“Don’t be warm, Jarber. In mentioning Trottle, I have naturally relied
on my Right-Hand, who would take any trouble to gratify even a whim of
his old mistress’s. But, if you can find out anything to help to unravel
the mystery of this House to Let, I shall be fully as much obliged to you
as if there was never a Trottle in the land.”
Jarber rose and put on his little cloak. A couple of fierce brass lions
held it tight round his little throat; but a couple of the mildest Hares
might have done that, I am sure. “Sarah,” he said, “I go. Expect me on
Monday evening, the Sixth, when perhaps you will give me a cup of
tea;—may I ask for no Green? Adieu!”
This was on a Thursday, the second of December. When I reflected that
Trottle would come back on Monday, too, I had my misgivings as to the
difficulty of keeping the two powers from open warfare, and indeed I was
more uneasy than I quite like to confess. However, the empty House
swallowed up that thought next morning, as it swallowed up most other
thoughts now, and the House quite preyed upon me all that day, and all
the Saturday.
It was a very wet Sunday: raining and blowing from morning to night. When
the bells rang for afternoon church, they seemed to ring in the commotion
of the puddles as well as in the wind, and they sounded very loud and
dismal indeed, and the street looked very dismal indeed, and the House
looked dismallest of all.
I was reading my prayers near the light, and my fire was growing in the
darkening window-glass, when, looking up, as I prayed for the fatherless
children and widows and all who were desolate and oppressed,—I saw the
Eye again. It passed in a moment, as it had done before; but, this time,
I was inwardly more convinced that I had seen it.
Well to be sure, I _had_ a night that night! Whenever I closed my own
eyes, it was to see eyes. Next morning, at an unreasonably, and I should
have said (but for that railroad) an impossibly early hour, comes
Trottle. As soon as he had told me all about the Wells, I told him all
about the House. He listened with as great interest and attention as I
could possibly wish, until I came to Jabez Jarber, when he cooled in an
instant, and became opinionated.
“Now, Trottle,” I said, pretending not to notice, “when Mr. Jarber comes
back this evening, we must all lay our heads together.”
“I should hardly think that would be wanted, ma’am; Mr. Jarber’s head is
surely equal to anything.”
Being determined not to notice, I said again, that we must all lay our
heads together.
“Whatever you order, ma’am, shall be obeyed. Still, it cannot be
doubted, I should think, that Mr. Jarber’s head is equal, if not
superior, to any pressure that can be brought to bear upon it.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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