Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/506

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up the wall, beneath the overhanging- boughs of a large pear-tree, which would effectually screen him from observation ; there deliver his mes- sage, and arrange, if possible, an interview on behalf of Mr. Winkle for the ensuing evening at the same hour. Having made this arrangement with great dispatch, he assisted Mary in the long-deferred occupation of shaking the carpets.

It is not half as innocent a thing as it looks, that shaking^ little pieces of carpet — at least, there may be no great harm in the shaking, but the folding is a very insidious process. So long as the shaking lasts, and the two parties are kept the carpet's length apart, it is as innocent an amusement as can well be devised, but when the folding begins, and the distance between them gets gradually lessened from one- half its former length to a quarter, and then to an eighth, and then to a sixteenth, and then to a thirty- second if the carpet be long enough, it becomes dangerous. We do not know to a nicety how many pieces of carpet were folded in this instance, but we can venture to state that as many pieces as there were, so many times did Sam kiss the pretty housemaid.

Mr. Weller regaled himself with moderation at the nearest tavern until it was nearly dusk, and then returned to the lane without the thoroughfare. Having been admitted into the garden by Mary, and re- ceived from that lady sundry admonitions concerning the safety of his limbs and neck, Sam mounted into the pear-tree, to wait until Arabella should come in sight.

He waited so long without this anxiously-expected event occurring, that he began to think it was not going to take place at ail, when he heard light footsteps upon the gravel, and immediately afterwards beheld Arabella walking pensively down the garden. As soon as she came nearly below the tree, Sam began, by way of gently indicating his pre- sence, to make sundry diabolical noises similar to those which would probably be natural to a person who had been afflicted with a combina- tion of inflammatory sore throat, croup, and hooping-cough, from his earliest infancy.

Upon this, the young lady cast a hurried glance towards the spot from whence the dreadful sounds proceeded; and her previous alarm being not at all diminished when she saw a man among the branches, she would most certainly have decamped, and alarmed the house, had not fear fortunately deprived her of the power of moving, and caused her to isink down on a garden-seat which happened by good luck to be near at hand.

" She's a goin off," soliloquised Sam in great perplexity. " Wot a thing it is, as these here young creeturs will go a faintin avay just ven they oughtn't to. Here, young 'ooman, Miss Sawbones, Mrs. Vinkle, don't."

Whether it was the magic of Mr. Winkle's name, or the coolness of the open air, or some recollection of Mr. Weller's voice, that revived Arabella, matters not. She raised her head and languidly inquired
 * ' Who's that, and what do you want ? "

" Hush/' said Sam, swinging himself on to the wall, and crouching