Honest Captain Cuttle, as the weeks flew over him in his fortified
retreat, by no means abated any of his prudent provisions against
surprise, because of the non-appearance of the enemy. The Captain argued
that his present security was too profound and wonderful to endure
much longer; he knew that when the wind stood in a fair quarter, the
weathercock was seldom nailed there; and he was too well acquainted with
the determined and dauntless character of Mrs MacStinger, to doubt that
that heroic woman had devoted herself to the task of his discovery and
capture. Trembling beneath the weight of these reasons, Captain Cuttle
lived a very close and retired life; seldom stirring abroad until after
dark; venturing even then only into the obscurest streets; never going
forth at all on Sundays; and both within and without the walls of his
retreat, avoiding bonnets, as if they were worn by raging lions.

The Captain never dreamed that in the event of his being pounced upon by
Mrs MacStinger, in his walks, it would be possible to offer resistance.
He felt that it could not be done. He saw himself, in his mind's eye,
put meekly in a hackney-coach, and carried off to his old lodgings. He
foresaw that, once immured there, he was a lost man: his hat gone; Mrs
MacStinger watchful of him day and night; reproaches heaped upon his
head, before the infant family; himself the guilty object of suspicion
and distrust; an ogre in the children's eyes, and in their mother's a
detected traitor.

A violent perspiration, and a lowness of spirits, always came over the
Captain as this gloomy picture presented itself to his imagination. It
generally did so previous to his stealing out of doors at night for air
and exercise. Sensible of the risk he ran, the Captain took leave of
Rob, at those times, with the solemnity which became a man who might
never return: exhorting him, in the event of his (the Captain's) being
lost sight of, for a time, to tread in the paths of virtue, and keep the
brazen instruments well polished.

But not to throw away a chance; and to secure to himself a means, in
case of the worst, of holding communication with the external world;
Captain Cuttle soon conceived the happy idea of teaching Rob the Grinder
some secret signal, by which that adherent might make his presence and
fidelity known to his commander, in the hour of adversity. After much
cogitation, the Captain decided in favour of instructing him to
whistle the marine melody, 'Oh cheerily, cheerily!' and Rob the Grinder
attaining a point as near perfection in that accomplishment as a
landsman could hope to reach, the Captain impressed these mysterious
instructions on his mind:

'Now, my lad, stand by! If ever I'm took--'

'Took, Captain!' interposed Rob, with his round eyes wide open.

'Ah!' said Captain Cuttle darkly, 'if ever I goes away, meaning to come
back to supper, and don't come within hail again, twenty-four hours
arter my loss, go you to Brig Place and whistle that 'ere tune near my
old moorings--not as if you was a meaning of it, you understand, but as
if you'd drifted there, promiscuous. If I answer in that tune, you sheer
off, my lad, and come back four-and-twenty hours arterwards; if I answer
in another tune, do you stand off and on, and wait till I throw out
further signals. Do you understand them orders, now?'

'What am I to stand off and on of, Captain?' inquired Rob. 'The
horse-road?'

'Here's a smart lad for you!' cried the Captain eyeing him sternly, 'as
don't know his own native alphabet! Go away a bit and come back again
alternate--d'ye understand that?'

'Yes, Captain,' said Rob.

'Very good my lad, then,' said the Captain, relenting. 'Do it!'

That he might do it the better, Captain Cuttle sometimes condescended,
of an evening after the shop was shut, to rehearse this scene:
retiring into the parlour for the purpose, as into the lodgings of a
supposititious MacStinger, and carefully observing the behaviour of his
ally, from the hole of espial he had cut in the wall. Rob the Grinder
discharged himself of his duty with so much exactness and judgment, when
thus put to the proof, that the Captain presented him, at divers times,
with seven sixpences, in token of satisfaction; and gradually felt
stealing over his spirit the resignation of a man who had made provision
for the worst, and taken every reasonable precaution against an
unrelenting fate.

Nevertheless, the Captain did not tempt ill-fortune, by being a whit
more venturesome than before. Though he considered it a point of good
breeding in himself, as a general friend of the family, to attend Mr
Dombey's wedding (of which he had heard from Mr Perch), and to show that
gentleman a pleasant and approving countenance from the gallery, he had
repaired to the church in a hackney cabriolet with both windows up;
and might have scrupled even to make that venture, in his dread of
Mrs MacStinger, but that the lady's attendance on the ministry of the
Reverend Melchisedech rendered it peculiarly unlikely that she would be
found in communion with the Establishment.

The Captain got safe home again, and fell into the ordinary routine of
his new life, without encountering any more direct alarm from the enemy,
than was suggested to him by the daily bonnets in the street. But other
subjects began to lay heavy on the Captain's mind. Walter's ship was
still unheard of. No news came of old Sol Gills. Florence did not even
know of the old man's disappearance, and Captain Cuttle had not the
heart to tell her. Indeed the Captain, as his own hopes of the generous,
handsome, gallant-hearted youth, whom he had loved, according to his
rough manner, from a child, began to fade, and faded more and more from
day to day, shrunk with instinctive pain from the thought of exchanging
a word with Florence. If he had had good news to carry to her, the
honest Captain would have braved the newly decorated house and splendid
furniture--though these, connected with the lady he had seen at church,
were awful to him--and made his way into her presence. With a dark
horizon gathering around their common hopes, however, that darkened
every hour, the Captain almost felt as if he were a new misfortune
and affliction to her; and was scarcely less afraid of a visit from
Florence, than from Mrs MacStinger herself.

It was a chill dark autumn evening, and Captain Cuttle had ordered a
fire to be kindled in the little back parlour, now more than ever like
the cabin of a ship. The rain fell fast, and the wind blew hard; and
straying out on the house-top by that stormy bedroom of his old friend,
to take an observation of the weather, the Captain's heart died within
him, when he saw how wild and desolate it was. Not that he associated
the weather of that time with poor Walter's destiny, or doubted that if
Providence had doomed him to be lost and shipwrecked, it was over, long
ago; but that beneath an outward influence, quite distinct from the
subject-matter of his thoughts, the Captain's spirits sank, and his
hopes turned pale, as those of wiser men had often done before him, and
will often do again.

Captain Cuttle, addressing his face to the sharp wind and slanting rain,
looked up at the heavy scud that was flying fast over the wilderness of
house-tops, and looked for something cheery there in vain. The prospect
near at hand was no better. In sundry tea-chests and other rough boxes
at his feet, the pigeons of Rob the Grinder were cooing like so many
dismal breezes getting up. A crazy weathercock of a midshipman, with
a telescope at his eye, once visible from the street, but long bricked
out, creaked and complained upon his rusty pivot as the shrill blast
spun him round and round, and sported with him cruelly. Upon the
Captain's coarse blue vest the cold raindrops started like steel
beads; and he could hardly maintain himself aslant against the stiff
Nor'-Wester that came pressing against him, importunate to topple him
over the parapet, and throw him on the pavement below. If there were any
Hope alive that evening, the Captain thought, as he held his hat on, it
certainly kept house, and wasn't out of doors; so the Captain, shaking
his head in a despondent manner, went in to look for it.

Captain Cuttle descended slowly to the little back parlour, and, seated
in his accustomed chair, looked for it in the fire; but it was not
there, though the fire was bright. He took out his tobacco-box and pipe,
and composing himself to smoke, looked for it in the red glow from the
bowl, and in the wreaths of vapour that curled upward from his lips; but
there was not so much as an atom of the rust of Hope's anchor in either.
He tried a glass of grog; but melancholy truth was at the bottom of that
well, and he couldn't finish it. He made a turn or two in the shop, and
looked for Hope among the instruments; but they obstinately worked out
reckonings for the missing ship, in spite of any opposition he could
offer, that ended at the bottom of the lone sea.

The wind still rushing, and the rain still pattering, against the closed
shutters, the Captain brought to before the wooden Midshipman upon the
counter, and thought, as he dried the little officer's uniform with
his sleeve, how many years the Midshipman had seen, during which few
changes--hardly any--had transpired among his ship's company; how the
changes had come all together, one day, as it might be; and of what a
sweeping kind they were. Here was the little society of the back parlour
broken up, and scattered far and wide. Here was no audience for Lovely
Peg, even if there had been anybody to sing it, which there was not; for
the Captain was as morally certain that nobody but he could execute that
ballad, as he was that he had not the spirit, under existing
circumstances, to attempt it. There was no bright face of 'Wal'r' in the
house;--here the Captain transferred his sleeve for a moment from the
Midshipman's uniform to his own cheek;--the familiar wig and buttons of
Sol Gills were a vision of the past; Richard Whittington was knocked on
the head; and every plan and project in connexion with the Midshipman,
lay drifting, without mast or rudder, on the waste of waters.

As the Captain, with a dejected face, stood revolving these thoughts,
and polishing the Midshipman, partly in the tenderness of old
acquaintance, and partly in the absence of his mind, a knocking at
the shop-door communicated a frightful start to the frame of Rob the
Grinder, seated on the counter, whose large eyes had been intently fixed
on the Captain's face, and who had been debating within himself, for the
five hundredth time, whether the Captain could have done a murder, that
he had such an evil conscience, and was always running away.

'What's that?' said Captain Cuttle, softly.

'Somebody's knuckles, Captain,' answered Rob the Grinder.

The Captain, with an abashed and guilty air, immediately walked on
tiptoe to the little parlour and locked himself in. Rob, opening the
door, would have parleyed with the visitor on the threshold if the
visitor had come in female guise; but the figure being of the male sex,
and Rob's orders only applying to women, Rob held the door open and
allowed it to enter: which it did very quickly, glad to get out of the
driving rain.

'A job for Burgess and Co. at any rate,' said the visitor, looking over
his shoulder compassionately at his own legs, which were very wet and
covered with splashes. 'Oh, how-de-do, Mr Gills?'

The salutation was addressed to the Captain, now emerging from the back
parlour with a most transparent and utterly futile affectation of coming
out by accidence.

'Thankee,' the gentleman went on to say in the same breath; 'I'm very
well indeed, myself, I'm much obliged to you. My name is Toots,--Mister
Toots.'

The Captain remembered to have seen this young gentleman at the
wedding, and made him a bow. Mr Toots replied with a chuckle; and being
embarrassed, as he generally was, breathed hard, shook hands with the
Captain for a long time, and then falling on Rob the Grinder, in
the absence of any other resource, shook hands with him in a most
affectionate and cordial manner.

'I say! I should like to speak a word to you, Mr Gills, if you please,'
said Toots at length, with surprising presence of mind. 'I say! Miss
D.O.M. you know!'

The Captain, with responsive gravity and mystery, immediately waved his
hook towards the little parlour, whither Mr Toots followed him.

'Oh! I beg your pardon though,' said Mr Toots, looking up in the
Captain's face as he sat down in a chair by the fire, which the Captain
placed for him; 'you don't happen to know the Chicken at all; do you, Mr
Gills?'

'The Chicken?' said the Captain.

'The Game Chicken,' said Mr Toots.

The Captain shaking his head, Mr Toots explained that the man alluded
to was the celebrated public character who had covered himself and his
country with glory in his contest with the Nobby Shropshire One; but
this piece of information did not appear to enlighten the Captain very
much.

'Because he's outside: that's all,' said Mr Toots. 'But it's of no
consequence; he won't get very wet, perhaps.'

'I can pass the word for him in a moment,' said the Captain.

'Well, if you would have the goodness to let him sit in the shop with
your young man,' chuckled Mr Toots, 'I should be glad; because, you
know, he's easily offended, and the damp's rather bad for his stamina.
I'll call him in, Mr Gills.'

With that, Mr Toots repairing to the shop-door, sent a peculiar whistle
into the night, which produced a stoical gentleman in a shaggy white
great-coat and a flat-brimmed hat, with very short hair, a broken nose,
and a considerable tract of bare and sterile country behind each ear.

'Sit down, Chicken,' said Mr Toots.

The compliant Chicken spat out some small pieces of straw on which
he was regaling himself, and took in a fresh supply from a reserve he
carried in his hand.

'There ain't no drain of nothing short handy, is there?' said the
Chicken, generally. 'This here sluicing night is hard lines to a man as
lives on his condition.'

Captain Cuttle proffered a glass of rum, which the Chicken, throwing
back his head, emptied into himself, as into a cask, after proposing the
brief sentiment, 'Towards us!' Mr Toots and the Captain returning then
to the parlour, and taking their seats before the fire, Mr Toots began:

'Mr Gills--'

'Awast!' said the Captain. 'My name's Cuttle.'

Mr Toots looked greatly disconcerted, while the Captain proceeded
gravely.

'Cap'en Cuttle is my name, and England is my nation, this here is my
dwelling-place, and blessed be creation--Job,' said the Captain, as an
index to his authority.

'Oh! I couldn't see Mr Gills, could I?' said Mr Toots; 'because--'

'If you could see Sol Gills, young gen'l'm'n,' said the Captain,
impressively, and laying his heavy hand on Mr Toots's knee, 'old Sol,
mind you--with your own eyes--as you sit there--you'd be welcomer to me,
than a wind astern, to a ship becalmed. But you can't see Sol Gills. And
why can't you see Sol Gills?' said the Captain, apprised by the face of
Mr Toots that he was making a profound impression on that gentleman's
mind. 'Because he's inwisible.'

Mr Toots in his agitation was going to reply that it was of no
consequence at all. But he corrected himself, and said, 'Lor bless me!'

'That there man,' said the Captain, 'has left me in charge here by a
piece of writing, but though he was a'most as good as my sworn brother,
I know no more where he's gone, or why he's gone; if so be to seek his
nevy, or if so be along of being not quite settled in his mind; than you
do. One morning at daybreak, he went over the side,' said the Captain,
'without a splash, without a ripple I have looked for that man high and
low, and never set eyes, nor ears, nor nothing else, upon him from that
hour.'

'But, good Gracious, Miss Dombey don't know--' Mr Toots began.

'Why, I ask you, as a feeling heart,' said the Captain, dropping his
voice, 'why should she know? why should she be made to know, until such
time as there wam't any help for it? She took to old Sol Gills, did that
sweet creetur, with a kindness, with a affability, with a--what's the
good of saying so? you know her.'

'I should hope so,' chuckled Mr Toots, with a conscious blush that
suffused his whole countenance.

'And you come here from her?' said the Captain.

'I should think so,' chuckled Mr Toots.

'Then all I need observe, is,' said the Captain, 'that you know a angel,
and are chartered a angel.'

Mr Toots instantly seized the Captain's hand, and requested the favour
of his friendship.

'Upon my word and honour,' said Mr Toots, earnestly, 'I should be very
much obliged to you if you'd improve my acquaintance I should like to
know you, Captain, very much. I really am in want of a friend, I am.
Little Dombey was my friend at old Blimber's, and would have been now,
if he'd have lived. The Chicken,' said Mr Toots, in a forlorn whisper,
'is very well--admirable in his way--the sharpest man perhaps in the
world; there's not a move he isn't up to, everybody says so--but I don't
know--he's not everything. So she is an angel, Captain. If there is an
angel anywhere, it's Miss Dombey. That's what I've always said. Really
though, you know,' said Mr Toots, 'I should be very much obliged to you
if you'd cultivate my acquaintance.'

Captain Cuttle received this proposal in a polite manner, but still
without committing himself to its acceptance; merely observing, 'Ay,
ay, my lad. We shall see, we shall see;' and reminding Mr Toots of his
immediate mission, by inquiring to what he was indebted for the honour
of that visit.

'Why the fact is,' replied Mr Toots, 'that it's the young woman I come
from. Not Miss Dombey--Susan, you know.

The Captain nodded his head once, with a grave expression of face
indicative of his regarding that young woman with serious respect.

'And I'll tell you how it happens,' said Mr Toots. 'You know, I go and
call sometimes, on Miss Dombey. I don't go there on purpose, you know,
but I happen to be in the neighbourhood very often; and when I find
myself there, why--why I call.'

'Nat'rally,' observed the Captain.

'Yes,' said Mr Toots. 'I called this afternoon. Upon my word and honour,
I don't think it's possible to form an idea of the angel Miss Dombey was
this afternoon.'

The Captain answered with a jerk of his head, implying that it might not
be easy to some people, but was quite so to him.

'As I was coming out,' said Mr Toots, 'the young woman, in the most
unexpected manner, took me into the pantry.'

The Captain seemed, for the moment, to object to this proceeding; and
leaning back in his chair, looked at Mr Toots with a distrustful, if not
threatening visage.

'Where she brought out,' said Mr Toots, 'this newspaper. She told me
that she had kept it from Miss Dombey all day, on account of something
that was in it, about somebody that she and Dombey used to know; and
then she read the passage to me. Very well. Then she said--wait a
minute; what was it she said, though!'

Mr Toots, endeavouring to concentrate his mental powers on this
question, unintentionally fixed the Captain's eye, and was so much
discomposed by its stern expression, that his difficulty in resuming the
thread of his subject was enhanced to a painful extent.

'Oh!' said Mr Toots after long consideration. 'Oh, ah! Yes! She said
that she hoped there was a bare possibility that it mightn't be true;
and that as she couldn't very well come out herself, without surprising
Miss Dombey, would I go down to Mr Solomon Gills the Instrument-maker's
in this street, who was the party's Uncle, and ask whether he believed
it was true, or had heard anything else in the City. She said, if he
couldn't speak to me, no doubt Captain Cuttle could. By the bye!' said
Mr Toots, as the discovery flashed upon him, 'you, you know!'

The Captain glanced at the newspaper in Mr Toots's hand, and breathed
short and hurriedly.

'Well,' pursued Mr Toots, 'the reason why I'm rather late is, because I
went up as far as Finchley first, to get some uncommonly fine chickweed
that grows there, for Miss Dombey's bird. But I came on here, directly
afterwards. You've seen the paper, I suppose?'

The Captain, who had become cautious of reading the news, lest he should
find himself advertised at full length by Mrs MacStinger, shook his
head.

'Shall I read the passage to you?' inquired Mr Toots.

The Captain making a sign in the affirmative, Mr Toots read as follows,
from the Shipping Intelligence:

'"Southampton. The barque Defiance, Henry James, Commander, arrived in
this port to-day, with a cargo of sugar, coffee, and rum, reports
that being becalmed on the sixth day of her passage home from Jamaica,
in"--in such and such a latitude, you know,' said Mr Toots, after making
a feeble dash at the figures, and tumbling over them.

'Ay!' cried the Captain, striking his clenched hand on the table. 'Heave
ahead, my lad!'

'--latitude,' repeated Mr Toots, with a startled glance at the Captain,
'and longitude so-and-so,--"the look-out observed, half an hour before
sunset, some fragments of a wreck, drifting at about the distance of a
mile. The weather being clear, and the barque making no way, a boat was
hoisted out, with orders to inspect the same, when they were found to
consist of sundry large spars, and a part of the main rigging of an
English brig, of about five hundred tons burden, together with a portion
of the stem on which the words and letters 'Son and H-' were yet plainly
legible. No vestige of any dead body was to be seen upon the floating
fragments. Log of the Defiance states, that a breeze springing up in
the night, the wreck was seen no more. There can be no doubt that all
surmises as to the fate of the missing vessel, the Son and Heir, port of
London, bound for Barbados, are now set at rest for ever; that she broke
up in the last hurricane; and that every soul on board perished."'

Captain Cuttle, like all mankind, little knew how much hope had survived
within him under discouragement, until he felt its death-shock. During
the reading of the paragraph, and for a minute or two afterwards, he sat
with his gaze fixed on the modest Mr Toots, like a man entranced; then,
suddenly rising, and putting on his glazed hat, which, in his visitor's
honour, he had laid upon the table, the Captain turned his back, and
bent his head down on the little chimneypiece.

'Oh' upon my word and honour,' cried Mr Toots, whose tender heart was
moved by the Captain's unexpected distress, 'this is a most wretched
sort of affair this world is! Somebody's always dying, or going and
doing something uncomfortable in it. I'm sure I never should have looked
forward so much, to coming into my property, if I had known this. I
never saw such a world. It's a great deal worse than Blimber's.'

Captain Cuttle, without altering his position, signed to Mr Toots not
to mind him; and presently turned round, with his glazed hat thrust back
upon his ears, and his hand composing and smoothing his brown face.

'Wal'r, my dear lad,' said the Captain, 'farewell! Wal'r my child,
my boy, and man, I loved you! He warn't my flesh and blood,' said the
Captain, looking at the fire--'I ain't got none--but something of what a
father feels when he loses a son, I feel in losing Wal'r. For why?' said
the Captain. 'Because it ain't one loss, but a round dozen. Where's that
there young school-boy with the rosy face and curly hair, that used to
be as merry in this here parlour, come round every week, as a piece of
music? Gone down with Wal'r. Where's that there fresh lad, that nothing
couldn't tire nor put out, and that sparkled up and blushed so, when we
joked him about Heart's Delight, that he was beautiful to look at?
Gone down with Wal'r. Where's that there man's spirit, all afire, that
wouldn't see the old man hove down for a minute, and cared nothing for
itself? Gone down with Wal'r. It ain't one Wal'r. There was a dozen
Wal'rs that I know'd and loved, all holding round his neck when he went
down, and they're a-holding round mine now!'

Mr Toots sat silent: folding and refolding the newspaper as small as
possible upon his knee.

'And Sol Gills,' said the Captain, gazing at the fire, 'poor nevyless
old Sol, where are you got to! you was left in charge of me; his last
words was, "Take care of my Uncle!" What came over you, Sol, when you
went and gave the go-bye to Ned Cuttle; and what am I to put in my
accounts that he's a looking down upon, respecting you! Sol Gills, Sol
Gills!' said the Captain, shaking his head slowly, 'catch sight of that
there newspaper, away from home, with no one as know'd Wal'r by, to say
a word; and broadside to you broach, and down you pitch, head foremost!'

Drawing a heavy sigh, the Captain turned to Mr Toots, and roused himself
to a sustained consciousness of that gentleman's presence.

'My lad,' said the Captain, 'you must tell the young woman honestly that
this here fatal news is too correct. They don't romance, you see, on
such pints. It's entered on the ship's log, and that's the truest book
as a man can write. To-morrow morning,' said the Captain, 'I'll step out
and make inquiries; but they'll lead to no good. They can't do it. If
you'll give me a look-in in the forenoon, you shall know what I have
heerd; but tell the young woman from Cap'en Cuttle, that it's over.
Over!' And the Captain, hooking off his glazed hat, pulled his
handkerchief out of the crown, wiped his grizzled head despairingly,
and tossed the handkerchief in again, with the indifference of deep
dejection.

'Oh! I assure you,' said Mr Toots, 'really I am dreadfully sorry. Upon
my word I am, though I wasn't acquainted with the party. Do you think
Miss Dombey will be very much affected, Captain Gills--I mean Mr
Cuttle?'

'Why, Lord love you,' returned the Captain, with something of compassion
for Mr Toots's innocence. 'When she warn't no higher than that, they were
as fond of one another as two young doves.'

'Were they though!' said Mr Toots, with a considerably lengthened face.

'They were made for one another,' said the Captain, mournfully; 'but
what signifies that now!'

'Upon my word and honour,' cried Mr Toots, blurting out his words
through a singular combination of awkward chuckles and emotion, 'I'm
even more sorry than I was before. You know, Captain Gills, I--I
positively adore Miss Dombey;--I--I am perfectly sore with loving her;'
the burst with which this confession forced itself out of the unhappy
Mr Toots, bespoke the vehemence of his feelings; 'but what would be the
good of my regarding her in this manner, if I wasn't truly sorry for
her feeling pain, whatever was the cause of it. Mine ain't a selfish
affection, you know,' said Mr Toots, in the confidence engendered by
his having been a witness of the Captain's tenderness. 'It's the sort
of thing with me, Captain Gills, that if I could be run over--or--or
trampled upon--or--or thrown off a very high place-or anything of that
sort--for Miss Dombey's sake, it would be the most delightful thing that
could happen to me.'

All this, Mr Toots said in a suppressed voice, to prevent its reaching
the jealous ears of the Chicken, who objected to the softer emotions;
which effort of restraint, coupled with the intensity of his feelings,
made him red to the tips of his ears, and caused him to present such an
affecting spectacle of disinterested love to the eyes of Captain Cuttle,
that the good Captain patted him consolingly on the back, and bade him
cheer up.

'Thankee, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'it's kind of you, in the midst
of your own troubles, to say so. I'm very much obliged to you. As I
said before, I really want a friend, and should be glad to have your
acquaintance. Although I am very well off,' said Mr Toots, with energy,
'you can't think what a miserable Beast I am. The hollow crowd, you
know, when they see me with the Chicken, and characters of distinction
like that, suppose me to be happy; but I'm wretched. I suffer for Miss
Dombey, Captain Gills. I can't get through my meals; I have no pleasure
in my tailor; I often cry when I'm alone. I assure you it'll be a
satisfaction to me to come back to-morrow, or to come back fifty times.'

Mr Toots, with these words, shook the Captain's hand; and disguising
such traces of his agitation as could be disguised on so short a notice,
before the Chicken's penetrating glance, rejoined that eminent gentleman
in the shop. The Chicken, who was apt to be jealous of his ascendancy,
eyed Captain Cuttle with anything but favour as he took leave of Mr
Toots, but followed his patron without being otherwise demonstrative
of his ill-will: leaving the Captain oppressed with sorrow; and Rob
the Grinder elevated with joy, on account of having had the honour of
staring for nearly half an hour at the conqueror of the Nobby Shropshire
One.

Long after Rob was fast asleep in his bed under the counter, the Captain
sat looking at the fire; and long after there was no fire to look at,
the Captain sat gazing on the rusty bars, with unavailing thoughts of
Walter and old Sol crowding through his mind. Retirement to the stormy
chamber at the top of the house brought no rest with it; and the Captain
rose up in the morning, sorrowful and unrefreshed.

As soon as the City offices were opened, the Captain issued forth to
the counting-house of Dombey and Son. But there was no opening of the
Midshipman's windows that morning. Rob the Grinder, by the Captain's
orders, left the shutters closed, and the house was as a house of death.

It chanced that Mr Carker was entering the office, as Captain Cuttle
arrived at the door. Receiving the Manager's benison gravely and
silently, Captain Cuttle made bold to accompany him into his own room.

'Well, Captain Cuttle,' said Mr Carker, taking up his usual position
before the fireplace, and keeping on his hat, 'this is a bad business.'

'You have received the news as was in print yesterday, Sir?' said the
Captain.

'Yes,' said Mr Carker, 'we have received it! It was accurately stated.
The underwriters suffer a considerable loss. We are very sorry. No help!
Such is life!'

Mr Carker pared his nails delicately with a penknife, and smiled at the
Captain, who was standing by the door looking at him.

'I excessively regret poor Gay,' said Carker, 'and the crew. I
understand there were some of our very best men among 'em. It always
happens so. Many men with families too. A comfort to reflect that poor
Gay had no family, Captain Cuttle!'

The Captain stood rubbing his chin, and looking at the Manager. The
Manager glanced at the unopened letters lying on his desk, and took up
the newspaper.

'Is there anything I can do for you, Captain Cuttle?' he asked looking
off it, with a smiling and expressive glance at the door.

'I wish you could set my mind at rest, Sir, on something it's uneasy
about,' returned the Captain.

'Ay!' exclaimed the Manager, 'what's that? Come, Captain Cuttle, I must
trouble you to be quick, if you please. I am much engaged.'

'Lookee here, Sir,' said the Captain, advancing a step. 'Afore my friend
Wal'r went on this here disastrous voyage--'

'Come, come, Captain Cuttle,' interposed the smiling Manager, 'don't
talk about disastrous voyages in that way. We have nothing to do with
disastrous voyages here, my good fellow. You must have begun very early
on your day's allowance, Captain, if you don't remember that there are
hazards in all voyages, whether by sea or land. You are not made uneasy
by the supposition that young what's-his-name was lost in bad weather
that was got up against him in these offices--are you? Fie, Captain!
Sleep, and soda-water, are the best cures for such uneasiness as that.'

'My lad,' returned the Captain, slowly--'you are a'most a lad to me,
and so I don't ask your pardon for that slip of a word,--if you find any
pleasure in this here sport, you ain't the gentleman I took you for. And
if you ain't the gentleman I took you for, may be my mind has call to
be uneasy. Now this is what it is, Mr Carker.--Afore that poor lad went
away, according to orders, he told me that he warn't a going away for
his own good, or for promotion, he know'd. It was my belief that he
was wrong, and I told him so, and I come here, your head governor being
absent, to ask a question or two of you in a civil way, for my own
satisfaction. Them questions you answered--free. Now it'll ease my mind
to know, when all is over, as it is, and when what can't be cured must
be endoored--for which, as a scholar, you'll overhaul the book it's in,
and thereof make a note--to know once more, in a word, that I warn't
mistaken; that I warn't back'ard in my duty when I didn't tell the old
man what Wal'r told me; and that the wind was truly in his sail, when
he highsted of it for Barbados Harbour. Mr Carker,' said the Captain, in
the goodness of his nature, 'when I was here last, we was very pleasant
together. If I ain't been altogether so pleasant myself this morning, on
account of this poor lad, and if I have chafed again any observation of
yours that I might have fended off, my name is Ed'ard Cuttle, and I ask
your pardon.'

'Captain Cuttle,' returned the Manager, with all possible politeness, 'I
must ask you to do me a favour.'

'And what is it, Sir?' inquired the Captain.

'To have the goodness to walk off, if you please,' rejoined the Manager,
stretching forth his arm, 'and to carry your jargon somewhere else.'

Every knob in the Captain's face turned white with astonishment and
indignation; even the red rim on his forehead faded, like a rainbow
among the gathering clouds.

'I tell you what, Captain Cuttle,' said the Manager, shaking his
forefinger at him, and showing him all his teeth, but still amiably
smiling, 'I was much too lenient with you when you came here before. You
belong to an artful and audacious set of people. In my desire to save
young what's-his-name from being kicked out of this place, neck and
crop, my good Captain, I tolerated you; but for once, and only once.
Now, go, my friend!'

The Captain was absolutely rooted to the ground, and speechless--

'Go,' said the good-humoured Manager, gathering up his skirts, and
standing astride upon the hearth-rug, 'like a sensible fellow, and let
us have no turning out, or any such violent measures. If Mr Dombey
were here, Captain, you might be obliged to leave in a more ignominious
manner, possibly. I merely say, Go!'

The Captain, laying his ponderous hand upon his chest, to assist himself
in fetching a deep breath, looked at Mr Carker from head to foot, and
looked round the little room, as if he did not clearly understand where
he was, or in what company.

'You are deep, Captain Cuttle,' pursued Carker, with the easy and
vivacious frankness of a man of the world who knew the world too well
to be ruffled by any discovery of misdoing, when it did not
immediately concern himself, 'but you are not quite out of soundings,
either--neither you nor your absent friend, Captain. What have you done
with your absent friend, hey?'

Again the Captain laid his hand upon his chest. After drawing another
deep breath, he conjured himself to 'stand by!' But in a whisper.

'You hatch nice little plots, and hold nice little councils, and
make nice little appointments, and receive nice little visitors, too,
Captain, hey?' said Carker, bending his brows upon him, without
showing his teeth any the less: 'but it's a bold measure to come here
afterwards. Not like your discretion! You conspirators, and hiders,
and runners-away, should know better than that. Will you oblige me by
going?'

'My lad,' gasped the Captain, in a choked and trembling voice, and with
a curious action going on in the ponderous fist; 'there's a many words I
could wish to say to you, but I don't rightly know where they're stowed
just at present. My young friend, Wal'r, was drownded only last night,
according to my reckoning, and it puts me out, you see. But you and
me will come alongside o'one another again, my lad,' said the Captain,
holding up his hook, 'if we live.'

'It will be anything but shrewd in you, my good fellow, if we do,'
returned the Manager, with the same frankness; 'for you may rely, I give
you fair warning, upon my detecting and exposing you. I don't pretend
to be a more moral man than my neighbours, my good Captain; but the
confidence of this House, or of any member of this House, is not to be
abused and undermined while I have eyes and ears. Good day!' said Mr
Carker, nodding his head.

Captain Cuttle, looking at him steadily (Mr Carker looked full as
steadily at the Captain), went out of the office and left him standing
astride before the fire, as calm and pleasant as if there were no more
spots upon his soul than on his pure white linen, and his smooth sleek
skin.

The Captain glanced, in passing through the outer counting-house, at
the desk where he knew poor Walter had been used to sit, now occupied by
another young boy, with a face almost as fresh and hopeful as his on the
day when they tapped the famous last bottle but one of the old Madeira,
in the little back parlour. The nation of ideas, thus awakened, did the
Captain a great deal of good; it softened him in the very height of his
anger, and brought the tears into his eyes.

Arrived at the wooden Midshipman's again, and sitting down in a corner
of the dark shop, the Captain's indignation, strong as it was, could
make no head against his grief. Passion seemed not only to do wrong and
violence to the memory of the dead, but to be infected by death, and
to droop and decline beside it. All the living knaves and liars in the
world, were nothing to the honesty and truth of one dead friend.

The only thing the honest Captain made out clearly, in this state of
mind, besides the loss of Walter, was, that with him almost the whole
world of Captain Cuttle had been drowned. If he reproached himself
sometimes, and keenly too, for having ever connived at Walter's innocent
deceit, he thought at least as often of the Mr Carker whom no sea could
ever render up; and the Mr Dombey, whom he now began to perceive was as
far beyond human recall; and the 'Heart's Delight,' with whom he must
never foregather again; and the Lovely Peg, that teak-built and trim
ballad, that had gone ashore upon a rock, and split into mere planks
and beams of rhyme. The Captain sat in the dark shop, thinking of these
things, to the entire exclusion of his own injury; and looking with
as sad an eye upon the ground, as if in contemplation of their actual
fragments, as they floated past.

But the Captain was not unmindful, for all that, of such decent and
rest observances in memory of poor Walter, as he felt within his power.
Rousing himself, and rousing Rob the Grinder (who in the unnatural
twilight was fast asleep), the Captain sallied forth with his attendant
at his heels, and the door-key in his pocket, and repairing to one of
those convenient slop-selling establishments of which there is abundant
choice at the eastern end of London, purchased on the spot two suits of
mourning--one for Rob the Grinder, which was immensely too small, and
one for himself, which was immensely too large. He also provided Rob
with a species of hat, greatly to be admired for its symmetry and
usefulness, as well as for a happy blending of the mariner with the
coal-heaver; which is usually termed a sou'wester; and which was
something of a novelty in connexion with the instrument business. In
their several garments, which the vendor declared to be such a miracle
in point of fit as nothing but a rare combination of fortuitous
circumstances ever brought about, and the fashion of which was
unparalleled within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, the Captain and
Grinder immediately arrayed themselves: presenting a spectacle fraught
with wonder to all who beheld it.

In this altered form, the Captain received Mr Toots. 'I'm took aback,
my lad, at present,' said the Captain, 'and will only confirm that there
ill news. Tell the young woman to break it gentle to the young lady,
and for neither of 'em never to think of me no more--'special, mind you,
that is--though I will think of them, when night comes on a hurricane
and seas is mountains rowling, for which overhaul your Doctor Watts,
brother, and when found make a note on.'

The Captain reserved, until some fitter time, the consideration of Mr
Toots's offer of friendship, and thus dismissed him. Captain Cuttle's
spirits were so low, in truth, that he half determined, that day, to
take no further precautions against surprise from Mrs MacStinger, but to
abandon himself recklessly to chance, and be indifferent to what
might happen. As evening came on, he fell into a better frame of mind,
however; and spoke much of Walter to Rob the Grinder, whose attention
and fidelity he likewise incidentally commended. Rob did not blush to
hear the Captain earnest in his praises, but sat staring at him, and
affecting to snivel with sympathy, and making a feint of being virtuous,
and treasuring up every word he said (like a young spy as he was) with
very promising deceit.

When Rob had turned in, and was fast asleep, the Captain trimmed the
candle, put on his spectacles--he had felt it appropriate to take to
spectacles on entering into the Instrument Trade, though his eyes were
like a hawk's--and opened the prayer-book at the Burial Service. And
reading softly to himself, in the little back parlour, and stopping now
and then to wipe his eyes, the Captain, in a true and simple spirit,
committed Walter's body to the deep.

Captain Cuttle has still not heard any news about either Sol or Walter; he hides from Florence the fact that Sol has disappeared because he does not want to worry her. One night, Mr. Toots, accompanied by his friend who goes by the nickname 'the Chicken', comes to the shop where Cuttle and Rob now live. Mr. Toots at first mistakes Cuttle for Sol Gills and is surprised when Cuttle explains that Gills has vanished, especially since Florence is unaware that this has happened. Toots explains that he hopes he and Cuttle can be friend, since he has no one else in whom to confide. At present, he has been sent by Susan Nipper to confirm some information she read in the paper and is hiding from Florence. Cuttle has not seen the paper either, so Toots shows him the paragraph indicating that the wreck of Walter's ship has been found. Cuttle is devastated by the news. He tells Toots that he may as well share the news with Nipper and Florence, explaining that Florence will be deeply saddened, which makes Toots upset. The next morning, Cuttle goes to the offices of Dombey and Son and runs into Carker. Cuttle seeks reassurance that he was right in believing the opportunity to go the West Indies had been a good prospect for Walter, despite Walter's own thoughts on the matter. Carker, however, abruptly orders him out, accusing Cuttle of plots and schemes. Cuttle is stunned to learn that he has been deceived, and grieves deeply for Walter

This section plays with the theme of both failed and rekindled hopes. On the one hand, it seems increasingly clear that Walter's ship has been wrecked, and he has perished. However, the uncertain nature of there being no body to offer confirmation of his death makes this series of events difficult for others to accept, and the question of whether hope should be held out for his return haunts Cuttle. Moreover, Cuttle's basic hope and trust in human nature receives a serious blow: when he realizes that Carker lied to him and manipulated him, he is forced to confront the reality that not everyone can be trusted. The impact of that blow is clearly seen in the isolation Cuttle experiences. At the same time, however, he is unwilling to accept that Sol is also lost, and stubbornly nurses hope of his friend's return. In a parallel fashion, Miss Tox has very good reason to accept that her relations with the Dombey family are over, and yet she stubbornly clings to the hope of knowing what is happening with the family, initiating a relationship with the Toodle family for this purpose. In a novel with many characters and various plots, Dickens often uses these types of parallel experiences to highlight a shared, communal similarity between otherwise very different individuals. At the same time, Florence's initially bright hopes for a new family dynamic are challenged. It is clear that the relationship between her father and Edith is not a loving one, and shows few signs of improving. Not only will it not help Florence to draw closer to her father, but it also seems that she will be caught up in the middle, and used as a kind of pawn. The introduction of another plot develops the themes of disappointed hopes and bad parenting, as well as offering additional support for Carker's villainy. Alice Marwood serves as a foil character to Edith: like Edith, a greedy mother corrupted her in her youth. However, Alice's experiences have been much harsher for two reasons: she has explicitly transgressed against Victorian sexual norms, first by living as Carker's mistress, and then by working as a prostitute. While Edith may be ashamed of her behavior, she has still always behaved in ways that are socially sanctioned, and even encouraged. The key to this difference, as Alice makes clear, is the difference in their social standing. Because of their aristocratic heritage, Edith may be bought and sold, but it will be as a wife, ensuring she has legal rights and protections. For a poor woman like Alice, the best to hope for was an illicit position as a mistress; therefore, when Carker discarded her, she had no recourse. Alice's storyline also highlights the idea of vengeance and eventual consequences. Although it seems like Carker is profiting from his schemes as he draws ever more intimately into the Dombey family, Alice and her mother's hatred and desire to punish him shows that his past may still catch up with him. By extension, this also suggests that Dombey may eventually face consequences for the way he cruelly discards people around him.


Turn we our eyes upon two homes; not lying side by side, but wide apart,
though both within easy range and reach of the great city of London.

The first is situated in the green and wooded country near Norwood.
It is not a mansion; it is of no pretensions as to size; but it is
beautifully arranged, and tastefully kept. The lawn, the soft, smooth
slope, the flower-garden, the clumps of trees where graceful forms of
ash and willow are not wanting, the conservatory, the rustic verandah
with sweet-smelling creeping plants entwined about the pillars, the
simple exterior of the house, the well-ordered offices, though all upon
the diminutive scale proper to a mere cottage, bespeak an amount of
elegant comfort within, that might serve for a palace. This indication
is not without warrant; for, within, it is a house of refinement and
luxury. Rich colours, excellently blended, meet the eye at every turn;
in the furniture--its proportions admirably devised to suit the shapes
and sizes of the small rooms; on the walls; upon the floors; tingeing
and subduing the light that comes in through the odd glass doors and
windows here and there. There are a few choice prints and pictures too;
in quaint nooks and recesses there is no want of books; and there are
games of skill and chance set forth on tables--fantastic chessmen, dice,
backgammon, cards, and billiards.

And yet amidst this opulence of comfort, there is something in the
general air that is not well. Is it that the carpets and the cushions
are too soft and noiseless, so that those who move or repose among
them seem to act by stealth? Is it that the prints and pictures do not
commemorate great thoughts or deeds, or render nature in the Poetry of
landscape, hall, or hut, but are of one voluptuous cast--mere shows of
form and colour--and no more? Is it that the books have all their gold
outside, and that the titles of the greater part qualify them to be
companions of the prints and pictures? Is it that the completeness and
the beauty of the place are here and there belied by an affectation of
humility, in some unimportant and inexpensive regard, which is as false
as the face of the too truly painted portrait hanging yonder, or its
original at breakfast in his easy chair below it? Or is it that, with
the daily breath of that original and master of all here, there issues
forth some subtle portion of himself, which gives a vague expression of
himself to everything about him?

It is Mr Carker the Manager who sits in the easy chair. A gaudy parrot
in a burnished cage upon the table tears at the wires with her beak,
and goes walking, upside down, in its dome-top, shaking her house and
screeching; but Mr Carker is indifferent to the bird, and looks with a
musing smile at a picture on the opposite wall.

'A most extraordinary accidental likeness, certainly,' says he.

Perhaps it is a Juno; perhaps a Potiphar's Wife'; perhaps some scornful
Nymph--according as the Picture Dealers found the market, when they
christened it. It is the figure of a woman, supremely handsome, who,
turning away, but with her face addressed to the spectator, flashes her
proud glance upon him.

It is like Edith.

With a passing gesture of his hand at the picture--what! a menace? No;
yet something like it. A wave as of triumph? No; yet more like that. An
insolent salute wafted from his lips? No; yet like that too--he resumes
his breakfast, and calls to the chafing and imprisoned bird, who
coming down into a pendant gilded hoop within the cage, like a great
wedding-ring, swings in it, for his delight.

The second home is on the other side of London, near to where the busy
great north road of bygone days is silent and almost deserted, except by
wayfarers who toil along on foot. It is a poor small house, barely
and sparely furnished, but very clean; and there is even an attempt to
decorate it, shown in the homely flowers trained about the porch and in
the narrow garden. The neighbourhood in which it stands has as little of
the country to recommend it, as it has of the town. It is neither of the
town nor country. The former, like the giant in his travelling boots,
has made a stride and passed it, and has set his brick-and-mortar heel
a long way in advance; but the intermediate space between the giant's
feet, as yet, is only blighted country, and not town; and, here, among
a few tall chimneys belching smoke all day and night, and among the
brick-fields and the lanes where turf is cut, and where the fences
tumble down, and where the dusty nettles grow, and where a scrap or
two of hedge may yet be seen, and where the bird-catcher still comes
occasionally, though he swears every time to come no more--this second
home is to be found.'

She who inhabits it, is she who left the first in her devotion to an
outcast brother. She withdrew from that home its redeeming spirit, and
from its master's breast his solitary angel: but though his liking for
her is gone, after this ungrateful slight as he considers it; and though
he abandons her altogether in return, an old idea of her is not quite
forgotten even by him. Let her flower-garden, in which he never sets his
foot, but which is yet maintained, among all his costly alterations, as
if she had quitted it but yesterday, bear witness!

Harriet Carker has changed since then, and on her beauty there has
fallen a heavier shade than Time of his unassisted self can cast,
all-potent as he is--the shadow of anxiety and sorrow, and the daily
struggle of a poor existence. But it is beauty still; and still a
gentle, quiet, and retiring beauty that must be sought out, for it
cannot vaunt itself; if it could, it would be what it is, no more.

Yes. This slight, small, patient figure, neatly dressed in homely
stuffs, and indicating nothing but the dull, household virtues,
that have so little in common with the received idea of heroism and
greatness, unless, indeed, any ray of them should shine through the
lives of the great ones of the earth, when it becomes a constellation
and is tracked in Heaven straightway--this slight, small, patient
figure, leaning on the man still young but worn and grey, is she, his
sister, who, of all the world, went over to him in his shame and put
her hand in his, and with a sweet composure and determination, led him
hopefully upon his barren way.

'It is early, John,' she said. 'Why do you go so early?'

'Not many minutes earlier than usual, Harriet. If I have the time to
spare, I should like, I think--it's a fancy--to walk once by the house
where I took leave of him.'

'I wish I had ever seen or known him, John.'

'It is better as it is, my dear, remembering his fate.'

'But I could not regret it more, though I had known him. Is not your
sorrow mine? And if I had, perhaps you would feel that I was a better
companion to you in speaking about him, than I may seem now.'

'My dearest sister! Is there anything within the range of rejoicing or
regret, in which I am not sure of your companionship?'

'I hope you think not, John, for surely there is nothing!'

'How could you be better to me, or nearer to me then, than you are in
this, or anything?' said her brother. 'I feel that you did know him,
Harriet, and that you shared my feelings towards him.'

She drew the hand which had been resting on his shoulder, round his
neck, and answered, with some hesitation:

'No, not quite.'

'True, true!' he said; 'you think I might have done him no harm if I had
allowed myself to know him better?'

'Think! I know it.'

'Designedly, Heaven knows I would not,' he replied, shaking his head
mournfully; 'but his reputation was too precious to be perilled by such
association. Whether you share that knowledge, or do not, my dear--'

'I do not,' she said quietly.

'It is still the truth, Harriet, and my mind is lighter when I think of
him for that which made it so much heavier then.' He checked himself in
his tone of melancholy, and smiled upon her as he said 'Good-bye!'

'Good-bye, dear John! In the evening, at the old time and place, I shall
meet you as usual on your way home. Good-bye.'

The cordial face she lifted up to his to kiss him, was his home, his
life, his universe, and yet it was a portion of his punishment and
grief; for in the cloud he saw upon it--though serene and calm as any
radiant cloud at sunset--and in the constancy and devotion of her life,
and in the sacrifice she had made of ease, enjoyment, and hope, he saw
the bitter fruits of his old crime, for ever ripe and fresh.

She stood at the door looking after him, with her hands loosely clasped
in each other, as he made his way over the frowzy and uneven patch of
ground which lay before their house, which had once (and not long ago)
been a pleasant meadow, and was now a very waste, with a disorderly crop
of beginnings of mean houses, rising out of the rubbish, as if they had
been unskilfully sown there. Whenever he looked back--as once or twice
he did--her cordial face shone like a light upon his heart; but when he
plodded on his way, and saw her not, the tears were in her eyes as she
stood watching him.

Her pensive form was not long idle at the door. There was daily duty to
discharge, and daily work to do--for such commonplace spirits that are
not heroic, often work hard with their hands--and Harriet was soon busy
with her household tasks. These discharged, and the poor house made
quite neat and orderly, she counted her little stock of money, with
an anxious face, and went out thoughtfully to buy some necessaries for
their table, planning and conniving, as she went, how to save. So sordid
are the lives of such low natures, who are not only not heroic to their
valets and waiting-women, but have neither valets nor waiting-women to
be heroic to withal!

While she was absent, and there was no one in the house, there
approached it by a different way from that the brother had taken,
a gentleman, a very little past his prime of life perhaps, but of a
healthy florid hue, an upright presence, and a bright clear aspect, that
was gracious and good-humoured. His eyebrows were still black, and
so was much of his hair; the sprinkling of grey observable among the
latter, graced the former very much, and showed his broad frank brow and
honest eyes to great advantage.

After knocking once at the door, and obtaining no response, this
gentleman sat down on a bench in the little porch to wait. A certain
skilful action of his fingers as he hummed some bars, and beat time
on the seat beside him, seemed to denote the musician; and the
extraordinary satisfaction he derived from humming something very slow
and long, which had no recognisable tune, seemed to denote that he was a
scientific one.

The gentleman was still twirling a theme, which seemed to go round and
round and round, and in and in and in, and to involve itself like a
corkscrew twirled upon a table, without getting any nearer to anything,
when Harriet appeared returning. He rose up as she advanced, and stood
with his head uncovered.

'You are come again, Sir!' she said, faltering.

'I take that liberty,' he answered. 'May I ask for five minutes of your
leisure?'

After a moment's hesitation, she opened the door, and gave him admission
to the little parlour. The gentleman sat down there, drew his chair
to the table over against her, and said, in a voice that perfectly
corresponded to his appearance, and with a simplicity that was very
engaging:

'Miss Harriet, you cannot be proud. You signified to me, when I called
t'other morning, that you were. Pardon me if I say that I looked into
your face while you spoke, and that it contradicted you. I look into
it again,' he added, laying his hand gently on her arm, for an instant,
'and it contradicts you more and more.'

She was somewhat confused and agitated, and could make no ready answer.

'It is the mirror of truth,' said her visitor, 'and gentleness. Excuse
my trusting to it, and returning.'

His manner of saying these words, divested them entirely of the
character of compliments. It was so plain, grave, unaffected, and
sincere, that she bent her head, as if at once to thank him, and
acknowledge his sincerity.

'The disparity between our ages,' said the gentleman, 'and the plainness
of my purpose, empower me, I am glad to think, to speak my mind. That is
my mind; and so you see me for the second time.'

'There is a kind of pride, Sir,' she returned, after a moment's silence,
'or what may be supposed to be pride, which is mere duty. I hope I
cherish no other.'

'For yourself,' he said.

'For myself.'

'But--pardon me--' suggested the gentleman. 'For your brother John?'

'Proud of his love, I am,' said Harriet, looking full upon her visitor,
and changing her manner on the instant--not that it was less composed
and quiet, but that there was a deep impassioned earnestness in it that
made the very tremble in her voice a part of her firmness, 'and proud of
him. Sir, you who strangely know the story of his life, and repeated it
to me when you were here last--'

'Merely to make my way into your confidence,' interposed the gentleman.
'For heaven's sake, don't suppose--'

'I am sure,' she said, 'you revived it, in my hearing, with a kind and
good purpose. I am quite sure of it.'

'I thank you,' returned her visitor, pressing her hand hastily. 'I am
much obliged to you. You do me justice, I assure you. You were going to
say, that I, who know the story of John Carker's life--'

'May think it pride in me,' she continued, 'when I say that I am proud
of him! I am. You know the time was, when I was not--when I could not
be--but that is past. The humility of many years, the uncomplaining
expiation, the true repentance, the terrible regret, the pain I know
he has even in my affection, which he thinks has cost me dear, though
Heaven knows I am happy, but for his sorrow I--oh, Sir, after what I
have seen, let me conjure you, if you are in any place of power, and are
ever wronged, never, for any wrong, inflict a punishment that cannot be
recalled; while there is a GOD above us to work changes in the hearts He
made.'

'Your brother is an altered man,' returned the gentleman,
compassionately. 'I assure you I don't doubt it.'

'He was an altered man when he did wrong,' said Harriet. 'He is an
altered man again, and is his true self now, believe me, Sir.'

'But we go on,' said her visitor, rubbing his forehead, in an absent
manner, with his hand, and then drumming thoughtfully on the table, 'we
go on in our clockwork routine, from day to day, and can't make out,
or follow, these changes. They--they're a metaphysical sort of thing.
We--we haven't leisure for it. We--we haven't courage. They're not
taught at schools or colleges, and we don't know how to set about it. In
short, we are so d----d business-like,' said the gentleman, walking
to the window, and back, and sitting down again, in a state of extreme
dissatisfaction and vexation.

'I am sure,' said the gentleman, rubbing his forehead again; and
drumming on the table as before, 'I have good reason to believe that
a jog-trot life, the same from day to day, would reconcile one to
anything. One don't see anything, one don't hear anything, one don't
know anything; that's the fact. We go on taking everything for granted,
and so we go on, until whatever we do, good, bad, or indifferent, we do
from habit. Habit is all I shall have to report, when I am called upon
to plead to my conscience, on my death-bed. "Habit," says I; "I was
deaf, dumb, blind, and paralytic, to a million things, from habit."
"Very business-like indeed, Mr What's-your-name," says Conscience,
"but it won't do here!"'

The gentleman got up and walked to the window again and back: seriously
uneasy, though giving his uneasiness this peculiar expression.

'Miss Harriet,' he said, resuming his chair, 'I wish you would let me
serve you. Look at me; I ought to look honest, for I know I am so, at
present. Do I?'

'Yes,' she answered with a smile.

'I believe every word you have said,' he returned. 'I am full of
self-reproach that I might have known this and seen this, and known
you and seen you, any time these dozen years, and that I never have. I
hardly know how I ever got here--creature that I am, not only of my own
habit, but of other people's! But having done so, let me do something.
I ask it in all honour and respect. You inspire me with both, in the
highest degree. Let me do something.'

'We are contented, Sir.'

'No, no, not quite,' returned the gentleman. 'I think not quite. There
are some little comforts that might smooth your life, and his. And his!'
he repeated, fancying that had made some impression on her. 'I have been
in the habit of thinking that there was nothing wanting to be done for
him; that it was all settled and over; in short, of not thinking at all
about it. I am different now. Let me do something for him. You too,'
said the visitor, with careful delicacy, 'have need to watch your health
closely, for his sake, and I fear it fails.'

'Whoever you may be, Sir,' answered Harriet, raising her eyes to his
face, 'I am deeply grateful to you. I feel certain that in all you
say, you have no object in the world but kindness to us. But years have
passed since we began this life; and to take from my brother any part of
what has so endeared him to me, and so proved his better resolution--any
fragment of the merit of his unassisted, obscure, and forgotten
reparation--would be to diminish the comfort it will be to him and me,
when that time comes to each of us, of which you spoke just now. I thank
you better with these tears than any words. Believe it, pray.'

The gentleman was moved, and put the hand she held out, to his lips,
much as a tender father might kiss the hand of a dutiful child. But more
reverently.

'If the day should ever come,' said Harriet, 'when he is restored, in
part, to the position he lost--'

'Restored!' cried the gentleman, quickly. 'How can that be hoped for? In
whose hands does the power of any restoration lie? It is no mistake of
mine, surely, to suppose that his having gained the priceless blessing
of his life, is one cause of the animosity shown to him by his brother.'

'You touch upon a subject that is never breathed between us; not even
between us,' said Harriet.

'I beg your forgiveness,' said the visitor. 'I should have known it. I
entreat you to forget that I have done so, inadvertently. And now, as I
dare urge no more--as I am not sure that I have a right to do so--though
Heaven knows, even that doubt may be habit,' said the gentleman, rubbing
his head, as despondently as before, 'let me; though a stranger, yet no
stranger; ask two favours.'

'What are they?' she inquired.

'The first, that if you should see cause to change your resolution, you
will suffer me to be as your right hand. My name shall then be at your
service; it is useless now, and always insignificant.'

'Our choice of friends,' she answered, smiling faintly, 'is not so
great, that I need any time for consideration. I can promise that.'

'The second, that you will allow me sometimes, say every Monday
morning, at nine o'clock--habit again--I must be businesslike,' said the
gentleman, with a whimsical inclination to quarrel with himself on that
head, 'in walking past, to see you at the door or window. I don't ask to
come in, as your brother will be gone out at that hour. I don't ask to
speak to you. I merely ask to see, for the satisfaction of my own mind,
that you are well, and without intrusion to remind you, by the sight of
me, that you have a friend--an elderly friend, grey-haired already, and
fast growing greyer--whom you may ever command.'

The cordial face looked up in his; confided in it; and promised.

'I understand, as before,' said the gentleman, rising, 'that you
purpose not to mention my visit to John Carker, lest he should be at all
distressed by my acquaintance with his history. I am glad of it, for
it is out of the ordinary course of things, and--habit again!' said the
gentleman, checking himself impatiently, 'as if there were no better
course than the ordinary course!'

With that he turned to go, and walking, bareheaded, to the outside
of the little porch, took leave of her with such a happy mixture of
unconstrained respect and unaffected interest, as no breeding could have
taught, no truth mistrusted, and nothing but a pure and single heart
expressed.

Many half-forgotten emotions were awakened in the sister's mind by this
visit. It was so very long since any other visitor had crossed their
threshold; it was so very long since any voice of apathy had made sad
music in her ears; that the stranger's figure remained present to her,
hours afterwards, when she sat at the window, plying her needle; and his
words seemed newly spoken, again and again. He had touched the spring
that opened her whole life; and if she lost him for a short space, it
was only among the many shapes of the one great recollection of which
that life was made.

Musing and working by turns; now constraining herself to be steady at
her needle for a long time together, and now letting her work fall,
unregarded, on her lap, and straying wheresoever her busier thoughts
led, Harriet Carker found the hours glide by her, and the day steal on.
The morning, which had been bright and clear, gradually became overcast;
a sharp wind set in; the rain fell heavily; and a dark mist drooping
over the distant town, hid it from the view.

She often looked with compassion, at such a time, upon the stragglers
who came wandering into London, by the great highway hard by, and who,
footsore and weary, and gazing fearfully at the huge town before them,
as if foreboding that their misery there would be but as a drop of water
in the sea, or as a grain of sea-sand on the shore, went shrinking on,
cowering before the angry weather, and looking as if the very elements
rejected them. Day after day, such travellers crept past, but always, as
she thought, in one direction--always towards the town. Swallowed up in
one phase or other of its immensity, towards which they seemed impelled
by a desperate fascination, they never returned. Food for the hospitals,
the churchyards, the prisons, the river, fever, madness, vice, and
death,--they passed on to the monster, roaring in the distance, and were
lost.

The chill wind was howling, and the rain was falling, and the day was
darkening moodily, when Harriet, raising her eyes from the work on which
she had long since been engaged with unremitting constancy, saw one of
these travellers approaching.

A woman. A solitary woman of some thirty years of age; tall;
well-formed; handsome; miserably dressed; the soil of many country roads
in varied weather--dust, chalk, clay, gravel--clotted on her grey cloak
by the streaming wet; no bonnet on her head, nothing to defend her rich
black hair from the rain, but a torn handkerchief; with the fluttering
ends of which, and with her hair, the wind blinded her so that she often
stopped to push them back, and look upon the way she was going.

She was in the act of doing so, when Harriet observed her. As her hands,
parting on her sunburnt forehead, swept across her face, and threw
aside the hindrances that encroached upon it, there was a reckless and
regardless beauty in it: a dauntless and depraved indifference to more
than weather: a carelessness of what was cast upon her bare head from
Heaven or earth: that, coupled with her misery and loneliness, touched
the heart of her fellow-woman. She thought of all that was perverted and
debased within her, no less than without: of modest graces of the mind,
hardened and steeled, like these attractions of the person; of the many
gifts of the Creator flung to the winds like the wild hair; of all
the beautiful ruin upon which the storm was beating and the night was
coming.

Thinking of this, she did not turn away with a delicate indignation--too
many of her own compassionate and tender sex too often do--but pitied
her.

Her fallen sister came on, looking far before her, trying with her eager
eyes to pierce the mist in which the city was enshrouded, and glancing,
now and then, from side to side, with the bewildered--and uncertain
aspect of a stranger. Though her tread was bold and courageous, she was
fatigued, and after a moment of irresolution,--sat down upon a heap of
stones; seeking no shelter from the rain, but letting it rain on her as
it would.

She was now opposite the house; raising her head after resting it for a
moment on both hands, her eyes met those of Harriet.

In a moment, Harriet was at the door; and the other, rising from her
seat at her beck, came slowly, and with no conciliatory look, towards
her.

'Why do you rest in the rain?' said Harriet, gently.

'Because I have no other resting-place,' was the reply.

'But there are many places of shelter near here. This,' referring to the
little porch, 'is better than where you were. You are very welcome to
rest here.'

The wanderer looked at her, in doubt and surprise, but without any
expression of thankfulness; and sitting down, and taking off one of her
worn shoes to beat out the fragments of stone and dust that were inside,
showed that her foot was cut and bleeding.

Harriet uttering an expression of pity, the traveller looked up with a
contemptuous and incredulous smile.

'Why, what's a torn foot to such as me?' she said. 'And what's a torn
foot in such as me, to such as you?'

'Come in and wash it,' answered Harriet, mildly, 'and let me give you
something to bind it up.'

The woman caught her arm, and drawing it before her own eyes, hid them
against it, and wept. Not like a woman, but like a stern man surprised
into that weakness; with a violent heaving of her breast, and struggle
for recovery, that showed how unusual the emotion was with her.

She submitted to be led into the house, and, evidently more in gratitude
than in any care for herself, washed and bound the injured place.
Harriet then put before her fragments of her own frugal dinner, and when
she had eaten of them, though sparingly, besought her, before resuming
her road (which she showed her anxiety to do), to dry her clothes before
the fire. Again, more in gratitude than with any evidence of concern
in her own behalf, she sat down in front of it, and unbinding the
handkerchief about her head, and letting her thick wet hair fall down
below her waist, sat drying it with the palms of her hands, and looking
at the blaze.

'I daresay you are thinking,' she said, lifting her head suddenly, 'that
I used to be handsome, once. I believe I was--I know I was--Look here!'

She held up her hair roughly with both hands; seizing it as if she would
have torn it out; then, threw it down again, and flung it back as though
it were a heap of serpents.

'Are you a stranger in this place?' asked Harriet.

'A stranger!' she returned, stopping between each short reply, and
looking at the fire. 'Yes. Ten or a dozen years a stranger. I have had
no almanack where I have been. Ten or a dozen years. I don't know this
part. It's much altered since I went away.'

'Have you been far?'

'Very far. Months upon months over the sea, and far away even then.
I have been where convicts go,' she added, looking full upon her
entertainer. 'I have been one myself.'

'Heaven help you and forgive you!' was the gentle answer.

'Ah! Heaven help me and forgive me!' she returned, nodding her head at
the fire. 'If man would help some of us a little more, God would forgive
us all the sooner perhaps.'

But she was softened by the earnest manner, and the cordial face so full
of mildness and so free from judgment, of her, and said, less hardily:

'We may be about the same age, you and me. If I am older, it is not
above a year or two. Oh think of that!'

She opened her arms, as though the exhibition of her outward form would
show the moral wretch she was; and letting them drop at her sides, hung
down her head.

'There is nothing we may not hope to repair; it is never too late to
amend,' said Harriet. 'You are penitent?'

'No,' she answered. 'I am not! I can't be. I am no such thing. Why
should I be penitent, and all the world go free? They talk to me of my
penitence. Who's penitent for the wrongs that have been done to me?'

She rose up, bound her handkerchief about her head, and turned to move
away.

'Where are you going?' said Harriet.

'Yonder,' she answered, pointing with her hand. 'To London.'

'Have you any home to go to?'

'I think I have a mother. She's as much a mother, as her dwelling is a
home,' she answered with a bitter laugh.

'Take this,' cried Harriet, putting money in her hand. 'Try to do well.
It is very little, but for one day it may keep you from harm.'

'Are you married?' said the other, faintly, as she took it.

'No. I live here with my brother. We have not much to spare, or I would
give you more.'

'Will you let me kiss you?'

Seeing no scorn or repugnance in her face, the object of her charity
bent over her as she asked the question, and pressed her lips against
her cheek. Once more she caught her arm, and covered her eyes with it;
and then was gone.

Gone into the deepening night, and howling wind, and pelting rain;
urging her way on towards the mist-enshrouded city where the blurred
lights gleamed; and with her black hair, and disordered head-gear,
fluttering round her reckless face.

Carker continues to plot, now obsessed with Edith's beauty and haughty demeanor. Meanwhile, John Carker grieves over Walter's death and is comforted by his sister Harriet, who lives with him in humble poverty. After John leaves for work, a gentleman visits Harriet and expresses a desire to help her. This is his second visit, and on his previous visit he had revealed that he knew about John Carker's past. The gentleman wants to help them, but Harriet declines. The gentleman says he will not reveal his name, but tells her that she should alert him if she ever does decide they would benefit from help; he adds that he will occasionally stop by the house. He departs after agreeing with her that it is best not to tell John. Later that day, Harriet notices a woman walking in bad weather and invites her into the house to rest and take shelter. The woman explains that she is returning after having been deported as a convict and is angry about the wrongs that have been done to her. She is now in search of her mother. Harriet offers her some money and the woman leaves