He himself came to the house on
our last day, and made an inventory of the articles we removed, and
having seen these safely bestowed in a pannier on the back of Ben
Ivimey's son, who came to carry them away, we shut the doors of the
old place, Mr. Vetch pocketed the keys, and we set off for the
town.
Mistress Pennyquick shed a plenitude of tears, and I had a
monstrous lump in my throat that threatened to choke me if I tried
to speak. With a discretion that raised him mightily in Becky's
esteem, Mr. Vetch fell behind, leaving us two together; and so with
full hearts we took the road, going into our new life hand in hand.
Chapter 7: A Crown Piece.
This turn in our affairs was a nine days' wonder in Shrewsbury. And
whether it was that some chord of sympathy was touched in our
townsfolk, or that Mr. Vetch worsted his only rival, Mr. Moggridge,
in a case of breach of covenant that was tried at the next assizes,
I know not; but certain it is that my friend's business took a leap
upward from that very time. Clients flocked to him; he soon had to
employ an additional clerk; and Mistress Pennyquick, who was twice
as tyrannical as before on the strength of her extra two pounds a
year, declared privately to me one day that she wished for nothing
now but that she might live to see me a partner with Mr. Vetch, in
a house of my own, with a sensible wife and five pretty children.
But I have come to believe that as an Ethiopian can not change his
skin, nor a leopard his spots, so a man can not alter the bent of
mind he was born with, nor follow any course with success but the
one to which his nature calls.
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