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, if you
recollect; 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 her's--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; 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?"
[Illustration]
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; how ever she contrived it,
_I_ don't know--then did a little nursing; then a little more
needlework; then had a little whispering chat with May, while the old
lady dozed; and so in little bits of bustle, which was quite her manner
always, found it a very short afternoon. Then, as it grew dark, and as
it was a solemn part of this Institution of the Pic-Nic that she should
perform all Bertha's household tasks, she trimmed the fire, and swept
the hearth, and set the tea-board out, and drew the curtain, and lighted
a candle. Then, she played an air or two on a rude kind of harp, which
Caleb had contrived for Bertha; and played them very well; for Nature
had made her delicate little ear as choice a one for music as it would
have been for jewels, if she had had any to wear. By this time it was
the established hour for having tea; and Tackleton came back again, to
share the meal, and spend the evening.
Caleb and Bertha had returned some time before, and Caleb had sat down
to his afternoon's work. But he couldn't settle to it, poor fellow,
being anxious and remorseful for his daughter. It was touching to see
him sitting idle on his working-stool, regarding her so wistfully; and
always saying in his face, "have I deceived her from her cradle, but to
break her heart!"
When it was night, and tea was done, and Dot had nothing more to do in
washing up the cups and saucers; in a word--for I must come to it, and
there is no use in putting it off--when the time drew nigh for expecting
the Carrier's return in every sound of distant wheels; her manner
changed again; her colour came and went; and she was very restless. Not
as good wives are, when listening for their husbands. No, no, no. It was
another sort of restlessness from that.
Wheels heard. A horse's feet. The barking of a dog. The gradual approach
of all the sounds. The scratching paw of Boxer at the door!
"Whose step is that!" cried Bertha, starting up.
"Whose step?" returned the Carrier, standing in the portal, with his
brown face ruddy as a winter berry from the keen night air. "Why, mine."
"The other step," said Bertha. "The man's tread behind you!"
"She is not to be deceived," observed the Carrier, laughing. "Come
along Sir. You'll be welcome, never fear!"
He spoke in a loud tone; and as he spoke, the deaf old gentleman
entered.
"He's not so much a stranger, that you haven't seen him once, Caleb,"
said the Carrier. "You'll give him house-room till we go?"
"Oh surely John; and take it as an honour."
"He's the best company on earth, to talk secrets in," said John. "I have
reasonable good lungs, but he tries 'em, I can tell you. Sit down Sir.
All friends here, and glad to see you!"
When he had imparted this assurance, in a voice that amply corroborated
what he had said about his lungs, he added in his natural tone, "A chair
in the chimney-corner, and leave to sit quite silent and look pleasantly
about him, is all he cares for. He's easily pleased."
Bertha had been listening intently. She called Caleb to her side, when
he had set the chair, and asked him, in a low voice, to describe their
visitor. When he had done so (truly now; with scrupulous fidelity), she
moved, for the first time since he had come in; and sighed; and seemed
to have no further interest concerning him.
The Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was; and fonder of
his little wife than ever.
"A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon!" he said, encircling her with his
rough arm, as she stood, removed from the rest; "and yet I like her
somehow. See yonder, Dot!"
He pointed to the old man. She looked down. I think she trembled.
"He's--ha ha ha!--he's full of admiration for you!" said the Carrier.
"Talked of nothing else, the whole way here. Why, he's a brave old boy.
I like him for it!"
"I wish he had had a better subject, John;" she said, with an uneasy
glance about the room; at Tackleton especially.
"A better subject!" cried the jovial John. "There's no such thing. Come!
off with the great-coat, off with the thick shawl, off with the heavy
wrappers! and a cosy half-hour by the fire! My humble service, Mistress.
A game at cribbage, you and I? That's hearty. The cards and board, Dot.
And a glass of beer here, if there's any left, small wife!"
His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who accepting it with
gracious readiness, they were soon engaged upon the game. At first, the
Carrier looked about him sometimes, with a smile, or now and then called
Dot to peep over his shoulder at his hand, and advise him on some knotty
point. But his adversary being a rigid disciplinarian, and subject to an
occasional weakness in respect of pegging more than she was entitled to,
required such vigilance on his part, as left him neither eyes nor ears
to spare. Thus, his whole attention gradually became absorbed upon the
cards; and he thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his shoulder
restored him to a consciousness of Tackleton.
"I am sorry to disturb you--but a word, directly."
"I'm going to deal," returned the Carrier. "It's a crisis."
"It is," said Tackleton. "Come here, man!"
There was that in his pale face which made the other rise immediately,
and ask him, in a hurry, what the matter was.
"Hush! John Peerybingle," said Tackleton. "I am sorry for this. I am
indeed. I have been afraid of it. I have suspected it from the first."
"What is it?" asked the Carrier, with a frightened aspect.
"Hush! I'll show you, if you'll come with me."
The Carrier accompanied him, without another word. They went across a
yard, where the stars were shining; and by a little side door, into
Tackleton's own counting-house, where there was a glass window,
commanding the ware-room: which was closed for the night. There was no
light in the counting-house itself, but there were lamps in the long
narrow ware-room; and consequently the window was bright.
"A moment!" said Tackleton. "Can you bear to look through that window,
do you think?"
"Why not?" returned the Carrier.
"A moment more," said Tackleton. "Don't commit any violence. It's of no
use. It's dangerous too. You're a strong-made man; and you might do
Murder before you know it."
The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as if he had
been struck. In one stride he was at the window, and he saw--
Oh Shadow on the Hearth! Oh truthful Cricket! Oh perfidious Wife!
He saw her, with the old man; old no longer, but erect and gallant:
bearing in his hand the false white hair that had won his way into their
desolate and miserable home. He saw her listening to him, as he bent his
head to whisper in her ear; and suffering him to clasp her round the
waist, as they moved slowly down the dim wooden gallery towards the door
by which they had entered it. He saw them stop, and saw her turn----to
have the face, the face he loved so, so presented to his view!----and
saw her, with her own hands, adjust the Lie upon his head, laughing, as
she did it, at his unsuspicious nature!
He clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it would have beaten
down a lion. But opening it immediately again, he spread it out before
the eyes of Tackleton (for he was tender of her, even then), and so, as
they passed out, fell down upon a desk, and was as weak as any infant.
He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse and parcels,
when she came into the room, prepared for going home.
"Now John, dear! Good night May! Good night Bertha!"
Could she kiss them? Could she be blithe and cheerful in her parting?
Could she venture to reveal her face to them without a blush? Yes.
Tackleton observed her closely; and she did all this.
Tilly was hushing the Baby; and she crossed and re-crossed Tackleton, a
dozen times, repeating drowsily:
"Did the knowledge that it was to be its wifes, then, wring its hearts
almost to breaking; and did its fathers deceive it from its cradles but
to break its hearts at last!"
"Now Tilly, give me the Baby. Good night, Mr. Tackleton. Where's John,
for Goodness' sake?"
"He's going to walk, beside the horse's head," said Tackleton; who
helped her to her seat.
"My dear John. Walk? To-night?"
The muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign in the affirmative;
and the false Stranger and the little nurse being in their places, the
old horse moved off. Boxer, the unconscious Boxer, running on before,
running back, running round and round the cart, and barking as
triumphantly and merrily as ever.
When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May and her mother home,
poor Caleb sat down by the fire beside his daughter; anxious and
remorseful at the core; and still saying in his wistful contemplation of
her, "have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart at
last!"
The toys that had been set in motion for the Baby, had all stopped and
run down, long ago. In the faint light and silence, the imperturbably
calm dolls; the agitated rocking-horses with distended eyes and
nostrils; the old gentlemen at the street doors, standing, half doubled
up, upon their failing knees and ankles; the wry-faced nutcrackers; 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.
[Illustration: 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 Haymaker 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
enquiring 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.
The more he felt this, and the more he knew he could have better borne
to see her lying prematurely dead before him with their 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 finger 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 illumined 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 her's; 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.
[Illustration]
"'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?" enquired 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."