Oldal 171 [171]
123
ntly down again.
ar td was sil dome for the—for the best,
sir!" answered Giles. “I am sure I
thought it was the boy, or Í wouldn't
have meddled with him. Iam not of an
inhuman disposition, sir.”
“Thought it was what boy?" inquired
the senior officer.
Giles. * They—they certainly had a boy.”
“Well, do you think so now?” in¬
quired Blathers.
“Think what, now?’ replied Giles,
looking vacantly.at his questioner.
“Think it’s the same boy, stupid¬
head?” rejoined Mr. Blathers impatiently.
s [ don’t know; I really don’t know,”
said Giles, with a rueful countenance.
“T could nt swear to him.”
“ What do you think?” asked Mr. Bla¬
thers.
“I don’t know what to think,” replied
poor Giles. “Idon’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?”
inguired Blathers, turning to the doctor.
“What a precious muddle-headed chap
you are!" said Duff, addressing Mr. Giles
with supreme contempt.
Mr. berne had been feeling the
ient’s pulse during this short dialogue ;
t 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 ac¬
cordingly adjourned to a neighbourin
apartment, where Mr. Brittles being call¬
ed in, involved himself and his respected
superior in such a wonderful maze of
fresh contradictions and impossibilities as
tended to throw no particular light upon
anything save the fact of his own strong
mystification ; except, indeed, his decla¬
rations that he should n’t know the real
boy if he were put before him that in¬
stant; that he had only taken Oliver to
be he because Mr. Giles had said he was,
and that Mr. Giles had five minutes pre¬
viously admitted in the kitchen that he
began to be very much afraid he had been
a little too hasty.
Among other ingenious surmises, the
uestion was then raised whether Mr.
iles 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 gun¬
the ball about ten minutes before. Upon
no one, however, did it make a greater
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 troublin
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 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 ap¬
prehended 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 dis¬
covered sleeping under a haystack, which,
although a great crime, is only punish¬
able 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 in¬
duced to take the joint bail of Mrs. May¬
lie and Mr. Losberne for Oliver’s appear¬
ance 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 cir¬
cumstances, inclining to the belief that
the burglarious attempt had originated
with the Family Pet, and the former be¬
ing equally disposed to concede the full
merit of it to the great Mr. Conkey
Chickweed.
Meanwhile Oliver gradually threve
and prospered under the united care of
Mrs. Maylie, Rose, and the kind-hearted
Mr. Losberne. If fervent prayers gush¬
ing from hearts overcharged with grati¬
tude 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