Charles Dickens Read Online Free PDF Page B

off, and frighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting by the
fires!'
    With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, which is
often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, the Carrier as
he walked slowly to and fro, found himself mentally repeating even
these absurd words, many times. So many times that he got them by
heart, and was still conning them over and over, like a lesson,
when Tilly, after administering as much friction to the little bald
head with her hand as she thought wholesome (according to the
practice of nurses), had once more tied the Baby's cap on.
    'And frighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting by the fires. What
frightened Dot, I wonder!' mused the Carrier, pacing to and fro.
    He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the Toy-merchant,
and yet they filled him with a vague, indefinite uneasiness. For,
Tackleton was quick and sly; and he had that painful sense,
himself, of being of slow perception, that a broken hint was always
worrying to him. He certainly had no intention in his mind of
linking anything that Tackleton had said, with the unusual conduct
of his wife, but the two subjects of reflection came into his mind
together, and he could not keep them asunder.
    The bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining all
refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. Then, Dot—quite well
again, she said, quite well again—arranged the great chair in the
chimney-corner for her husband; filled his pipe and gave it him;
and took her usual little stool beside him on the hearth.
    She always WOULD sit on that little stool. I think she must have
had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling little stool.
    She was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, I should say,
in the four quarters of the globe. To see her put that chubby
little finger in the bowl, and then blow down the pipe to clear the
tube, and, when she had done so, affect to think that there was
really something in the tube, and blow a dozen times, and hold it
to her eye like a telescope, with a most provoking twist in her
capital little face, as she looked down it, was quite a brilliant
thing. As to the tobacco, she was perfect mistress of the subject;
and her lighting of the pipe, with a wisp of paper, when the
Carrier had it in his mouth—going so very near his nose, and yet
not scorching it—was Art, high Art.
    And the Cricket and the kettle, turning up again, acknowledged it!
The bright fire, blazing up again, acknowledged it! The little
Mower on the clock, in his unheeded work, acknowledged it! The
Carrier, in his smoothing forehead and expanding face, acknowledged
it, the readiest of all.
    And as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe, and as
the Dutch clock ticked, and as the red fire gleamed, and as the
Cricket chirped; that Genius of his Hearth and Home (for such the
Cricket was) came out, in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned
many forms of Home about him. Dots of all ages, and all sizes,
filled the chamber. Dots who were merry children, running on
before him gathering flowers, in the fields; coy Dots, half
shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough
image; newly-married Dots, alighting at the door, and taking
wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots,
attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened;
matronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching Dots of
daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, encircled and
beset by troops of rosy grandchildren; withered Dots, who leaned on
sticks, and tottered as they crept along. Old Carriers too,
appeared, with blind old Boxers lying at their feet; and newer
carts with younger drivers ('Peerybingle Brothers' on the tilt);
and sick old Carriers, tended by the gentlest hands; and graves of
dead and gone old Carriers, green in the churchyard. And as the
Cricket showed him all these things—he saw them plainly, though
his eyes were fixed upon the fire—the Carrier's heart grew light
and