It was not until Caleb had been occupied, some time, in yoking a team of horses to a waggon by the summary process of nailing the harness to the vital parts of their bodies, that she drew near to his working-stool, and sitting down beside him, said:
‘Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes, my patient, willing eyes.’
‘Here they are,’ said Caleb. ‘Always ready. They are more yours than mine, Bertha, any hour in the four-and-twenty. What shall your eyes do for you, dear?’
‘Look round the room, father.’
‘All right,’ said Caleb. ‘No sooner said than done, Bertha.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘It’s much the same as usual,’ said Caleb. ‘Homely, but very snug. The gay colours on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and dishes; the shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the general cheerfulness and neatness of the building; make it very pretty.’
Cheerful and neat it was wherever Bertha’s hands could busy themselves. But nowhere else, were cheerfulness and neatness possible, in the old crazy shed which Caleb’s fancy so transformed.
‘You have your working dress on, and are not so gallant as when you wear the handsome coat?’ said Bertha, touching him.
‘Not quite so gallant,’ answered Caleb. ‘Pretty brisk though.’
‘Father,’ said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his side, and stealing one arm round his neck, ‘tell me something about May. She is very fair?’
‘She is indeed,’ said Caleb. And she was indeed. It was quite a rare thing to Caleb, not to have to draw on his invention.
‘Her hair is dark,’ said Bertha, pensively, ‘darker than mine. Her voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have often loved to hear it. Her shape – ‘
‘There’s not a Doll’s in all the room to equal it,’ said Caleb. ‘And her eyes! – ‘
He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his neck, and from the arm that clung about him, came a warning pressure which he understood too well.
He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then fell back upon the song about the sparkling bowl; his infallible resource in all such difficulties.
‘Our friend, father, our benefactor. I am never tired, you know, of hearing about him. – Now, was I ever?’ she said, hastily.
‘Of course not,’ answered Caleb, ‘and with reason.’
‘Ah! With how much reason!’ cried the Blind Girl. With such fervency, that Caleb, though his motives were so pure, could not endure to meet her face; but dropped his eyes, as if she could have read in them his innocent deceit.
‘Then, tell me again about him, dear father,’ said Bertha. ‘Many times again! His face is benevolent, kind, and tender. Honest and true, I am sure it is. The manly heart that tries to cloak all favours with a show of roughness and unwillingness, beats in its every look and glance.’
‘And makes it noble!’ added Caleb, in his quiet desperation.
‘And makes it noble!’ cried the Blind Girl. ‘He is older than May, father.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Caleb, reluctantly. ‘He’s a little older than May. But that don’t signify.’
‘Oh father, yes! To be his patient companion in infirmity and age; to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his constant friend in suffering and sorrow; to know no weariness in working for his sake; to watch him, tend him, sit beside his bed and talk to him awake, and pray for him asleep; what privileges these would be! What opportunities for proving all her truth and devotion to him! Would she do all this, dear father?
‘No doubt of it,’ said Caleb.
‘I love her, father; I can love her from my soul!’ exclaimed the Blind Girl. And saying so, she laid her poor blind face on Caleb’s shoulder, and so wept and wept, that he was almost sorry to have brought that tearful happiness upon her.
In the mean time, there had been a pretty sharp commotion at John Peerybingle’s, for little Mrs. Peerybingle naturally couldn’t think of going anywhere without the Baby; and to get the Baby under weigh took time. Not that there was much of the Baby, speaking of it as a thing of weight and measure, but there was a vast deal to do about and about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages. For instance, when the Baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain point of dressing, and you might have rationally supposed that another touch or two would finish him off, and turn him out a tip- top Baby challenging the world, he was unexpectedly extinguished in a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to speak) between two blankets for the best part of an hour. From this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining very much and roaring violently, to partake of – well? I would rather say, if you’ll permit me to speak generally – of a slight repast. After which, he went to sleep again. Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of this interval, to make herself as smart in a small way as ever you saw anybody in all your life; and, during the same short truce, Miss Slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection with herself, or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, dog’s-eared, independent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being all alive again, was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen raised-pie for its head; and so in course of time they all three got down to the door, where the old horse had already taken more than the full value of his day’s toll out of the Turnpike Trust, by tearing up the road with his impatient autographs; and whence Boxer might be dimly seen in the remote perspective, standing looking back, and tempting him to come on without orders.