[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.I wouldn’t have missed Dot, doing the honours in her wedding-gown, my benison on her bright face! for any money.No! nor the good Carrier, so jovial and so ruddy, at the bottom of the table.Nor the brown, fresh sailor-fellow, and his handsome wife.Nor any one among them.To have missed the dinner would have been to miss as jolly and as stout a meal as man need eat; and to have missed the overflowing cups in which they drank The Wedding-Day, would have been the greatest miss of all.After dinner, Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling Bowl.As I’m a living man, hoping to keep so, for a year or two, he sang it through.And, by the bye, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, just as he finished the last verse.There was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering in, without saying with your leave, or by your leave, with something heavy on his head.Setting this down in the middle of the table, symmetrically in the centre of the nuts and apples, he said:‘Mr Tackleton’s compliments, and as he hasn’t got no use for the cake himself, p’raps you’ll eat it.’And with those words, he walked off.There was some surprise among the company, as you may imagine.Mrs Fielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, suggested that the cake was poisoned, and related a narrative of a cake, which, within her knowledge, had turned a seminary for young ladies, blue.But she was overruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut by May, with much ceremony and rejoicing.I don’t think anyone had tasted it, when there came another tap at the door, and the same man appeared again, having under his arm a vast brown-paper parcel.‘Mr Tackleton’s compliments, and he’s sent a few toys for the Babby.They ain’t ugly.’After the delivery of which expressions, he retired again.The whole party would have experienced great difficulty in finding words for their astonishment, even if they had had ample time to seek them.But they had none at all; for the messenger had scarcely shut the door behind him, when there came another tap, and Tackleton himself walked in.‘Mrs Peerybingle!’ said the Toy-merchant, hat in hand.‘I’m sorry.I’m more sorry than I was this morning.I have had time to think of it.John Peerybingle! I’m sour by disposition; but I can’t help being sweetened, more or less, by coming face to face with such a man as you.Caleb! This unconscious little nurse gave me a broken hint last night, of which I have found the thread.I blush to think how easily I might have bound you and your daughter to me, and what a miserable idiot I was, when I took her for one! Friends, one and all, my house is very lonely tonight.I have not so much as a Cricket on my Hearth.I have scared them all away.Be gracious to me; let me join this happy party!’He was at home in five minutes.You never saw such a fellow.What had he been doing with himself all his life, never to have known, before, his great capacity of being jovial! Or what had the Fairies been doing with him, to have effected such a change!‘John! you won’t send me home this evening; will you?’ whispered Dot.He had been very near it though!There wanted but one living creature to make the party complete; and, in the twinkling of an eye, there he was, very thirsty with hard running, and engaged in hopeless endeavours to squeeze his head into a narrow pitcher.He had gone with the cart to its journey’s end, very much disgusted with the absence of his master, and stupendously rebellious to the Deputy.After lingering about the stable for some little time, vainly attempting to incite the old horse to the mutinous act of returning on his own account, he had walked into the tap-room and laid himself down before the fire.But suddenly yielding to the conviction that the Deputy was a humbug, and must be abandoned, he had got up again, turned tail, and come home.There was a dance in the evening.With which general mention of that recreation, I should have left it alone, if I had not some reason to suppose that it was quite an original dance, and one of a most uncommon figure.It was formed in an odd way; in this way.Edward, that sailor-fellow – a good free dashing sort of a fellow he was – had been telling them various marvels concerning parrots, and mines, and Mexicans, and gold dust, when all at once he took it in his head to jump up from his seat and propose a dance; for Bertha’s harp was there, and she had such a hand upon it as you seldom hear.Dot (sly little piece of affectation when she chose) said her dancing days were over; I think because the Carrier was smoking his pipe, and she liked sitting by him, best.Mrs Fielding had no choice, of course, but to say her dancing days were over, after that; and everybody said the same, except May; May was ready.So, May and Edward got up, amid great applause, to dance alone; and Bertha plays her liveliest tune.Well! if you’ll believe me, they have not been dancing five minutes, when suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe away, takes Dot round the waist, dashes out into the room, and starts off with her, toe and heel, quite wonderfully.Tackleton no sooner sees this, than he skims across to Mrs Fielding, takes her round the waist, and follows suit [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

listy-do-eda.opx.pl