"Johanna, attend to me," said Mrs. Oakley, upon the morning after these events. "Well, mother?"
"Your father is an idiot."
"Mother, mother! I dissent from the opinion, and if it were true, it comes with the worst possible grace from you, but I am sick at heart. I pray you to spare me reproaches or angry words, mother."
"Haity taity, one must not speak next, I suppose. Some people fancy that other people know nothing, but there is such a thing as overhearing what some people say to other people."
Johanna had not the most remote notion of what her mother meant, but Mrs. Oakley's tongue was like many pieces of machinery, that when once set in motion are not without considerable trouble brought to a standstill again, so on she went.
"Of course. I now know quite well why the godly man who would have made you a chosen vessel was refused. It was all owing to that scamp, Mark Ingestrie."
"Mother!"
"Marry come up! you need not look at me in such a way. We don't all of us see with the same eyes. A scamp he is, and a scamp he will be."
"Mother, he whom you so name is with his God. Mention him no more. The wild ocean rolls over his body—his soul is in heaven. Speak not irreverently of one whose sole crime was that he loved me. Oh, mother, mother, you—"
Johanna could say no more, she burst into tears.
"Well," said Mrs. Oakley, "if he is dead, pray what hinders you from listening to the chosen vessel, I should like to know?"
"Do not. Oh do not, mother, say any more to me—I cannot, dare not trust myself to speak to you upon such a subject."
"What is this?" said Mr. Oakley, stepping into the room. "Johanna in tears! What has happened?"
Mr. Oakley Defends Johanna From The Violence Of Her Mother.
Mr. Oakley Defends Johanna From The Violence Of Her Mother.
"Father—dear father!"
"And Mr. O.," cried Mrs. Oakley, "what business is it of yours, I should like to know? Be so good, sir, as to attend to your spectacles, and such like rubbish, and not to interfere with my daughter."
"Dear me!—ain't she my daughter likewise?"
"Oh yes, Mr. O.! Go on with your base, vile, wretched, contemptible, unmanly insinuations. Do go on, pray—I like it. Oh, you odious wretch! You spectacle-making monster!"
"Do not," cried Johanna, who saw the heightened colour of her father's cheek. "Oh, do not let me be the unhappy cause of any quarrelling. Father! father!"
"Hush, my dear, don't you say another word. Cousin Ben is coming to take a little bit of lunch with us to-day."
"I know it," cried Mrs. Oakley, clapping her hands together with a vengeance that made Oakley jump again. "I know it. Oh, you wretch. You couldn't have put on such airs if your bully had not been coming; I thought the last time he came here was enough for him. Aye, and for you too, Mr. O."
"It was nearly too much," said the spectacle-maker, shaking his head.
"Tow row, row, row, row!" cried Big Ben, popping his head into the parlour, "what do you all bring it in now? Wilful murder with the chill off or what? Ah, mother Oakley, what's the price of vinegar now, wholesale—pluck does it. Here you is. Ha, ha! Aint we a united family. Couldn't stay away from you, Mother Oakley, no more nor I could from that ere laughing hyena we has in the Tower."
"Eugh!—wretch!"
"Sit down, Ben," said Mr. Oakley. "I am glad to see you, and I am quite sure Johanna is."
"Oh, yes, yes."
"That's it," said Ben. "It's on Johanna's account I came. Now, little one, just tell me—"
Johanna had just time to place her finger upon her lips, unobserved by any one, and shake her head at Ben.
"Ah—hem! How are you, eh?" he said, turning the conversation. "Come, Mother O., stir your old stumps and be alive, will you? I have come to lunch with your lord and master, so bustle—bustle."
Mrs. Oakley rose, and placing her hands upon her hips, she looked at Ben, as she said—
"You great, horrid, man-mountain of a wretch. I only wonder you ain't afraid, after the proper punishment you had on the occasion of your last visit, to show your horrid face here again?"
"You deludes to the physicking, I suppose, mum. Lor bless you, it did us no end of good; but, howsomedever, we provide agin wice in animals when we knows on it aforehand, do you see. Oh, there you is."
A boy howled out from the shop—"Did a gentleman order two gallons of half-and-half here, please?"
"All's right," said Ben. "Now, Mother O., the only thing I'll trouble you for, is a knife and fork. As for the rest of the combustibles, here they is."
Ben took from one capacious pocket a huge parcel, containing about six pounds of boiled beef, and from the other he took as much ham.
"Hold hard!" he cried to the boy who brought the beer. "Take this half-crown, my lad, and get three quartern loaves."
"But, Ben," said old Mr. Oakley, "I really had no intention, when I asked you to come to lunch this morning, of making you provide it yourself. We have, or we ought to have, plenty of everything in the house."
"Old birds," said Ben, "isn't to be caught twice. A fellow, arter he has burnt his fingers, is afeard o' playing with the fire. No, Mrs. O., you gave us a benefit last time, and I ain't a-going to try my luck again. All's right—pitch into the grub. How is the chosen vessel, Mother O.? All right, eh?"
Mrs. Oakley waited until Ben had made an immense sandwich of ham and beef; and then in an instant, before he was aware of what she was about, she caught it up, and slapped it in his face with a vengeance that was quite staggering.
"Easy does it," said Ben.
"Take that, you great, fat elephant."
"Go it—go it."
Mrs. Oakley bounced out of the room. Johanna looked her sorrow; and Mr. Oakley rose from his chair, but Ben made him sit down again, saying—
"Easy does it—easy does it. Never mind her, cousin Oakley. She must have her way sometimes. Let her kick and be off. There's no harm done—not a bit. Lord bless you. I'm used to all sorts of cantankerous animals."
Mr. Oakley shook his head.
"Forget it, father," said Johanna.
"I only wish, my dear, I could forget many things; and yet there are so many others, that I want to remember, mixed up with them, that I don't know how I s............