Page:Dombey and Son.djvu/548

Rh "Hush!" said Rob, glancing cautiously up at the packer’s, and at the bottle-maker’s, as if, from any one of the tiers of warehouses, Mr. Carker might be looking down. "Softly."

"Why, he ain’t here!" cried Mrs. Brown.

"I don’t know that," muttered Rob, whose glance even wandered to the church tower, as if he might be there, with a supernatural power of hearing.

"Good master?" inquired Mrs. Brown.

Rob nodded; and added, in a low voice, "precious sharp."

"Lives out of town, don’t he, lovey?" said the old woman.

"When he’s at home," returned Rob; "but we don’t live at home just now."

"Where then?" asked the old woman.

"Lodgings; up near Mr. Dombey’s," returned Rob.

The younger woman fixed her eyes so searchingly upon him, and so suddenly, that Rob was quite confounded, and offered the glass again, but with no more effect upon her than before.

"Mr. Dombey—you and I used to talk about him, sometimes, you know," said Rob to Mrs. Brown. "You used to get me to talk about him."

The old woman nodded.

"Well, Mr. Dombey, he’s had a fall from his horse," said Rob, unwillingly; "and my master has to be up there, more than usual, either with him, or Mrs. Dombey, or some of 'em; and so we’ve come to town."

"Are they good friends, lovey?" asked the old woman.

"Who?" retorted Rob.

"He and she?"

"What, Mr. and Mrs. Dombey?" said Rob. "How should I know!"

"Not them—Master and Mrs. Dombey, chick," replied the old woman, coaxingly.

"I don’t know," said Rob, looking round him again. "I suppose so. How curious you are, Misses Brown! Least said, soonest mended."

"Why there’s no harm in it!" exclaimed the old woman, with a laugh, and a clap of her hands. "Sprightly Rob, has grown tame since he has been well off! There’s no harm in it."

"No, there’s no harm in it, I know," returned Rob, with the same distrustful glance at the packer’s and the bottle-maker’s, and the church; "but blabbing, if it’s only about the number of buttons on my master’s coat, won’t do. I tell you it won’t do with him. A cove had better drown himself. He says so. I shouldn’t have so much as told you what his name was, if you hadn’t known it. Talk about somebody else."

As Rob took another cautious survey of the yard, the old woman made a secret motion to her daughter. It was momentary, but the daughter, with a slight look of intelligence, withdrew her eyes from the boy’s face, and sat folded in her cloak as before.

"Rob, lovey!" said the old woman, beckoning him to the other end of the bench. "You were always a pet and favourite of mine. Now, weren’t you? Don’t you know you were?"

"Yes, Misses Brown," replied the Grinder, with a very bad grace.

"And you could leave me!" said the old woman, flinging her arms about his neck. "You could go away, and grow almost out of knowledge, and never come to tell your poor old friend how fortunate you were, proud lad! Oho Oho!"