'There ain't
anything the matter, is there?'
'No, no, mother,' replied Wardle; 'he says there's a snowdrift,
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
of the matter.'
'No, no,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'not an end of it, I assure you; for
I must hear how, and why, and all about it.
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