Miss Miggs"s sense of hearing, however, having as sharp an edge as her temper, and being of the same snappish and suspicious kind, very soon informed her that the footsteps pa.s.sed her door, and appeared to have some object quite separate and disconnected from herself. At this discovery she became more alarmed than ever, and was about to give utterance to those cries of "Thieves!" and "Murder!" which she had hitherto restrained, when it occurred to her to look softly out, and see that her fears had some good palpable foundation.
Looking out accordingly, and stretching her neck over the handrail, she descried, to her great amazement, Mr Tappert.i.t completely dressed, stealing downstairs, one step at a time, with his shoes in one hand and a lamp in the other. Following him with her eyes, and going down a little way herself to get the better of an intervening angle, she beheld him thrust his head in at the parlour-door, draw it back again with great swiftness, and immediately begin a retreat upstairs with all possible expedition.
"Here"s mysteries!" said the damsel, when she was safe in her own room again, quite out of breath. "Oh, gracious, here"s mysteries!"
The prospect of finding anybody out in anything, would have kept Miss Miggs awake under the influence of henbane. Presently, she heard the step again, as she would have done if it had been that of a feather endowed with motion and walking down on tiptoe. Then gliding out as before, she again beheld the retreating figure of the "prentice; again he looked cautiously in at the parlour-door, but this time instead of retreating, he pa.s.sed in and disappeared.
Miggs was back in her room, and had her head out of the window, before an elderly gentleman could have winked and recovered from it. Out he came at the street-door, shut it carefully behind him, tried it with his knee, and swaggered off, putting something in his pocket as he went along. At this spectacle Miggs cried "Gracious!" again, and then "Goodness gracious!" and then "Goodness gracious me!" and then, candle in hand, went downstairs as he had done. Coming to the workshop, she saw the lamp burning on the forge, and everything as Sim had left it.
"Why I wish I may only have a walking funeral, and never be buried decent with a mourning-coach and feathers, if the boy hasn"t been and made a key for his own self!" cried Miggs. "Oh the little villain!"
This conclusion was not arrived at without consideration, and much peeping and peering about; nor was it una.s.sisted by the recollection that she had on several occasions come upon the "prentice suddenly, and found him busy at some mysterious occupation. Lest the fact of Miss Miggs calling him, on whom she stooped to cast a favourable eye, a boy, should create surprise in any breast, it may be observed that she invariably affected to regard all male bipeds under thirty as mere chits and infants; which phenomenon is not unusual in ladies of Miss Miggs"s temper, and is indeed generally found to be the a.s.sociate of such indomitable and savage virtue.
Miss Miggs deliberated within herself for some little time, looking hard at the shop-door while she did so, as though her eyes and thoughts were both upon it; and then, taking a sheet of paper from a drawer, twisted it into a long thin spiral tube. Having filled this instrument with a quant.i.ty of small coal-dust from the forge, she approached the door, and dropping on one knee before it, dexterously blew into the keyhole as much of these fine ashes as the lock would hold. When she had filled it to the brim in a very workmanlike and skilful manner, she crept upstairs again, and chuckled as she went.
"There!" cried Miggs, rubbing her hands, "now let"s see whether you won"t be glad to take some notice of me, mister. He, he, he! You"ll have eyes for somebody besides Miss Dolly now, I think. A fat-faced puss she is, as ever I come across!"
As she uttered this criticism, she glanced approvingly at her small mirror, as who should say, I thank my stars that can"t be said of me!--as it certainly could not; for Miss Miggs"s style of beauty was of that kind which Mr Tappert.i.t himself had not inaptly termed, in private, "scraggy."
"I don"t go to bed this night!" said Miggs, wrapping herself in a shawl, and drawing a couple of chairs near the window, flouncing down upon one, and putting her feet upon the other, "till you come home, my lad. I wouldn"t," said Miggs viciously, "no, not for five-and-forty pound!"
With that, and with an expression of face in which a great number of opposite ingredients, such as mischief, cunning, malice, triumph, and patient expectation, were all mixed up together in a kind of physiognomical punch, Miss Miggs composed herself to wait and listen, like some fair ogress who had set a trap and was watching for a nibble from a plump young traveller.
She sat there, with perfect composure, all night. At length, just upon break of day, there was a footstep in the street, and presently she could hear Mr Tappert.i.t stop at the door. Then she could make out that he tried his key--that he was blowing into it-- that he knocked it on the nearest post to beat the dust out--that he took it under a lamp to look at it--that he poked bits of stick into the lock to clear it--that he peeped into the keyhole, first with one eye, and then with the other--that he tried the key again-- that he couldn"t turn it, and what was worse, couldn"t get it out-- that he bent it--that then it was much less disposed to come out than before--that he gave it a mighty twist and a great pull, and then it came out so suddenly that he staggered backwards--that he kicked the door--that he shook it--finally, that he smote his forehead, and sat down on the step in despair.
When this crisis had arrived, Miss Miggs, affecting to be exhausted with terror, and to cling to the window-sill for support, put out her nightcap, and demanded in a faint voice who was there.
Mr Tappert.i.t cried "Hush!" and, backing to the road, exhorted her in frenzied pantomime to secrecy and silence.
"Tell me one thing," said Miggs. "Is it thieves?"
"No--no--no!" cried Mr Tappert.i.t.
"Then," said Miggs, more faintly than before, "it"s fire. Where is it, sir? It"s near this room, I know. I"ve a good conscience, sir, and would much rather die than go down a ladder. All I wish is, respecting my love to my married sister, Golden Lion Court, number twenty-sivin, second bell-handle on the right-hand door- post."
"Miggs!" cried Mr Tappert.i.t, "don"t you know me? Sim, you know-- Sim--"
"Oh! what about him!" cried Miggs, clasping her hands. "Is he in any danger? Is he in the midst of flames and blazes! Oh gracious, gracious!"
"Why I"m here, an"t I?" rejoined Mr Tappert.i.t, knocking himself on the breast. "Don"t you see me? What a fool you are, Miggs!"
"There!" cried Miggs, unmindful of this compliment. "Why--so it-- Goodness, what is the meaning of--If you please, mim, here"s--"
"No, no!" cried Mr Tappert.i.t, standing on tiptoe, as if by that means he, in the street, were any nearer being able to stop the mouth of Miggs in the garret. "Don"t!--I"ve been out without leave, and something or another"s the matter with the lock. Come down, and undo the shop window, that I may get in that way."
"I dursn"t do it, Simmun," cried Miggs--for that was her p.r.o.nunciation of his Christian name. "I dursn"t do it, indeed. You know as well as anybody, how particular I am. And to come down in the dead of night, when the house is wrapped in slumbers and weiled in obscurity." And there she stopped and shivered, for her modesty caught cold at the very thought.
"But Miggs," cried Mr Tappert.i.t, getting under the lamp, that she might see his eyes. "My darling Miggs--"
Miggs screamed slightly.
"--That I love so much, and never can help thinking of," and it is impossible to describe the use he made of his eyes when he said this--"do--for my sake, do."
"Oh Simmun," cried Miggs, "this is worse than all. I know if I come down, you"ll go, and--"
"And what, my precious?" said Mr Tappert.i.t.
"And try," said Miggs, hysterically, "to kiss me, or some such dreadfulness; I know you will!"
"I swear I won"t," said Mr Tappert.i.t, with remarkable earnestness. "Upon my soul I won"t. It"s getting broad day, and the watchman"s waking up. Angelic Miggs! If you"ll only come and let me in, I promise you faithfully and truly I won"t."
Miss Miggs, whose gentle heart was touched, did not wait for the oath (knowing how strong the temptation was, and fearing he might forswear himself), but tripped lightly down the stairs, and with her own fair hands drew back the rough fastenings of the workshop window. Having helped the wayward "prentice in, she faintly articulated the words "Simmun is safe!" and yielding to her woman"s nature, immediately became insensible.
"I knew I should quench her," said Sim, rather embarra.s.sed by this circ.u.mstance. "Of course I was certain it would come to this, but there was nothing else to be done--if I hadn"t eyed her over, she wouldn"t have come down. Here. Keep up a minute, Miggs. What a slippery figure she is! There"s no holding her, comfortably. Do keep up a minute, Miggs, will you?"
As Miggs, however, was deaf to all entreaties, Mr Tappert.i.t leant her against the wall as one might dispose of a walking-stick or umbrella, until he had secured the window, when he took her in his arms again, and, in short stages and with great difficulty--arising from her being tall and his being short, and perhaps in some degree from that peculiar physical conformation on which he had already remarked--carried her upstairs, and planting her, in the same umbrella and walking-stick fashion, just inside her own door, left her to her repose.
"He may be as cool as he likes," said Miss Miggs, recovering as soon as she was left alone; "but I"m in his confidence and he can"t help himself, nor couldn"t if he was twenty Simmunses!"
Chapter 10.
It was on one of those mornings, common in early spring, when the year, fickle and changeable in its youth like all other created things, is undecided whether to step backward into winter or forward into summer, and in its uncertainty inclines now to the one and now to the other, and now to both at once--wooing summer in the sunshine, and lingering still with winter in the shade--it was, in short, on one of those mornings, when it is hot and cold, wet and dry, bright and lowering, sad and cheerful, withering and genial, in the compa.s.s of one short hour, that old John Willet, who was dropping asleep over the copper boiler, was roused by the sound of a horse"s feet, and glancing out at window, beheld a traveller of goodly promise, checking his bridle at the Maypole door.
He was none of your flippant young fellows, who would call for a tankard of mulled ale, and make themselves as much at home as if they had ordered a hogshead of wine; none of your audacious young swaggerers, who would even penetrate into the bar--that solemn sanctuary--and, smiting old John upon the back, inquire if there was never a pretty girl in the house, and where he hid his little chambermaids, with a hundred other impertinences of that nature; none of your free-and-easy companions, who would sc.r.a.pe their boots upon the firedogs in the common room, and be not at all particular on the subject of spittoons; none of your unconscionable blades, requiring impossible chops, and taking unheard-of pickles for granted. He was a staid, grave, placid gentleman, something past the prime of life, yet upright in his carriage, for all that, and slim as a greyhound. He was well-mounted upon a st.u.r.dy chestnut cob, and had the graceful seat of an experienced horseman; while his riding gear, though free from such fopperies as were then in vogue, was handsome and well chosen. He wore a riding-coat of a somewhat brighter green than might have been expected to suit the taste of a gentleman of his years, with a short, black velvet cape, and laced pocket-holes and cuffs, all of a jaunty fashion; his linen, too, was of the finest kind, worked in a rich pattern at the wrists and throat, and scrupulously white. Although he seemed, judging from the mud he had picked up on the way, to have come from London, his horse was as smooth and cool as his own iron-grey periwig and pigtail. Neither man nor beast had turned a single hair; and saving for his soiled skirts and spatter-dashes, this gentleman, with his blooming face, white teeth, exactly-ordered dress, and perfect calmness, might have come from making an elaborate and leisurely toilet, to sit for an equestrian portrait at old John Willet"s gate.
It must not be supposed that John observed these several characteristics by other than very slow degrees, or that he took in more than half a one at a time, or that he even made up his mind upon that, without a great deal of very serious consideration. Indeed, if he had been distracted in the first instance by questionings and orders, it would have taken him at the least a fortnight to have noted what is here set down; but it happened that the gentleman, being struck with the old house, or with the plump pigeons which were skimming and curtseying about it, or with the tall maypole, on the top of which a weatherc.o.c.k, which had been out of order for fifteen years, performed a perpetual walk to the music of its own creaking, sat for some little time looking round in silence. Hence John, standing with his hand upon the horse"s bridle, and his great eyes on the rider, and with nothing pa.s.sing to divert his thoughts, had really got some of these little circ.u.mstances into his brain by the time he was called upon to speak.
"A quaint place this," said the gentleman--and his voice was as rich as his dress. "Are you the landlord?"
"At your service, sir," replied John Willet.
"You can give my horse good stabling, can you, and me an early dinner (I am not particular what, so that it be cleanly served), and a decent room of which there seems to be no lack in this great mansion," said the stranger, again running his eyes over the exterior.
"You can have, sir," returned John with a readiness quite surprising, "anything you please."
"It"s well I am easily satisfied," returned the other with a smile, "or that might prove a hardy pledge, my friend." And saying so, he dismounted, with the aid of the block before the door, in a twinkling.
"Halloa there! Hugh!" roared John. "I ask your pardon, sir, for keeping you standing in the porch; but my son has gone to town on business, and the boy being, as I may say, of a kind of use to me, I"m rather put out when he"s away. Hugh!--a dreadful idle vagrant fellow, sir, half a gipsy, as I think--always sleeping in the sun in summer, and in the straw in winter time, sir--Hugh! Dear Lord, to keep a gentleman a waiting here through him!--Hugh! I wish that chap was dead, I do indeed."
"Possibly he is," returned the other. "I should think if he were living, he would have heard you by this time."
"In his fits of laziness, he sleeps so desperate hard," said the distracted host, "that if you were to fire off cannon-b.a.l.l.s into his ears, it wouldn"t wake him, sir."
The guest made no remark upon this novel cure for drowsiness, and recipe for making people lively, but, with his hands clasped behind him, stood in the porch, very much amused to see old John, with the bridle in his hand, wavering between a strong impulse to abandon the animal to his fate, and a half disposition to lead him into the house, and shut him up in the parlour, while he waited on his master.
"Pillory the fellow, here he is at last!" cried John, in the very height and zenith of his distress. "Did you hear me a calling, villain?"
The figure he addressed made no answer, but putting his hand upon the saddle, sprung into it at a bound, turned the horse"s head towards the stable, and was gone in an instant.
"Brisk enough when he is awake," said the guest.
"Brisk enough, sir!" replied John, looking at the place where the horse had been, as if not yet understanding quite, what had become of him. "He melts, I think. He goes like a drop of froth. You look at him, and there he is. You look at him again, and--there he isn"t."
Having, in the absence of any more words, put this sudden climax to what he had faintly intended should be a long explanation of the whole life and character of his man, the oracular John Willet led the gentleman up his wide dismantled staircase into the Maypole"s best apartment.
It was s.p.a.cious enough in all conscience, occupying the whole depth of the house, and having at either end a great bay window, as large as many modern rooms; in which some few panes of stained gla.s.s, emblazoned with fragments of armorial bearings, though cracked, and patched, and shattered, yet remained; attesting, by their presence, that the former owner had made the very light subservient to his state, and pressed the sun itself into his list of flatterers; bidding it, when it shone into his chamber, reflect the badges of his ancient family, and take new hues and colours from their pride.
But those were old days, and now every little ray came and went as it would; telling the plain, bare, searching truth. Although the best room of the inn, it had the melancholy aspect of grandeur in decay, and was much too vast for comfort. Rich rustling hangings, waving on the walls; and, better far, the rustling of youth and beauty"s dress; the light of women"s eyes, outshining the tapers and their own rich jewels; the sound of gentle tongues, and music, and the tread of maiden feet, had once been there, and filled it with delight. But they were gone, and with them all its gladness. It was no longer a home; children were never born and bred there; the fireside had become mercenary--a something to be bought and sold--a very courtezan: let who would die, or sit beside, or leave it, it was still the same--it missed n.o.body, cared for n.o.body, had equal warmth and smiles for all. G.o.d help the man whose heart ever changes with the world, as an old mansion when it becomes an inn!
No effort had been made to furnish this chilly waste, but before the broad chimney a colony of chairs and tables had been planted on a square of carpet, flanked by a ghostly screen, enriched with figures, grinning and grotesque. After lighting with his own hands the f.a.ggots which were heaped upon the hearth, old John withdrew to hold grave council with his cook, touching the stranger"s entertainment; while the guest himself, seeing small comfort in the yet unkindled wood, opened a lattice in the distant window, and basked in a sickly gleam of cold March sun.
Leaving the window now and then, to rake the crackling logs together, or pace the echoing room from end to end, he closed it when the fire was quite burnt up, and having wheeled the easiest chair into the warmest corner, summoned John Willet.
"Sir," said John.
He wanted pen, ink, and paper. There was an old standish on the mantelshelf containing a dusty apology for all three. Having set this before him, the landlord was retiring, when he motioned him to stay.
"There"s a house not far from here," said the guest when he had written a few lines, "which you call the Warren, I believe?"
As this was said in the tone of one who knew the fact, and asked the question as a thing of course, John contented himself with nodding his head in the affirmative; at the same time taking one hand out of his pockets to cough behind, and then putting it in again.
"I want this note"--said the guest, glancing on what he had written, and folding it, "conveyed there without loss of time, and an answer brought back here. Have you a messenger at hand?"
John was thoughtful for a minute or thereabouts, and then said Yes.
"Let me see him," said the guest.
This was disconcerting; for Joe being out, and Hugh engaged in rubbing down the chestnut cob, he designed sending on the errand, Barnaby, who had just then arrived in one of his rambles, and who, so that he thought himself employed on a grave and serious business, would go anywhere.
"Why the truth is," said John after a long pause, "that the person who"d go quickest, is a sort of natural, as one may say, sir; and though quick of foot, and as much to be trusted as the post itself, he"s not good at talking, being touched and flighty, sir."
"You don"t," said the guest, raising his eyes to John"s fat face, "you don"t mean--what"s the fellow"s name--you don"t mean Barnaby?"
"Yes, I do," returned the landlord, his features turning quite expressive with surprise.
"How comes he to be here?" inquired the guest, leaning back in his chair; speaking in the bland, even tone, from which he never varied; and with the same soft, courteous, never-changing smile upon his face. "I saw him in London last night."
"He"s, for ever, here one hour, and there the next," returned old John, after the usual pause to get the question in his mind. "Sometimes he walks, and sometimes runs. He"s known along the road by everybody, and sometimes comes here in a cart or chaise, and sometimes riding double. He comes and goes, through wind, rain, snow, and hail, and on the darkest nights. Nothing hurts HIM."
"He goes often to the Warren, does he not?" said the guest carelessly. "I seem to remember his mother telling me something to that effect yesterday. But I was not attending to the good woman much."
"You"re right, sir," John made answer, "he does. His father, sir, was murdered in that house."
"So I have heard," returned the guest, taking a gold toothpick from his pocket with the same sweet smile. "A very disagreeable circ.u.mstance for the family."
"Very," said John with a puzzled look, as if it occurred to him, dimly and afar off, that this might by possibility be a cool way of treating the subject.
"All the circ.u.mstances after a murder," said the guest soliloquising, "must be dreadfully unpleasant--so much bustle and disturbance--no repose--a constant dwelling upon one subject--and the running in and out, and up and down stairs, intolerable. I wouldn"t have such a thing happen to anybody I was nearly interested in, on any account. "Twould be enough to wear one"s life out.--You were going to say, friend--" he added, turning to John again.
"Only that Mrs Rudge lives on a little pension from the family, and that Barnaby"s as free of the house as any cat or dog about it," answered John. "Shall he do your errand, sir?"
"Oh yes," replied the guest. "Oh certainly. Let him do it by all means. Please to bring him here that I may charge him to be quick. If he objects to come you may tell him it"s Mr Chester. He will remember my name, I dare say."
John was so very much astonished to find who his visitor was, that he could express no astonishment at all, by looks or otherwise, but left the room as if he were in the most placid and imperturbable of all possible conditions. It has been reported that when he got downstairs, he looked steadily at the boiler for ten minutes by the clock, and all that time never once left off shaking his head; for which statement there would seem to be some ground of truth and feasibility, inasmuch as that interval of time did certainly elapse, before he returned with Barnaby to the guest"s apartment.
"Come hither, lad," said Mr Chester. "You know Mr Geoffrey Haredale?"
Barnaby laughed, and looked at the landlord as though he would say, "You hear him?" John, who was greatly shocked at this breach of decorum, clapped his finger to his nose, and shook his head in mute remonstrance.
"He knows him, sir," said John, frowning aside at Barnaby, "as well as you or I do."
"I haven"t the pleasure of much acquaintance with the gentleman," returned his guest. "YOU may have. Limit the comparison to yourself, my friend."
Although this was said with the same easy affability, and the same smile, John felt himself put down, and laying the indignity at Barnaby"s door, determined to kick his raven, on the very first opportunity.
"Give that," said the guest, who had by this time sealed the note, and who beckoned his messenger towards him as he spoke, "into Mr Haredale"s own hands. Wait for an answer, and bring it back to me here. If you should find that Mr Haredale is engaged just now, tell him--can he remember a message, landlord?"
"When he chooses, sir," replied John. "He won"t forget this one."
"How are you sure of that?"
John merely pointed to him as he stood with his head bent forward, and his earnest gaze fixed closely on his questioner"s face; and nodded sagely.
"Tell him then, Barnaby, should he be engaged," said Mr Chester, "that I shall be glad to wait his convenience here, and to see him (if he will call) at any time this evening.--At the worst I can have a bed here, Willet, I suppose?"
Old John, immensely flattered by the personal notoriety implied in this familiar form of address, answered, with something like a knowing look, "I should believe you could, sir," and was turning over in his mind various forms of eulogium, with the view of selecting one appropriate to the qualities of his best bed, when his ideas were put to flight by Mr Chester giving Barnaby the letter, and bidding him make all speed away.
"Speed!" said Barnaby, folding the little packet in his breast, "Speed! If you want to see hurry and mystery, come here. Here!"
With that, he put his hand, very much to John Willet"s horror, on the guest"s fine broadcloth sleeve, and led him stealthily to the back window.
"Look down there," he said softly; "do you mark how they whisper in each other"s ears; then dance and leap, to make believe they are in sport? Do you see how they stop for a moment, when they think there is no one looking, and mutter among themselves again; and then how they roll and gambol, delighted with the mischief they"ve been plotting? Look at "em now. See how they whirl and plunge. And now they stop again, and whisper, cautiously together--little thinking, mind, how often I have lain upon the gra.s.s and watched them. I say what is it that they plot and hatch? Do you know?"
"They are only clothes," returned the guest, "such as we wear; hanging on those lines to dry, and fluttering in the wind."
"Clothes!" echoed Barnaby, looking close into his face, and falling quickly back. "Ha ha! Why, how much better to be silly, than as wise as you! You don"t see shadowy people there, like those that live in sleep--not you. Nor eyes in the knotted panes of gla.s.s, nor swift ghosts when it blows hard, nor do you hear voices in the air, nor see men stalking in the sky--not you! I lead a merrier life than you, with all your cleverness. You"re the dull men. We"re the bright ones. Ha! ha! I"ll not change with you, clever as you are,--not I!"
With that, he waved his hat above his head, and darted off.
"A strange creature, upon my word!" said the guest, pulling out a handsome box, and taking a pinch of snuff.