Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

her unele at the masquerade at Carlisle House, where she had gone, as the people at the Warren told me, sorely against her will. What does your blockhead father when he and Mrs. Rudge have laid their heads together, but goes there when he ought to be abed, makes interest with his friend the doorkeeper, slips him on a mask and domino, and mixes with the masquers."

[ocr errors]

And like himself to do so! cried the girl, putting her fair arm round his neck, and giving him a most enthusiastic kiss.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Like himself!» repeated Gabriel, affecting to grumble, but evidently delighted with the part he had taken, and with her praise. Very like himself-so your mother said. However, he mingled with the crowd, and prettily worried and badgered he was, I warrant you, with people squeaking, Don't you know me?' and I've found you out,' and all that kind of nonsense in his ears. He might have wandered on till now, but in a little room there was a young lady who had taken off her mask, on account of the place being very warm, and was sitting there alone.»

"

And that was she? said his daughter hastily.

«And that was she,» replied the locksmith; « and I no sooner whispered to her what the matter was as softly, Doll, and with nearly as much art as you could have used yourself— than she gives a kind of scream and faints away. ■

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

What did you do what happened next?" asked his daughter.

"

Why, the masks came flocking round, with a general noise and hubbub, and I thought myself in luck to get clear off. that's all, rejoined the locksmith. What happened when I reached home you may guess, if you didn't hear it. Ah! Well, it's a poor heart that never rejoices.-Put Toby this way, my dear. »

This Toby was the brown jug of which previous mention has been made. Applying his lips to the worthy old gentleman's benevolent forehead, the locksmith, who had all this time been ravaging among the eatables, kept them there so long, at the same time raising the vessel slowly in the air,

VOL. I.

65

that at length Toby stood on his head upon his nose, when he smacked his lips, and set him on the table again with fond reluctance.

Although Sim Tappertit had taken no share in this conversation, no part of it being addressed to him, he had not been wanting in such silent manifestations of astonishment, as he deemed most compatible with the favourable display of his eyes. Regarding the pause which now ensued, as a particularly advantageous opportunity for doing great execution with them upon the locksmith's daughter (who he had no doubt was looking at him in mute admiration), he began to screw and twist his face, and especially those features, into such extraordinary, hideous, and unparalleled contortions, that Gabriel, who happened to look towards him, was stricken with amazement.

"

Why, what the devil's the matter with the lad!» cried the locksmith. Is he choking? »

[ocr errors]

« Who?» demanded Sim, with some disdain.

[ocr errors]

Who? why, you,» returned his master. « What do you mean by making those horrible faces over your breakfast? » « Faces are matters of taste, sir,» said Mr. Tappertit, rather discomfited; not the less so because he saw the locksmith's daughter smiling.

་་

Sim,» rejoined Gabriel, laughing heartily. fool, for I'd rather see you in your senses.

[ocr errors]

Don't be a These young

fellows, he added, turning to his daughter, « are always committing some folly or another. There was a quarrel between Joe Willet and old John last night-though I can't say Joe was much in fault either. He'll be missing one of these mornings, and will have gone away upon some wild-goose errand, seeking his fortune.-Why, what's the matter, Doll? You are making faces now. The girls are as bad as the boys every bit!»

"

It's the tea," said Dolly, turning alternately very red and very white, which is no doubt the effect of a slight scald" So very hot.

[ocr errors]

Mr. Tappertit looked immensely big at a quartern loaf on the table and breathed hard.

[ocr errors]

more

Is that all ?» returned the locksmith. «Put some milk in it. Yes, I am sorry for Joe, because he is a likely young fellow, and gains upon one every time one sees him. But he'll start off you'll find. Indeed he told me as much himself!»

་་

« Indeed! » cried Dolly in a faint voice. Indeed!

Is the tea tickling your throat still, my dear?» said the locksmith.

[ocr errors]

But before his daughter could make him any answer, she was taken with a troublesome cough, and it was such a very unpleasant cough, that when she left off the tears were starting in her bright eyes. The good-natured locksmith was still patting her on the back and applying such gentle restoratives, when a message arrived from Mrs. Varden, making known to all whom it might concern, that she felt too much indisposed to rise after her great agitation and anxiety of the previous night; and therefore desired to be immediately accommodated with the little black tea-pot of strong mixed tea, a couple of rounds of buttered toast, a middling-sized dish of beef and ham cut thin, and the Protestant Manual in two volumes post octavo. Like some other ladies who in remote ages flourished upon this globe, Mrs. Varden was most devout when most ill-tempered. Whenever she and her husband were at unusual variance, then the Protestant Manual was in high feather.

Knowing from experience what these requests portended, the triumvirate broke up Dolly to see the orders executed with all despatch; Gabriel to some out-of-door work in his little chaise; and Sim to his daily duty in the workshop, to which retreat he carried the big look, although the loaf remained behind.

Indeed the big look increased immensely, and when he had tied his apron on became quite gigantic. It was not until he had several times walked up and down with folded arms, and the longest strides he could take, and had kicked a great many small articles out of his way, that his lip began to curl. length a gloomy derision came upon his features, and he smiled; uttering meanwhile with supreme contempt the monosyllable Joe! »

I eyed her over while he talked about the fellow,"

"he

said, " and that was of course the reason of her being confused, Joe!»

He walked up and down again much quicker than before, and if possible with longer strides; sometimes stopping to take a glance at his legs, and sometimes to jerk out, as it were, and cast from him, another «Joe! In the course of a quarter an hour or so he again assumed the paper cap and tried to work. No. It could not be done.

[ocr errors]

« I'll do nothing to-day said Mr. Tappertit, dashing it down again, but grind. I'll grind up all the tools. Grinding will suit my present humour well. Joe! »

[ocr errors]

Whirr-r-r-r, The grindstone was soon in motion; the sparks were flying off in showers. This was the occupation for his

heated spirit.

Whirr-r-r-r-r-r.

"

Something will come of this!» said Mr. Tappertit, pausing as if in triumph, and wiping his heated face upon his sleeve. "Something will come of this. I hope it mayn't be human gore."

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

As soon as the business of the day was over, the locksmith sallied forth alone to visit the wounded gentleman and ascertain the progress of his recovery. The house where he had left him was in a by-street in Southwark, not far from London Bridge; and thither he hied with all speed, bent upon returning with as little delay as might be, and getting to bed betimes.

The evening was boisterous-scarcely better than the previous night had heen. It was not easy, for a stout man like Gabriel to keep his legs at the street corners, or to make head against the high wind; which often fairly got the better of him, and drove him back some paces, or, in defiance of all his energy, forced him to take shelter in an arch or doorway until the fury of the gust was spent. Occasionally a hat or

wig, or both, came spinning and trundling past him, like a mad, thing; while the more serious spectacle of falling tiles and slates, or of masses of brick and mortar, or fragments of stone-coping rattling upon the pavement near at hand, and splitting into fragments, did not increase the pleasure of the journey, or make the way less dreary.

walk in! said the widow's door. I'd

A trying night for a man like me to locksmith, as he knocked softly at the rather be in old John's chimney-corner, faith! »

་་

Who's there?» demanded a woman's voice from within. Being answered, it added a hasty word of welcome, and the door was quickly opened.

8

She was about forty-perhaps two or three years olderwith a cheerful aspect, and a face that had once been pretty. It bore traces of affliction and care, but they were of an old date, and Time had smoothed them. Any one who had bestowed but a casual glance on Barnaby, might have known that this was his mother, from the strong resemblance between them; but where in his face there was wildness and vacancy, in hers there was the patient composure of long ef fort and quiet resignation.

[ocr errors]

One thing about this face was very strange and startling. You could not look upon it in its most cheerful mood without feeling that it had some extraordinary capacity of expressing terror. It was not on the surface. It was in no one feature that it lingered.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

You could not take the eyes, or

mouth, or lines upon the cheek, and say, if this or that were otherwise, it would not be so. Yet there it always lurkedsomething for ever dimly seen, but ever there, and never absent for a moment, It was the faintest, palest shadow of some look, to which an instant of intense and most unutterable horror only could have given birth; but indistinct and feeble as it was, it did suggest what that look must have been, and fixed it in the mind as if it had had existence in a dream...,

More faintly imaged, and wanting force and purpose, as it were, because of his darkened intellect, there was this same stamp upon the son. Seen in a picture, it must have had

« AnteriorContinuar »