sinful, sir. Only last evening, when I was saying the quadruple might have mirac’lous parts give to it, like Balum’s had in the Bible, Peckaby he jeered, and said he’d like to see Balum’s, or any other quadruple, set off to swim to America—that he’d find the bottom afore he found the land. I wonder the kitchen ceiling don’t drop down upon his head! For myself, sir, I’m rejoiced to trust, as I says; and as soon as the white donkey do come, I shall mount him without fear.”
“What do you expect to find at New Jerusalem?” asked Lionel.
“I could sooner tell you, sir, what I don’t expect: it ’ud take up less time. There’s a’most everything good at New Jerusalem that the world contains—Verner’s Pride’s a poor place to it, sir—saving your presence for saying so. I could have sat and listened to Brother Jarrum in this here shop for ever, sir, if it hadn’t been that the longing was upon me to get there. In this part o’ the world we women be poor, cast-down, half famished, miserable slaves; but in New Jerusalem we are the wives of saints, well cared for, and clothed and fed, happy as the day’s long, and our own parlours to ourselves, and nobody to interrupt us. Yes, Peckaby, I’m a telling his honour, Mr. Verner, what’s a waiting for me at New Jerusalem! And the sooner I’m on my road to it, the better.”
The conclusion was addressed to Peckaby himself. Peckaby had just come in from the forge, grimed and dirty. He touched his hair to Lionel, an amused expression playing on his face. In point of fact, this New Jerusalem vision was affording the utmost merriment to Peckaby and a few more husbands. Peckaby had come home to his tea, which meal it was the custom of Deerham to enjoy about three o’clock. He saw no signs of its being in readiness; and, but for the presence of Mr. Verner, might probably have expressed his opinion openly upon the point. Peckaby, of late, appeared to have changed his nature and disposition. From being a timid man, living under wife-thraldom, he had come to exercise thraldom over her. How far Mrs. Peckaby’s state of low spirits, into which she was generally sunk, may have explained this, nobody knew.
“I have had a turn, Peckaby. I caught sight of a white tail a-going by, and I thought it might be the quadruple a-coming for me. I was shook, I can tell you. ’Twas more nor a hour ago, and I’ve been able to do nothing since, but sit here and weep: I couldn’t red up after that.”
“Warn’t it the quadrepid?” asked Peckaby, in a mocking tone.
“No, it weren’t,” she moaned. “It were nothing but that white pony of Farmer Blow’s.”
“Him, was it,” said Peckaby, with affected scorn. “He is in the forge now, he is; a having his shoes changed and his tail trimmed.”
“I’d give a shilling to anybody as ud cut his tail off!” angrily rejoined Mrs. Peckaby. “A deceiving of me, and turning my inside all of a quake! Oh, I wish it ’ud come! The white donkey as is to bear me to New Jerusalem!”
“Don’t you wish her joy of her journey, sir?” cried the man, respectfully, a twinkle in his eye, while she rocked herself to and fro. “She have got a bran new gownd laid up in a old apron up-stairs, ready for the start. She, and a lot more to help her, set on and made it in a afternoon, for fear the white donkey should arrive immediate. I asks her, sir, how much back the gownd ’ll have left in him, by the time she have rode from here to New Jerusalem.”
“Peckaby, you are a mocker!” interposed his lady, greatly exasperated. “Remember the forty-two as was eat up by bears when they mocked at Elisher!”
“Mrs. Peckaby,” said Lionel, keeping his countenance, “don’t you think you would have made more sure of the benefits of the New Jerusalem, had you started with the rest, instead of depending upon the arrival of the white donkey?”
“They started without her, sir,” cried the man, laughing from ear to ear. “They give her the slip, while she were abed and asleep.”
“It were revealed to Brother Jarrum so to do, sir,” she cried, eagerly. “Don’t listen to him. Brother Jarrum as much meant me to go, sir, and I as much thought to go, as I mean to go to my bed this night—always supposing the white donkey don’t come,” she broke off in a different voice.
“Why did you not go, then?” demanded Lionel.
“I’ll tell you about it, sir. Me and Brother Jarrum was on the best of terms—which it’s a real gentleman he was, and never said a word nor gave a look as could offend me. I didn’t know the night fixed for the start; and Brother Jarrum didn’t know it; in spite of Peckaby’s insinuations. On that last night, which it was Tuesday, not a soul came near the place but that pale lady where Dr. West attended. She stopped a minute or two, and then Brother Jarrum goes out, and says he might be away all the evening. Well, he was; but he came in again, I can be upon my oath he did, and I give him his candle and wished him a good night. After that, sir, I never heard nothing till I got up in the morning. The first thing I see was his door wide open, and the bed not slept in. And the next thing I heard was, that the start had took place: they a walking to Heartburg, and taking the train there. You might just have knocked me down with a puff of wind.”
“Such a howling and screeching followed on, sir,” put in Peckaby. “I were at the forge, and it reached all the way to our ears, over there. Chuff, he thought as the place had took fire and the missis was a burning.”
“But it didn’t last; it didn’t last,” repeated Mrs. Peckaby. “Thanks be offered up for it, it didn’t last, or I should ha’ been in my coffin afore the day were out! A gentleman came to me: a Brother he were, sent express by Brother Jarrum, and had walked afoot all the way from Heartburg. It had been revealed to Brother Jarrum, he said, that they were to start that partic’lar night, and that I was to be left behind special. A higher mission was—what was the word? resigned?—No—reserved—reserved for me, and I was to be conveyed special on a quadruple, which was a white donkey. I be to keep myself in readiness, sir, always a looking out for the quadruple’s coming and stopping afore the door.”
