Doctor Marigold | Page 7

go, and I'll take her out for a walk to put up the
banns." She laughed, and got the ring handed up to her. When I called
in the morning, she says, "O dear! It's never you, and you never mean
it?" "It's ever me," says I, "and I am ever yours, and I ever mean it." So
we got married, after being put up three times--which, by the bye, is
quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the
Cheap Jack customs pervade society.
She wasn't a bad wife, but she had a temper. If she could have parted
with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn't have swopped her away in
exchange for any other woman in England. Not that I ever did swop her
away, for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year.
Now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks all, I'll let you into a secret,
though you won't believe it. Thirteen year of temper in a Palace would
try the worst of you, but thirteen year of temper in a Cart would try the
best of you. You are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see. There's
thousands of couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a
whetstone in houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to
the Divorce Court in a cart. Whether the jolting makes it worse, I don't
undertake to decide; but in a cart it does come home to you, and stick to
you. Wiolence in a cart is SO wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is SO
aggrawating.
We might have had such a pleasant life! A roomy cart, with the large
goods hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when on the road,
an iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for
the smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a dog and a horse. What
more do you want? You draw off upon a bit of turf in a green lane or by
the roadside, you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing, you light
your fire upon the ashes of the last visitors, you cook your stew, and
you wouldn't call the Emperor of France your father. But have a temper
in the cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and
where are you then? Put a name to your feelings.
My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did. Before she

broke out, he would give a howl, and bolt. How he knew it, was a
mystery to me; but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake
him up out of his soundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and bolt.
At such times I wished I was him.
The worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and I love children
with all my heart. When she was in her furies she beat the child. This
got to be so shocking, as the child got to be four or five year old, that I
have many a time gone on with my whip over my shoulder, at the old
horse's head, sobbing and crying worse than ever little Sophy did. For
how could I prevent it? Such a thing is not to be tried with such a
temper--in a cart--without coming to a fight. It's in the natural size and
formation of a cart to bring it to a fight. And then the poor child got
worse terrified than before, as well as worse hurt generally, and her
mother made complaints to the next people we lighted on, and the word
went round, "Here's a wretch of a Cheap Jack been a beating his wife."
Little Sophy was such a brave child! She grew to be quite devoted to
her poor father, though he could do so little to help her. She had a
wonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling natural about her. It
is quite astonishing to me now, that I didn't go tearing mad when I used
to see her run from her mother before the cart, and her mother catch her
by this hair, and pull her down by it, and beat her.
Such a brave child I said she was! Ah! with reason.
"Don't you mind next time, father dear," she would whisper to me, with
her little face still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet; "if I don't cry
out, you may know I am not much hurt. And even if I do cry out, it will
only be to get mother to let go and leave off." What I have seen the
little spirit bear--for me--without