This philanthropic wish Miss Slowboy emphasized with various new raps and kicks at the door, which led to no result whatever.
"Shall I go?" said Tackleton. "It's curious."
The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door, signed 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 easy," said Tackleton, taking a chair.