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.