“How it snows!” said one of the men, in a low tone.
“Snows, does it?” said Wardle.
“Rough, cold night, sir,” replied the man; “and there’s a wind got up, that drifts it across the fields, in a thick white cloud.”
“What does Jem say?” inquired the old lady. “There ain’t anything the matter, is there?”
“No, no, mother,” replied Wardle; “he says there’s a snow-drift, and a wind that’s piercing cold. I should know that, by the way it rumbles in the chimney.”
“Ah!” said the old lady, “there was just such a wind, and just such a fall of snow, a good many years back, I recollect—just five years before your poor father died. It was a Christmas Eve, too; and I remember that on that very night he told us the story about the goblins that carried away old Gabriel Grub.”
“The story about what?” said Mr. Pickwick.
“Oh, nothing, nothing,” replied Wardle. “About an old sexton, that the good people down here suppose to have been carried away by goblins.”
“Suppose!” ejaculated the old lady. “Is there anybody hardy enough to disbelieve it? Suppose! Haven’t you heard ever since you were a child, that he was carried away by the goblins, and don’t you know he was?”
“Very well, mother, he was, if you like,” said Wardle, laughing. “He was carried away by goblins, Pickwick; and there’s an end to the matter.”