Bleak House Charles Dickens (classic books to read .TXT) đ
- Author: Charles Dickens
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The trooper puts his hand into his breast and answers with a long breath, âI must do it, sir.â
So Mr. Tulkinghorn, putting on his spectacles, sits down and writes the undertaking, which he slowly reads and explains to Bagnet, who has all this time been staring at the ceiling and who puts his hand on his bald head again, under this new verbal shower-bath, and seems exceedingly in need of the old girl through whom to express his sentiments. The trooper then takes from his breast-pocket a folded paper, which he lays with an unwilling hand at the lawyerâs elbow. âââTis only a letter of instructions, sir. The last I ever had from him.â
Look at a millstone, Mr. George, for some change in its expression, and you will find it quite as soon as in the face of Mr. Tulkinghorn when he opens and reads the letter! He refolds it and lays it in his desk with a countenance as unperturbable as death.
Nor has he anything more to say or do but to nod once in the same frigid and discourteous manner and to say briefly, âYou can go. Show these men out, there!â Being shown out, they repair to Mr. Bagnetâs residence to dine.
Boiled beef and greens constitute the dayâs variety on the former repast of boiled pork and greens, and Mrs. Bagnet serves out the meal in the same way and seasons it with the best of temper, being that rare sort of old girl that she receives Good to her arms without a hint that it might be Better and catches light from any little spot of darkness near her. The spot on this occasion is the darkened brow of Mr. George; he is unusually thoughtful and depressed. At first Mrs. Bagnet trusts to the combined endearments of Quebec and Malta to restore him, but finding those young ladies sensible that their existing Bluffy is not the Bluffy of their usual frolicsome acquaintance, she winks off the light infantry and leaves him to deploy at leisure on the open ground of the domestic hearth.
But he does not. He remains in close order, clouded and depressed. During the lengthy cleaning up and pattening process, when he and Mr. Bagnet are supplied with their pipes, he is no better than he was at dinner. He forgets to smoke, looks at the fire and ponders, lets his pipe out, fills the breast of Mr. Bagnet with perturbation and dismay by showing that he has no enjoyment of tobacco.
Therefore when Mrs. Bagnet at last appears, rosy from the invigorating pail, and sits down to her work, Mr. Bagnet growls, âOld girl!â and winks monitions to her to find out whatâs the matter.
âWhy, George!â says Mrs. Bagnet, quietly threading her needle. âHow low you are!â
âAm I? Not good company? Well, I am afraid I am not.â
âHe ainât at all like Bluffy, mother!â cries little Malta.
âBecause he ainât well, I think, mother,â adds Quebec.
âSure thatâs a bad sign not to be like Bluffy, too!â returns the trooper, kissing the young damsels. âBut itâs true,â with a sigh, âtrue, I am afraid. These little ones are always right!â
âGeorge,â says Mrs. Bagnet, working busily, âif I thought you cross enough to think of anything that a shrill old soldierâs wifeâ âwho could have bitten her tongue off afterwards and ought to have done it almostâ âsaid this morning, I donât know what I shouldnât say to you now.â
âMy kind soul of a darling,â returns the trooper. âNot a morsel of it.â
âBecause really and truly, George, what I said and meant to say was that I trusted Lignum to you and was sure youâd bring him through it. And you have brought him through it, noble!â
âThankee, my dear!â says George. âI am glad of your good opinion.â
In giving Mrs. Bagnetâs hand, with her work in it, a friendly shakeâ âfor she took her seat beside himâ âthe trooperâs attention is attracted to her face. After looking at it for a little while as she plies her needle, he looks to young Woolwich, sitting on his stool in the corner, and beckons that fifer to him.
âSee there, my boy,â says George, very gently smoothing the motherâs hair with his hand, âthereâs a good loving forehead for you! All bright with love of you, my boy. A little touched by the sun and the weather through following your father about and taking care of you, but as fresh and wholesome as a ripe apple on a tree.â
Mr. Bagnetâs face expresses, so far as in its wooden material lies, the highest approbation and acquiescence.
âThe time will come, my boy,â pursues the trooper, âwhen this hair of your motherâs will be grey, and this forehead all crossed and re-crossed with wrinkles, and a fine old lady sheâll be then. Take care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, âI never whitened a hair of her dear headâ âI never marked a sorrowful line in her face!â For of all the many things that you can think of when you are a man, you had better have that by you, Woolwich!â
Mr. George concludes by rising from his chair, seating the boy beside his mother in it, and saying, with something of a hurry about him, that heâll smoke his pipe in the street a bit.
XXXV Estherâs NarrativeI lay ill through several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life became like an old
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