Stranica 199 [199]
OCR
147 ing his foot upon the ground. “ Don’t keep me here!" The woman, who had hesitated at first, | walked boldly in without any further invitation, and Mr. Bumble, who was ashamed, or afraid to hang behind, followed, obviously very ill at his ease, and with scarcely any of that remarkable dignity which was usually his chief characteristic. “ What the devil made you stand lingering there in the wet?" said Monks, turning round, and addressing Bumble, after he had bolted the door behind them. “ We—we were only cooling ourselves,” stammered Bumble, looking apprehensively about him. * Cooling yourselves !” retorted Monks. *“ Not all the rain that ever fell, or ever will fall, will put as much of hell’s fire out as a man can carry about with him. You won't cool yourself so easily, don’t think it!” With this agreeable speech Monks turned short upon the matron, and bent his fierce gaze upon her, till even she, who was not easily cowed, was fain to withdraw her eyes, and turn them towards the ground. “This is the woman, is it?" demanded Monks. “Hem! That is the woman,” replied Mr. Bumble, mindful of his wife’s caution. c You think women never can keep secrets, | suppose?" said the matron, interposing, and returning as she spoke the searching look of Monks. “T know they will always keep one till it’s found out,” said Monks contemptuously. 6: And what may that be?” asked the matron in the same tone. | “The loss of their own name,” replied Monks: “so, by the same rule, if a woman’s a party to a secret that might hang or transport her, I’m not afraid of her telling it to anybody, not I. Do you understand me?" “No,” rejoined the matron, slightly colouring as she spoke. 6 Of course you don’t!” said Monks ironically. “ How should you?" Bestowing something half-way between a sneer and a scowl upon his two companions, and again beckoning them to follow him, the man hastened across the apartment, which was of considerable extent, but low in the roof, and was preparing to | streamed down the aperture, and a peal of thunder followed, which shook the crazy building to its centre. “Hear it!” he cried, shrinking back. “Hear it rolling and crashing away as if it echoed through a thousand caverns, where the devils are hiding from it. Fire the sound! I hate it.” He remained silent for a few moments, and then removing his hands suddenly from his face, showed, to the unspeakable discomposure of Mr. Bumble, that it was much distorted, and nearly black. “These fits come over me now and then,” said Monks, observing his alarm, “and thunder sometimes brings them on. Don’t mind me now; it’s all over this once.” Thus speaking, he led the way up the ladder, and hastily closing the windowshutter of the room into which it led, lowered a lantern which hung at the end of a rope and pulley passed through one of the heavy beams in the ceiling, and which cast a dim light upon an old table and three chairs that were placed beneath it. 6 Now,” said Monks, when they had all three seated themselves, “the sooner we come to our business, the better for all. The woman knows what it is, does she!" The question was addressed to Bumble ; but his wife anticipated the reply, by intimating that she was perfectly acquainted with it. “He is right in saying that you were with this hag the night she died, and that she told you something—” “ About the mother of the boy you named,” rephed the matron interrupting him. “ Yes.” c "The first question is, of what nature was her communication?” said Monks. ‘'That’s the second,” observed the woman with much deliberation. “ The first is, what may the communication be worth?” , c Who the devil can tell that, without knowing of what. kind it is?" asked Monks. “ Nobody better than you, I am persuaded,” answered Mrs. Bumble, who did not want for spirit, as her yokefellow could abundantly testify. “Humph!” said Monks significantly, and with a look of eager inquiry, “ there may be money’s worth to get, eh?" “Perhaps there may,” was the composed reply. “Something that was taken from her,” said Monks eagerly ; " something that she wore—something that—”
