“Pray, sir,” said the old woman, “didn’t I see you come out of that gentleman’s house?” pointing back to Mr. Bounderby’s. “I believe it was you, unless I have had the bad luck to mistake the person in following?”
“Yes, missus,” returned Stephen, “it were me.”
“Have you – you’ll excuse an old woman’s curiosity – have you seen the gentleman?”
“Yes, missus.”
“And how did he look, sir? Was he portly, bold, out-spoken, and hearty?” As she straightened her own figure, and held up her head in adapting her action to her words, the idea crossed Stephen that he had seen this old woman before, and had not quite liked her.
“Oh yes,” he returned, observing her more attentively, “he were all that.”
“And healthy,” said the old woman, “as the fresh wind?”
“Yes,” returned Stephen. “He were ett’n and drinking – as large and loud as a Hummobee.”
“Thank you!” said the old woman with infinite content. “Thank you!”
He certainly never had seen this old woman before. Yet there was a vague remembrance in his mind, as if he had more than once dreamed of some old woman like her.
She walked along at his side, and, gently accommodating himself to her humour, he said Coketown was a busy place, was it not? To which she answered “Eigh sure! Dreadful busy!” Then he said, she came from the country, he saw? To which she answered in the affirmative.
“By Parliamentary, this morning. I came forty mile by Parliamentary this morning, and I’m going back the same forty mile this afternoon. I walked nine mile to the station this morning, and if I find nobody on the road to give me a lift; I shall walk the nine mile back tonight. That’s pretty well, sir, at my age!” said the chatty old woman, her eye brightening with exultation.
“Deed ’tis. Don’t do’t too often, missus.”
“No, no. Once a year,” she answered, shaking her head. “I spend my savings so, once every year. I come regular, to tramp about the streets, and see the gentlemen.”
“Only to see ’em?”
“That’s enough for me,” she replied, with great earnestness and interest of manner. “I ask no more! I have been standing about on this side of the way, to see that gentleman,” turning her head back towards Mr. Bounderby’s again, “come out. But, he’s late this year, and I have not seen him. You came out instead. Now if I am obliged to go back without a glimpse of him – I only want a glimpse – well! I have seen you, and you have seen him, and I must make that do.” Saying this, she looked at Stephen as if to fix his features in her mind, and as her eye was not so bright as it had been.
With a large allowance for difference of tastes, and with all submission to the patricians of Coketown, this seemed so extraordinary a source of interest to take so much trouble about, that it perplexed him. But they were passing the church now, and his eye caught the clock, he quickened his pace.
He was going to his work? the old woman said, quickening hers, too, quite easily. Yes, time was nearly out. On his telling her where he worked, the old woman became a more singular old woman than before.
“An’t you happy?” she asked him.
“Why – there’s awmost noboddy but has their troubles, missus.” He answered evasively, because the old woman appeared to take it for granted that he would be very happy indeed, and he had not the heart to disappoint her. He knew that there was trouble enough in the world; and if the old woman had lived so long, and could count upon his having so little, why so much the better for her, and none the worse for him.
“Ay, ay! You have your troubles at home, you mean?” she said.
“Times. Just now and then,” he answered slightly.
“But, working under such a gentleman, they don’t follow you to the Factory?”
No, no; they didn’t follow him there, said Stephen. All correct there. Everything accordant there. (He did not go so far as to say, for her pleasure, that there was a sort of Divine Right there; but, I have heard claims almost as magnificent of late years.)