الفصل الفصل 31 · INVOLVES A CRITICAL POSITION

. INVOLVES A CRITICAL POSITION

“Who’s that?” inquired Brittles, opening the door a little way, with

the chain up, and peeping out, shading the candle with his hand.

“Open the door,” replied a man outside; “it’s the officers from Bow

Street, as was sent to today.”

Much comforted by this assurance, Brittles opened the door to its full

width, and confronted a portly man in a great-coat; who walked in,

without saying anything more, and wiped his shoes on the mat, as coolly

as if he lived there.

“Just send somebody out to relieve my mate, will you, young man?” said

the officer; “he’s in the gig, a-minding the prad. Have you got a coach

’us here, that you could put it up in, for five or ten minutes?”

Brittles replying in the affirmative, and pointing out the building,

the portly man stepped back to the garden-gate, and helped his

companion to put up the gig: while Brittles lighted them, in a state of

great admiration. This done, they returned to the house, and, being

shown into a parlour, took off their great-coats and hats, and showed

like what they were.

The man who had knocked at the door, was a stout personage of middle

height, aged about fifty: with shiny black hair, cropped pretty close;

half-whiskers, a round face, and sharp eyes. The other was a

red-headed, bony man, in top-boots; with a rather ill-favoured

countenance, and a turned-up sinister-looking nose.

“Tell your governor that Blathers and Duff is here, will you?” said the

stouter man, smoothing down his hair, and laying a pair of handcuffs on

the table. “Oh! Good-evening, master. Can I have a word or two with you

in private, if you please?”

This was addressed to Mr. Losberne, who now made his appearance; that

gentleman, motioning Brittles to retire, brought in the two ladies, and

shut the door.

“This is the lady of the house,” said Mr. Losberne, motioning towards

Mrs. Maylie.

Mr. Blathers made a bow. Being desired to sit down, he put his hat on

the floor, and taking a chair, motioned to Duff to do the same. The

latter gentleman, who did not appear quite so much accustomed to good

society, or quite so much at his ease in it—one of the two—seated

himself, after undergoing several muscular affections of the limbs, and

the head of his stick into his mouth, with some embarrassment.

“Now, with regard to this here robbery, master,” said Blathers. “What

are the circumstances?”

Mr. Losberne, who appeared desirous of gaining time, recounted them at

great length, and with much circumlocution. Messrs. Blathers and Duff

looked very knowing meanwhile, and occasionally exchanged a nod.

“I can’t say, for certain, till I see the work, of course,” said

Blathers; “but my opinion at once is,—I don’t mind committing myself to

that extent,—that this wasn’t done by a yokel; eh, Duff?”

“Certainly not,” replied Duff.

“And, translating the word yokel for the benefit of the ladies, I

apprehend your meaning to be, that this attempt was not made by a

countryman?” said Mr. Losberne, with a smile.

“That’s it, master,” replied Blathers. “This is all about the robbery,

is it?”

“All,” replied the doctor.

“Now, what is this, about this here boy that the servants are a-talking

on?” said Blathers.

“Nothing at all,” replied the doctor. “One of the frightened servants

chose to take it into his head, that he had something to do with this

attempt to break into the house; but it’s nonsense: sheer absurdity.”

“Wery easy disposed of, if it is,” remarked Duff.

“What he says is quite correct,” observed Blathers, nodding his head in

a confirmatory way, and playing carelessly with the handcuffs, as if

they were a pair of castanets. “Who is the boy? What account does he

give of himself? Where did he come from? He didn’t drop out of the

clouds, did he, master?”

“Of course not,” replied the doctor, with a nervous glance at the two

ladies. “I know his whole history: but we can talk about that

presently. You would like, first, to see the place where the thieves

made their attempt, I suppose?”

“Certainly,” rejoined Mr. Blathers. “We had better inspect the premises

first, and examine the servants afterwards. That’s the usual way of

doing business.”

Lights were then procured; and Messrs. Blathers and Duff, attended by

the native constable, Brittles, Giles, and everybody else in short,

went into the little room at the end of the passage and looked out at

the window; and afterwards went round by way of the lawn, and looked in

at the window; and after that, had a candle handed out to inspect the

shutter with; and after that, a lantern to trace the footsteps with;

and after that, a pitchfork to poke the bushes with. This done, amidst

the breathless interest of all beholders, they came in again; and Mr.

Giles and Brittles were put through a melodramatic representation of

their share in the previous night’s adventures: which they performed

some six times over: contradicting each other, in not more than one

important respect, the first time, and in not more than a dozen the

last. This consummation being arrived at, Blathers and Duff cleared the

room, and held a long council together, compared with which, for

secrecy and solemnity, a consultation of great doctors on the knottiest

point in medicine, would be mere child’s play.

Meanwhile, the doctor walked up and down the next room in a very uneasy

state; and Mrs. Maylie and Rose looked on, with anxious faces.

“Upon my word,” he said, making a halt, after a great number of very

rapid turns, “I hardly know what to do.”

“Surely,” said Rose, “the poor child’s story, faithfully repeated to

these men, will be sufficient to exonerate him.”

“I doubt it, my dear young lady,” said the doctor, shaking his head. “I

don’t think it would exonerate him, either with them, or with legal

functionaries of a higher grade. What is he, after all, they would say?

A runaway. Judged by mere worldly considerations and probabilities, his

story is a very doubtful one.”

“You believe it, surely?” interrupted Rose.

“_I_ believe it, strange as it is; and perhaps I may be an old fool for

doing so,” rejoined the doctor; “but I don’t think it is exactly the

tale for a practical police-officer, nevertheless.”

“Why not?” demanded Rose.

“Because, my pretty cross-examiner,” replied the doctor: “because,

viewed with their eyes, there are many ugly points about it; he can

only prove the parts that look ill, and none of those that look well.

Confound the fellows, they _will_ have the why and the wherefore, and

will take nothing for granted. On his own showing, you see, he has been

the companion of thieves for some time past; he has been carried to a

police-officer, on a charge of picking a gentleman’s pocket; he has

been taken away, forcibly, from that gentleman’s house, to a place

which he cannot describe or point out, and of the situation of which he

has not the remotest idea. He is brought down to Chertsey, by men who

seem to have taken a violent fancy to him, whether he will or no; and

is put through a window to rob a house; and then, just at the very

moment when he is going to alarm the inmates, and so do the very thing

that would set him all to rights, there rushes into the way, a

blundering dog of a half-bred butler, and shoots him! As if on purpose

to prevent his doing any good for himself! Don’t you see all this?”

“I see it, of course,” replied Rose, smiling at the doctor’s

impetuosity; “but still I do not see anything in it, to criminate the

poor child.”

“No,” replied the doctor; “of course not! Bless the bright eyes of your

sex! They never see, whether for good or bad, more than one side of any

question; and that is, always, the one which first presents itself to

them.”

Having given vent to this result of experience, the doctor put his

hands into his pockets, and walked up and down the room with even

greater rapidity than before.

“The more I think of it,” said the doctor, “the more I see that it will

occasion endless trouble and difficulty if we put these men in

possession of the boy’s real story. I am certain it will not be

believed; and even if they can do nothing to him in the end, still the

dragging it forward, and giving publicity to all the doubts that will

be cast upon it, must interfere, materially, with your benevolent plan

of rescuing him from misery.”

“Oh! what is to be done?” cried Rose. “Dear, dear! why did they send

for these people?”

“Why, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Maylie. “I would not have had them here,

for the world.”

“All I know is,” said Mr. Losberne, at last: sitting down with a kind

of desperate calmness, “that we must try and carry it off with a bold

face. The object is a good one, and that must be our excuse. The boy

has strong symptoms of fever upon him, and is in no condition to be

talked to any more; that’s one comfort. We must make the best of it;

and if bad be the best, it is no fault of ours. Come in!”

“Well, master,” said Blathers, entering the room followed by his

colleague, and making the door fast, before he said any more. “This

warn’t a put-up thing.”

“And what the devil’s a put-up thing?” demanded the doctor,

impatiently.

“We call it a put-up robbery, ladies,” said Blathers, turning to them,

as if he pitied their ignorance, but had a contempt for the doctor’s,

“when the servants is in it.”

“Nobody suspected them, in this case,” said Mrs. Maylie.

“Wery likely not, ma’am,” replied Blathers; “but they might have been

in it, for all that.”

“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 undertone.

“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. Anythink 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 that

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 Battlebridge 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 off’en. 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 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 came 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 snuffbox, says ‘Chickweed, I’ve found out who done this

here robbery.’ ‘Have you?’ said Chickweed. ‘Oh, my dear Spyers, only

let me have wengeance, 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 bedroom; 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 accidently 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

Oliver 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 neighbouring

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 the 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. Losberne 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 burglarious 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.