Mrs. Sandboys recoiled! It was the first time she had ever heard her dear Cursty address her in such a tone. Her woman's heart fell, and she whimpered out, as she threw herself on the bed, "I cuddent help it, Cursty, an if I cud, thar was nae a candle in t' house for tha to read by."
Cursty fell back upon his pillows, and putting his hands over his eyes, saw vividly pass before his imagination, his house without candle, his servants without fire, his wife without soap, his boy without shoes, and himself without breeches!
In that one moment he perceived that it was useless to think of holding out any longer—London lost its horrors compared with the privations of Hassness; so gulping down the cup of bitterness, he told his wife he had made up his mind to be off to the metropolis the next morning.
The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when there again rose up before his eyes the direful gashes of his inexpressibles—the barefooted state of his boy! But Mrs. Sandboys soon put an end to all suggested difficulties, and that evening saw the happy Aggy sitting by the bed-side of her beloved Cursty, and, by the light of a lamp made out of fat bacon and darning-cotton, sewing away at one of the lacerated legs of the trousers, with a light heart, and the strongest black thread; while Elcy was taking the bows off a pair of her mother's shoes, which, at a family consultation, it had been arranged would serve to equip Jobby, at least for the walk to Cockermouth, where he and his father might, perhaps, be able to provide themselves with necessaries for the voyage to London.
Previous to leaving Hassness the next morning, Mr. Sandboys summoned the whole of his family together into the dining-room, and addressed them in a cheerful though solemn manner, saying he regretted to see that, under their late trials, they had evinced an unphilosophical want of vivacity, which he considered to be utterly unworthy of the hardy natives of Cumberland. He wished it, therefore, to be distinctly understood, that he accompanied them to London upon a single condition only, and that was—that they one and all made up their minds, come what might, to enjoy themselves.
How the Sandboys got to Town—the misadventures that happened to them on the road—the difficulties that the family experienced in obtaining shelter when they reached the metropolis—how they were glad to accept of any wretched hole to lay their heads in for the night; and when they did obtain a bed, the trouble that Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys found in their endeavours to get their two selves fairly into it—the dire calamity that befel them while reposing in it, and how excessively hard they found it under these, and many other circumstances, to carry out the principle of enjoying themselves,—all this, and much more, remains to be told in the succeeding chapters of this eventful history.
