"Shall I go?" said Tackleton. "It's curious."
The Carrier who had turned his face from the door, signed to him to go if he would.
So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy's relief; and he too kicked and knocked; and he too failed to get the least reply. But he thought of trying the handle of the door; and as it opened easily, he peeped in, looked in, went in; and soon came running out again.
"John Peerybingle," said Tackleton, in his ear. "I hope there has been nothing—nothing rash in the night."
The Carrier turned upon him quickly.
"Because he's gone!" said Tackleton; "and the window's open. I don't see any marks—to be sure it's almost on a level with the garden: but I was afraid there might have been some—some scuffle. Eh?"
He nearly shut up the expressive eye, altogether; he looked at him so hard. And he gave his eye, and his face, and his whole person, a sharp twist. As if he would have screwed the truth out of him.
"Make yourself easy," said the Carrier. "He went into that room last night, without harm in word or deed from me; and no one has entered it since. He is away of his own free will. I'd go out gladly at that door, and beg my bread from house to house, for life, if I could so change the past that he had never come. But he has come and gone. And I have done with him!"
"Oh!—Well, I think he has got off pretty easily," said Tackleton, taking a chair.
The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too: and shaded his face with his hand, for some little time, before proceeding.