John Willet was so amazed by the exasperation and boldness of his hopeful son, that he sat as one bewildered, staring in a ludicrous manner at the boiler, and endeavouring, but quite ineffectually, to collect his tardy thoughts, and invent an answer. The guests, scarcely less disturbed, were equally at a loss; and at length, with a variety of muttered, half-expressed condolences, and pieces of advice, rose to depart; being at the same time slightly muddled with liquor.
The honest locksmith alone addressed a few words of coherent and sensible advice to both parties, urging John Willet to remember that Joe was nearly arrived at man’s estate, and should not be ruled with too tight a hand, and exhorting Joe himself to bear with his father’s caprices, and rather endeavour to turn them aside by temperate remonstrance than by ill-timed rebellion. This advice was received as such advice usually is. On John Willet it made almost as much impression as on the sign outside the door, while Joe, who took it in the best part, avowed himself more obliged than he could well express, but politely intimated his intention nevertheless of taking his own course uninfluenced by anybody.
“You have always been a very good friend to me, Mr. Varden,” he said, as they stood without, in the porch, and the locksmith was equipping himself for his journey home; “I take it very kind of you to say all this, but the time’s nearly come when the Maypole and I must part company.”
“Roving stones gather no moss, Joe,” said Gabriel.
“Nor milestones much,” replied Joe. “I’m little better than one here, and see as much of the world.”
“Then, what would you do, Joe?” pursued the locksmith, stroking his chin reflectively. “What could you be? Where could you go, you see?”
“I must trust to chance, Mr. Varden.”
“A bad thing to trust to, Joe. I don’t like it. I always tell my girl when we talk about a husband for her, never to trust to chance, but to make sure beforehand that she has a good man and true, and then chance will neither make her nor break her. What are you fidgeting about there, Joe? Nothing gone in the harness, I hope?”
“No no,” said Joe—finding, however, something very engrossing to do in the way of strapping and buckling—“Miss Dolly quite well?”
“Hearty, thankye. She looks pretty enough to be well, and good too.”
“She’s always both, sir”—
“So she is, thank God!”
“I hope,” said Joe after some hesitation, “that you won’t tell this story against me—this of my having been beat like the boy they’d make of me—at all events, till I have met this man again and settled the account. It’ll be a better story then.”
“Why who should I tell it to?” returned Gabriel. “They know it here, and I’m not likely to come across anybody else who would care about it.”
“That’s true enough,” said the young fellow with a sigh. “I quite forgot that. Yes, that’s true!”
So saying, he raised his face, which was very red—no doubt from the exertion of strapping and buckling as aforesaid—and giving the reins to the old man, who had by this time taken his seat, sighed again and bade him good night.
“Good night!” cried Gabriel. “Now think better of what we have just been speaking of; and don’t be rash, there’s a good fellow! I have an interest in you, and wouldn’t have you cast yourself away. Good night!”
Returning his cheery farewell with cordial goodwill, Joe Willet lingered until the sound of wheels ceased to vibrate in his ears, and then, shaking his head mournfully, reentered the house.
Gabriel Varden went his way towards London, thinking of a great many things, and most of all of flaming terms in which to relate his adventure, and so account satisfactorily to Mrs. Varden for visiting the Maypole, despite certain solemn covenants between himself and that lady. Thinking begets, not only thought, but drowsiness occasionally, and the more the locksmith thought, the more sleepy he became.
A man may be very sober—or at least firmly set upon his legs on that neutral ground which lies between the confines of perfect sobriety and slight tipsiness—and yet feel a strong tendency to mingle up present circumstances with others which have no manner of connection with them; to confound all consideration of persons, things, times, and places; and to jumble his disjointed thoughts together in a kind of mental kaleidoscope, producing combinations as unexpected as they are transitory. This was Gabriel Varden’s state, as, nodding in his dog sleep, and leaving his horse to pursue a road with which he was well acquainted, he got over the ground unconsciously, and drew nearer and nearer home. He had roused himself once, when the horse stopped until the turnpike gate was opened, and had cried a lusty “good night!” to the toll-keeper; but then he awoke out of a dream about picking a lock in the stomach of the Great Mogul, and even when he did wake, mixed up the turnpike man with his mother-in-law who had been dead twenty years. It is not surprising, therefore, that he soon relapsed, and jogged heavily along, quite insensible to his progress.
And, now, he approached the great city, which lay outstretched before him like a dark shadow on the ground, reddening the sluggish air with a deep dull light, that told of labyrinths of public ways and shops, and swarms of busy people. Approaching nearer and nearer yet, this halo began to fade, and the causes which produced it slowly to develop themselves. Long lines of poorly lighted streets might be faintly traced, with here and there a lighter spot, where lamps were clustered round a square or market, or round some great building; after a time these grew more distinct, and the lamps themselves were visible; slight
