The Christmas Stories from Charles Dickens' Magazines - 20 Titles in One Edition. Charles Dickens

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СКАЧАТЬ me how small them children looked.

      “It’s Cobbs! It’s Cobbs!” cries Master Harry, and comes running to him, and catching hold of his hand. Miss Norah comes running to him on t’other side and catching hold of his t’other hand, and they both jump for joy.

      “I see you a getting out, sir,” says Cobbs. “I thought it was you. I thought I couldn’t be mistaken in your height and figure. What’s the object of your journey, sir?—Matrimonial?”

      “We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green,” returned the boy. “We have run away on purpose. Norah has been in rather low spirits, Cobbs; but she’ll be happy, now we have found you to be our friend.”

      “Thank you, sir, and thank you, miss,” says Cobbs, “for your good opinion. Did you bring any luggage with you, sir?”

      If I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honour upon it, the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hair-brush,—seemingly a doll’s. The gentleman had got about half a dozen yards of string, a knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprising small, a orange, and a Chaney mug with his name upon it.

      “What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir?” says Cobbs.

      “To go on,” replied the boy,—which the courage of that boy was something wonderful!—“in the morning, and be married to-morrow.”

      “Just so, sir,” says Cobbs. “Would it meet your views, sir, if I was to accompany you?”

      When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out, “Oh, yes, yes, Cobbs! Yes!”

      “Well, sir,” says Cobbs. “If you will excuse my having the freedom to give an opinion, what I should recommend would be this. I’m acquainted with a pony, sir, which, put in a pheayton that I could borrow, would take you and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, (myself driving, if you approved,) to the end of your journey in a very short space of time. I am not altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty to-morrow, but even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it might be worth your while. As to the small account here, sir, in case you was to find yourself running at all short, that don’t signify; because I’m a part proprietor of this inn, and it could stand over.”

      Boots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and jumped for joy again, and called him “Good Cobbs!” and “Dear Cobbs!” and bent across him to kiss one another in the delight of their confiding hearts, he felt himself the meanest rascal for deceiving ’em that ever was born.

      “Is there anything you want just at present, sir?” says Cobbs, mortally ashamed of himself.

      “We should like some cakes after dinner,” answered Master Harry, folding his arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight at him, “and two apples,—and jam. With dinner we should like to have toast-and-water. But Norah has always been accustomed to half a glass of currant wine at dessert. And so have I.”

      “It shall be ordered at the bar, sir,” says Cobbs; and away he went.

      Boots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of speaking as he had then, that he would far rather have had it out in half-a-dozen rounds with the Governor than have combined with him; and that he wished with all his heart there was any impossible place where those two babies could make an impossible marriage, and live impossibly happy ever afterwards. However, as it couldn’t be, he went into the Governor’s plans, and the Governor set off for York in half an hour.

      The way in which the women of that house—without exception—every one of ’em—married and single—took to that boy when they heard the story, Boots considers surprising. It was as much as he could do to keep ’em from dashing into the room and kissing him. They climbed up all sorts of places, at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of glass. They was seven deep at the keyhole. They was out of their minds about him and his bold spirit.

      In the evening, Boots went into the room to see how the runaway couple was getting on. The gentleman was on the window-seat, supporting the lady in his arms. She had tears upon her face, and was lying, very tired and half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder.

      “Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, fatigued, sir?” says Cobbs.

      “Yes, she is tired, Cobbs; but she is not used to be away from home, and she has been in low spirits again. Cobbs, do you think you could bring a biffin, please?”

      “I ask your pardon, sir,” says Cobbs. “What was it you——?”

      “I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She is very fond of them.”

      Boots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and when he brought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her with a spoon, and took a little himself; the lady being heavy with sleep, and rather cross. “What should you think, sir,” says Cobbs, “of a chamber candlestick?” The gentleman approved; the chambermaid went first, up the great staircase; the lady, in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly escorted by the gentleman; the gentleman embraced her at her door, and retired to his own apartment, where Boots softly locked him up.

      Boots couldn’t but feel with increased acuteness what a base deceiver he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk-and-water, and toast and currant jelly, overnight) about the pony. It really was as much as he could do, he don’t mind confessing to me, to look them two young things in the face, and think what a wicked old father of lies he had grown up to be. Howsomever, he went on a lying like a Trojan about the pony. He told ’em that it did so unfortunately happen that the pony was half clipped, you see, and that he couldn’t be taken out in that state, for fear it should strike to his inside. But that he’d be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that to-morrow morning at eight o’clock the pheayton would be ready. Boots’s view of the whole case, looking back on it in my room, is, that Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, was beginning to give in. She hadn’t had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn’t seem quite up to brushing it herself, and its getting in her eyes put her out. But nothing put out Master Harry. He sat behind his breakfast-cup, a tearing away at the jelly, as if he had been his own father.

      After breakfast, Boots is inclined to consider that they drawed soldiers,—at least, he knows that many such was found in the fire-place, all on horseback. In the course of the morning, Master Harry rang the bell,—it was surprising how that there boy did carry on,—and said, in a sprightly way, “Cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighbourhood?”

      “Yes, sir,” says Cobbs. “There’s Love-lane.”

      “Get out with you, Cobbs!”—that was that there boy’s expression,—“you’re joking.”

      “Begging your pardon, sir,” says Cobbs, “there really is Love-lane. And a pleasant walk it is, and proud shall I be to show it to yourself and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior.”

      “Norah, dear,” said Master Harry, “this is curious. We really ought to see Love-lane. Put on your bonnet, my sweetest darling, and we will go there with Cobbs.”

      Boots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be, when that young pair told him, as they all three jogged along together, that they had made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year as head-gardener, on accounts of his being so true a friend to ’em. Boots could have wished at the moment that the earth would have opened and СКАЧАТЬ