A Pair of Blue Eyes

Jacob’s ladder here, Jacob’s ladder there, and plant ’em where nothing in the world will grow, you get crowds of ’em in a month or two. John made a new manure mixen last summer, and he said, ‘Maria, now if you’ve got any flowers or suchlike, that you don’t want, you may plant ’em round my mixen so as to hide it a bit, though ’tis not likely anything of much value will grow there.’ I thought, ‘There’s them Jacob’s ladders; I’ll put them there, since they can’t do harm in such a place;’ and I planted the Jacob’s ladders sure enough. They growed, and they growed, in the mixen and out of the mixen, all over the litter, covering it quite up. When John wanted to use it about the garden, ’a said, ‘Nation seize them Jacob’s ladders of yours, Maria! They’ve eat the goodness out of every morsel of my manure, so that ’tis no better than sand itself!’ Sure enough the hungry mortals had. ’Tis my belief that in the secret souls o’ ’em, Jacob’s ladders be weeds, and not flowers at all, if the truth was known.”

Robert Lickpan, pig-killer and carrier, arrived at this moment. The fatted animal hanging in the back kitchen was cleft down the middle of its backbone, Mrs. Smith being meanwhile engaged in cooking supper.

Between the cutting and chopping, ale was handed round, and Worm and the pig-killer listened to John Smith’s description of the meeting with Stephen, with eyes blankly fixed upon the tablecloth, in order that nothing in the external world should interrupt their efforts to conjure up the scene correctly.

Stephen came downstairs in the middle of the story, and after the little interruption occasioned by his entrance and welcome, the narrative was again continued, precisely as if he had not been there at all, and was told inclusively to him, as to somebody who knew nothing about the matter.

“ ‘Ay,’ I said, as I catched sight o’ en through the brimbles, ‘that’s the lad, for I d’ know en by his grandfather’s walk;’ for ’a stapped out like poor father for all the world. Still there was a touch o’ the frisky that set me wondering. ’A got closer, and I said, ‘That’s the lad, for I d’ know en by his carrying a black case like a travelling man.’ Still, a road is common to all the world, and there be more travelling men than one. But I kept my eye cocked, and I said to Martin, ‘ ’Tis the boy, now, for I d’ know en by the wold twirl o’ the stick and the family step.’ Then ’a come closer, and a’ said, ‘All right.’ I could swear to en then.”

Stephen’s personal appearance was next criticised.

“He d’ look a deal thinner in face, surely, than when I seed en at the parson’s, and never knowed en, if ye’ll believe me,” said Martin.

“Ay, there,” said another, without removing his eyes from Stephen’s face, “I should ha’ knowed en anywhere. ’Tis his father’s nose to a T.”

“It has been often remarked,” said Stephen modestly.

“And he’s certainly taller,” said Martin, letting his glance run over Stephen’s form from bottom to top.

“I was thinking ’a was exactly the same height,” Worm replied.

“Bless thy soul, that’s because he’s bigger round likewise.” And the united eyes all moved to Stephen’s waist.

“I be a poor wambling man, but I can make allowances,” said William Worm. “Ah, sure, and how he came as a stranger and pilgrim to Parson Swancourt’s that time, not a soul knowing en after so many years! Ay, life’s a strange picter, Stephen: but I suppose I must say Sir to ye?”

“Oh, it is not necessary at present,” Stephen replied, though mentally resolving to avoid the vicinity of that familiar friend as soon as he had made pretensions to the hand of Elfride.

“Ah, well,” said Worm musingly, “some would have looked for no less than a Sir. There’s a sight of difference in people.”

“And in pigs likewise,” observed John Smith, looking at the halved carcass of his own.

Robert Lickpan, the pig-killer, here seemed called upon to enter the lists of conversation.

“Yes, they’ve got their particular naters good-now,” he remarked initially. “Many’s the rum-tempered pig I’ve knowed.”

“I don’t doubt it, Master Lickpan,” answered Martin, in a tone expressing that his convictions, no less than good manners, demanded the reply.

“Yes,” continued the pig-killer, as one accustomed to be heard. “One that I knowed was deaf and dumb, and we couldn’t make out what was the matter wi’ the pig. ’A would eat well enough when ’a seed the trough, but when his back was turned, you might a-rattled the bucket all day, the poor soul never heard ye. Ye could play tricks upon en behind his back, and a’ wouldn’t find it out no quicker than poor deaf Grammer Cates. But a’ fatted well, and I never seed a pig open better when a’ was killed, and ’a was very tender eating, very; as pretty a bit of mate as ever you see; you could suck that mate through a quill.

“And another I knowed,” resumed the killer, after quietly letting a pint of ale run down his throat of its own accord, and setting down the cup with mathematical exactness upon the spot from which he had raised it⁠—“another went out of his mind.”

“How very mournful!” murmured Mrs. Worm.

“Ay, poor thing, ’a did! As clean out of his mind as the cleverest Christian could go. In early life ’a was very melancholy, and never seemed a hopeful pig by no means. ’Twas Andrew Stainer’s pig⁠—that’s whose pig ’twas.”

“I can mind the pig well enough,” attested John Smith.

“And a pretty little porker ’a was. And you all know Farmer Buckle’s sort? Every jack o’ em suffer from the rheumatism to this day, owing to a damp sty they lived in when they were striplings, as ’twere.”

“Well, now we’ll weigh,” said John.

“If so be he were not so fine, we’d weigh en whole: but as he