"Johanna, attend to me," said Mrs. Oakley, upon the morning after these events.
"Well, mother?"
"Your father is an idiot."
"Mother, mother! I dissent from the opinion, and if it were true, it comes with the worst possible grace from you, but I am sick at heart. I pray you to spare me reproaches or angry words, mother."
"Haity taity, one must not speak next, I suppose. Some people fancy that other people know nothing, but there is such a thing as overhearing what some people say to other people."
Johanna had not the most remote notion of what her mother meant, but Mrs. Oakley's tongue was like many pieces of machinery, that when once set in motion are not without considerable trouble brought to a standstill again, so on she went.
"Of course. I now know quite well why the godly man who would have made you a chosen vessel was refused. It was all owing to that scamp, Mark Ingestrie."
"Mother!"
"Marry come up! you need not look at me in such a way. We don't all of us see with the same eyes. A scamp he is, and a scamp he will be."
"Mother, he whom you so name is with his God. Mention him no more. The wild ocean rolls over his body--his soul is in heaven. Speak not irreverently of one whose sole crime was that he loved me. Oh, mother, mother, you--"
Johanna could say no more, she burst into tears.
"Well," said Mrs. Oakley, "if he is dead, pray what hinders you from listening to the chosen vessel, I should like to know?"
"Do not. Oh do not, mother, say any more to me--I cannot, dare not trust myself to speak to you upon such a subject."
"What is this?" said Mr. Oakley, stepping into the room. "Johanna in tears! What has happened?"
"Father--dear father!"
"And Mr. O.," cried Mrs. Oakley, "what business is it of yours, I should like to know? Be so good, sir, as to attend to your spectacles, and such like rubbish, and not to interfere with my daughter."
"Dear me!--ain't she my daughter likewise?"
"Oh yes, Mr. O.! Go on with your base, vile, wretched, contemptible, unmanly insinuations. Do go on, pray--I like it. Oh, you odious wretch! You spectacle-making monster!"
"Do not," cried Johanna, who saw the heightened colour of her father's cheek. "Oh, do not let me be the unhappy cause of any quarrelling. Father! father!"
"Hush, my dear, don't you say another word. Cousin Ben is coming to take a little bit of lunch with us to-day."
"I know it," cried Mrs. Oakley, clapping her hands together with a vengeance that made Oakley jump again. "I know it. Oh, you wretch. You couldn't have put on such airs if your bully had not been coming; I thought the last time he came here was enough for him. Aye, and for you too, Mr. O."
"It was nearly too much," said the spectacle-maker, shaking his head.
"Tow row, row, row, row!" cried Big Ben, popping his head into the parlour, "what do you all bring it in now? Wilful murder with the chill off or what? Ah, mother Oakley, what's the price of vinegar now, wholesale--pluck does it. Here you is. Ha, ha! Aint we a united family. Couldn't stay away from you, Mother Oakley, no more nor I could from that ere laughing hyena we has in the Tower."
"Eugh!--wretch!"
"Sit down, Ben," said Mr. Oakley. "I am glad to see you, and I am quite sure Johanna is."
"Oh, yes, yes."
"That's it," said Ben. "It's on Johanna's account I came. Now, little one, just tell me--"
Johanna had just time to place her finger upon her lips, unobserved by any one, and shake her head at Ben.
"Ah--hem! How are you, eh?" he said, turning the conversation. "Come, Mother O., stir your old stumps and be alive, will you? I have come to lunch with your lord and master, so bustle--bustle."
Mrs. Oakley rose, and placing her hands upon her hips, she looked at Ben, as she said--
"You great, horrid, man-mountain of a wretch. I only wonder you ain't afraid, after the proper punishment you had on the occasion of your last visit, to show your horrid face here again?"
"You deludes to the physicking, I suppose, mum. Lor bless you, it did us no end of good; but, howsomedever, we provide agin wice in animals when we knows on it aforehand, do you see. Oh, there you is."
A boy howled out from the shop--"Did a gentleman order two gallons of half-and-half here, please?"
"All's right," said Ben. "Now, Mother O., the only thing I'll trouble you for, is a knife and fork. As for the rest of the combustibles, here they is."
Ben took from one capacious pocket a huge parcel, containing about six pounds of boiled beef, and from the other he took as much ham.
"Hold hard!" he cried to the boy who brought the beer. "Take this half-crown, my lad, and get three quartern loaves."
"But, Ben," said old Mr. Oakley, "I really had no intention, when I asked you to come to lunch this morning, of making you provide it yourself. We have, or we ought to have, plenty of everything in the house."
"Old birds," said Ben, "isn't to be caught twice. A fellow, arter he has burnt his fingers, is afeard o' playing with the fire. No, Mrs. O., you gave us a benefit last time, and I ain't a-going to try my luck again. All's right--pitch into the grub. How is the chosen vessel, Mother O.? All right, eh?"
Mrs. Oakley waited until Ben had made an immense sandwich of ham and beef; and then in an instant, before he was aware of what she was about, she caught it up, and slapped it in his face with a vengeance that was quite staggering.
"Easy does it," said Ben.
"Take that, you great, fat elephant."
"Go it--go it."
Mrs. Oakley bounced out of the room. Johanna looked her sorrow; and Mr. Oakley rose from his chair, but Ben made him sit down again, saying--
"Easy does it--easy does it. Never mind her, cousin Oakley. She must have her way sometimes. Let her kick and be off. There's no harm done--not a bit. Lord bless you. I'm used to all sorts of cantankerous animals."
Mr. Oakley shook his head.
"Forget it, father," said Johanna.
"I only wish, my dear, I could forget many things; and yet there are so many others, that I want to remember, mixed up with them, that I don't know how I should manage to separate them one from the other."
"You couldn't do it," said Ben. "Here's luck in a bag, and shake it out as you want it."
This sentiment was uttered while Ben's head was deep in the recesses of the two-gallon can of beer, so that it had a peculiar solemn and sonorous effect with it. After drinking about a quart, Ben withdrew the can, and drew a long breath.
"Has he brought yours?" he said.
"What?--who?"
"Why the other two gallons for you and Johanna."
"Good gracious, Ben, you don't mean that?"
"Don't I, though. Oh, here he is. All's right. Now, my lad, get the little pint jug, with the silver top to it, and if we don't mull a drop, I'm a sinner. Now, you'll see if Mrs. O. don't come round quite handsome."
Ben, by the aid of some sugar, succeeded in making a very palatable drink, and just as the steam began to salute the nostrils of old Oakley and himself, the door of the parlour was opened, and who should heedlessly step into the room but the pious Mr. Lupin himself. Mr. Lupin was so transfixed by finding Ben there, that for a moment or two he could not gather strength to retreat; and during that brief period, Ben had shifted his chair, until he got quite behind the reverend gentleman, who, when he did step back, in consequence fell into Ben's lap.
"What do yer mean?" cried Ben, in a voice of thunder.
"Oh, murder--murder! Have mercy upon me! I only looked in as I was passing, to ask how all the family was."
"Yes," said Mr. Oakley, "and because you, no doubt, heard I was going to Tottenham, to Judge Merivale's, to fit him with a pair of spectacles."
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Let me go, sir."
"I don't want you," said Ben; "but as you are here, let's make an end of all differences, and have a pint together."
"A pint?"
"Yes, to be sure. By the look of your nose, I should say it knows pretty well what a pint is."
"Oh, dear--man is sinful alway. I bear no malice, and if the truly right-minded and pious Mrs. Oakley was only here, we might drink down all differences, Mr. a--a--"
"Ben."
"Mr. Ben. Thank you, sir."
"Oh, Mr. Lupin," cried Mrs. Oakley, at this moment bursting into the parlour. "Is it possible that you can give your mind in this way to the Philistines? Is not this backsliding?"
"Let us hope for the best, sister," said Mr. Lupin, with an evangelical twang. "Let us hope for the best. If people will drink, they had much better drink with the saints, who may take some favourable opportunity of converting them, than with sinners."
"Sit down, mum," said Ben, "and let's bury all animosities in the can. Easy does it. Don't you go, Johanna."
"Yes, but, Ben, I--"
"Now don't."
Ben saw by the direction of Johanna's eyes, that the Rev. gentleman was resting one of his red raw-looking hands upon her arm, and, situated as she was, she could not get out of his way but by rising.
"Sit still," said Ben. "Easy does it."
Lifting up the can, then, he pretended to drink out of it, and then brought it with such a thundering crack upon Mr. Lupin's head, that it quite staggered him.
"Paws off," said Ben. "Just attend to that ere gentle hint, old friend."
Mr. Lupin sat down with a groan.
"Now, mum," said Ben, who all the while had held fast the stone mug of mulled porter. "Now, mum, here's some hot, that don't suit me so well as the cold, perhaps you and Mr. Lupin will take that, while I cuts a few more sandwiches."
He placed the jug before Mr. Lupin, who thereupon left off rubbing his head, and said--
"I'm sure it would be highly unchristian of me to bear any malice, so, with the Lord's leave, I will even partake of some of this worldly liquor, called mulled porter."
Now while Mr. Lupin drank the savoury stream from the jug, it assailed the senses of Mrs. Oakley, and when the porter was placed before her, she raised it to her lips, saying--
"If folks are civil to me, I'm civil to them, only I don't like my godly friends to be ill-treated. I'm sure nobody knows what I have gone through for my family, and nobody thinks what a mother and wife I have been. What would have become of Oakley if it hadn't been for me, is a question I often ask myself in the middle of the night?"
"She's a wonderful woman," sighed Lupin.
"Oh, uncommon," said Ben.
"Let me go," whispered Johanna to Ben.
"No, no! Wait for the fun."
"What fun?"
"Oh, you'll see. You don't know what a trouble it has cost me, to be sure. Only wait a bit, there's a duck, do."
Johanna did not like to say she would not, so she shrunk back in her chair in no small curiosity, to know what was about to happen. Mrs. Oakley lifted the jug to her lips and drunk deep. The aroma of the liquor must have been peculiarly grateful to the palate of Mrs. Oakley, for she certainly kept the jug at her mouth for a length of time, that, to judge by the look of impatience upon the countenance of Mr. Lupin, was something outrageous.
"Sister!" he said. "Mind your breath."
Down came the jug, and Mrs. Oakley, when she could draw breath, gasped--
"Very good indeed. A dash of allspice would make it delicious."
"Oh, sister," cried Lupin as he grasped the jug, that was gently pushed towards him by Ben after Mrs. Oakley had set it down. "Oh, sister, don't give your mind to carnal things, I beg of you. Why, she's drank it all."
Mr. Lupin peered into the jug. He shut the right eye and looked in with the left, and then he shut the left eye and looked in with the right, and then he moved the jug about until the silver lid came down with a clap, that nearly snapped his nose off.
"What's the matter?" said Ben.
"I--I--don't exactly--" Mr. Lupin raised the lid again and again, and peered into the jug in something of the fashion which popular belief supposes a crow to look into a marrow bone.
At length he turned the jug upside down, and struck the bottom of it with his pious knuckles. A huge toad fell sprawling upon the table. Mrs. Oakley gave a shriek, and rushed into the yard. Mr. Lupin gave a groan, and flew into the street, and the party in the parlour could hear them in a state of horrible sickness.
"Easy does it," said Ben, "it's only a piece of wood shaped like a toad and painted, that's all. Now I'm easy. I owed 'em one."
