On this same day, and about this very hour, Mr Willet the elder sat
smoking his pipe in a chamber at the Black Lion. Although it was hot
summer weather, Mr Willet sat close to the fire. He was in a state of
profound cogitation, with his own thoughts, and it was his custom
at such times to stew himself slowly, under the impression that that
process of cookery was favourable to the melting out of his ideas,
which, when he began to simmer, sometimes oozed forth so copiously as to
astonish even himself.
Mr Willet had been several thousand times comforted by his friends and
acquaintance, with the assurance that for the loss he had sustained in
the damage done to the Maypole, he could ‘come upon the county.’ But as
this phrase happened to bear an unfortunate resemblance to the popular
expression of ‘coming on the parish,’ it suggested to Mr Willet’s mind
no more consolatory visions than pauperism on an extensive scale, and
ruin in a capacious aspect. Consequently, he had never failed to receive
the intelligence with a rueful shake of the head, or a dreary stare, and
had been always observed to appear much more melancholy after a visit of
condolence than at any other time in the whole four-and-twenty hours.
It chanced, however, that sitting over the fire on this particular
occasion--perhaps because he was, as it were, done to a turn; perhaps
because he was in an unusually bright state of mind; perhaps because
he had considered the subject so long; perhaps because of all these
favouring circumstances, taken together--it chanced that, sitting over
the fire on this particular occasion, Mr Willet did, afar off and in
the remotest depths of his intellect, perceive a kind of lurking hint or
faint suggestion, that out of the public purse there might issue funds
for the restoration of the Maypole to its former high place among the
taverns of the earth. And this dim ray of light did so diffuse itself
within him, and did so kindle up and shine, that at last he had it as
plainly and visibly before him as the blaze by which he sat; and, fully
persuaded that he was the first to make the discovery, and that he had
started, hunted down, fallen upon, and knocked on the head, a perfectly
original idea which had never presented itself to any other man, alive
or dead, he laid down his pipe, rubbed his hands, and chuckled audibly.
‘Why, father!’ cried Joe, entering at the moment, ‘you’re in spirits
to-day!’
‘It’s nothing partickler,’ said Mr Willet, chuckling again. ‘It’s
nothing at all partickler, Joseph. Tell me something about the
Salwanners.’ Having preferred this request, Mr Willet chuckled a third
time, and after these unusual demonstrations of levity, he put his pipe
in his mouth again.
‘What shall I tell you, father?’ asked Joe, laying his hand upon his
sire’s shoulder, and looking down into his face. ‘That I have come back,
poorer than a church mouse? You know that. That I have come back, maimed
and crippled? You know that.’
‘It was took off,’ muttered Mr Willet, with his eyes upon the fire, ‘at
the defence of the Salwanners, in America, where the war is.’
‘Quite right,’ returned Joe, smiling, and leaning with his remaining
elbow on the back of his father’s chair; ‘the very subject I came to
speak to you about. A man with one arm, father, is not of much use in
the busy world.’
This was one of those vast propositions which Mr Willet had never
considered for an instant, and required time to ‘tackle.’ Wherefore he
made no answer.
‘At all events,’ said Joe, ‘he can’t pick and choose his means of
earning a livelihood, as another man may. He can’t say “I will turn my
hand to this,” or “I won’t turn my hand to that,” but must take what he
can do, and be thankful it’s no worse.--What did you say?’
Mr Willet had been softly repeating to himself, in a musing tone, the
words ‘defence of the Salwanners:’ but he seemed embarrassed at having
been overheard, and answered ‘Nothing.’
‘Now look here, father.--Mr Edward has come to England from the West
Indies. When he was lost sight of (I ran away on the same day, father),
he made a voyage to one of the islands, where a school-friend of his
had settled; and, finding him, wasn’t too proud to be employed on his
estate, and--and in short, got on well, and is prospering, and has come
over here on business of his own, and is going back again speedily. Our
returning nearly at the same time, and meeting in the course of the late
troubles, has been a good thing every way; for it has not only enabled
us to do old friends some service, but has opened a path in life for me
which I may tread without being a burden upon you. To be plain, father,
he can employ me; I have satisfied myself that I can be of real use to
him; and I am going to carry my one arm away with him, and to make the
most of it.’
In the mind’s eye of Mr Willet, the West Indies, and indeed all foreign
countries, were inhabited by savage nations, who were perpetually
burying pipes of peace, flourishing tomahawks, and puncturing strange
patterns in their bodies. He no sooner heard this announcement,
therefore, than he leaned back in his chair, took his pipe from his
lips, and stared at his son with as much dismay as if he already beheld
him tied to a stake, and tortured for the entertainment of a lively
population. In what form of expression his feelings would have found
a vent, it is impossible to say. Nor is it necessary: for, before a
syllable occurred to him, Dolly Varden came running into the room, in
tears, threw herself on Joe’s breast without a word of explanation, and
clasped her white arms round his neck.
‘Dolly!’ cried Joe. ‘Dolly!’
‘Ay, call me that; call me that always,’ exclaimed the locksmith’s
little daughter; ‘never speak coldly to me, never be distant, never
again reprove me for the follies I have long repented, or I shall die,
Joe.’
‘I reprove you!’ said Joe.
‘Yes--for every kind and honest word you uttered, went to my heart. For
you, who have borne so much from me--for you, who owe your sufferings
and pain to my caprice--for you to be so kind--so noble to me, Joe--’
He could say nothing to her. Not a syllable. There was an odd sort of
eloquence in his one arm, which had crept round her waist: but his lips
were mute.
‘If you had reminded me by a word--only by one short word,’ sobbed
Dolly, clinging yet closer to him, ‘how little I deserved that you
should treat me with so much forbearance; if you had exulted only for
one moment in your triumph, I could have borne it better.’
‘Triumph!’ repeated Joe, with a smile which seemed to say, ‘I am a
pretty figure for that.’
‘Yes, triumph,’ she cried, with her whole heart and soul in her earnest
voice, and gushing tears; ‘for it is one. I am glad to think and know
it is. I wouldn’t be less humbled, dear--I wouldn’t be without the
recollection of that last time we spoke together in this place--no, not
if I could recall the past, and make our parting, yesterday.’
Did ever lover look as Joe looked now!
‘Dear Joe,’ said Dolly, ‘I always loved you--in my own heart I always
did, although I was so vain and giddy. I hoped you would come back that
night. I made quite sure you would. I prayed for it on my knees. Through
all these long, long years, I have never once forgotten you, or left off
hoping that this happy time might come.’
The eloquence of Joe’s arm surpassed the most impassioned language; and
so did that of his lips--yet he said nothing, either.
‘And now, at last,’ cried Dolly, trembling with the fervour of her
speech, ‘if you were sick, and shattered in your every limb; if you were
ailing, weak, and sorrowful; if, instead of being what you are, you were
in everybody’s eyes but mine the wreck and ruin of a man; I would be
your wife, dear love, with greater pride and joy, than if you were the
stateliest lord in England!’
‘What have I done,’ cried Joe, ‘what have I done to meet with this
reward?’
‘You have taught me,’ said Dolly, raising her pretty face to his, ‘to
know myself, and your worth; to be something better than I was; to be
more deserving of your true and manly nature. In years to come, dear
Joe, you shall find that you have done so; for I will be, not only
now, when we are young and full of hope, but when we have grown old and
weary, your patient, gentle, never-tiring wife. I will never know a wish
or care beyond our home and you, and I will always study how to please
you with my best affection and my most devoted love. I will: indeed I
will!’
Joe could only repeat his former eloquence--but it was very much to the
purpose.
‘They know of this, at home,’ said Dolly. ‘For your sake, I would leave
even them; but they know it, and are glad of it, and are as proud of you
as I am, and as full of gratitude.--You’ll not come and see me as a poor
friend who knew me when I was a girl, will you, dear Joe?’
Well, well! It don’t matter what Joe said in answer, but he said a great
deal; and Dolly said a great deal too: and he folded Dolly in his one
arm pretty tight, considering that it was but one; and Dolly made no
resistance: and if ever two people were happy in this world--which is
not an utterly miserable one, with all its faults--we may, with some
appearance of certainty, conclude that they were.
To say that during these proceedings Mr Willet the elder underwent
the greatest emotions of astonishment of which our common nature is
susceptible--to say that he was in a perfect paralysis of surprise, and
that he wandered into the most stupendous and theretofore unattainable
heights of complicated amazement--would be to shadow forth his state of
mind in the feeblest and lamest terms. If a roc, an eagle, a griffin, a
flying elephant, a winged sea-horse, had suddenly appeared, and, taking
him on its back, carried him bodily into the heart of the ‘Salwanners,’
it would have been to him as an everyday occurrence, in comparison with
what he now beheld. To be sitting quietly by, seeing and hearing these
things; to be completely overlooked, unnoticed, and disregarded,
while his son and a young lady were talking to each other in the most
impassioned manner, kissing each other, and making themselves in
all respects perfectly at home; was a position so tremendous, so
inexplicable, so utterly beyond the widest range of his capacity of
comprehension, that he fell into a lethargy of wonder, and could no more
rouse himself than an enchanted sleeper in the first year of his fairy
lease, a century long.
‘Father,’ said Joe, presenting Dolly. ‘You know who this is?’
Mr Willet looked first at her, then at his son, then back again at
Dolly, and then made an ineffectual effort to extract a whiff from his
pipe, which had gone out long ago.
‘Say a word, father, if it’s only “how d’ye do,”’ urged Joe.
‘Certainly, Joseph,’ answered Mr Willet. ‘Oh yes! Why not?’
‘To be sure,’ said Joe. ‘Why not?’
‘Ah!’ replied his father. ‘Why not?’ and with this remark, which he
uttered in a low voice as though he were discussing some grave question
with himself, he used the little finger--if any of his fingers can
be said to have come under that denomination--of his right hand as a
tobacco-stopper, and was silent again.
And so he sat for half an hour at least, although Dolly, in the most
endearing of manners, hoped, a dozen times, that he was not angry with
her. So he sat for half an hour, quite motionless, and looking all
the while like nothing so much as a great Dutch Pin or Skittle. At the
expiration of that period, he suddenly, and without the least notice,
burst (to the great consternation of the young people) into a very loud
and very short laugh; and repeating, ‘Certainly, Joseph. Oh yes! Why
not?’ went out for a walk.