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There was no reply. Mrs. Peckaby waited a bit, thinking they might have lagged unwittingly, and then called out again, with the like result. "It's very curious!" thought Mrs. Peckaby. She was certainly in a dilemma. Without her conductors, she knew no more how to get to New Jerusalem than she did how to get to the new moon.
Only last evening, when I was saying the quadruple might have mirac'lous parts give to it, like Balum's had in the Bible, Peckaby he jeered, and said he'd like to see Balum's or any other quadruple, set off to swim to America that he'd find the bottom afore he found the land. I wonder the kitchen ceiling don't drop down upon his head!
Between nine and ten he entered hours were early in Deerham and to Mrs. Peckaby's surprise, he was not only sober, but social. "It have turned out a pouring wet night," cried he. And the mood was so unwonted, especially after the episode of the wet grate, that Mrs. Peckaby was astonished into answering pleasantly. "Will ye have some bread and cheese?" asked she. "I don't mind if I do.
Chuff began calling out that the best remedy for white paint was turpentine. "Coma along, Peckaby, and open the door," said Jan, rising. "She'll catch an illness if she stops here in her wet clothes, and I shall have a month's work, attending on her. Come!" "Well, sir, to oblige you, I will," returned the man. "But let me ever catch her snivelling after them saints again, that's all!
"My good woman, what's took you?" cried Peckaby, in a tone of compassionating suavity. "You ain't no wife of mine. My wife's miles on her road by this time. She's off to New Jerusalem on a white donkey." A new actor came up to the scene no other than Jan Verner. Jan had been sitting up with some poor patient, and was now going home.
"I may be able to ascertain as soon as I have elbow room," replied Jan. "Suppose you give it me. Mrs. Duff may stop, but nobody else." Jan's easy words carried authority in their tone, and the company turned tail and began to file out. "Couldn't you do with me in, as well as his mother, sir?" asked Susan Peckaby. "I was here when he came in, I was; and I knowed what it was a'most afore he spoke.
He would have avoided for ever any chain of thought that led his memory to Frederick Massingbird: he could not bear to think that his young bride had been another's before she was his. Jan, happily ignorant, continued. "There's Susan Peckaby. She has got it in her head that she's going straight off to Paradise, once she is in the Salt Lake City.
And the sooner I'm on my road to it, the better." The conclusion was addressed to Peckaby himself. Peckaby had just come in from the forge, grimed and dirty. He touched his hair to Lionel, an amused expression playing on his face. In point of fact, this New Jerusalem vision was affording the utmost merriment to Peckaby and a few more husbands.
Dan Duff proceeded on his way, not very quickly. Some dim idea was penetrating his brain that the slower he walked, the better chance there might be of his meeting Rachel. "She's just a cat, is that Susan Peckaby!" decided he, with acrimony, in the intervals of his whistling. "It was her as put mother up to the thought o' sending me to-night: Rachel Frost said the things 'ud do in the morning.
"My impression is that it'll be very short," was the reply. "And it's Brother Jarrum's also. Any way, you be on the look-out always prepared. Have a best robe at hand continual, ready to clap on the instant the quadruped appears, and come right away to New Jerusalem." In the openness of her heart, Mrs. Peckaby offered refreshment to the brother. The best her house afforded: which was not much.
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