Authors: George W. M. Reynolds,James Malcolm Rymer
"She
lives and is well."
"Thank
Heaven. Do with me what you please."
Dr.
Chillingworth sprang forward, and addressing the magistrate, he said,—
"Sir,
I know this gentleman. He is no one of the rioters, but a dear friend of the
family of the Bannerworths. Charles Holland, what in the name of Heaven had
become of you so long, and what brought you here at such a juncture as
this?"
"I
am faint," said Charles; "I—I only arrived as the crowd did. I had
not strength to fight my way through them, and was compelled to pause until
they had dispersed Can—can you give me water?"
"Here's
something better," said one of the soldiers, as he handed a flask to
Charles, who partook of some of the contents, which greatly revived him,
indeed.
"I
am better now," he said. "Thank you kindly. Take me into the house.
Good God! why is it made a point of attack? Where are Flora and Henry? Are they
all well? And my uncle? Oh! what must you all have thought of my absence! But
you cannot have endured a hundredth part of what I have suffered. Let me look
once again upon the face of Flora. Take me into the house."
"Release
him," said the officer, as he pointed to his head, and looked
significantly, as much as to say, "Some mad patient of yours, I
suppose."
"You
are much mistaken, sir," said Dr. Chillingworth; "this gentleman has
been cruelly used, I have no doubt. He has, I am inclined to believe, been made
the victim, for a time, of the intrigues of that very Sir Francis Varney, whose
conduct has been the real cause of all the serious disturbances that have taken
place in the country."
"Confound
Sir Francis Varney," muttered the officer; "he is enough to set a
whole nation by the ears. However, Mr. Magistrate, if you are satisfied that
this young man is not one of the rioters, I have, of course, no wish to hold
him a prisoner."
"I
can take Mr. Chillingworth's word for more than that," said the
magistrate.
Charles
Holland was accordingly released, and then the doctor, in hurried accents, told
him the principal outlines of what had occurred.
"Oh!
take me to Flora," he said; "let me not delay another moment in
seeking her, and convincing her that I could not have been guilty of the
baseness of deserting her."
"Hark
you, Mr. Holland, I have quite made up my mind that I will not leave
Bannerworth Hall yet; but you can go alone, and easily find them by the
directions which I will give you; only let me beg of you not to go abruptly
into the presence of Flora. She is in an extremely delicate state of health,
and although I do not take upon myself to say that a shock of a pleasurable
nature would prove of any paramount bad consequence to her, yet it is as well
not to risk it."
"I
will be most careful, you may depend."
At
this moment there was a loud ringing at the garden bell, and, when it was
answered by one of the dragoons, who was ordered to do so by his officer, he
came back, escorting no other than Jack Pringle, who had been sent by the
admiral to the Hall, but who had solaced himself so much on the road with
divers potations, that he did not reach it till now, which was a full hour
after the reasonable time in which he ought to have gone the distance.
Jack
was not to say dumb, but he had had enough to give him a very jolly sort of
feeling of independence, and so he came along quarrelling with the soldier all
the way, the latter only laughing and keeping his temper admirably well, under
a great deal of provocation.
"Why,
you land lubbers," cried Jack, "what do you do here, all of you, I
wonder! You are all wamphighers, I'll be bound, every one of you. You mind me
of marines, you do, and that's quite enough to turn a proper seaman's stomach,
any day in the week."
The
soldier only laughed, and brought Jack up to the little group of persons
consisting of Dr. Chillingworth, the hangman, Charles Holland, and the officer.
"Why,
Jack Pringle," said Dr. Chillingworth, stepping before Charles, so that
Jack should not see him,—"why, Jack Pringle, what brings you here?"
"A
slight squall, sir, to the nor'west. Brought you something to eat."
Jack
produced a bottle.
"To
drink, you mean?"
"Well,
it's all one; only in this here shape, you see, it goes down better, I'm
thinking, which does make a little difference somehow."
"How
is the admiral?"
"Oh,
he's as stupid as ever; Lord bless you, he'd be like a ship without a rudder
without me, and would go swaying about at the mercy of winds and waves, poor
old man. He's bad enough as it is, but if so be I wasn't to give the eye to him
as I does, bless my heart if I thinks as he'd be above hatches long. Here's to
you all."
Jack
took the cork from the bottle he had with him, and there came from it a strong
odour of rum. Then he placed it to his lips, and was enjoying the pleasant
gurgle of the liquor down his throat, when Charles stepped up to him, and
laying hold of the lower end of the bottle, he dragged it from his mouth,
saying,—
"How
dare you talk in the way you have of my uncle, you drunken, mutinous rascal,
and behind his back too!"
The
voice of Charles Holland was as well known to Jack Pringle as that of the
admiral, and his intense astonishment at hearing himself so suddenly addressed
by one, of whose proximity he had not the least idea, made some of the rum go,
what is popularly termed, the wrong way, and nearly choked him.
He
reeled back, till he fell over some obstruction, and then down he sat on a
flower bed, while his eyes seemed ready to come out of his head.
"Avast
heavings," he cried, "Who's that?"
"Come,
come," said Charles Holland, "don't pretend you don't know me; I will
not have my uncle spoken of in a disrespectful manner by you."
"Well,
shiver my timbers, if that ain't our nevey. Why, Charley, my boy, how are you?
Here we are in port at last. Won't the old commodore pipe his eye, now. Whew!
here's a go. I've found our nevey, after all."
"You
found him," said Dr. Chillingworth; "now, that is as great a piece of
impudence as ever I heard in all my life. You mean that he has found you, and
found you out, too, you drunken fellow. Jack, you get worse and worse every
day."
"Ay,
ay, sir."
"What,
you admit it?"
"Ay,
ay, sir. Now, Master Charley, I tell you what it is, I shall take you off to
your old uncle, you shore going sneak and you'll have to report what cruise
you've been upon all this while, leaving the ship to look after itself. Lord
love you all, if it hadn't been for me I don't know what anybody would have
done."
"I
only know of the result," said Dr Chillingworth, "that would ensue,
if it were not for you, and that would consist in a great injury to the
revenue, in consequence of the much less consumption of rum and other strong
liquors."
"I'll
be hanged up at the yard if I understands what you mean," said Jack;
"as if I ever drunk anything—I, of all people in the world. I am ashamed
of you. You are drunk."
Several
of the dragoons had to turn aside to keep themselves from laughing, and the
officer himself could not forbear from a smile as he said to the doctor,—
"Sir,
you seem to have many acquaintances, and by some means or another they all have
an inclination to come here to-night. If, however, you consider that you are
bound to remain here from a feeling that the Hall is threatened with any
danger, you may dismiss that fear, for I shall leave a picquet here all
night."
"No,
sir," replied Dr. Chillingworth, "it is not that I fear now, after
the manner in which they have been repulsed, any danger to the Hall from the
mob; but I have reasons for wishing to be in it or near it for some time to
come."
"As
you please."
"Charles,
do not wait for or accept the guidance of that drunken fellow, but go yourself
with a direction which I will write down for you in a leaf of my
pocket-book."
"Drunken
fellow," exclaimed Jack, who had now scrambled to his feet, "who do
you call a drunken fellow?"
"Why
you, unquestionably."
"Well,
now, that is hard. Come along, nevey; I'll shew you where they all are. I could
walk a plank on any deck with any man in the service, I could. Come along, my
boy, come along."
"You
can accept of him as a guide if you like, of course," said the doctor;
"he may be sober enough to conduct you."
"I
think he can," said Charles. "Lead on, Jack; but mark me, I shall
inform my uncle of this intemperance, as well as of the manner in which you let
your tongue wag about him behind his back, unless you promise to reform."
"He
is long past all reformation," remarked Dr. Chillingworth; "it is out
of the question."
"And
I am afraid my uncle will not have courage to attempt such an ungrateful task,
when there is so little chance of success," replied Charles Holland,
shaking the worthy doctor by the hand. "Farewell, for the present, sir;
the next time I see you, I hope we shall both be more pleasantly
situated."
"Come
along, nevey," interrupted Jack Pringle; "now you've found your way
back, the first thing you ought to do, is to report yourself as having come
aboard. Follow me, and I'll soon show yer the port where the old hulk's laid
hisself up."
Jack
walked on first, tolerably steady, if one may take into account his divers deep
potations, and Charles Holland, anticipating with delight again looking upon
the face of his much loved Flora, followed closely behind him.
We
can well imagine the world of delightful thoughts that came crowding upon him
when Jack, after rather a long walk, announced that they were now very near the
residence of the object of his soul's adoration.
We
trust that there is not one of our readers who, for one moment, will suppose
that Charles Holland was the sort of man to leave even such a villain and
double-faced hypocrite as Marchdale, to starve amid the gloomy ruins where he
was immured.
Far
from Charles's intentions was any such thing; but he did think that a night
passed there, with no other company than his own reflections, would do him a
world of good, and was, at all events, no very great modicum of punishment for
the rascality with which he had behaved.
Besides,
even during that night there were refreshments in the shape of bread and water,
such as had been presented to Charles himself, within Marchdale's reach as they
had been within his.
That
individual now, Charles thought, would have a good opportunity of testing the
quality of that kind of food, and of finding out what an extremely light diet
it was for a strong man to live upon.
But
in the morning it was Charles's intention to take Henry Bannerworth and the
admiral with him to the ruins, and then and there release the wretch from his
confinement, on condition that he made a full confession of his villanies
before those persons.
Oh,
how gladly would Marchdale have exchanged the fate which actually befell him
for any amount of personal humiliation, always provided that it brought with it
a commensurate amount of personal safety.
But
that fate was one altogether undreamt of by Charles Holland, and wholly without
his control.
It
was a fate which would have been his, but for the murderous purpose which had
brought Marchdale to the dungeon, and those happy accidents which had enabled
Charles to change places with him, and breathe the free, cool, fresh air; while
he left his enemy loaded with the same chains that had encumbered his limbs so
cruelly, and lying on that same damp dungeon floor, which he thought would be
his grave.
We
mentioned that as Charles left the ruins, the storm, which had been giving
various indications of its coming, seemed to be rapidly approaching.
It
was one of these extremely local tempests which expend all their principal fury
over a small space of country; and, in this instance, the space seemed to
include little more than the river, and the few meadows which immediately
surrounded it, and lent it so much of its beauty.
Marchdale
soon found that his cries were drowned by the louder voices of the elements.
The wailing of the wind among the ancient ruins was much more full of sound
than his cries; and, now and then, the full-mouthed thunder filled the air with
such a volume of roaring, and awakened so many echoes among the ruins, that,
had he possessed the voices of fifty men, he could not have hoped to wage war
with it.
And
then, although we know that Charles Holland would have encountered death
himself, rather than he would have willingly left anything human to expire of
hunger in that dungeon, yet Marchdale, judging of others by himself, felt by no
means sure of any such thing, and, in his horror of apprehension, fancied that
that was just the sort of easy, and pleasant, and complete revenge that it was
in Charles Holland's power to take, and just the one which would suggest
itself, under the circumstances, to his mind.