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Pipkin standing bolt upright inside, and
shaking with apprehension from head to foot. Bless us! what an
appalling look old Lobbs gave him, as he dragged him out by the
collar, and held him at arms length.
"Why, what the devil do you want here?" said old Lobbs, in
a fearful voice.
Nathaniel Pipkin could make no reply, so old Lobbs shook
him backwards and forwards, for two or three minutes, by way
of arranging his ideas for him.
"What do you want here?" roared Lobbs; "I suppose you
have come after my daughter, now!"
Old Lobbs merely said this as a sneer: for he did not believe
that mortal presumption could have carried Nathaniel Pipkin so
far. What was his indignation, when that poor man replied--
"Yes, I did, Mr. Lobbs, I did come after your daughter. I
love her, Mr. Lobbs."
"Why, you snivelling, wry-faced, puny villain," gasped old
Lobbs, paralysed by the atrocious confession; "what do you
mean by that? Say this to my face! Damme, Ill throttle you!"
It is by no means improbable that old Lobbs would have
carried his threat into execution, in the excess of his rage, if his
arm had not been stayed by a very unexpected apparition: to wit,
the male cousin, who, stepping out of his closet, and walking up
to old Lobbs, said--
"I cannot allow this harmless person, Sir, who has been asked
here, in some girlish frolic, to take upon himself, in a very noble
manner, the fault (if fault it is) which I am guilty of, and am
ready to avow. I love your daughter, sir; and I came here for the
purpose of meeting her."
Old Lobbs opened his eyes very wide at this, but not wider
than Nathaniel Pipkin.
"You did?" said Lobbs, at last finding breath to speak.
"I did."
"And I forbade you this house, long ago."
"You did, or I should not have been here, clandestinely,
to-night."
I am sorry to record it of old Lobbs, but I think he would
have struck the cousin, if his pretty daughter, with her bright eyes
swimming in tears, had not clung to his arm.
"Dont stop him, Maria," said the young man; "if he has the
will to strike me, let him. I would not hurt a hair of his gray head,
for the riches of the world."
The old man cast down his eyes at this reproof, and they met
those of his daughter. I have hinted once or twice before, that
they were very bright eyes, and, though they were tearful now,
their influence was by no means lessened. Old Lobbs turned
his head away, as if to avoid being persuaded by them,
when, as fortune would have it, he encountered the face of
the wicked little cousin, who, half afraid for her brother, and
half laughing at Nathaniel Pipkin, presented as bewitching an
expression of countenance, with a touch of slyness in it, too, as
any man, old or young, need look upon. She drew her arm coaxingly
through the old mans, and whispered something in his
ear; and do what he would, old Lobbs couldnt help breaking
out into a smile, while a tear stole down his cheek at the same time.
Five minutes after this, the girls were brought down from the
bedroom with a great deal of giggling and modesty; and while
the young people were making themselves perfectly happy, old
Lobbs got down the pipe, and smoked it; and it was a remarkable
circumstance about that particular pipe of tobacco, that it was
the most soothing and delightful one he ever smoked.
Nathaniel Pipkin thought it best to keep his own counsel, and
by so doing gradually rose into high favour with old Lobbs. who
taught him to smoke in time; and they used to sit out in the
garden on the fine evenings, for many years afterwards, smoking
and drinking in great state. He soon recovered the effects of his
attachment, for we find his name in the parish register, as a
witness to the marriage of Maria Lobbs to her cousin; and it also
appears, by reference to other documents, that on the night of the
wedding he was incarcerated in the village cage, for having, in a
state of extreme intoxication, committed sundry excesses in the
streets, in all of which he was aided and abetted by the bony
apprentice with the thin legs.
CHAPTER XVIII BRIEFLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF TWO POINTS; FIRST, THE POWER OF HYSTERICS, AND, SECONDLY, THE FORCE The Pickwick Papers page 113 The Pickwick Papers page 115 |