+"Will you bring him sometimes to see his father, Tilly," inquired her
+mistress, drying her eyes,--"when I can't live here, and have gone to my
+old home?"
+
+"Ow, if you please, don't!" cried Tilly, throwing back her head, and
+bursting out into a howl--she looked at the moment uncommonly like
+Boxer. "Ow, if you please, don't! Ow, what has everybody gone and been
+and done with everybody, making everybody else so wretched? Ow-w-w-w!"
+
+The soft-hearted Slowboy tailed off at this juncture into such a
+deplorable howl, the more tremendous from its long suppression, that she
+must infallibly have awakened the Baby, and frightened him into
+something serious (probably convulsions), if her eyes had not
+encountered Caleb Plummer leading in his daughter. This spectacle
+restoring her to a sense of the proprieties, she stood for some few
+moments silent, with her mouth wide open; and then, posting off to the
+bed on which the Baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, St. Vitus manner on
+the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her face and head among
+the bedclothes, apparently deriving much relief from those extraordinary
+operations.
+
+"Mary!" said Bertha. "Not at the marriage!"
+
+"I told her you would not be there, mum," whispered Caleb. "I heard as
+much last night. But bless you," said the little man, taking her
+tenderly by both hands, "_I_ don't care for what they say. _I_ don't
+believe them. There an't much of me, but that little should be torn to
+pieces sooner than I'd trust a word against you!"
+
+He put his arms about her neck and hugged her, as a child might have
+hugged one of his own dolls.
+
+"Bertha couldn't stay at home this morning," said Caleb. "She was
+afraid, I know, to hear the bells ring, and couldn't trust herself to be
+so near them on their wedding-day. So we started in good time, and came
+here. I have been thinking of what I have done," said Caleb after a
+moment's pause; "I have been blaming myself till I hardly knew what to
+do, or where to turn, for the distress of mind I have caused her; and
+I've come to the conclusion that I'd better, if you'll stay with me,
+mum, the while, tell her the truth. You'll stay with me the while?" he
+inquired, trembling from head to foot. "I don't know what effect it may
+have upon her; I don't know what she'll think of me; I don't know that
+she'll ever care for her poor father afterwards. But it's best for her
+that she should be undeceived, and I must bear the consequences as I
+deserve!"
+
+"Mary," said Bertha, "where is your hand? Ah! Here it is; here it is!"
+pressing it to her lips with a smile, and drawing it through her arm. "I
+heard them speaking softly among themselves last night of some blame
+against you. They were wrong."
+
+The Carrier's wife was silent. Caleb answered for her.
+
+"They were wrong," he said.
+
+"I knew it!" cried Bertha, proudly. "I told them so. I scorned to hear a
+word! Blame _her_ with justice!" she pressed the hand between her own,
+and the soft cheek against her face. "No, I am not so blind as that."
+
+Her father went on one side of her, while Dot remained upon the other,
+holding her hand.
+
+"I know you all," said Bertha, "better than you think. But none so well
+as her. Not even you, father. There is nothing half so real and so true
+about me as she is. If I could be restored to sight this instant, and
+not a word were spoken, I could choose her from a crowd! My sister!"
+
+"Bertha, my dear!" said Caleb. "I have something on my mind I want to
+tell you while we three are alone. Hear me kindly! I have a confession
+to make to you, my darling!"
+
+"A confession, father?"
+
+"I have wandered from the truth, and lost myself, my child," said Caleb
+with a pitiable expression in his bewildered face. "I have wandered from
+the truth, intending to be kind to you; and have been cruel."
+
+She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and repeated "Cruel!"
+
+"He accuses himself too strongly, Bertha," said Dot. "You'll say so
+presently. You'll be the first to tell him so."
+
+"He cruel to me!" cried Bertha with a smile of incredulity.
+
+"Not meaning it, my child," said Caleb. "But I have been: though I never
+suspected it till yesterday. My dear blind daughter, hear me and forgive
+me. The world you live in, heart of mine, doesn't exist as I have
+represented it. The eyes you have trusted in have been false to you."
+
+She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still; but drew back,
+and clung closer to her friend.
+
+"Your road in life was rough, my poor one," said Caleb, "and I meant to
+smooth it for you. I have altered objects, changed the characters of
+people, invented many things that never have been, to make you happier.
+I have had concealments from you, put deceptions on you, God forgive me!
+and surrounded you with fancies."
+
+"But living people are not fancies?" she said hurriedly, and turning
+very pale, and still retiring from him. "You can't change them."
+
+"I have done so, Bertha," pleaded Caleb. "There is one person that you
+know, my dove----"
+
+"Oh, father! why do you say, I know?" she answered in a term of keen
+reproach. "What and whom do _I_ know? I who have no leader! I so
+miserably blind!"
+
+In the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands, as if she were
+groping her way; then spread them, in a manner most forlorn and sad,
+upon her face.
+
+"The marriage that takes place to-day," said Caleb, "is with a stern,
+sordid, grinding man. A hard master to you and me, my dear, for many
+years. Ugly in his looks, and in his nature. Cold and callous always.
+Unlike what I have painted him to you in everything, my child. In
+everything."
+
+"Oh, why," cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it seemed, almost beyond
+endurance, "why did you ever do this? Why did you ever fill my heart so
+full, and then come in like Death, and tear away the objects of my love?
+O Heaven, how blind I am! How helpless and alone!"
+
+Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply but in his
+penitence and sorrow.
+
+She had been but a short time in this passion of regret when the Cricket
+on the Hearth, unheard by all but her, began to chirp. Not merrily, but
+in a low, faint, sorrowing way. It was so mournful, that her tears began
+to flow; and, when the Presence which had been beside the Carrier all
+night, appeared behind her, pointing to her father, they fell down like
+rain.
+
+She heard the Cricket-voice more plainly soon, and was conscious,
+through her blindness, of the Presence hovering about her father.
+
+"Mary," said the Blind Girl, "tell me what my home is. What it truly
+is."
+
+"It is a poor place, Bertha; very poor and bare indeed. The house will
+scarcely keep out wind and rain another winter. It is as roughly
+shielded from the weather, Bertha," Dot continued in a low, clear voice,
+"as your poor father in his sackcloth coat."
+
+The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the Carrier's little
+wife aside.
+
+"Those presents that I took such care of; that came almost at my wish,
+and were so dearly welcome to me," she said, trembling; "where did they
+come from? Did you send them?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Who, then?"
+
+Dot saw she knew already, and was silent. The Blind Girl spread her
+hands before her face again. But in quite another manner now.
+
+"Dear Mary, a moment. One moment. More this way. Speak softly to me. You
+are true I know. You'd not deceive me now; would you?"
+
+"No, Bertha, indeed!"
+
+"No, I am sure you would not. You have too much pity for me. Mary, look
+across the room to where we were just now--to where my father is--my
+father, so compassionate and loving to me--and tell me what you see."
+
+"I see," said Dot, who understood her well, "an old man sitting in a
+chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back, with his face resting on his
+hand. As if his child should comfort him, Bertha."
+
+"Yes, yes. She will. Go on."
+
+"He is an old man, worn with care and work. He is a spare, dejected,
+thoughtful, grey-haired man. I see him now, despondent and bowed down,
+and striving against nothing. But, Bertha, I have seen him many times
+before, and striving hard in many ways, for one great sacred object. And
+I honour his grey head, and bless him!"
+
+The Blind Girl broke away from her; and, throwing herself upon her
+knees before him, took the grey head to her breast.
+
+"It is my sight restored. It is my sight!" she cried. "I have been
+blind, and now my eyes are open. I never knew him! To think I might have
+died, and never truly seen the father who has been so loving to me!"
+
+There were no words for Caleb's emotion.
+
+"There is not a gallant figure on this earth," exclaimed the Blind Girl,
+holding him in her embrace, "that I would love so dearly, and would
+cherish so devotedly, as this! The greyer, and more worn, the dearer,
+father! Never let them say I am blind again. There's not a furrow in his
+face, there's not a hair upon his head, that shall be forgotten in my
+prayers and thanks to Heaven!"
+
+Caleb managed to articulate, "My Bertha!"
+
+"And in my blindness I believed him," said the girl, caressing him with
+tears of exquisite affection, "to be so different. And having him beside
+me day by day, so mindful of me always, never dreamed of this!"
+
+"The fresh smart father in the blue coat, Bertha," said poor Caleb.
+"He's gone!"
+
+"Nothing is gone," she answered. "Dearest father, no! Everything is
+here--in you. The father that I loved so well; the father that I never
+loved enough, and never knew; the benefactor whom I first began to
+reverence and love, because he had such sympathy for me,--all are here
+in you. Nothing is dead to me. The soul of all that was most dear to me
+is here--here, with the worn face, and the grey head. And I am NOT
+blind, father, any longer!"
+
+Dot's whole attention had been concentrated, during this discourse, upon
+the father and daughter; but looking, now, towards the little Hay-maker
+in the Moorish meadow, she saw that the clock was within a few minutes
+of striking, and fell, immediately, into a nervous and excited state.
+
+"Father!" said Bertha, hesitating. "Mary!"
+
+"Yes, my dear," returned Caleb. "Here she is."
+
+"There is no change in _her_. You never told me anything of _her_ that
+was not true?"
+
+"I should have done it, my dear, I'm afraid," returned Caleb, "if I
+could have made her better than she was. But I must have changed her for
+the worse, if I had changed her at all. Nothing could improve her,
+Bertha."
+
+Confident as the Blind Girl had been when she asked the question, her
+delight and pride in the reply, and her renewed embrace of Dot, were
+charming to behold.
+
+"More changes than you think for may happen, though, my dear," said Dot.
+"Changes for the better, I mean; changes for great joy to some of us.
+You mustn't let them startle you too much, if any such should ever
+happen, and affect you. Are those wheels upon the road? You've a quick
+ear, Bertha. Are they wheels?"
+
+"Yes. Coming very fast."
+
+"I--I--I know you have a quick ear," said Dot, placing her hand upon her
+heart, and evidently talking on as fast as she could, to hide its
+palpitating state, "because I have noticed it often, and because you
+were so quick to find out that strange step last night. Though why you
+should have said, as I very well recollect you did say, Bertha, 'Whose
+step is that?' and why you should have taken any greater observation of
+it than of any other step, I don't know. Though, as I said just now,
+there are great changes in the world: great changes: and we can't do
+better than prepare ourselves to be surprised at hardly anything."
+
+Caleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that she spoke to him, no
+less than to his daughter. He saw her, with astonishment, so fluttered
+and distressed that she could scarcely breathe; and holding to a chair,
+to save herself from falling.
+
+"They are wheels indeed!" she panted. "Coming nearer! Nearer! Very
+close! And now you hear them stopping at the garden-gate! And now you
+hear a step outside the door--the same step, Bertha, is it not?--and
+now----!"
+
+She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and running up to
+Caleb, put her hands upon his eyes, as a young man rushed into the room,
+and, flinging away his hat into the air, came sweeping down upon them.
+
+"Is it over?" cried Dot.
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Happily over?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb? Did you ever hear the like of
+it before?" cried Dot.
+
+"If my boy in the Golden South Americas was alive----!" said Caleb,
+trembling.
+
+"He is alive!" shrieked Dot, removing her hands from his eyes, and
+clapping them in ecstasy. "Look at him! See where he stands before you,
+healthy and strong! Your own dear son. Your own dear living, loving
+brother, Bertha!"
+
+All honour to the little creature for her transports! All honour to her
+tears and laughter, when the three were locked in one another's arms!
+All honour to the heartiness with which she met the sunburnt
+sailor-fellow, with his dark streaming hair, half-way, and never turned
+her rosy little mouth aside, but suffered him to kiss it freely, and to
+press her to his bounding heart!
+
+And honour to the Cuckoo too--why not?--for bursting out of the
+trap-door in the Moorish Palace like a housebreaker, and hiccoughing
+twelve times on the assembled company, as if he had got drunk for joy!
+
+The Carrier, entering, started back. And well he might, to find himself
+in such good company.
+
+"Look, John!" said Caleb, exultingly, "look here! My own boy from the
+Golden South Americas! My own son! Him that you fitted out, and sent
+away yourself! Him that you were always such a friend to!"
+
+The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but, recoiling, as some
+feature in his face awakened a remembrance of the Deaf Man in the Cart,
+said:
+
+"Edward! Was it you?"
+
+"Now tell him all!" cried Dot. "Tell him all, Edward; and don't spare
+me, for nothing shall make me spare myself in his eyes, ever again."
+
+"I was the man," said Edward.
+
+"And could you steal, disguised, into the house of your old friend?"
+rejoined the Carrier. "There was a frank boy once--how many years is it,
+Caleb, since we heard that he was dead, and had it proved, we
+thought?--who never would have done that."
+
+"There was a generous friend of mine once; more a father to me than a
+friend," said Edward; "who never would have judged me, or any other man,
+unheard. You were he. So I am certain you will hear me now."
+
+The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept far away from
+him, replied, "Well! that's but fair. I will."
+
+"You must know that when I left here a boy," said Edward, "I was in
+love, and my love was returned. She was a very young girl, who perhaps
+(you may tell me) didn't know her own mind. But I knew mine, and I had a
+passion for her."
+
+"You had!" exclaimed the Carrier. "You!"
+
+"Indeed I had," returned the other. "And she returned it. I have ever
+since believed she did, and now I am sure she did."
+
+"Heaven help me!" said the Carrier. "This is worse than all."
+
+"Constant to her," said Edward, "and returning, full of hope, after many
+hardships and perils, to redeem my part of our old contract, I heard,
+twenty miles away, that she was false to me; that she had forgotten me;
+and had bestowed herself upon another and a richer man. I had no mind
+to reproach her; but I wished to see her, and to prove beyond dispute
+that this was true. I hoped she might have been forced into it against
+her own desire and recollection. It would be small comfort, but it would
+be some, I thought, and on I came. That I might have the truth, the real
+truth, observing freely for myself, and judging for myself, without
+obstruction on the one hand, or presenting my own influence (if I had
+any) before her, on the other, I dressed myself unlike myself--you know
+how; and waited on the road--you know where. You had no suspicion of me;
+neither had--had she," pointing to Dot, "until I whispered in her ear at
+that fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me."
+
+"But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had come back," sobbed
+Dot, now speaking for herself, as she had burned to do, all through this
+narrative; "and when she knew his purpose, she advised him by all means
+to keep his secret close; for his old friend John Peerybingle was much
+too open in his nature, and too clumsy in all artifice--being a clumsy
+man in general," said Dot, half laughing and half crying--"to keep it
+for him. And when she--that's me, John," sobbed the little woman--"told
+him all, and how his sweetheart had believed him to be dead; and how she
+had at last been over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage which the
+silly, dear old thing called advantageous; and when she--that's me
+again, John--told him they were not yet married (though close upon it),
+and that it would be nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for there
+was no love on her side; and when he went nearly mad with joy to hear
+it,--then she--that's me again--said she would go between them, as she
+had often done before in old times, John, and would sound his
+sweetheart, and be sure that what she--me again, John--said and thought
+was right. And it WAS right, John! And they were brought together, John!
+And they were married, John, an hour ago! And here's the Bride! And
+Gruff and Tackleton may die a bachelor! And I'm a happy little woman,
+May, God bless you!"
+
+She was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything to the
+purpose; and never so completely irresistible as in her present
+transports. There never were congratulations so endearing and delicious
+as those she lavished on herself and on the Bride.
+
+Amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest Carrier had stood
+confounded. Flying, now, towards her, Dot stretched out her hand to stop
+him, and retreated as before.
+
+"No, John, no! Hear all! Don't love me any more, John, till you've heard
+every word I have to say. It was wrong to have a secret from you, John.
+I'm very sorry. I didn't think it any harm, till I came and sat down by
+you on the little stool last night. But when I knew, by what was written
+in your face, that you had seen me walking in the gallery with Edward,
+and when I knew what you thought, I felt how giddy and how wrong it was.
+But oh, dear John, how could you, could you think so?"
+
+Little woman, how she sobbed again! John Peerybingle would have caught
+her in his arms. But no; she wouldn't let him.
+
+"Don't love me yet, please, John! Not for a long time yet! When I was
+sad about this intended marriage, dear, it was because I remembered May
+and Edward such young lovers; and knew that her heart was far away from
+Tackleton. You believe that, now, don't you, John?"
+
+John was going to make another rush at this appeal; but she stopped him
+again.
+
+"No; keep there, please, John! When I laugh at you, as I sometimes do,
+John, and call you clumsy and a dear old goose, and names of that sort,
+it's because I love you, John, so well, and take such pleasure in your
+ways, and wouldn't see you altered in the least respect to have you made
+a king to-morrow."
+
+"Hooroar!" said Caleb with unusual vigour. "My opinion!"
+
+"And when I speak of people being middle-aged and steady, John, and
+pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot sort of
+way, it's only because I'm such a silly little thing, John, that I like,
+sometimes, to act as a kind of Play with Baby, and all that: and make
+believe."
+
+She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. But she was very
+nearly too late.
+
+"No, don't love me for another minute or two, if you please, John! What
+I want most to tell you, I have kept to the last. My dear, good,
+generous John, when we were talking the other night about the Cricket, I
+had it on my lips to say, that at first I did not love you quite so
+dearly as I do now; when I first came home here, I was half afraid that
+I mightn't learn to love you every bit as well as I hoped and prayed I
+might--being so very young, John! But, dear John, every day and hour I
+loved you more and more. And if I could have loved you better than I do,
+the noble words I heard you say this morning would have made me. But I
+can't. All the affection that I had (it was a great deal, John) I gave
+you, as you well deserve, long, long ago, and I have no more left to
+give. Now, my dear husband, take me to your heart again! That's my home,
+John; and never, never think of sending me to any other!"
+
+You never will derive so much delight from seeing a glorious little
+woman in the arms of a third party as you would have felt if you had
+seen Dot run into the Carrier's embrace. It was the most complete,
+unmitigated, soul-fraught little piece of earnestness that ever you
+beheld in all your days.
+
+You may be sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect rapture; and you
+may be sure Dot was likewise; and you may be sure they all were,
+inclusive of Miss Slowboy, who wept copiously for joy, and, wishing to
+include her young charge in the general interchange of congratulations,
+handed round the Baby to everybody in succession, as if it were
+something to drink.
+
+But, now, the sound of wheels was heard again outside the door; and
+somebody exclaimed that Gruff and Tackleton was coming back. Speedily
+that worthy gentleman appeared, looking warm and flustered.
+
+"Why, what the Devil's this, John Peerybingle?" said Tackleton. "There's
+some mistake. I appointed Mrs. Tackleton to meet me at the church, and
+I'll swear I passed her on the road, on her way here. Oh! here she is! I
+beg your pardon, sir; I haven't the pleasure of knowing you; but, if you
+can do me the favour to spare this young lady, she has rather a
+particular engagement this morning."
+
+"But I can't spare her," returned Edward. "I couldn't think of it."
+
+"What do you mean, you vagabond?" said Tackleton.
+
+"I mean that, as I can make allowance for your being vexed," returned
+the other with a smile, "I am as deaf to harsh discourse this morning as
+I was to all discourse last night."
+
+The look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and the start he gave!
+
+"I am sorry, sir," said Edward, holding out May's left hand, and
+especially the third finger, "that the young lady can't accompany you to
+church; but, as she has been there once this morning, perhaps you'll
+excuse her."
+
+Tackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took a little piece of
+silver paper, apparently containing a ring, from his waistcoat pocket.
+
+"Miss Slowboy," said Tackleton, "will you have the kindness to throw
+that in the fire? Thankee."
+
+"It was a previous engagement, quite an old engagement, that prevented
+my wife from keeping her appointment with you, I assure you," said
+Edward.
+
+"Mr. Tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge that I revealed it
+to him faithfully; and that I told him, many times, I never could forget
+it," said May, blushing.
+
+"Oh, certainly!" said Tackleton. "Oh, to be sure! Oh, it's all right,
+it's quite correct! Mrs. Edward Plummer, I infer?"
+
+"That's the name," returned the bridegroom.
+
+"Ah! I shouldn't have known you, sir," said Tackleton, scrutinising his
+face narrowly, and making a low bow. "I give you joy, sir!"
+
+"Thankee."
+
+"Mrs. Peerybingle," said Tackleton, turning suddenly to where she stood
+with her husband; "I'm sorry. You haven't done me a very great kindness,
+but, upon my life, I am sorry. You are better than I thought you. John
+Peerybingle, I am sorry. You understand me; that's enough. It's quite
+correct, ladies and gentlemen all, and perfectly satisfactory. Good
+morning!"
+
+With these words he carried it off, and carried himself off too: merely
+stopping at the door to take the flowers and favours from his horse's
+head, and to kick that animal once in the ribs, as a means of informing
+him that there was a screw loose in his arrangements.
+
+Of course, it became a serious duty now to make such a day of it as
+should mark these events for a high Feast and Festival in the
+Peerybingle Calendar for evermore. Accordingly, Dot went to work to
+produce such an entertainment as should reflect undying honour on the
+house and on every one concerned; and, in a very short space of time,
+she was up to her dimpled elbows in flour, and whitening the Carrier's
+coat, every time he came near her, by stopping him to give him a kiss.
+That good fellow washed the greens, and peeled the turnips, and broke
+the plates, and upset iron pots full of cold water on the fire, and made
+himself useful in all sorts of ways: while a couple of professional
+assistants, hastily called in from somewhere in the neighbourhood, as on
+a point of life or death, ran against each other in all the doorways and
+round all the corners, and everybody tumbled over Tilly Slowboy and the
+Baby, everywhere. Tilly never came out in such force before. Her
+ubiquity was the theme of general admiration. She was a stumbling-block
+in the passage at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a man-trap in the
+kitchen at half-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the garret at
+five-and-twenty minutes to three. The Baby's head was, as it were, a
+test and touchstone for every description of matter, animal, vegetable,
+and mineral. Nothing was in use that day that didn't come, at some time
+or other, into close acquaintance with it.
+
+Then there was a great Expedition set on foot to go and find out Mrs.
+Fielding; and to be dismally penitent to that excellent gentlewoman; and
+to bring her back, by force, if needful, to be happy and forgiving. And
+when the Expedition first discovered her, she would listen to no terms
+at all, but said, an unspeakable number of times, that ever she should
+have lived to see the day! and couldn't be got to say anything else,
+except "Now carry me to the grave": which seemed absurd, on account of
+her not being dead, or anything at all like it. After a time she lapsed
+into a state of dreadful calmness, and observed that, when that
+unfortunate train of circumstances had occurred in the Indigo Trade, she
+had foreseen that she would be exposed, during her whole life, to every
+species of insult and contumely; and that she was glad to find it was
+the case; and begged they wouldn't trouble themselves about her,--for
+what was she?--oh dear! a nobody!--but would forget that such a being
+lived, and would take their course in life without her. From this
+bitterly sarcastic mood she passed into an angry one, in which she gave
+vent to the remarkable expression that the worm would turn if trodden
+on; and, after that, she yielded to a soft regret, and said, if they had
+only given her their confidence, what might she not have had it in her
+power to suggest! Taking advantage of this crisis in her feelings, the
+Expedition embraced her; and she very soon had her gloves on, and was on
+her way to John Peerybingle's in a state of unimpeachable gentility;
+with a paper parcel at her side containing a cap of state, almost as
+tall, and quite as stiff, as a mitre.
+
+Then, there were Dot's father and mother to come in another little
+chaise; and they were behind their time; and fears were entertained; and
+there was much looking out for them down the road; and Mrs. Fielding
+always would look in the wrong and morally impossible direction; and,
+being apprised thereof, hoped she might take the liberty of looking
+where she pleased. At last they came; a chubby little couple, jogging
+along in a snug and comfortable little way that quite belonged to the
+Dot family; and Dot and her mother, side by side, were wonderful to see.
+They were so like each other.
+
+Then Dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance with May's mother; and
+May's mother always stood on her gentility; and Dot's mother never stood
+on anything but her active little feet. And old Dot--so to call Dot's
+father, I forgot it wasn't his right name, but never mind--took
+liberties, and shook hands at first sight, and seemed to think a cap but
+so much starch and muslin, and didn't defer himself at all to the Indigo
+Trade, but said there was no help for it now; and, in Mrs. Fielding's
+summing up, was a good-natured kind of man--but coarse, my dear.
+
+I wouldn't have missed Dot, doing the honours in her wedding-gown, my
+benison on her bright face! for any money. No! nor the good Carrier, so
+jovial and so ruddy, at the bottom of the table. Nor the brown, fresh
+sailor-fellow, and his handsome wife. Nor any one among them. To have
+missed the dinner would have been to miss as jolly and as stout a meal
+as man need eat; and to have missed the overflowing cups in which they
+drank The Wedding Day would have been the greatest miss of all.
+
+After dinner Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling Bowl. As I'm a
+living man, hoping to keep so for a year or two, he sang it through.
+
+And, by-the-bye, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, just as he
+finished the last verse.
+
+There was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering in, without
+saying with your leave, or by your leave, with something heavy on his
+head. Setting this down in the middle of the table, symmetrically in the
+centre of the nuts and apples, he said:
+
+"Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and, as he hasn't got no use for the cake
+himself, p'raps you'll eat it."
+
+And, with those words, he walked off.
+
+There was some surprise among the company, as you may imagine. Mrs.
+Fielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, suggested that the cake
+was poisoned, and related a narrative of a cake which, within her
+knowledge, had turned a seminary for young ladies blue. But she was
+overruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut by May with much ceremony
+and rejoicing.
+
+I don't think any one had tasted it, when there came another tap at the
+door, and the same man appeared again, having under his arm a vast
+brown-paper parcel.
+
+"Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and he's sent a few toys for the Babby.
+They ain't ugly."
+
+After the delivery of which expressions, he retired again.
+
+The whole party would have experienced great difficulty in finding words
+for their astonishment, even if they had had ample time to seek them.
+But they had none at all; for the messenger had scarcely shut the door
+behind him, when there came another tap, and Tackleton himself walked
+in.
+
+"Mrs. Peerybingle!" said the toy merchant, hat in hand, "I'm sorry. I'm
+more sorry than I was this morning. I have had time to think of it. John
+Peerybingle! I am sour by disposition; but I can't help being sweetened,
+more or less, by coming face to face with such a man as you. Caleb! This
+unconscious little nurse gave me a broken hint last night, of which I
+have found the thread. I blush to think how easily I might have bound
+you and your daughter to me, and what a miserable idiot I was when I
+took her for one! Friends, one and all, my house is very lonely
+to-night. I have not so much as a Cricket on my Hearth. I have scared
+them all away. Be gracious to me: let me join this happy party!"
+
+He was at home in five minutes. You never saw such a fellow. What _had_
+he been doing with himself all his life, never to have known before his
+great capacity of being jovial? Or what had the Fairies been doing with
+him, to have effected such a change?
+
+"John! you won't send me home this evening, will you?" whispered Dot.
+
+He had been very near it, though.
+
+There wanted but one living creature to make the party complete; and, in
+the twinkling of an eye, there he was, very thirsty with hard running,
+and engaged in hopeless endeavours to squeeze his head into a narrow
+pitcher. He had gone with the cart to its journey's end, very much
+disgusted with the absence of his master, and stupendously rebellious to
+the Deputy. After lingering about the stable for some little time,
+vainly attempting to incite the old horse to the mutinous act of
+returning on his own account, he had walked into the taproom, and laid
+himself down before the fire. But, suddenly yielding to the conviction
+that the Deputy was a humbug, and must be abandoned, he had got up
+again, turned tail, and come home.
+
+There was a dance in the evening. With which general mention of that
+recreation, I should have left it alone, if I had not some reason to
+suppose that it was quite an original dance, and one of a most uncommon
+figure. It was formed in an odd way; in this way.
+
+Edward, that sailor-fellow--a good free dashing sort of fellow he
+was--had been telling them various marvels concerning parrots, and
+mines, and Mexicans, and gold dust, when all at once he took it in his
+head to jump up from his seat and propose a dance; for Bertha's harp
+was there, and she such a hand upon it as you seldom hear. Dot (sly
+little piece of affectation when she chose) said her dancing days were
+over; I think because the Carrier was smoking his pipe, and she liked
+sitting by him best. Mrs. Fielding had no choice, of course, but to say
+_her_ dancing days were over, after that; and everybody said the same,
+except May; May was ready.
+
+So, May and Edward get up, amid great applause, to dance alone; and
+Bertha plays her liveliest tune.
+
+Well! if you'll believe me, they had not been dancing five minutes, when
+suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe away, takes Dot round the waist,
+dashes out into the room, and starts off with her, toe and heel, quite
+wonderfully. Tackleton no sooner sees this than he skims across to Mrs.
+Fielding, takes her round the waist, and follows suit. Old Dot no sooner
+sees this than up he is, all alive, whisks off Mrs. Dot into the middle
+of the dance, and is foremost there. Caleb no sooner sees this than he
+clutches Tilly Slowboy by both hands, and goes off at score; Miss
+Slowboy, firm in the belief that diving hotly in among the other
+couples, and effecting any number of concussions with them, is your only
+principle of footing it.
+
+Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp; and
+how the kettle hums!
+
+        *     *     *     *     *
+
+But what is this? Even as I listen to them blithely, and turn towards
+Dot, for one last glimpse of a little figure very pleasant to me, she
+and the rest have vanished into air, and I am left alone. A Cricket
+sings upon the Hearth; a broken child's toy lies upon the ground: and
+nothing else remains.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Cricket on the Hearth, by Charles Dickens
+
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