error by which Trottle was profiting. So far, so good. But
what was the messenger's errand? and what chance was there that he might
not come up and knock at the door himself, from minute to minute, on that
very evening?
While Trottle was turning over this last consideration in his mind, he
heard the shuffling footsteps come up the stairs again, with a flash of
candle-light going before them. He waited for the woman's coming in with
some little anxiety; for the twilight had been too dim on his getting
into the house to allow him to see either her face or the man's face at
all clearly.
The woman came in first, with the man she called Benjamin at her heels,
and set the candle on the mantel-piece. Trottle takes leave to describe
her as an offensively-cheerful old woman, awfully lean and wiry, and
sharp all over, at eyes, nose, and chin—devilishly brisk, smiling, and
restless, with a dirty false front and a dirty black cap, and short
fidgetty arms, and long hooked finger-nails—an unnaturally lusty old
woman, who walked with a spring in her wicked old feet, and spoke with a
smirk on her wicked old face—the sort of old woman (as Trottle thinks)
who ought to have lived in the dark ages, and been ducked in a
horse-pond, instead of flourishing in the nineteenth century, and taking
charge of a Christian house.
"You'll please to excuse my son, Benjamin, won't you, sir?" says this
witch without a broomstick, pointing to the man behind her, propped
against the bare wall of the dining-room, exactly as he had been propped
against the bare wall of the passage. "He's got his inside dreadful bad
again, has my son Benjamin. And he won't go to bed, and he will follow
me about the house, up-stairs and downstairs, and in my lady's chamber,
as the song says, you know. It's his indisgestion, poor dear, that sours
his temper and makes him so agravating—and indisgestion is a wearing
thing to the best of us, ain't it, sir?"
"Ain't it, sir?" chimes in agravating Benjamin, winking at the candle-
light like an owl at the sunshine.
Trottle examined the man curiously, while his horrid old mother was
speaking of him. He found "My son Benjamin" to be little and lean, and
buttoned-up slovenly in a frowsy old great-coat that fell down to his
ragged carpet-slippers. His eyes were very watery, his cheeks very pale,
and his lips very red. His breathing was so uncommonly loud, that it
sounded almost like a snore. His head rolled helplessly in the monstrous
big collar of his great-coat; and his limp, lazy hands pottered about the
wall on either side of him, as if they were groping for a imaginary
bottle. In plain English, the complaint of "My son Benjamin" was
drunkenness, of the stupid, pig-headed, sottish kind. Drawing this
conclusion easily enough, after a moment's observation of the man,
Trottle found himself, nevertheless, keeping his eyes fixed much longer
than was necessary on the ugly drunken face rolling about in the
monstrous big coat collar, and looking at it with a curiosity that he
could hardly account for at first. Was there something familiar to him
in the man's features? He turned away from them for an instant, and then
turned back to him again. After that second look, the notion forced
itself into his mind, that he had certainly seen a face somewhere, of
which that sot's face appeared like a kind of slovenly copy. "Where?"
thinks he to himself, "where did I last see the man whom this agravating
Benjamin, here, so very strongly reminds me of?"
It was no time, just then—with the cheerful old woman's eye searching
him all over, and the cheerful old woman's tongue talking at him,
nineteen to the dozen—for Trottle to be ransacking his memory for small
matters that had got into wrong corners of it. He put by in his mind
that very curious circumstance respecting Benjamin's face, to be taken up
again when a fit opportunity offered itself; and kept his wits about him
in prime order for present necessities.
"You wouldn't like to go down into
what was the messenger's errand? and what chance was there that he might
not come up and knock at the door himself, from minute to minute, on that
very evening?
While Trottle was turning over this last consideration in his mind, he
heard the shuffling footsteps come up the stairs again, with a flash of
candle-light going before them. He waited for the woman's coming in with
some little anxiety; for the twilight had been too dim on his getting
into the house to allow him to see either her face or the man's face at
all clearly.
The woman came in first, with the man she called Benjamin at her heels,
and set the candle on the mantel-piece. Trottle takes leave to describe
her as an offensively-cheerful old woman, awfully lean and wiry, and
sharp all over, at eyes, nose, and chin—devilishly brisk, smiling, and
restless, with a dirty false front and a dirty black cap, and short
fidgetty arms, and long hooked finger-nails—an unnaturally lusty old
woman, who walked with a spring in her wicked old feet, and spoke with a
smirk on her wicked old face—the sort of old woman (as Trottle thinks)
who ought to have lived in the dark ages, and been ducked in a
horse-pond, instead of flourishing in the nineteenth century, and taking
charge of a Christian house.
"You'll please to excuse my son, Benjamin, won't you, sir?" says this
witch without a broomstick, pointing to the man behind her, propped
against the bare wall of the dining-room, exactly as he had been propped
against the bare wall of the passage. "He's got his inside dreadful bad
again, has my son Benjamin. And he won't go to bed, and he will follow
me about the house, up-stairs and downstairs, and in my lady's chamber,
as the song says, you know. It's his indisgestion, poor dear, that sours
his temper and makes him so agravating—and indisgestion is a wearing
thing to the best of us, ain't it, sir?"
"Ain't it, sir?" chimes in agravating Benjamin, winking at the candle-
light like an owl at the sunshine.
Trottle examined the man curiously, while his horrid old mother was
speaking of him. He found "My son Benjamin" to be little and lean, and
buttoned-up slovenly in a frowsy old great-coat that fell down to his
ragged carpet-slippers. His eyes were very watery, his cheeks very pale,
and his lips very red. His breathing was so uncommonly loud, that it
sounded almost like a snore. His head rolled helplessly in the monstrous
big collar of his great-coat; and his limp, lazy hands pottered about the
wall on either side of him, as if they were groping for a imaginary
bottle. In plain English, the complaint of "My son Benjamin" was
drunkenness, of the stupid, pig-headed, sottish kind. Drawing this
conclusion easily enough, after a moment's observation of the man,
Trottle found himself, nevertheless, keeping his eyes fixed much longer
than was necessary on the ugly drunken face rolling about in the
monstrous big coat collar, and looking at it with a curiosity that he
could hardly account for at first. Was there something familiar to him
in the man's features? He turned away from them for an instant, and then
turned back to him again. After that second look, the notion forced
itself into his mind, that he had certainly seen a face somewhere, of
which that sot's face appeared like a kind of slovenly copy. "Where?"
thinks he to himself, "where did I last see the man whom this agravating
Benjamin, here, so very strongly reminds me of?"
It was no time, just then—with the cheerful old woman's eye searching
him all over, and the cheerful old woman's tongue talking at him,
nineteen to the dozen—for Trottle to be ransacking his memory for small
matters that had got into wrong corners of it. He put by in his mind
that very curious circumstance respecting Benjamin's face, to be taken up
again when a fit opportunity offered itself; and kept his wits about him
in prime order for present necessities.
"You wouldn't like to go down into
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