But who cared for such trifles ? Not Dot , decidedly . Not Tilly Slowboy , for she deemed sitting in a cart , on any terms , to be the highest point of human joys ; the crowning circumstance of earthly hope . Not the Baby , I 'll be sworn ; for it 's not in Baby nature to be warmer or more sound asleep , though its capacity is great in both respects , than that blessed young Peerybingle was , all the way . You could n't see very far in the fog , of course ; but you could see a great deal ! It 's astonishing how much you may see in a thicker fog than that , if you will only take the trouble to look for it . Why , even to sit watching for the Fairyrings in the fields , and for the patches of hoar frost still lingering in the shade , near hedges and by trees , was a pleasant occupation , to make no mention of the unexpected shapes in which the trees themselves came starting out of the mist , and glided into it again . The hedges were tangled and bare , and waved a multitude of blighted garlands in the wind ; but there was no discouragement in this . It was agreeable to contemplate ; for it made the fireside warmer in possession , and the summer greener in expectancy . The river looked chilly ; but it was in motion , and moving at a good pace -- which was a great point . The canal was rather slow and torpid ; that must be admitted . Never mind . It would freeze the sooner when the frost set fairly in , and then there would be skating and sliding ; and the heavy old barges , frozen up somewhere near a wharf , would smoke their rusty iron chimney-pipes all day , and have a lazy time of it . In one place there was a great mound of weeds or stubble burning ; and they watched the fire , so white in the daytime , flaring through the fog , with only here and there a dash of red in it , until , in consequence , as she observed , of the smoke `` getting up her nose , '' Miss Slowboy choked -- she could do anything of that sort , on the smallest provocation -- and woke the Baby , who would n't go to sleep again . But Boxer , who was in advance some quarter of a mile or so , had already passed the outposts of the town , and gained the corner of the street where Caleb and his daughter lived ; and , long before they had reached the door , he and the Blind Girl were on the pavement waiting to receive them . Boxer , by the way , made certain delicate distinctions of his own , in his communication with Bertha , which persuade me fully that he knew her to be blind . He never sought to attract her attention by looking at her , as he often did with other people , but touched her invariably . What experience he could ever have had of blind people or blind dogs I do n't know . He had never lived with a blind master ; nor had Mr. Boxer the elder , nor Mrs. Boxer , nor any of his respectable family on either side , ever been visited with blindness , that I am aware of . He may have found it out for himself , perhaps , but he had got hold of it somehow ; and therefore he had hold of Bertha too , by the skirt , and kept hold , until Mrs. Peerybingle and the Baby , and Miss Slowboy and the basket , were all got safely within doors .
May Fielding was already come ; and so was her mother -- a little querulous chip of an old lady XXXXX a peevish face , who , in right of having preserved a waist like a bedpost , was supposed to be a most transcendent figure ; and who , in consequence of having once been better off , or of labouring under an impression that she might have been , if something had happened which never did happen , and seemed to have never been particularly likely to come to pass -- but it 's all the same -- was very genteel and patronising indeed .
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