Stranica 166 [166]
120
wards. That’s the usual way of doing
business.” vh
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
and after that a lantern to trace the foot¬
steps 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 melo-dra¬
matic representation of their share in the
previous night’s adventures, which they
performed some six times over, contra¬
dicting each other in not more than one
important respect the first time, and in
not more than a dozen the last.
consummation being arrived at, Blathers
and Duff cleared the room, and held a
long council together, compared with
which, for secrecy and solemnity, a con¬
sultation of great doctors on the knottiest
eee 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.”
“T 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 credit it, surely?" interrupted
Rose in haste.
6 I believe it, strange as it is, and per¬
haps may be an old fool for doing so,” re¬
jomed the doctor; “but I don’t think it
is exactly the tale for a practised police
officer, nevertheless.”
“ Why not?” demanded Rose.
c Because, my pretty cross-examiner,”
replied the doctor, “ because, viewed with
their eyes, there are so many ugly points
. about it; he can only prove the parts that
look bad, and none of those that look
well, Confound the fellows, they wil
have the why. and the wherefore, and
take nothing for ted. On his own
showing, you see, he has been the com¬
panion of thieves for some time past; he
has been carried to a police-office on .a
charge of picking a gentleman’s pocket,
and is taken away forcibly from that gen¬
tleman’s house to a place which he can¬
not describe or point out, and of the situa¬
tion 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
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 that
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?”
“T see it, of course,” replied Rose,
smiling at the doctor s impetuosity ; “ but
still I do not see anything in it to crimi¬
nate 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, invariably, the one which first
presents itself to them.” |
Having given, vent to this result of ex¬
erlence, the doctor put his. hands: into
is pockets, and walked up and down the
cae with even greater rapidity than be¬
ore.
“The more I think of it,” said the doc¬
tor, "5 the more I see that it will occasion
endless trouble and difficulty to put these
men into possession of the boy’s real
story. I am certain it will not be be¬
lieved; and, even if they can do nothing
to him in the end, still the dragging it
forward, and giving publicity to all the
interfere materially with your benevolent
plan of rescuing him from misery.”
6 Oh ! what is to be done ?” cried Rose.
“ Dear, dear! why did they send for these
people?" |
“ Why, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. May¬
he. “IJ would not have had them here
for the world !”
c All I know is,” said Mr. Losberne at
last, sitting dow with a kind of desper¬
ate calmness, “that we must try and
carry it off with a bold face, that’s all!
The object is a good one, and that must
be the excuse. The boy has strong
symptoms of fever upon him, and is in no
condition to be talked to any more; that’s