When Mr and Mrs Flintwinch panted up to the door of the old house in the

twilight, Jeremiah within a second of Affery, the stranger started back.

'Death of my soul!' he exclaimed. 'Why, how did you get here?'

Mr Flintwinch, to whom these words were spoken, repaid the stranger's

wonder in full. He gazed at him with blank astonishment; he looked over

his own shoulder, as expecting to see some one he had not been aware of

standing behind him; he gazed at the stranger again, speechlessly, at

a loss to know what he meant; he looked to his wife for explanation;

receiving none, he pounced upon her, and shook her with such heartiness

that he shook her cap off her head, saying between his teeth, with grim

raillery, as he did it, 'Affery, my woman, you must have a dose, my

woman!

This is some of your tricks! You have been dreaming again,

mistress. What's it about? Who is it? What does it mean! Speak out or be

choked! It's the only choice I'll give you.'

Supposing Mistress Affery to have any power of election at the moment,

her choice was decidedly to be choked; for she answered not a syllable

to this adjuration, but, with her bare head wagging violently backwards

and forwards, resigned herself to her punishment. The stranger, however,

picking up her cap with an air of gallantry, interposed.

'Permit me,' said he, laying his hand on the shoulder of Jeremiah, who

stopped and released his victim. 'Thank you. Excuse me. Husband and

wife I know, from this playfulness. Haha! Always agreeable to see that

relation playfully maintained. Listen! May I suggest that somebody

up-stairs, in the dark, is becoming energetically curious to know what

is going on here?'

This reference to Mrs Clennam's voice reminded Mr Flintwinch to step

into the hall and call up the staircase. 'It's all right, I am here,

Affery is coming with your light.' Then he said to the latter

flustered woman, who was putting her cap on, 'Get out with you, and get

up-stairs!' and then turned to the stranger and said to him, 'Now, sir,

what might you please to want?' 'I am afraid,' said the stranger, 'I must be so troublesome as to

propose a candle.'

'True,' assented Jeremiah. 'I was going to do so. Please to stand where

you are while I get one.' The visitor was standing in the doorway, but turned a little into the

gloom of the house as Mr Flintwinch turned, and pursued him with his

eyes into the little room, where he groped about for a phosphorus box.

When he found it, it was damp, or otherwise out of order; and match

after match that he struck into it lighted sufficiently to throw a dull

glare about his groping face, and to sprinkle his hands with pale little

spots of fire, but not sufficiently to light the candle. The stranger,

taking advantage of this fitful illumination of his visage, looked

intently and wonderingly at him. Jeremiah, when he at last lighted

the candle, knew he had been doing this, by seeing the last shade of

a lowering watchfulness clear away from his face, as it broke into the

doubtful smile that was a large ingredient in its expression.




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