in suffering and sorrow; to know no weariness in working for his sake; to watch him, tend him, sit beside his bed and talk to him awake, and pray for him asleep; what privileges these would be! What opportunities for proving all her truth and devotion to him! Would she do all this, dear father?
‘No doubt of it,’ said Caleb.
‘I love her, father; I can love her from my soul!’ exclaimed the Blind Girl. And saying so, she laid her poor blind face on Caleb’s shoulder, and so wept and wept, that he was almost sorry to have brought that tearful happiness upon her.
In the 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 weigh took time. Not that there was much of the Baby, speaking of it as a thing of weight and measure, but there was a vast deal to do about and about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages. For instance, when the Baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain point of dressing, and you might have rationally supposed that another touch or two would finish him off, and turn him out a tip-top Baby challenging the world, he was unexpectedly extinguished in a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to speak) between two blankets for the best part of an hour. From this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining very much and roaring violently, to partake of—well? I would rather say, if you’ll permit me to speak generally—of a slight repast. After which, he went to sleep again. Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of this interval, to make herself as smart in a small way as ever you saw anybody in all your life; and, during the same short truce, Miss Slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection with herself, or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, dog’s-eared, independent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being all alive again, was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen raised-pie for its head; and so in course of time they all three got down to the door, where the old horse had already taken more than the full value of his day’s toll out of the Turnpike Trust, by tearing up the road with his impatient autographs; and whence Boxer might be dimly seen in the remote perspective, standing looking back, and tempting him to come on without orders.
As to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping Mrs. Peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of John, if you think that was necessary. Before you could have seen him lift her from the ground, there she was in her place, fresh and rosy, saying, ‘John! How can you! Think of Tilly!’
If I might be allowed to mention a young lady’s legs, on any terms, I would observe of Miss Slowboy’s that there was a fatality about them which rendered them singularly liable to be grazed; and that she never effected the smallest ascent or descent, without recording the circumstance upon them with a notch, as Robinson Crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar. But as this might be considered ungenteel, I’ll think of it.
‘John? You’ve got the Basket with the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer?’ said Dot. ‘If you haven’t, you must turn round again, this very minute.’
‘You’re a nice little article,’ returned the Carrier, ‘to be talking about turning round, after keeping me a full quarter of an hour behind my time.’
‘I am sorry for it, John,’ said Dot in a great bustle, ‘but I really could not think of going to Bertha’s—I would not do it, John, on any account—without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer. Way!’
This monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn’t mind it at all.
‘Oh do way, John!’ said Mrs. Peerybingle. ‘Please!’
‘It’ll be time enough to do that,’ returned John, ‘when I begin to leave things behind me. The basket’s here, safe enough.’
‘What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not to have said so, at once, and save me such a turn! I declared I wouldn’t go to Bertha’s without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer, for any money. Regularly once a fortnight ever since we have been married, John, have we made our little 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 great deal about myself, and a rare lot of questions he asked me. I gave him information about my having two beats, you know, in my business; one day to the right from our house and back again; another day to the left from our house and back again (for he’s a stranger and don’t know the names of places about here); and he seemed quite pleased. “Why, then I shall be returning home tonight your way,” he says, “when I thought you’d be coming in an exactly opposite direction. That’s capital! I may trouble you for another lift perhaps, but I’ll engage not to fall so sound asleep again.” He was sound asleep, sure-ly!—Dot! what are you thinking of?’
‘Thinking of, John? I—I was listening to you.’
‘O! That’s all right!’ said the honest Carrier. ‘I was afraid, from the look of your face, that I had gone rambling on so long, as to set you thinking about something else. I was very near it, I’ll be bound.’
Dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little time, in silence. But, it was not easy to remain silent very long in John Peerybingle’s cart, for everybody on the road had something to say. Though it might only be ‘How are you!’ and indeed it was very often nothing else, still, to give that back again in the right spirit of cordiality, required, not merely a nod and a smile, but as wholesome an action of the lungs withal, as a long-winded Parliamentary speech. Sometimes, passengers on foot, or horseback, plodded on a little way beside the cart, for the express purpose of having a chat; and then there was a great deal to be said, on both sides.
Then, Boxer gave occasion to more good-natured recognitions of, and by, the Carrier, than half-a-dozen Christians could have done! Everybody knew him, all along the road—especially the fowls and pigs, who when they saw him approaching, with his body all on one side, and his ears pricked up inquisitively, and that knob of a tail making the most of itself in the air, immediately withdrew into remote back settlements, without waiting for the honour of a nearer acquaintance. He had business everywhere; going down all the turnings, looking into all the wells, bolting in and out of all the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the Dame-Schools, fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the cats, and trotting into the public-houses like a regular customer. Wherever he went, somebody or other might have been heard to cry, ‘Halloa! Here’s Boxer!’ and out came that somebody forthwith, accompanied by at least two or three other somebodies, to give John Peerybingle and his pretty wife, Good Day.