第30章

And now the morning grew so fair, and all things were so wide awake and gay, that the sun seeming to say -- Tom had no doubt he said -- `I can't stand it any longer: I must have a look,' streamed out in radiant majesty. The mist, too shy and gentle for such lusty company, fled off, quite scared, before it; and as it swept away, the hills and mounds and distant pasture lands, teeming with placid sheep and noisy crows, came out as bright as though they were unrolled bran new for the occasion. In compliment to which discovery, the brook stood still no longer, but ran briskly off to bear the tidings to the water-mill, three miles away.

Mr. Pinch was jogging along, full of pleasant thoughts and cheerful influences, when he saw, upon the path before him, going in the same direction with himself, a traveller on foot, who walked with a light quick step, and sang as he went: for certain in a very loud voice, but not unmusically.

He was a young fellow, of some five or six-and-twenty perhaps, and was dressed in such a free and fly-away fashion, that the long ends of his loose red neckcloth were streaming out behind him quite as often as before; and the bunch of bright winter berries in the buttonhole of his velveteen coat was as visible to Mr. Pinch's rearward observation, as if he had worn that garment wrong side foremost. He continued to sing with so much energy, that he did not hear the sound of wheels until it was close behind him; when he turned a whimsical face and a very merry pair of blue eyes on Mr. Pinch, and checked himself directly.

`Why, Mark?' said Tom Pinch, stopping. `Who'd have thought of seeing you here? Well! this is surprising!'

Mark touched his hat, and said, with a very sudden decrease of vivacity, that he was going to Salisbury.

`And how spruce you are, too!' said Mr. Pinch, surveying him with great pleasure. `Really, I didn't think you were half such a tight-made fellow, Mark!'

`Thankee, Mr. Pinch. Pretty well for that, I believe. It's not my fault, you know. With regard to being spruce, sir, that's where it is, you see.'

And here he looked particularly gloomy.

`Where what is?' Mr. Pinch demanded.

`Where the aggravation of it is. Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he's well dressed. There an't much credit in that. If I was very ragged and very jolly, then I should begin to feel I had gained a point, Mr. Pinch.'

`So you were singing just now, to bear up, as it were, against being well dressed, eh, Mark?' said Pinch.

`Your conversation's always equal to print, sir,' rejoined Mark, with a broad grin. `That was it.'

`Well!' cried Pinch, `you are the strangest young man, Mark, I ever knew in my life. I always thought so; but now I am quite certain of it.

I am going to Salisbury, too. Will you get in? I shall be very glad of your company.'

The young fellow made his acknowledgments and accepted the offer; stepping into the carriage directly, and seating himself on the very edge of the seat with his body half out of it, to express his being there on sufferance, and by the politeness of Mr. Pinch. As they went along, the conversation proceeded after this manner.

`I more than half believed, just now, seeing you so very smart,' said Pinch, `that you must be going to be married, Mark.'

`Well, sir, I've thought of that, too,' he replied. `There might be some credit in being jolly with a wife,' specially if the children had the measles and that, and was very fractious indeed. But I'm a'most afraid to try it. I don't see my way clear.'

`You're not very fond of anybody, perhaps?' said Pinch.

`Not particular, sir, I think.'

`But the way would be, you know, Mark, according to your views of things,' said Mr. Pinch, `to marry somebody you didn't like, and who was very disagreeable.'

`So it would, sir; but that might be carrying out a principle a little too far, mightn't it?'

`Perhaps it might,' said Mr. Pinch. At which they both laughed gaily.

`Lord bless you, sir,' said Mark, `you don't half know me, though. I don't believe there ever was a man as could come out so strong under circumstances that would make other men miserable, as I could, if I could only get a chance. But I can't get a chance. It's my opinion that nobody never will know half of what's in me, unless something very unexpected turns up. And I don't see any prospect of that. I'm a-going to leave the Dragon, sir.'

`Going to leave the Dragon!' cried Mr. Pinch, looking at him with great astonishment. `Why, Mark, you take my breath away!'

`Yes, sir,' he rejoined, looking straight before him and a long way off, as men do sometimes when they cogitate profoundly. `What's the use of my stopping at the Dragon? It an't at all the sort of place for me.

When I left London (I'm a Kentish man by birth, though), and took that situation here, I quite made up my mind that it was the dullest little out-of-the-way corner in England, and that there would be some credit in being jolly under such circumstances. But, Lord, there's no dullness at the Dragon! Skittles, cricket, quoits, nine-pins, comic songs, choruses, company round the chimney corner every winter's evening. Any man could be jolly at the Dragon. There's no credit in that.'

`But if common report be true for once, Mark, as I think it is, being able to confirm it by what I know myself,' said Mr. Pinch, `you are the cause of half this merriment, and set it going.'

`There may be something in that, too, sir,' answered Mark. `But that's no consolation.'

`Well!' said Mr. Pinch, after a short silence, his usually subdued tone being even now more subdued than ever. `I can hardly think enough of what you tell me. Why, what will become of Mrs. Lupin, Mark?'

Mark looked more fixedly before him, and further off still, as he answered that he didn't suppose it would be much of an object to her. There were plenty of smart young fellows as would be glad of the place. He knew a dozen himself.

`That's probable enough,' said Mr. Pinch, `but I am not at all sure that Mrs. Lupin would be glad of them. Why, I always supposed that Mrs.