His garb was very quaint and odd—a long, long way behind the time. Its hue was brown, all over. In his hand he held a great brown club or walking–stick; and striking this upon the floor, it fell asunder, and became a chair. On which he sat down, quite composedly.
‘There!’ said the Carrier, turning to his wife. ‘That’s the way I found him, sitting by the roadside! Upright as a milestone. And almost as deaf.’
‘Sitting in the open air, John!’
‘In the open air,’ replied the Carrier, ‘just at dusk. “Carriage Paid,” he said; and gave me eighteenpence. Then he got in. And there he is.’
‘He’s going, John, I think!’
Not at all. He was only going to speak.
‘If you please, I was to be left till called for,’ said the Stranger, mildly. ‘Don’t mind me.’
With that, he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large pockets, and a book from another, and leisurely began to read. Making no more of Boxer than if he had been a house lamb!
The Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity. The Stranger raised his head; and glancing from the latter to the former, said,
‘Your daughter, my good friend?’
‘Wife,’ returned John.
‘Niece?’ said the Stranger.
‘Wife,’ roared John.
‘Indeed?’ observed the Stranger. ‘Surely? Very young!’
He quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. But, before he could have read two lines, he again interrupted himself to say:
‘Baby, yours?’
John gave him a gigantic nod; equivalent to an answer in the affirmative, delivered through a speaking trumpet.
‘Girl?’
‘Bo–o–oy!’ roared John.
‘Also very young, eh?’
Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. ‘Two months and three da–ays! Vaccinated just six weeks ago–o! Took very fine–ly! Considered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful chi–ild! Equal to the general run of children at five months o–old! Takes notice, in a way quite wonderful! May seem impossible to you, but feels his legs al– ready!’
Here the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these short sentences into the old man’s ear, until her pretty face was crimsoned, held up the Baby before him as a stubborn and triumphant fact; while Tilly Slowboy, with a melodious cry of ‘Ketcher, Ketcher’—which sounded like some unknown words, adapted to a popular Sneeze—performed some cow–like gambols round that all unconscious Innocent.
‘Hark! He’s called for, sure enough,’ said John. ‘There’s somebody at the door. Open it, Tilly.’
Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from without; being a primitive sort of door, with a latch, that any one could lift if he chose—and a good many people did choose, for all kinds of neighbours liked to have a cheerful word or two with the Carrier, though he was no great talker himself. Being opened, it gave admission to a little, meagre, thoughtful, dingy–faced man, who seemed to have made himself a great–coat from the sack–cloth covering of some old box; for, when he turned to shut the door, and keep the weather out, he disclosed upon the back of that garment, the inscription G & T in large black capitals. Also the word glass in bold characters.
‘Good evening, John!’ said the little man. ‘Good evening, Mum. Good evening, Tilly. Good evening, Unbeknown! How’s Baby, Mum? Boxer’s pretty well I hope?’
‘All thriving, Caleb,’ replied Dot. ‘I am sure you need only look at the dear child, for one, to know that.’
‘And I’m sure I need only look at you for another,’ said Caleb.
He didn’t look at her though; he had a wandering and thoughtful eye which seemed to be always projecting itself into some other time and place, no matter what he said; a description which will equally apply to his voice.
‘Or at John for another,’ said Caleb. ‘Or at Tilly, as far as that goes. Or certainly at Boxer.’
‘Busy just now, Caleb?’ asked the Carrier.
‘Why, pretty well, John,’ he returned, with the distraught air of a man who was casting about for the Philosopher’s stone, at least. ‘Pretty much so. There’s rather a run on Noah’s Arks at present. I could have wished to improve upon the Family, but I don’t see how it’s to be done at the price. It would be a satisfaction to one’s mind, to make it clearer which was Shems and Hams, and which was Wives. Flies an’t on that scale neither, as compared with elephants you know! Ah! well! Have you got anything in the parcel line for me, John?’
The Carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had taken off; and brought out, carefully preserved in moss and paper, a tiny flower–pot.
‘There it is!’ he said, adjusting it with great care. ‘Not so much as a leaf damaged. Full of buds!’
Caleb’s dull eye brightened, as he took it, and thanked him.
‘Dear, Caleb,’ said the Carrier. ‘Very dear at this season.’
‘Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, whatever it cost,’ returned the little man. ‘Anything else, John?’
‘A small box,’ replied the Carrier. ‘Here you are!’
‘“For Caleb Plummer,”’ said the little man, spelling out the direction. ‘“With Cash.” With Cash, John? I don’t think it’s for me.’
‘With Care,’ returned the Carrier, looking over his shoulder. ‘Where do you make out cash?’
‘Oh! To be sure!’ said Caleb. ‘It’s all right. With care! Yes, yes; that’s mine. It might have been with cash, indeed, if my dear Boy in the Golden South Americas had lived, John. You loved him like a son; didn’t you? You needn’t say you did. I know, of course. “Caleb Plummer. With care.” Yes, yes, it’s all right. It’s a box of dolls’ eyes for my daughter’s work. I wish it was her own sight in a box, John.’
‘I wish it was, or could be!’ cried the Carrier.
‘Thank’ee,’ said the little man. ‘You speak very hearty. To think that she should never see the Dolls—and them a–staring at her, so bold, all day long! That’s where it cuts. What’s the damage, John?’
‘I’ll damage you,’ said John, ‘if you inquire. Dot! Very near?’
‘Well! it’s like you to say so,’ observed the little man. ‘It’s your kind way. Let me see. I think that’s all.’
‘I think not,’ said the Carrier. ‘Try again.’
‘Something for our Governor, eh?’ said Caleb, after pondering a little while. ‘To be sure. That’s what I came for; but my head’s so running on them Arks and things! He hasn’t been here, has he?’
‘Not he,’ returned the Carrier. ‘He’s too busy, courting.’
‘He’s coming round though,’ said Caleb; ‘for he told me to keep on the near side of the road going home, and it was ten to one he’d take me up. I had better go, by the bye.—You couldn’t have the goodness to let me pinch Boxer’s tail, Mum, for half a moment, could you?’
‘Why, Caleb! what a question!’
‘Oh never mind, Mum,’ said the little man. ‘He mightn’t like it perhaps. There’s a small order just come in, for barking dogs; and I should wish to go as close to Natur’ as I could, for sixpence. That’s all. Never mind, Mum.’
It happened opportunely, that Boxer, without receiving the proposed stimulus, began to bark with great zeal. But, as this implied the approach of some new visitor, Caleb, postponing his study from the life to a more convenient season, shouldered the round box, and took a hurried leave. He might have spared himself the trouble, for he met the visitor upon the threshold.
‘Oh! You are here, are you? Wait a bit. I’ll take you home. John Peerybingle, my service to you. More of my service to your pretty wife. Handsomer every day! Better too, if possible! And younger,’ mused the speaker, in a low voice; ‘that’s the Devil of it!’
‘I should be astonished at your paying compliments, Mr. Tackleton,’ said Dot, not with the best grace in the world; ‘but for your condition.’
‘You know all about it then?’
‘I have got myself to believe it, somehow,’ said Dot.
‘After a hard struggle, I suppose?’
