But why should Esther have had no house of her own, as darkly hinted above, so as to almost compel her to descend from tilt to tent? The reason is not far to seek, and he who runs may read it, without running out of Beckley.
Cripps, the Carrier, now being past the middle milestone of man's life, and seeing every day, more and more, the grey hairs in his horse's tail, lowered his whip in a shady place, and let his reins go slackly, and pulled his crooked sixpence out, and could not see to read it. And yet the summer sun was bright in the top of the bushes over him!
"I vear a must; I zee no way out of un," Zacchary said to his lonely self. "Etty is as good as gone a'ready; her cannot stan' out agin that there celibacy; and none else understandeth the frying-pan. The Lord knows how I have fought agin the womminses, seeing all as I has seen. And better I might a' done, if I must come to it, many a time in the last ten year. Better at laste for the brown, white, and yellow; though the woman as brought might a' shattered 'em again. After all, Mary might be a deal worse; though I have a-felt some doubt consarning of her tongue; but her hath a proper respect for me, and forty puns to Oxford bank – if her moother spaiketh raight of her; and the Squaire hath given me a new horse, to come on whenso Dobbin beginneth to wear out. Therefore his domestics hath first claim; though I'd soonder draive Dobbin than ten of un. What shall us do now? Whatever shall us do?"
Zacchary Cripps pulled off his hat in a slow perspiration of suspense; for if he once made up his mind, there would be no way out of it. He looked at his horse with a sad misgiving, both on his own account and Dobbin's. The marriage of the master might wrong the horse, and the horse might no more be the master's. Suddenly a bright idea struck him – a bar of sunshine through the shade.
"Thou shalt zettle it, Dobbin," he cried, leaning over and stroking his gingery loins. "It consarneth thee most, or, leastways, quite as much. Never hath any man had a better horse. The will of the Lord takes the strength out of all of us; but He leaveth, and addeth to the wisdom therein. Dobbin, thou seest things as never men can tell of. Now, if thou waggest thy tail to the right – I will; and so be to the left – I wun't. Mind what thou doest now. Call upon thy wisdom, nag, and give thy master honestly the sense of thy discretion."
With a settled mind, and no disturbance, he awaited the delivery of Dobbin's tail. A fly settled on the white foam of the harness on the off side of this ancient horse. Away went his tail with a sprightly flick at it; and Cripps accepted the result. The result was the satisfaction of Mary's long and faithful love for him, and the happy continuance, in woodland roads, of the loyal race and unpretentious course of Cripps, the Carrier.