Charles Dickens (7 page)

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.

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 hopes. 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 Fairy-rings 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 May'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 flushed into her
face, and tears stood in her eyes.

'Even the very persons themselves—real live young men—were 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 byegones byegones, 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 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.