'Come! make haste! where's
Clemency?'
'Here am I, Mister,' said a voice from one of the ladders, which a
pair of clumsy feet descended briskly. 'It's all done now. Clear
away, gals. Everything shall be ready for you in half a minute,
Mister.'
With that she began to bustle about most vigorously; presenting, as
she did so, an appearance sufficiently peculiar to justify a word
of introduction.
She was about thirty years old, and had a sufficiently plump and
cheerful face, though it was twisted up into an odd expression of
tightness that made it comical. But, the extraordinary homeliness
of her gait and manner, would have superseded any face in the
world. To say that she had two left legs, and somebody else's
arms, and that all four limbs seemed to be out of joint, and to
start from perfectly wrong places when they were set in motion, is
to offer the mildest outline of the reality. To say that she was
perfectly content and satisfied with these arrangements, and
regarded them as being no business of hers, and that she took her
arms and legs as they came, and allowed them to dispose of
themselves just as it happened, is to render faint justice to her
equanimity. Her dress was a prodigious pair of self-willed shoes,
that never wanted to go where her feet went; blue stockings; a
printed gown of many colours, and the most hideous pattern
procurable for money; and a white apron.
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