But even this brought no smile to the face of his little wife. The cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room was not so cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it.
“So these are all the parcels, are they, John?” she asked, after a little while; “so these are all the parcels, John?”
“That’s all,” said John. “Why--no--I--I declare--I’ve clean forgotten the old gentleman!”
“In the cart,” said John. “He was asleep, down in the straw, the last time I saw him. I’ve very nearly remembered him twice since I came in; but he went out of my head again.”
John hastily rose and lighting a candle went out the door. “Halloa! Yahip there! Rouse up! That’s my hearty!” he called as he made his way to the wagon-shed.
Soon the Stranger stood, bareheaded and motionless in the middle of the room. He had long white hair, good features, singularly bold and well-defined for an old man. His eyes were dark and bright and smiling. He saluted the carrier’s wife by gravely bowing.
His clothes were very quaint and old-fashioned, a long, long way behind the time. Their color was brown, all over. In his hand he carried a great brown club or walking-stick. He struck this upon the floor and it fell open and became a chair on which he sat down quite composedly.
“There!” said the carrier, turning to his wife. “That’s the way I found him, sitting by the roadside! Upright as a milestone, and almost as deaf as one!”
“In the open air,” replied the carrier, “just at dusk. ‘Will you take me along?’ he asked, and gave me eighteen pence. Then he got into the cart. And here he is.”
[Illustration: “IF YOU PLEASE, I WAS TO BE LEFT TILL CALLED FOR”]
“If you please, I was to be left till called for,” said the Stranger, mildly. “Don’t mind me.”
With that he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large pockets, and a book from another, and leisurely began to read. Boxer, the carrier’s big dog, came sniffing at his legs, but he took no more notice of Boxer than if he had been a lamb.
The carrier and his wife glanced at each other in perplexity. The Stranger raised his head; and looking from Dot toward John, said:
“Indeed?” observed the Stranger. “Surely--very young!”
Dot took the baby from the couch where Tilly Slowboy had laid him. The Stranger quietly resumed his reading; but before he had read two lines, he interrupted his reading to say to John: