'A thousand devils! - and pardons! other horses? at this hour? No.'
     'Listen, my friend.  I  am much  hurried.  Let  us see  how fast we can
travel! The faster, the more money  there will be  to drink. Off we go then!
Quick!'
     'Halloa!  whoop!  Halloa!  Hi!'  Away,  at  a  gallop,  over the  black
landscape, scattering the dust and dirt like spray!
     The  clatter and commotion  echoed to the hurry  and discordance of the
fugitive's ideas.  Nothing clear  without, and nothing clear within. Objects
flitting  past, merging into  one another,  dimly descried,  confusedly lost
sight of, gone! Beyond the changing scraps of  fence and cottage immediately
upon the road, a lowering waste. Beyond the shifting  images that rose up in
his  mind and vanished as they  showed themselves, a black  expanse of dread
and rage  and baffled villainy. Occasionally,  a sigh of  mountain air  came
from the distant Jura, fading along the plain. Sometimes that rush which was
so furious and horrible, again came sweeping through his fancy, passed away,
and left a chill upon his blood.
     The  lamps,  gleaming  on the medley of horses' heads, jumbled with the
shadowy driver, and  the fluttering of his cloak, made a thousand indistinct
shapes, answering  to his thoughts.  Shadows of familiar people, stooping at
their desks and books, in their remembered attitudes; strange apparitions of
the man  whom  he was flying from, or  of  Edith; repetitions in the ringing
bells and rolling wheels, of words that  had been spoken; confusions of time
and place, making last night a month  ago, a month ago last night - home now
distant  beyond hope, now  instantly accessible;  commotion, discord, hurry,
darkness, and confusion in his  mind, and all around him. - Hallo! Hi!  away
at a  gallop over the black landscape; dust and dirt flying like  spray, the
smoking horses  snorting and  plunging  as if  each of them were ridden by a
demon, away in a frantic triumph on the dark road - whither?
     Again the nameless shock comes speeding up, and as it passes, the bells
ring in his ears 'whither?'  The wheels roar in his ears 'whither?' All  the
noise  and rattle shapes itself into that cry.  The lights and shadows dance
upon the horses'  heads like imps. No stopping now:  no slackening!  On,  on
Away with him upon the dark road wildly!
     He could not think to any purpose. He could not separate one subject of
reflection from  another, sufficiently to  dwell upon it, by  itself, for  a
minute  at a time. The crash of his project for  the gaining of a voluptuous
compensation for past restraint; the overthrow  of his treachery to one  who
had been true and  generous to him, but whose least proud word and  look  he
had  treasured up, at interest, for years -  for false and  subtle men  will
always  secretly  despise and dislike  the  object upon which  they fawn and
always  resent the  payment and  receipt  of  homage  that they know  to  be
worthless;  these  were  the  themes uppermost in  his  mind. A lurking rage
against the woman  who  had so  entrapped him and avenged herself was always
there; crude and misshapen schemes of retaliation  upon  her, floated in his
brain; but nothing was distinct. A hurry  and contradiction pervaded all his
thoughts. Even while he was so busy with this fevered, ineffectual thinking,
his one constant idea was,  that  he would  postpone reflection  until  some
indefinite time.
     Then,  the  old  days  before  the  second  marriage  rose  up  in  his
remembrance.  He thought how jealous he had been of the boy, how  jealous he
had been of the girl,  how artfully he had kept intruders at a distance, and
drawn a  circle round his dupe that none but himself  should cross; and then
he thought, had he done all this to be flying now, like a scared thief, from
only the poor dupe?
     He could have laid hands upon himself for his cowardice, but it was the
very shadow  of his defeat, and could not be separated from it. To  have his
confidence in his own knavery so shattered at a blow - to  be within his own
knowledge such a miserable tool - was like being paralysed. With an impotent
ferocity he raged at Edith, and hated Mr Dombey and hated himself, but still
he fled, and could do nothing else.
     Again and again he  listened for the  sound of wheels behind. Again and
again  his fancy heard it,  coming  on louder and louder. At last  he was so
persuaded  of this, that  he  cried out, 'Stop' preferring  even the loss of
ground to such uncertainty.
     The word soon brought carriage, horses, driver, all in a heap together,
across the road.
     'The  devil!' cried the  driver, looking over his shoulder, 'what's the
matter?'
     'Hark! What's that?'
     'What?'
     'That noise?'
     'Ah Heaven,  be quiet, cursed brigand!' to a  horse who shook his bells
'What noise?'
     'Behind. Is it not another  carriage  at a gallop? There! what's that?'
Miscreant  with  a  Pig's  head, stand  still!' to another  horse,  who  bit
another, who frightened  the other two, who plunged  and backed.  'There  is
nothing coming.'
     'Nothing.'
     'No, nothing but the day yonder.'
     'You are right, I think. I hear nothing now, indeed. Go on!'
     The  entangled  equipage, half  hidden in the  reeking cloud  from  the
horses, goes on  slowly at  first, for the  driver, checked unnecessarily in
his progress,  sulkily takes out a pocket-knife, and puts a new lash  to his
whip. Then 'Hallo, whoop! Hallo, hi!' Away once more, savagely.
     And now  the  stars faded, and  the day glimmered, and  standing in the
carriage, looking back, he could discern the track by which he had come, and
see  that there was no traveller within view,  on all the heavy expanse. And
soon it  was  broad  day, and  the  sun began to  shine  on  cornfields  and
vineyards; and solitary labourers, risen from little temporary huts by heaps
of  stones upon  the  road, were,  here  and  there,  at work repairing  the
highway, or  eating bread.  By and by, there were  peasants  going to  their
daily  labour,  or to  market, or  lounging  at the  doors of poor cottages,
gazing idly at  him as he  passed. And then there was a postyard, ankle-deep
in mud, with steaming dunghills and vast outhouses half ruined; and  looking
on this dainty prospect, an immense, old, shadeless, glaring, stone chateau,
with half its windows blinded, and  green damp crawling lazily over it, from
the  balustraded  terrace to  the  taper  tips of the extinguishers upon the
turrets.
     Gathered up  moodily in a  corner  of the  carriage, and only intent on
going fast - except  when he stood up, for a mile together, and looked back;
which he would do whenever there was a  piece of open country - he went  on,
still  postponing  thought  indefinitely, and still  always  tormented  with
thinking to no purpose.
     Shame, disappointment, and discomfiture gnawed at his heart; a constant
apprehension  of  being overtaken, or met  - for he was  groundlessly afraid
even of travellers, who came towards him by the way he was going - oppressed
him heavily. The same intolerable awe and dread  that  had come upon  him in
the  night, returned  unweakened in the  day. The monotonous ringing  of the
bells and tramping  of the horses; the  monotony of his anxiety, and useless
rage;  the monotonous  wheel of fear,  regret, and passion,  he kept turning
round and round; made the journey like a vision, in which  nothing was quite
real but his own torment.
     It  was  a vision of long roads,  that  stretched away  to an  horizon,
always  receding  and never gained; of  ill-paved  towns, up hill and  down,
where faces came to  dark doors and  ill-glazed windows, and  where rows  of
mudbespattered cows  and oxen  were tied  up  for sale  in the  long  narrow
streets, butting  and lowing, and receiving  blows on their blunt heads from
bludgeons that might  have beaten  them  in;  of bridges, crosses, churches,
postyards, new horses being  put in against their wills,  and  the horses of
the last  stage reeking, panting, and laying their  drooping heads  together
dolefully at  stable doors; of little cemeteries with black crosses  settled
sideways in the graves, and withered wreaths upon  them dropping away; again
of  long,  long roads, dragging  themselves  out, up hill and down,  to  the
treacherous horizon.
     Of morning,  noon, and sunset; night, and the rising  of an early moon.
Of long  roads temporarily left behind, and  a  rough pavement  reached;  of
battering and  clattering  over it,  and looking up, among house-roofs, at a
great church-tower; of getting out and eating hastily, and drinking draughts
of wine that  had no cheering influence; of coming forth afoot, among a host
of beggars - blind  men with quivering  eyelids,  led by  old  women holding
candles  to  their  faces; idiot  girls;  the lame,  the  epileptic, and the
palsied - of passing through the clamour, and  looking  from his seat at the
upturned  countenances  and  outstretched hands,  with a  hurried  dread  of
recognising  some pursuer pressing forward  - of galloping away again,  upon
the long, long road, gathered up, dull and stunned, in his corner, or rising
to see  where the moon  shone faintly on  a patch of  the same  endless road
miles away, or looking back to see who followed.
     Of never  sleeping,  but  sometimes  dozing  with  unclosed  eyes,  and
springing up with  a  start, and a reply  aloud  to an imaginary  voice.  Of
cursing himself for being there, for having fled, for having let her go, for
not  having confronted and defied him.  Of having a  deadly quarrel with the
whole world,  but chiefly  with himself. Of blighting  everything  with  his
black mood as he was carried on and away.
     It  was a  fevered  vision of things  past  and  present all confounded
together; of his life and journey blended  into one. Of  being madly hurried
somewhere, whither he must go. Of old scenes starting up among the novelties
through which  he  travelled. Of musing  and brooding over what was past and
distant, and seeming to take no notice of the actual objects he encountered,
but  with a wearisome exhausting consciousness  of being bewildered by them,
and having their images all crowded in his hot brain after they were gone.
     A vision  of change  upon change, and still  the same monotony of bells
and wheels, and  horses' feet, and no rest. Of  town and country, postyards,
horses, drivers,  hill and valley,  light and darkness, road  and  pavement,
height and hollow, wet weather and dry, and still the same monotony of bells
and wheels, and  horses' feet, and  no rest. A vision of tending on at last,
towards  the distant  capital, by busier roads, and sweeping  round,  by old
cathedrals,  and  dashing through  small towns  and  villages,  less  thinly
scattered on the  road  than  formerly,  and sitting shrouded in his corner,
with his cloak up to his face, as people passing by looked at him.
     Of rolling on and on, always postponing thought, and always racked with
thinking; of being unable to reckon up the  hours he had been upon the road,
or to  comprehend the  points of time and  place  in his journey.  Of  being
parched and giddy, and half mad. Of pressing on,  in spite of all, as  if he
could not stop, and coming into Paris, where the turbid river held its swift
course undisturbed, between two brawling streams of life and motion.
     A troubled vision, then, of bridges,  quays,  interminable  streets; of
wine-shops,  water-carriers,  great  crowds  of  people,  soldiers, coaches,
military  drums,  arcades. Of the  monotony  of bells and wheels and horses'
feet being at length lost in the universal din  and  uproar.  Of the gradual
subsidence of that noise as he passed out in another carriage by a different
barrier  from  that  by which  he  had entered. Of  the  restoration,  as he
travelled on towards the seacoast, of the monotony of bells and  wheels, and
horses' feet, and no rest.
     Of sunset once again,  and nightfall.  Of long roads again, and dead of
night, and  feeble  lights in  windows by the  roadside; and  still  the old
monotony of  bells and wheels, and horses' feet,  and  no rest. Of dawn, and
daybreak,  and  the rising of  the  sun.  Of  tolling slowly up  a hill, and
feeling on its top the fresh  sea-breeze; and  seeing the morning light upon
the edges of the distant waves. Of coming down into a harbour  when the tide
was at  its  full, and seeing  fishing-boats float on,  and  glad women  and
children  waiting  for them. Of nets and  seamen's clothes spread out to dry
upon the shore; of busy saIlors, and their voices  high among  ships'  masts
and  rigging; of the buoyancy and brightness of the water, and the universal
sparkling.
     Of receding from the coast, and looking back upon it from the deck when
it was a haze upon the water, with here and there a little opening of bright
land where the Sun struck.  Of the  swell, and flash, and murmur of the calm
sea. Of another  grey line on the ocean, on the vessel's track, fast growing
clearer and higher. Of cliffs and buildings, and a  windmill,  and a church,
becoming more and more  visible  upon it. Of steaming on at last into smooth
water, and mooring to a  pier whence groups of people  looked down, greeting
friends  on  board.  Of disembarking, passing among them  quickly,  shunning
every one; and of being at last again in England.
     He had thought, in his dream, of going down into a remote country-place
he knew, and lying  quiet there,  while he secretly informed himself of what
transpired,  and determined how to act, Still in the same stunned condition,
he  remembered  a  certain station  on the railway,  where he would  have to
branch off  to his place of destination, and where  there was a  quiet  Inn.
Here, he indistinctly resolved to tarry and rest.
     With this purpose  he  slunk into  a railway carriage as  quickly as he
could, and lying  there  wrapped in his cloak as if he were asleep, was soon
borne far away from the sea,  and deep into the inland green. Arrived at his
destination he looked out, and surveyed it carefully. He was not mistaken in
his  impression of the  place. It  was a  retired  spot, on the borders of a
little wood.  Only  one house, newly-built or altered for the purpose, stood
there,  surrounded by its neat garden; the small town that was nearest,  was
some miles away. Here he alighted  then; and going straight into the tavern,
unobserved  by anyone,  secured two  rooms upstairs  communicating with each
other, and sufficiently retired.
     His  object was  to rest, and recover the  command of himself, and  the
balance of his mind. Imbecile discomfiture and rage - so that, as  he walked
about his  room, he  ground his teeth - had complete possession  of him. His
thoughts, not  to be stopped or directed,  still wandered  where they would,
and dragged him after them. He was stupefied, and he was wearied to death.
     But, as if there were a curse upon him that he should never rest again,
his drowsy  senses  would  not  lose their  consciousness.  He had  no  more
influence with them, in this regard, than if they had been another man's. It
was not that they forced him to take note of present sounds and objects, but
that  they  would  not  be  diverted from  the  whole  hurried vision of his
journey. It was constantly before him all at once. She stood there, with her
dark disdainful eyes  again upon  him;  and he  was riding  on nevertheless,
through town and country, light and darkness, wet weather and dry, over road
and pavement,  hill  and valley, height and hollow, jaded and scared  by the
monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest.
     'What day is this?' he asked of the waiter, who was making preparations
for his dinner.
     'Day, Sir?'
     'Is it Wednesday?'
     'Wednesday, Sir? No, Sir. Thursday, Sir.'
     'I forgot. How goes the time? My watch is unwound.'
     'Wants a few minutes of five o'clock, Sir. Been travelling a long time,
Sir, perhaps?'
     'Yes'
     'By rail, Sir?'
     'Yes'
     'Very  confusing, Sir.  Not  much in  the habit of  travelling  by rail
myself, Sir, but gentlemen frequently say so.'
     'Do many gentlemen come here?
     'Pretty well, Sir,  in general.  Nobody  here at present. Rather  slack
just now, Sir. Everything is slack, Sir.'
     He made no answer; but had risen  into a  sitting posture on  the  sofa
where  he  had  been  lying, and  leaned forward  with an arm on each  knee,
staring at the ground.  He could not  master his own attention  for a minute
together. It rushed away where it would, but it never, for an  instant, lost
itself in sleep.
     He drank  a quantity  of wine after dinner, in vain. No such artificial
means would bring sleep to his eyes.  His thoughts, more incoherent, dragged
him  more  unmercifully  after  them  -  as  if a wretch, condemned  to such
expiation, were drawn at the heels of wild horses. No oblivion, and no rest.
     How  long  he  sat,  drinking   and  brooding,  and  being  dragged  in
imagination hither and thither, no one could  have  told less correctly than
he.  But he knew that he had been sitting a long time by  candle-light, when
he started up and listened, in a sudden terror.
     For now, indeed, it was no fancy. The  ground shook, the house rattled,
the fierce impetuous rush was in the air! He felt it come up, and go darting
by; and  even when  he had hurried to the window, and saw what  it  was,  he
stood, shrinking from it, as if it were not safe to look.
     A  curse upon the fiery devil,  thundering  along so  smoothly, tracked
through the distant valley by a glare of light and lurid smoke, and gone! He
felt as if he had been plucked out  of its  path,  and saved from being torn
asunder. It  made him shrink and shudder even now, when its faintest hum was
hushed,  and  when  the lines of iron  road he could trace in the moonlight,
running to a point, were as empty and as silent as a desert.
     Unable to rest, and irresistibly attracted - or he thought so - to this
road, he went out, and lounged on the brink of it, marking the way the train
had gone, by the yet smoking cinders that  were  lying in its track. After a
lounge of some half  hour in  the  direction by which it had disappeared, he
turned  and walked the other way - still keeping  to the brink of the road -
past the inn garden, and a long way  down; looking curiously at the bridges,
signals, lamps, and wondering when another Devil would come by.
     A  trembling of the ground, and quick  vibration in his ears; a distant
shriek; a  dull  light  advancing, quickly changed to  two  red eyes, and  a
fierce fire, dropping glowing coals; an irresistible bearing on of  a  great
roaring and dilating mass; a  high  wind, and a rattle  - another  come  and
gone, and he holding to a gate, as if to save himself!
     He waited for  another, and for  another. He walked back to  his former
point,  and  back again to that,  and still, through the wearisome vision of
his journey,  looked for these approaching monsters. He  loitered  about the
station, waiting until one should stay to call there; and  when one did, and
was detached for water, he stood parallel with it, watching its heavy wheels
and brazen front, and thinking what  a cruel power and might it had. Ugh! To
see the great  wheels slowly turning,  and  to think of  being run  down and
crushed!
     Disordered  with wine and  want  of rest -  that  want  which  nothing,
although he was so weary, would appease - these ideas and  objects assumed a
diseased importance in his thoughts. When  he  went back  to his room, which
was not until  near  midnight, they still haunted him,  and he sat listening
for the coming of another.
     So in his bed, whither he repaired with no hope of  sleep. He still lay
listening; and when he felt the  trembling and vibration, got up and went to
the window, to watch (as he could from its position) the dull light changing
to  the two  red eyes, and the  fierce fire  dropping glowing coals, and the
rush of the giant  as it fled past, and the  track of glare  and smoke along
the valley.  Then he would  glance in the direction by which he intended  to
depart at sunrise,  as there was no  rest for him there; and would  lie down
again, to be troubled by the  vision of his journey, and the old monotony of
bells and  wheels  and  horses' feet,  until  another came. This lasted  all
night. So far from resuming the  mastery of himself, he seemed, if possible,
to lose it more and more, as the night crept on. When  the dawn appeared, he
was still tormented with thinking,  still postponing thought until he should
be in  a  better state; the past, present, and future all floated confusedly
before him, and he had  lost  all power of looking steadily  at  any one  of
them.
     'At what time,' he asked the man who had waited  on hIm over-night, now
entering with a candle, 'do I leave here, did you say?'
     'About a quarter after four, Sir. Express comes through at four, Sir. -
It don't stop.
     He passed his  hand across his throbbing head, and looked at his watch.
Nearly half-past three.
     'Nobody  going  with  you,  Sir,  probably,'  observed  the  man.  'Two
gentlemen here, Sir, but they're waiting for the train to London.'
     'I thought  you said there was nobody here,' said Carker, turning  upon
him with the ghost of his old smile, when he was angry or suspicious.
     'Not then, sir. Two gentlemen came in the night by the short train that
stops here, Sir. Warm water, Sir?'
     'No; and take away the candle. There's day enough for me.'
     Having thrown himself upon the bed, half-dressed he  was  at the window
as the man left  the room. The cold light of morning  had succeeded to night
and there was already, in the sky, the  red suffusion  of the coming sun. He
bathed  his head and face with  water - there was no cooling influence in it
for him - hurriedly put on his clothes, paid what he owed, and went out.
     The air struck chill and comfortless as it breathed upon him. There was
a heavy  dew; and, hot  as he was, it made him shiver. After a glance at the
place  where he had walked last night, and at the  signal-lights burning  in
the morning, and  bereft of their significance, he turned to  where the  sun
was rising, and beheld it, in its glory, as it broke upon the scene.
     So awful, so transcendent in its beauty, so divinely solemn. As he cast
his  faded eyes upon it, where it rose, tranquil and serene, unmoved by  all
the wrong and wickedness on which its beams had shone since the beginning of
the world, who shall say  that some weak sense of virtue upon Earth, and its
in Heaven,  did  not manifest  itself, even  to him? If  ever he  remembered
sister or  brother with a touch of  tenderness and remorse, who shall say it
was not then?
     He needed some such touch then. Death was  on  him. He was marked off -
the living world, and going down into his grave.
     He paid the  money for his journey to the country-place he  had thought
of;  and was  walking to and  fro, alone,  looking along the lines  of iron,
across the  valley in one direction, and towards  a dark bridge near at hand
in the other;  when, turning in his walk, where it was bounded by one end of
the wooden stage on which he paced up and down, he  saw the man from whom he
had fled, emerging from the door by which he himself had entered
     And their eyes met.
     In the quick unsteadiness of the surprise, he staggered, and slipped on
to the road below him. But recovering his feet  immediately, he stepped back
a pace or two  upon  that  road, to interpose some wider space between them,
and looked at his pursuer, breathing short and quick.
     He heard  a  shout - another - saw the  face change from its vindictive
passion to a faint sickness  and terror - felt the earth tremble - knew in a
moment that the rush was  come - uttered  a shriek - looked  round - saw the
red  eyes, bleared and  dim,  in the  daylight, close upon him  - was beaten
down, caught  up, and whirled away  upon a jagged mill, that spun  him round
and  round, and  struck him limb from limb, and licked his stream of life up
with its fiery heat, and cast his mutilated fragments in the air.
     When the traveller, who had been recognised, recovered from a swoon, he
saw  them  bringing  from  a  distance something covered, that lay heavy and
still,  upon a board, between four men,  and saw that others drove some dogs
away that sniffed  upon the road, and  soaked his blood up, with  a train of
ashes.

        CHAPTER 56.
     Several People delighted, and the Game Chicken disgusted

     The Midshipman  was all alive. Mr Toots  and Susan had arrived at last.
Susan had run upstairs like a young woman bereft of her senses, and Mr Toots
and the Chicken had gone into the Parlour.
     'Oh my  own pretty darling sweet Miss Floy!'  cried the Nipper, running
into  Florence's room, 'to  think that it  should  come to this and I should
find you here  my own dear dove  with nobody to wait upon you and no home to
call your own but  never never will I go away  again Miss Floy for though  I
may not gather moss I'm not a rolling  stone nor is my heart a stone or else
it wouldn't bust as it is busting now oh dear oh dear!'
     Pouring out these words,  without the faintest indication of a stop, of
any sort, Miss Nipper, on her knees beside her mistress, hugged her close.
     'Oh love!' cried Susan, 'I know all that's past I know it all my tender
pet and I'm a choking give me air!'
     'Susan,  dear good Susan!' said Florence. 'Oh bless her! I that was her
little maid when  she  was  a little child! and is she  really, really truly
going to be married?'exclaimed Susan, in a burst of pain and pleasure, pride
and grief, and Heaven knows how many other conflicting feelings.
     'Who told you so?' said Florence.
     'Oh  gracious  me!  that innocentest  creetur  Toots,'  returned  Susan
hysterically. 'I knew he must be right my dear, because he took  on so. He's
the devotedest and innocentest infant!  And is my darling,'  pursued  Susan,
with another close embrace and burst  of  tears, 'really really going  to be
married!'
     The mixture of compassion, pleasure, tenderness, protection, and regret
with which the Nipper constantly recurred to this subject, and at every such
once,  raised her head to look in the young face and kiss it,  and then laid
her head again upon her mistress's shoulder, caressing  her and sobbing, was
as womanly and good a thing, in its way, as ever was seen in the world.
     'There,  there!' said  the soothing voice of  Florence  presently. 'Now
you're quite yourself, dear Susan!'
     Miss  Nipper,  sitting down  upon the floor, at  her  mistress's  feet,
laughing and sobbing, holding her pocket-handkerchief to  her  eyes with one
hand, and patting Diogenes  with the other as  he licked her face, confessed
to being more composed, and laughed and cried a little more in proof of it.
     'I-I-I never did see such a creetur as that Toots,' said Susan, 'in all
my born days never!'
     'So kind,' suggested Florence.
     'And so comic!' Susan sobbed. 'The way  he's been going  on inside with
me with that disrespectable Chicken on the box!'
     'About what, Susan?' inquired Florence, timidly.
     'Oh about Lieutenant Walters,  and Captain Gills, and you my dear  Miss
Floy, and the silent tomb,' said Susan.
     'The silent tomb!' repeated Florence.
     'He says,' here  Susan  burst  into a violent  hysterical laugh,  'that
he'll go down into it now immediately and quite comfortable, but bless  your
heart my  dear Miss Floy he  won't, he's a great  deal  too  happy in seeing
other people happy for that, he may not be a Solomon,' pursued  the  Nipper,
with her usual  volubility, 'nor do I say  he  is but this I do  say  a less
selfish human  creature human nature never  knew!' Miss  Nipper  being still
hysterical,  laughed immoderately after making this  energetic  declaration,
and then informed Florence that he was waiting below to see her; which would
be a rich repayment for the trouble he had had in his late expedition.
     Florence entreated Susan to beg of Mr Toots as a favour  that she might
have the pleasure  of thanking  him for  his kindness; and  Susan, in  a few
moments,  produced that young  gentleman, still  very  much  dishevelled  in
appearance, and stammering exceedingly.
     'Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots. 'To be again permitted to  - to -  gaze -
at  least,  not to gaze, but - I don't exactly know what I was going to say,
but it's of no consequence.
     'I have to  thank you so often,' returned Florence, giving him both her
hands, with  all her innocent gratitude beaming in her face, 'that I have no
words left, and don't know how to do it.'
     'Miss Dombey,' said Mr  Toots, in  an awful voice, 'if  it was possible
that you could, consistently with your angelic nature, Curse me, you would -
if I may  be allowed  to say so  - floor me infinitely less, than  by  these
undeserved expressions of kindness Their effect upon me - is - but,' said Mr
Toots, abruptly, 'this is a digression, and of no consequence at all.'
     As there seemed to be no means of replying to this, but by thanking him
again, Florence thanked him again.
     'I could wish,'  said Mr Toots, 'to take this opportunity, Miss Dombey,
if I might, of entering into  a word of explanation. I  should  have had the
pleasure  of - of  returning with  Susan at an earlier period;  but, in  the
first place, we didn't know the name  of the relation to whose house she had
gone, and, in  the  second, as she had  left  that relation's  and  gone  to
another at a distance, I think that scarcely anything  short of the sagacity
of the Chicken, would have found her out in the time.'
     Florence was sure of it.
     'This, however,' said Mr Toots, 'is not the point. The company of Susan
has been,  I assure you, Miss Dombey,  a consolation and satisfaction to me,
in  my state of mind, more easily conceived than described. The  journey has
been its own reward. That, however,  still, is not the point. Miss Dombey, I
have before observed that I know I am not what is considered a quick person.
I  am  perfectly  aware of that.  I  don't  think  anybody  could  be better
acquainted with his own - if it  was not  too strong an expression, I should
say with the  thickness  of his own head - than  myself. But, Miss Dombey, I
do,  notwithstanding, perceive the state of -  of  things -  with Lieutenant
Walters. Whatever agony that state of things may have caused me (which is of
no  consequence at all), I  am bound  to say, that Lieutenant  Walters  is a
person who appears  to be worthy of the blessing that has fallen on his - on
his  brow. May he  wear it long, and appreciate it, as a very different, and
very  unworthy individual, that it is of no consequence to  name, would have
done! That, however, still, is not the point. Miss Dombey, Captain  Gills is
a friend of mine; and during the interval that is now elapsing, I believe it
would afford Captain Gills pleasure  to see me occasionally coming backwards
and  forwards here. It  would afford me  pleasure so to  come. But  I cannot
forget that I once committed myself, fatally, at the corner of the Square at
Brighton; and if my presence  will be, in  the  least  degree, unpleasant to
you, I only ask  you  to name it  to  me now,  and  assure you that I  shall
perfectly  understand you. I shall not consider it at all unkind,  and shall
only be too delighted and happy to be honoured with your confidence.'
     'Mr  Toots,' returned Florence, 'if you, who are  so  old  and  true  a
friend  of mine,  were to stay  away from this house now, you would make  me
very unhappy. It can  never, never, give me any feeling but  pleasure to see
you.
     'Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, taking out his pocket-handkerchief, 'if I
shed  a tear, it is  a tear of joy. It is of no  consequence, and I am  very
much obliged  to you.  I  may be  allowed to remark, after  what you have so
kindly said, that it is not my intention to neglect my person any longer.'
     Florence received this  intimation  with  the  prettiest expression  of
perplexity possible.
     'I  mean,'  said Mr Toots,  'that  I  shall consider it my  duty  as  a
fellow-creature generally, until I  am  claimed by the silent tomb,  to make
the best of myself, and to - to  have my boots as brightly polished, as - as
-circumstances  will  admit of. This is  the last  time, Miss  Dombey, of my
intruding any observation of a private and personal nature. I thank you very
much indeed.  if I am not, in a general way, as sensible as my friends could
wish  me  to be, or as I  could  wish myself,  I really am, upon my word and
honour, particularly sensible of what is considerate and kind. I feel,' said
Mr Toots, in an impassioned tone, 'as if I could express my feelings, at the
present moment, in a most  remarkable  manner,  if - if - I could only get a
start.'
     Appearing not to  get it, after waiting a minute  or  two  to see if it
would come, Mr Toots took a hasty leave, and went below to seek the Captain,
whom he found in the shop.
     'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots,  'what is now to take place between us,
takes place under the sacred  seal of confidence.  It is the sequel, Captain
Gills, of what has taken place between myself and Miss Dombey, upstairs.'
     'Alow and aloft, eh, my lad?' murmured the Captain.
     'Exactly  so,  Captain  Gills,'  said  Mr  Toots,  whose   fervour   of
acquiescence was greatly heightened by his entire ignorance of the Captain's
meaning. 'Miss Dombey, I  believe, Captain Gills, is to be shortly united to
Lieutenant Walters?'
     'Why, ay, my lad.  We're  all shipmets  here, - Wal'r  and sweet- heart
will  be jined together in the house of bondage, as soon as  the askings  is
over,' whispered Captain Cuttle, in his ear.
     'The askings, Captain Gills!' repeated Mr Toots.
     'In the church, down yonder,' said the Captain, pointing his thumb over
his shoulder.
     'Oh! Yes!' returned Mr Toots.
     'And then,'  said the Captain, in his  hoarse whisper,  and  tapping Mr
Toots on  the chest with the back of his  hand,  and falling from him with a
look  of infinite admiration,  'what follers? That there pretty  creetur, as
delicately  brought up as a foreign  bird, goes away  upon the  roaring main
with Wal'r on a woyage to China!'
     'Lord, Captain Gills!' said Mr Toots.
     'Ay!' nodded the Captain. 'The ship as took him up, when he was wrecked
in the  hurricane  that had  drove  her clean out of her course, was a China
trader, and Wal'r made the woyage, and got into favour, aboard and  ashore -
being as smart and good a lad as ever stepped - and so, the supercargo dying
at  Canton,  he  got made  (having  acted  as clerk  afore),  and  now  he's
supercargo aboard another ship, same owners.  And so, you see,' repeated the
Captain,  thoughtfully, 'the pretty creetur goes away  upon the roaring main
with Wal'r, on a woyage to China.'
     Mr Toots and Captain Cuttle heaved a sigh in concert. 'What then?' said
the Captain.  'She loves  him true. He loves her  true.  Them as should have
loved and tended of her, treated of her like the beasts as perish. When she,
cast out of home, come here to me, and dropped upon them planks, her wownded
heart was broke. I know it. I, Ed'ard Cuttle, see it. There's nowt but true,
kind, steady love, as  can  ever piece it up again. If so  be I didn't  know
that, and  didn't know as Wal'r was her true love, brother, and she his, I'd
have these here blue arms and legs chopped off, afore  I'd let her go. But I
know it, and what then! Why, then, I say, Heaven go with 'em both, and so it
will! Amen!'
     'Captain Gills,' said  Mr Toots, 'let  me  have the pleasure of shaking
hands You've a way of saying  things, that gives me an agreeable warmth, all
up  my  back. I say Amen.  You  are aware, Captain  Gills, that I, too, have
adored Miss Dombey.'
     'Cheer up!' said the Captain,  laying  his hand on Mr Toots's shoulder.
'Stand by, boy!'
     'It is  my intention,  Captain Gills,' returned  the spirited Mr Toots,
'to  cheer up. Also to  standby,  as much as possible. When the  silent tomb
shall yawn, Captain Gills, I shall be ready for burial; not before.  But not
being certain, just at present, of my power over myself,  what I wish to say
to you, and  what I shall take it as a particular favour if you will mention
to Lieutenant Walters, is as follows.'
     'Is as follers,' echoed the Captain. 'Steady!'
     'Miss Dombey  being  so  inexpressably  kind,' continued Mr  Toots with
watery eyes, 'as to say that my  presence is  the reverse of disagreeable to
her,  and  you and  everybody  here  being no  less forbearing and  tolerant
towards one who  -  who certainly,' said Mr Toots, with momentary dejection,
'would  appear  to  have been born by mistake,  I shall  come  backwards and
forwards  of an evening, during the short time we can all  be  together. But
what  I  ask is this. If, at any moment, I  find  that  I cannot endure  the
contemplation  of Lieutenant Walters's bliss, and should  rush out, I  hope,
Captain Gills,  that you and he  will both consider it as  my misfortune and
not my  fault,  or the want of inward conflict. That you'll feel convinced I
bear no  malice  to any  living  creature-least of all to Lieutenant Walters
himself  - and that you'll casually remark  that I have gone out for a walk,
or probably to see what o'clock it is by the  Royal Exchange. Captain Gills,
if you  could enter into this arrangement,  and  could answer for Lieutenant
Walters, it would be a relief to my feelings  that I should  think cheap  at
the sacrifice of a considerable portion of my property.'
     'My lad,' returned the  Captain, 'say no more. There ain't a colour you
can run up, as won't be made out, and answered to, by Wal'r and self.'
     'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'my mind is greatly relieved. I wish to
preserve the good opinion of  all here. I  - I - mean well, upon  my honour,
however badly I  may show it. You know,' said Mr Toots, 'it's as exactly  as
Burgess and Co.  wished to oblige a customer  with a most extraordinary pair
of trousers, and could not cut out what they had in their minds.'
     With this apposite  illustration, of which he seemed a little Proud, Mr
Toots gave Captain Cuttle his blessing and departed.
     The honest Captain, with his  Heart's Delight in  the  house, and Susan
tending her, was a beaming  and a  happy  man. As  the days flew by, he grew
more beaming  and  more  happy, every day. After some conferences with Susan
(for  whose wisdom  the Captain  had  a profound respect, and whose  valiant
precipitation  of herself  on  Mrs  MacStinger he  could  never  forget), he
proposed to Florence that the daughter of  the elderly  lady who usually sat
under the blue umbrella in Leadenhall Market, should, for prudential reasons
and considerations of privacy, be superseded  in  the temporary discharge of
the household duties, by someone who was  not  unknown to them, and  in whom
they could safely confide. Susan, being present,  then named, in furtherance
of a suggestion she  had previously offered to  the Captain,  Mrs  Richards.
Florence brightened at the name. And Susan, setting off that very  afternoon
to the Toodle  domicile, to sound Mrs Richards, returned in triumph the same
evening, accompanied by the identical  rosy-cheeked apple-faced Polly, whose
demonstrations, when  brought  into  Florence's presence,  were  hardly less
affectionate than those of Susan Nipper herself.
     This  piece of generalship accomplished; from which the Captain derived
uncommon satisfaction, as  he did,  indeed, from everything  else  that  was
done,  whatever it happened to be;  Florence had next  to prepare  Susan for
their  approaching separation. This was  a much more difficult task, as Miss
Nipper was  of a resolute disposition, and  had fully made up her mind  that
she had come back never to be parted from her old mistress any more.
     'As to wages dear Miss Floy,' she said, 'you wouldn't hint and wrong me
so as think of naming them, for I've put money by and  wouldn't sell my love
and duty at a  time  like this even if the Savings' Banks and  me were total
strangers or  the Banks were broke to pieces, but you've never been  without
me darling  from the time your  poor dear Ma was  took away, and  though I'm
nothing to  be  boasted of you're  used to  me  and  oh my own dear mistress
through  so  many years  don't  think of  going anywhere without me,  for it
mustn't and can't be!'
     'Dear Susan, I am going on a long, long voyage.'
     'Well Miss Floy, and what of that?  the more you'll want me. Lengths of
voyages  ain't  an objec