could do was to slip off. The last I saw of
him, his head was bent over his knee and he
was working hard at his fetter, muttering impatient
imprecations at it and at his leg. The
last I heard of him, I stopped in the mist to
listen, and the file was still going.

CHAPTER IV.

I FULLY expected to find a Constable in the
kitchen, waiting to take me up. But not only
was there no Constable there, but no discovery
had yet been made of the robbery. Mrs. Joe
was prodigiously busy in getting the house
ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had
been put upon the kitchen door-step to keep him
out of the dustpan—an article into which his
destiny always led him sooner or later, when my
sister was vigorously reaping the floors of her establishment.

"And where the deuce ha' you been?" was
Mrs. Joe's Christmas salutation, when I and my
conscience showed ourselves.

I said I had been down to hear the Carols.
Ah! well!" observed Mrs. Joe. "You might
ha' done worse." Not a doubt of it, I thought.

"Perhaps if I warn't a blacksmith's wife, and
(what's the same thing) a slave with her apron
never off, I should have been to hear the Carols,"
said Mrs. Joe. "I'm rather partial to Carols,
myself, and that's the best of reasons for my
never hearing any."

Joe, who had ventured into the kitchen after
me as the dustpan had retired before us, drew the
back of his hand across his nose with a conciliatory
air when Mrs. Joe darted a look at
him, and, when her eyes were withdrawn, secretly
crossed his two forefingers, and exhibited them
to me, as our token that Mrs. Joe was in a cross
temper. This was so much her normal state,
that Joe and I would often, for weeks together,
be, as to our fingers, like monumental Crusaders
as to their legs.

We were to have a superb dinner, consisting
of a leg of pickled pork and greens, and a pair
of roast stuffed fowls. A handsome mince-pie
had been made yesterday morning (which accounted
for the mincemeat not being missed),
and the pudding was already on the boil. These
extensive arrangements occasioned us to be cut
off unceremoniously in respect of breakfast; "for
I an't," said Mrs. Joe, "I an't a going to have
no formal cramming and busting and washing up
now, with what I've got before me, I promise
you!"

So, we had our slices served out, as if we
were two thousand troops on a forced march instead
of a man and boy at home; and we took
gulps of milk and water, with apologetic
countenances, from a jug on the dresser. In the
mean time, Mrs. Joe put clean white curtains up,
and tacked a new flowered-flounce across the
wide chimney to replace the old one, and uncovered
the little state parlour across the passage,
which was never uncovered at any other
time, but passed the rest of the year in a cool
haze of silver paper, which even extended to the
four little white crockery poodles on the mantel-
shelf, each with a black nose and a basket of
flowers in his mouth, and each the counterpart
of the other. Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper,
but had an exquisite art of making her
cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable
than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness,
and some people do the same by their
religion.

My sister having so much to do, was going to
church vicariously; that is to say, Joe and I
were going. In his working clothes, Joe was a
well-knit characteristic-looking blacksmith; in
his holiday clothes, he was more like a scarecrow
in good circumstances, than anything else.
Nothing that he wore then, fitted him or seemed
to belong to him; and everything that he wore
then, grazed him. On the present festive occasion
he emerged from his room, when the
blithe bells were going, the picture of misery, in
a full suit of Sunday penitentials. As to me,
I think my sister must have had some general
idea that I was a young offender whom an
Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my
birthday) and delivered over to her, to be dealt
with according to the outraged majesty of the
law. I was always treated as if I had insisted
on being born, in opposition to the dictates of
reason, religion, and morality, and against the
dissuading arguments of my best friends. Even
when I was taken to have a new suit of clothes,
the tailor had orders to make them like a kind
of Reformatory, and on no account to let me
have the free use of my limbs.

Joe and I going to church, therefore, must
have been a moving spectacle for compassionate
minds. Yet, what I suffered outside, was nothing
to what I underwent within. The terrors
that had assailed me whenever Mrs. Joe had
gone near the pantry, or out of the room, were
only to be equalled by the remorse with which
my mind dwelt on what my hands had done.
Under the weight of my wicked secret, I pondered
whether the Church would be powerful
enough to shield me from the vengeance of the
terrible young man, if I divulged to that establishment.
I conceived the idea that the time
when the banns were read and when the clergyman
said, "Ye are now to declare it!" would
be the time for me to rise and propose a private
conference in the vestry. I am far from being
sure that I might not have astonished our
small congregation by resorting to this extreme
measure, but for its being Christmas Day and
no Sunday.

Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to
dine with us; and Mr. Hubble the wheelwright
and Mrs. Hubble; and Uncle Pumblechook
(Joe's uncle, but Mrs. Joe appropriated him),
who was a well-to-do corn-chandler in the nearest
town, and drove his own chaise-cart. The
dinner hour was half-past one. When Joe and
I got home, we found the table laid, and Mrs.
Joe dressed, and the dinner dressing, and the
front door unlocked (it never was, at any other
time) for the company to enter by, and everything
most splendid. And still, not a word of
the robbery.