‘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 tonight 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 teaboard, 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[11] 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. Holloa! 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 skirts of her mistress, and coming into contact as she crossed the doorway with an ancient Stranger, she instinctively made a charge or butt at him with the only offensive instrument within her reach. This instrument happening to be the baby, great commotion and alarm ensued, which the sagacity of Boxer rather tended to increase; for, that good dog, more thoughtful than its master, had, it seemed, been watching the old gentleman in his sleep, lest he should walk off with a few young poplar trees that were tied up behind the cart; and he still attended on him very closely, worrying his gaiters in fact, and making dead sets at the buttons[12].
‘You’re such an undeniable good sleeper, sir,’ said John, when tranquillity was restored; in the mean time the old gentleman had stood, bareheaded and motionless, in the centre of the room; ‘that I have half a mind to ask you where the other six are – only that would be a joke, and I know I should spoil it. Very near though,’ murmured the Carrier, with a chuckle; ‘very near!’
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[13]. 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 eighteenpence. 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[14], 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 finely! Considered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful ch-ild! Equal to the general run of children at five months o-old! Takes notice, in a way quite wonderful! May seem impossible to you, but feels his legs al-ready!’
Here the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these short sentences into the old man’s ear, until her pretty face was crimsoned, held up the Baby before him as a stubborn and triumphant fact; while Tilly Slowboy, with a melodious cry of ‘Ketcher, Ketcher’ – which sounded like some unknown words, adapted to a popular Sneeze – performed some cow-like gambols round that all unconscious Innocent.
‘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 sack-cloth covering of some old box; for, when he turned to shut the door, and keep the weather out, he disclosed upon the back of that garment, the inscription G & T in large black capitals. Also the word glass in bold characters.
‘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.
12
making dead sets at the buttons – (