'Well,' said the locksmith, when he reappeared: 'what is it? eh Joe?
what are you laughing at?'
'Nothing, sir. It's coming in.'
'Who's coming in? what's coming in?' Mrs Varden, as much at a loss as
her husband, could only shake her head in answer to his inquiring look:
so, the locksmith wheeled his chair round to command a better view of
the room-door, and stared at it with his eyes wide open, and a mingled
expression of curiosity and wonder shining in his jolly face.
Instead of some person or persons straightway appearing, divers
remarkable sounds were heard, first in the workshop and afterwards
in the little dark passage between it and the parlour, as though some
unwieldy chest or heavy piece of furniture were being brought in, by an
amount of human strength inadequate to the task. At length after much
struggling and humping, and bruising of the wall on both sides, the
door was forced open as by a battering-ram; and the locksmith, steadily
regarding what appeared beyond, smote his thigh, elevated his eyebrows,
opened his mouth, and cried in a loud voice expressive of the utmost
consternation:
'Damme, if it an't Miggs come back!'
The young damsel whom he named no sooner heard these words, than
deserting a small boy and a very large box by which she was accompanied,
and advancing with such precipitation that her bonnet flew off her head,
burst into the room, clasped her hands (in which she held a pair of
pattens, one in each), raised her eyes devotedly to the ceiling, and
shed a flood of tears.
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