The theory appeared to commend itself to more than one-for they were all of the fanatical party; but it was swept to the winds by the entrance of Mrs. D-, who having heard of robbery, came in like a whirlwind, her face on fire, and made no more ado, but rushed upon me, and tore and slapped my cheeks with all her might, crying with each blow, "You nasty thief, will that teach you better manners? That for your roguery! and that! Oh, you jail bird, I'll teach you!"
How long she would have continued to chastise me I cannot say, but her husband presently stepped in to protect me, and being thoroughly winded, she let me go pretty willingly. But when she learned, having hitherto been under the impression that I had been seized in the act with the money upon me, that the latter could not be found, her face turned yellow and she sat down in a chair.
"Have you searched?" she gasped.
"Everywhere," the neighbours answered her.
"He must have thrown it through the window."
They shook their heads.
On that she jumped up, and looked at me with a cold spite in her face that made me shiver. "Then I will tell you what it is," she said, "he has given it to that hussy, and she has taken it! But I will have it out of him; where the money is, and she is, and how he got in! Mr. D-, when you have done standing there like a gaby, fetch your stoutest cane; and do you, my friends, lay him across that bed! And if we do not cut it out of his skin, his name is not Richard Price. I wish I had the wench here, and I would serve her the same!"
I screamed, and fell on my knees as they laid hands on me; but Mrs. D- was a woman without bowels, and the men were complaisant and not unwilling to see the cruel sport of the usher flogged, and the schoolmaster disciplined; and it would have gone hard with me, in spite of my prayers, if the constable had not arrived at that moment, and requested with dignity to see his prisoner. Introduced to me, he stared; and, moved I believe by an impulse of pity, said I was young to hang.
"Ay, but not too good!" Mrs. D- answered shrilly, her head trembling with passion. "He and the hussy, that is gone, have robbed me of eighty guineas in a green bag, as I am prepared to swear!"
"Sixty, Mrs. D-," said her husband, looking a warning at her and then askance at his neighbours.
"Rot take the man, does it matter to a guinea or two?" she retorted-but her sallow face flushed a little. "At any rate," she continued, pressing her thin lips together, and nodding her head viciously, "sixty or eighty, they have taken them."
It seemed, however, that even to that one of the neighbours had a word to say. "As to the girl, I am not so sure, Mrs. D-," he struck in ponderously. "If she is the wench that has been carrying on with the gentleman at the 'Rose,' she has had other fish to fry. Though I don't say, mind you, that she has not been in this. Only-"
But Mrs. D- could restrain herself no longer. "Only! only! Gentlemen at the 'Rose'!" she cried. "Why, man, are you mad? What do you think has my maid-though maid she is not, but a dirty drab, and more is the pity I took her out of charity from the parish-she was Kitty Higgs's base-born brat as you know-what has she to do with gentlemen at the 'Rose'?"
"Well, that is not for me to say," the man answered quietly. "Only I know that for a week or more a wench has been walking with the gentleman in the roads and so forth, by night as well as by day. I came on them twice myself hard by here; and though she was dressed more like a fine madam than a serving girl, I watched her into your house. And for the rest, Mrs. Harris must know more than I do."
But Mrs. Harris, when Mrs. D- turned on her in a white rage, could only cover her head and weep in a corner; as much, I believe, out of sorrow for me as on her own account. However, the fact that the good-natured woman had left Jennie pretty much to her own devices could not be gainsaid; and Mrs. D- had much to say on it. But when she talked of sending after the baggage and jailing her, ay, and the gentleman at the "Rose" too, if he could not pay the money, the constable pursed up his lips.
"It is to be remembered that he came with His Royal Highness, our gracious Prince," he said, swelling out his chest and puffing out his cheeks with importance. "And though it is true he ordered his horses and went for London last evening-as I know myself, having seen him go, and seen him before for the matter of that at Hertford Assizes, for he is a Counsellor-it does not follow that the wench went with him. Or, if she did, Mrs. D-, – "
"That she had anything to do with this money," the neighbour who had spoken before put in.
"Precisely, Mr. Jenkins," the constable answered. "You are a man of sense. For my part," he continued, looking round a little defiantly, "I am no Whig, and I am not for meddling with Court gentlemen, and least of all lawyers. And if you will take my advice, Mr. D-, you will be satisfied to lay this young jail-bird by the heels; and if he does not speak before the rope is round his neck, it is not likely that you will get your money other ways. But, lord," the good man went on, standing back from me, to view me the better, "he is young to be such a villain! It is 'broke and entered,' too, and so he will swing for it." And he took off his hat and wiped his bald head, while he gazed at me between pity and admiration.
Mrs. D-, who was very far from sharing either of these feelings, would have had me taken at once before a Justice and committed. But the constable, partly to prove his importance, and partly, I believe, to give me a chance of disclosing where the money lay, before it was too late, would have the house and garden searched, and all the boys examined; under the impression that I might have had one of these for my accomplice. Naturally, however, nothing came of this, except the discovery that I had been out of nights lately; which had scarcely been made when who should appear on the scene, in an unlucky hour for me, but the gentleman who had identified me outside the gaming room at the "Rose." As he had come for the very purpose of laying a complaint against me, his story destroyed the last scrap of my credit, by exhibiting me as a secret rake; and this removing all doubt of my guilt, if any were still entertained even by Mrs. Harris, it was determined to convey me, dinner over, to Sir Baldwin Winston's, at Abbot's Stanstead, to be committed; the two Justices who resided in Ware being at the moment disabled.
All this time, and while my fate was being decided, I listened to one and another in a dull despair, which deprived me of the power to defend myself; and from which nothing less than Mrs. D-'s atrocious proposal to flog me, until I gave up the money, could draw me, and that only for a moment. Conscious of my guilt, and seized in the act and on the scene of my crime, I beheld only the near and certain prospect of punishment; while I had not the temptation to tell all, and inform against my crafty accomplice, to which a knowledge of her destination must have exposed me. Besides-and I think a great part of my apathy was due to this-I still felt the stunning effects of the blow which her cruel treachery had dealt me. I saw her in her true light; and as I sat, weeping silently, and seeming to those who watched me, little moved, I was thinking at least as much of the past and my love, and her craft, as of the fate that lay before me.
Though this was presently brought vividly before me, and of all persons by Mrs. Harris. Mrs. D- of herself would have given me neither bit nor sup in the house; but the constable insisting that the King's prisoner must be fed, Mrs. Harris, tearful and shaking, was allowed to bring me some broken victuals. These set before me, the good soul, instead of retiring, pottered aimlessly about the room; and by and by got behind me; on which, or rather a moment later, I felt something cold and sharp at the nape of my neck and started up. Bursting into a flood of tears she plumped down on a seat, and I saw that she had a pair of scissors and a scrap of my hair in her hand.
"Good Lord!" I said.
Doubtless the tone in which I spoke betrayed me, for the constable's man who was in charge of me laughed brutally. "Gad, if he does not think she did it out of love!" he cried, speaking to a friend who was sitting with him. "When all the old dame wants is a charm for the rheumatics; and she thinks the chance too good to be lost."
Then I remembered that the hair of a hanged man is in that part held to be sovereign for the rheumatics; and I sat down feeling cold and faint.
CHAPTER VIII
That saying, though a small thing, and a foolish one, brought my state home to me; and, moreover,