"More likely on that wery account," said Duff.
"We find it was a town hand," said Blathers, continuing his report; "for the style of work is first-rate."
"Wery pretty indeed it is," remarked Duff, in an under tone.
"There was two of 'em in it," continued Blathers, "and they had a boy with 'em; that's plain from the size of the window. That's all to be said at present. We'll see this lad that you've got upstairs at once, if you please."
"Perhaps they will take something to drink first, Mrs. Maylie?" said the doctor, his face brightening as if some new thought had occurred to him.
"Oh! to be sure!" exclaimed Rose, eagerly. "You shall have it immediately, if you will."
"Why, thank you, miss!" said Blathers, drawing his coat-sleeve across his mouth; "it's dry work, this sort of duty. Any-think that's handy, miss; don't put yourself out of the way, on our accounts."
"What shall it be?" asked the doctor, following the young lady to the sideboard.
"A little drop of spirits, master, if it's all the same," replied Blathers. "It's a cold ride from London, ma'am; and I always find the spirits comes home warmer to the feelings."
This interesting communication was addressed to Mrs. Maylie, who received it very graciously. While it was being conveyed to her, the doctor slipped out of the room.
"Ah!" said Mr. Blathers, not holding his wine-glass by the stem, but grasping the bottom between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and placing it in front of his chest, "I have seen a good many pieces of business like this, in my time, ladies."
"That crack down in the back lane at Edmonton, Blathers," said Mr. Duff, assisting his colleague's memory.
"That was something in this way, warn't it?" rejoined Mr. Blathers; "that was done by Conkey Chickweed, that was."
"You always gave that to him," replied Duff. "It was the Family Pet, I tell you. Conkey hadn't any more, to do with it than I had."
"Get out!" retorted Mr. Blathers; "I know better. Do you mind that time when Conkey was robbed of his money, though? What a start that was! Better than any novel-book I ever see!"
"What was that?" inquired Rose, anxious to encourage any symptoms of good-humour in the unwelcome visitors.
"It was a robbery, miss, that hardly anybody would have been down upon," said Blathers. 'This here Conkey Chickweed--"
"Conkey means Nosey, ma'am," interposed Duff.
"Of course the lady knows that, don't she?" demanded Mr. Blathers. "Always interrupting, you are, partner! This here Conkey Chickweed, miss, kept a public-house over Battle-bridge way, and he had a cellar where a good many young lords went to see cock-fighting, and badger-drawing, and that; and a wery intellectual manner the sports was conducted in, for I've seen 'em often. He warn't one of the family, at that time; and one night he was robbed of three hundred and twenty-seven guineas in a canvas bag that was stole out of his bedroom in the dead of night by a tall man with a black patch over his eye, who had concealed himself under the bed, and after committing the robbery, jumped slap out of window, which was only a story high. He was wery quick about it. But Conkey was quick, too; for he was woke by the noise, and darting out of bed, he fired a blunderbuss arter him and roused the neighbourhood. They set up a hue-and-cry directly, and when they came to look about 'em, found that Conkey had hit the robber; for there was traces of blood all the way to some palings a good distance off, and there they lost 'em. However, he had made off with the blunt; and, consequently, the name of Mr. Chickweed, licensed witler, appeared in the Gazette among the other bankrupts; and, all manner of benefits and subscriptions, and I don't know what all, was got up for the poor man, who was in a wery low state of mind about his loss, and went up and down the streets for three or four days, a pulling his hair off in such a desperate manner that many people was afraid he might be going to make away with himself. One day he come up to the office, all in a hurry, and had a private interview with the magistrate, who, after a deal of talk, rings the bell, and orders Jem Spyers in (Jem was a active officer) and tells him to go and assist Mr. Chickweed in apprehending the man as robbed his house. 'I see him, Spyers,'' said Chickweed, 'pass my house yesterday morning, ''Why didn't you up and collar him!' says Spyers. ''I was so struck all of a heap that you might have fractured my skull with a toothpick,'' says the poor man, 'but we're sure to have him; for between - ten and eleven o'clock at night he passed again.' Spyers no sooner heard this than he put some clean linen and a comb in his pocket, in case he should have to stop a day or two; and away he goes, and sets himself down at one of the public-house windows behind the little red curtain, with his hat on, all ready to bolt out at a moment's notice. He was smoking his pipe here, late at night, when all of a sudden Chickweed roars out, 'Here he is! Stop thief! Murder!' Jem Spyers dashes out, and there he sees Chickweed a-tearing down the street full cry. Away goes Spyers; on goes Chickweed; round turns the people' everybody roars out, 'Thieves!' and Chickweed himself keeps on shouting, all the time, like mad. Spyers loses sight of him a minute as he turns a corner, shoots round, sees a little crowd, dives in: 'Which is the man?' 'D--me!' says Chickweed, 'I've lost him again!' It was a remarkable occurrence, but he warn't to be seen nowhere, so they went back to the public-house. Next morning Spyers took his old place and looked out, from behind the curtain, for a tall man with a black patch over his eye, till his own two eyes ached again. At last he couldn't help shutting 'em, to ease 'em a minute; and the very moment he did so, he hears Chickweed a-roaring out, "Here he is!' Off he starts once more, with Chickweed half-way down the street ahead of him; and after twice as long a run as the yesterday's one, the man's lost again! This was done, once or twice more, till one-half the neighbours gave out that Mr. Chickweed had been robbed by the devil, who was playing tricks with him arterwards, and the other half that poor Mr. Chickweed had gone mad with grief."
"What did Jem Spyers say?" inquired the doctor, who had returned to the room shortly after the commencement of the story.
"Jem Spyers," resumed the officer, "for a long time said nothing at all, and listened to everything without seeming to, which showed he understood his business. But one morning he walked into the bar, and taking out his snuff-box, says, 'Chickweed, I've found out who done this here robbery.' 'Have you?' said Chickweed. 'Oh, my dear Spyers, only let me have vengeance, and I shall die contented! Oh, my dear Spyers, where is the villain?' 'Come!' said Spyers, offering him a pinch of snuff, 'none of that gammon! You did it yourself.' So he had; and a good bit of money he had made by it, too; and nobody would never have found it out if he hadn't been so precious anxious to keep up appearances!" said Mr. Blathers, putting down his wine-glass, and clinking the handcuffs together.
"Very curious, indeed," observed the doctor. "Now, if you. please, you can walk upstairs."
"If you please, sir," returned Mr. Blathers. Closely following Mr. Losberne, the two officers ascended to Oliver's bed room, Mr. Giles preceding the party with a lighted candle.
Oliver had been dozing, but looked worse and was more feverish than he had appeared yet. Being assisted by the doctor, he managed to sit up in bed for a minute or so; and looked at the strangers without at all understanding what was going forward--in fact, without seeming to recollect where he was, or what had been passing.
"This," said Mr. Losberne, speaking softly, but with great vehemence notwithstanding, "this is the lad, who, being accidentally wounded by a spring-gun in some boyish trespass on Mr. What-d'ye-call-him's grounds, at the back here, comes to the house for assistance this morning, and is immediately laid hold of and maltreated by that ingenious gentleman with the candle in his hand, who has placed his life in considerable danger, as I can professionally certify."
Messrs. Blathers and Duff looked at Mr. Giles, as he was thus recommended to their notice. The bewildered butler gazed from them towards Oliver, and from Oliver towards Mr. Losberne, with a most ludicrous mixture of fear and perplexity.
"You don't mean to deny that, I suppose?" said the doctor, laying O
liver gently down again.
"It was all done for the--for the best, sir," answered Giles. "I am sure I thought it was the boy, or I wouldn't have meddled with him. I am not of an inhuman disposition, sir."
"Thought it was what boy?" inquired the senior officer.
"The housebreaker's boy, sir!" replied Giles. "They--they certainly had a boy."
"Well? Do you think so now?" inquired Blathers.
"Think what, now?" replied Giles, looking vacantly at his questioner.
"Think it's the same boy, Stupid-head?" rejoined Blathers, impatiently.
"I don't know; I really don't know," said Giles, with a rueful countenance. "I couldn't swear to him."
"What do you think?" asked Mr. Blathers.
"I don't know what to think," replied poor Giles. "I don't think it is the boy; indeed, I'm almost certain that it isn't. You know it can't be."
"Has this man been a-drinking, sir?" inquired Blathers, turning to the doctor.
"What a precious muddle-headed chap you are!" said Duff, addressing Mr. Giles, with supreme contempt.
Mr. Losberne had been feeling the patient's pulse during this short dialogue; but he now rose from the chair by the bedside and remarked that if the officers had any doubts upon the subject, they would perhaps like to step into the next room and have Brittles before them.
Acting upon this suggestion, they adjourned to a neighbourin g apartment, where Mr. Brittles, being called in, involved himself and his respected superior in such a wonderful maze of fresh contradictions and impossibilities as tended to throw no particular light on anything but the fact of his own strong mystification, except, indeed, his declarations that he shouldn't know the real boy if he were put before him that instant, that he had only taken Oliver to be he, because Mr. Giles had said he was, and that Mr. Giles had, five minutes previously, admitted in the kitchen that he began to be very much afraid he had been a little too hasty.
Among other ingenious surmises, the question was then raised whether Mr. Giles had really hit anybody; and upon examination of the fellow pistol to that which he had fired, it turned out to have no more destructive loading than gunpowder and brown paper--a discovery which made a considerable impression on everybody but the doctor, who had drawn the ball about ten minutes before. Upon no one, however, did it make a greater impression than on Mr. Giles himself, who, after labouring, for some hours under the fear of having mortally wounded a fellow-creature, eagerly caught at this new idea and favoured it to the utmost. Finally, the officers, without troubling themselves very much about Oliver, left the Chertsey constable in the house and took up their rest for that night in the town, promising to return next morning.
With the next morning there came a rumour that two men and a boy were in the cage at Kingston, who had been apprehended over night under suspicious circumstances; and to Kingston Messrs. Blathers and Duff journeyed accordingly. The suspicious circumstances, however, resolving themselves, on investigation, into the one fact that they had been discovered sleeping under a haystack--which, although a great crime, is only punishable by imprisonment, and is, in the merciful eye of the English law and its comprehensive love of all the king's subjects, held to be no satisfactory proof, in the absence of all other evidence, that the sleeper, or sleepers, have committed burglary accompanied with violence, and have therefore rendered themselves liable to the punishment of death--Messrs. Blathers and Duff came back again as wise as they went.
In short, after some more examination, and a great deal more conversation, a neighbouring magistrate was readily induced to take the joint bail of Mrs. Maylie and Mr. Losbeme for Oliver's appearance if he should ever be called upon; and Blathers and Duff, being rewarded with a couple of guineas, returned to town with divided opinions on the subject of their expedition, the latter gentleman, on a mature consideration of all the circumstances, inclining to the belief that the burglari ous attempt had originated with the Family Pet, and the former being equally disposed to concede the full merit of it to the great Mr. Conkey Chickweed.
Meanwhile, Oliver gradually throve and prospered under the united care of Mrs. Maylie, Rose, and the kind-hearted Mr. Losberne. If fervent prayers, gushing from hearts overcharged with gratitude, be heard in heaven--and if they be not, what prayers are!--the blessings which the orphan child called down upon them sunk into their souls, diffusing peace and happiness.
CHAPTER XXXII
Of the happy life Oliver began to lead with his kind friends.
OLIVER'S AILINGS WERE NEITHER SLIGHT NOR FEW IN ADDITION to the pain and delay attendant on a broken limb, his exposure to the wet and cold had brought on fever and ague, which hung about him for many weeks and reduced him sadly. But at length he began, by slow degrees, to get better, and to be able to say sometimes, in few tearful words, how deeply he felt the goodness of the two sweet ladies and how ardently he hoped that when he grew strong and well again he could do something to show his gratitude--only something which would let them see the love and duty with which his breast was full--something, however slight, which would prove to them that their gentle kindness had not been cast away, but that the poor boy whom their charity had rescued from misery, or death, was eager to serve them with his whole heart and soul.
"Poor fellow!" said Rose, when Oliver had been one day feebly endeavouring to utter the words of thankfulness that rose to his pale lips; "you shall have many opportunities of serving us, if you will. We are going into the country, and my aunt intends that you shall accompany us. The quiet place, the pure air, and all the pleasures and beauties of spring, will restore you in a few days. We will employ you in a hundred ways, when you can bear the trouble."
"The trouble!" cried Oliver. "Oh! Dear lady, if I could but work for you; if I could only give you pleasure by watering your flowers, or watching your birds, or running up and down the whole day long, to make you happy; what would I give to do it!"
"You shall give nothing at all," said Miss Maylie. smiling; "for, as I told you before, we shall employ you in a hundred ways; and if you only take half the trouble to please us that you promise now, you will make me very happy indeed."
"Happy, ma'am!" cried Oliver; "how kind of you to say so!"
"You will make me happier than I can tell you," replied the young lady. "To think tnat my dear good aunt should have been the means of rescuing any one from such sad misery as you have described to us, would be an unspeakable pleasure to me; but to know that the object of her goodness and compassion was sincerely grateful and attached, in consequence, would delight me more than you can well imagine. Do you understand me?" she inquired, watching Oliver's thoughtful face.
"Oh yes, ma'am, yes!" replied Oliver, eagerly; "but I was thinking that I am ungrateful now."
"To whom?" inquired the young lady.
"To the kind gentleman, and the dear old nurse, who took so much care of me before," rejoined Oliver. "If they knew how happy I am, they would be pleased, I am sure."
"I am sure they would," rejoined Oliver's benefactress; "and Mr. Losberne has already been kind enough to promise that when you are well enough to bear the journey, he will carry you to see them."
"Has he, ma'am?" cried Oliver, his face brightening with pleasure. "I don't know what I shall do for joy when see their kind faces once again!"
In a short time Oliver was sufficiently recovered to undergo the fatigue of this expedition. One morning he and Mr. Losberne set out, accordingly, in a little carriage which belonged to Mrs. Maylie. When they came to Chertsey Bridge, Oliver turned very pale and uttered a loud exclamation.
"What's the matter with the boy?" cried the doctor, as usual, all in a bustle. "Do you see anything--hear anything--feel anything--eh?"
"That, sir," cried Oliver, pointing but of the carriage window. "That house!"
"Yes; well, what of it? Stop coachman. Pull up here," cried the doctor. "What of the house, my man; eh?"
"The thieves--the house they took me to!" whispered Oliver.
"The devil it is!" cri
ed the doctor. "Halloa, there! let me out!"
But, before the coachman could dismount from his box, he had tumbled out of the coach, by some means or other; and, running down to the deserted tenement, began kicking at the door like a madman.
"Halloa?" said the little ugly hump-backed man, opening the door so suddenly that the doctor, from the very impetus of his last kick, nearly fell forward into the passage. "What's the matter here?"
"Matter!" exclaimed the other, collaring him, without a moment's reflection. "A good deal. Robbery is the matter."
"There'll be Murder the matter, too," replied the hump-backed man, coolly, "if you don't take your hands off. Do you hear me?"
"I hear you," said the doctor, giving his captive a hearty shake. "Where's--confound the fellow, what's his rascally name--Sikes; that's it. Where's Sikes, you thief?"
The hump-backed man stared, as if in excess of amazement and indignation; then, twisting himself, dexterously, from the doctor's grasp, growled forth a volley of horried oaths and retired into the house. Before he could shut the door, however, the doctor had passed into the parlour, without a word of parley. He looked anxiously round ; not an article of furniture, not a vestige of anything, animate or inanimate, not even the position of the cupboards, answered Oliver's description!
"Now!" said the hump-backed man, who had watched him keenly, "what do you mean by coming into my house in this violent way? Do you want to rob me, or to murder me? Which is it?"
"Did you ever know a man come out to do either, in a chariot and pair, you ridiculous old vampire?" said the irritable doctor.
"What do you want, then?" demanded the hunchback. "Will you take yourself off before I do you a mischief? Curse you!"
"As soon as I think proper," said Mr. Losberne, looking into the other parlour, which, like the first, bore no resemblance whatever to Oliver's account of it. "I shall find you out, some day, my friend."
"Will you?" sneered the ill-favoured cripple. "If you ever want me, I'm here. I haven't lived here mad and all alone, for five-and-twenty years, to be scared by you. You shall pay for this; you shall pay for this." And so saying, the misshapen lit de demon set up a yell, and danced upon the ground as if wild with rage.