"Just a fancy for the time, Mr. Crumb," said the lady.

"They never thinks as how their fancies may wellnigh half kill a man!" Then he was silent for a while, sitting back in his chair, not moving a limb, with his eyes fastened on Mrs. Pipkin's ceiling. Mrs.

Hurtle had some work in her hand, and sat watching him. The man was to her an extraordinary being,--so constant, so slow, so unexpressive, so unlike her own countrymen,--willing to endure so much, and at the same time so warm in his affections! "Sir Felix Carbury!" he said. "I'll Sir Felix him some of these days. If it was only dinner, wouldn't she be back afore this, ma'am?"

"I suppose they've gone to some place of amus.e.m.e.nt," said Mrs. Hurtle.

"Like enough," said John Crumb in a low voice.

"She's that mad after dancing as never was," said Mrs. Pipkin.

"And where is it as 'em dances?" asked Crumb, getting up from his chair, and stretching himself. It was evident to both the ladies that he was beginning to think that he would follow Ruby to the music hall. Neither of them answered him, however, and then he sat down again. "Does 'em dance all night at them places, Mrs. Pipkin?"

"They do pretty nearly all that they oughtn't to do," said Mrs.

Pipkin. John Crumb raised one of his fists, brought it down heavily on the palm of his other hand, and then sat silent for awhile.

"I never knowed as she was fond o' dancing," he said. "I'd a had dancing for her down at Bungay,--just as ready as anything. D'ye think, ma'am, it's the dancing she's after, or the baro-nite?" This was another appeal to Mrs. Hurtle.

"I suppose they go together," said the lady.

Then there was another long pause, at the end of which poor John Crumb burst out with some violence. "Domn him! Domn him! What 'ad I ever dun to him? Nothing! Did I ever interfere wi' him? Never! But I wull. I wull. I wouldn't wonder but I'll swing for this at Bury!"

"Oh, Mr. Crumb, don't talk like that," said Mrs. Pipkin.

"Mr. Crumb is a little disturbed, but he'll get over it presently,"

said Mrs. Hurtle.

"She's a nasty s.l.u.t to go and treat a young man as she's treating you," said Mrs. Pipkin.

"No, ma'am;--she ain't nasty," said the lover. "But she's crou'll--horrid crou'll. It's no more use my going down about meal and pollard, nor business, and she up here with that baro-nite,--no, no more nor nothin'! When I handles it I don't know whether its middlings nor nothin' else. If I was to twist his neck, ma'am, would you take it on yourself to say as I was wrong?"

"I'd sooner hear that you had taken the girl away from him," said Mrs.

Hurtle.

"I could pretty well eat him,--that's what I could. Half past eleven; is it? She must come some time, mustn't she?" Mrs. Pipkin, who did not want to burn candles all night long, declared that she could give no a.s.surance on that head. If Ruby did come, she should, on that night, be admitted. But Mrs. Pipkin thought that it would be better to get up and let her in than to sit up for her. Poor Mr. Crumb did not at once take the hint, and remained there for another half-hour, saying little, but waiting with the hope that Ruby might come. But when the clock struck twelve he was told that he must go. Then he slowly collected his limbs and dragged them out of the house.

"That young man is a good fellow," said Mrs. Hurtle as soon as the door was closed.

"A deal too good for Ruby Ruggles," said Mrs. Pipkin. "And he can maintain a wife. Mr. Carbury says as he's as well to do as any tradesman down in them parts."

Mrs. Hurtle disliked the name of Mr. Carbury, and took this last statement as no evidence in John Crumb's favour. "I don't know that I think better of the man for having Mr. Carbury's friendship," she said.

"Mr. Carbury ain't any way like his cousin, Mrs. Hurtle."

"I don't think much of any of the Carburys, Mrs. Pipkin. It seems to me that everybody here is either too humble or too overbearing.

n.o.body seems content to stand firm on his own footing and interfere with n.o.body else." This was all Greek to poor Mrs. Pipkin. "I suppose we may as well go to bed now. When that girl comes and knocks, of course we must let her in. If I hear her, I'll go down and open the door for her."

Mrs. Pipkin made very many apologies to her lodger for the condition of her household. She would remain up herself to answer the door at the first sound, so that Mrs. Hurtle should not be disturbed. She would do her best to prevent any further annoyance. She trusted Mrs.

Hurtle would see that she was endeavouring to do her duty by the naughty wicked girl. And then she came round to the point of her discourse. She hoped that Mrs. Hurtle would not be induced to quit the rooms by these disagreeable occurrences. "I don't mind saying it now, Mrs. Hurtle, but your being here is ever so much to me. I ain't nothing to depend on,--only lodgers, and them as is any good is so hard to get!" The poor woman hardly understood Mrs. Hurtle, who, as a lodger, was certainly peculiar. She cared nothing for disturbances, and rather liked than otherwise the task of endeavouring to a.s.sist in the salvation of Ruby. Mrs. Hurtle begged that Mrs. Pipkin would go to bed. She would not be in the least annoyed by the knocking. Another half-hour had thus been pa.s.sed by the two ladies in the parlour after Crumb's departure. Then Mrs. Hurtle took her candle and had ascended the stairs half way to her own sitting-room, when a loud double knock was heard. She immediately joined Mrs. Pipkin in the pa.s.sage. The door was opened, and there stood Ruby Ruggles, John Crumb, and two policemen! Ruby rushed in, and casting herself on to one of the stairs began to throw her hands about, and to howl piteously. "Laws a mercy; what is it?" asked Mrs. Pipkin.

"He's been and murdered him!" screamed Ruby. "He has! He's been and murdered him!"

"This young woman is living here;--is she?" asked one of the policemen.

"She is living here," said Mrs. Hurtle. But now we must go back to the adventures of John Crumb after he had left the house.

He had taken a bedroom at a small inn close to the Eastern Counties Railway Station which he was accustomed to frequent when business brought him up to London, and thither he proposed to himself to return. At one time there had come upon him an idea that he would endeavour to seek Ruby and his enemy among the dancing saloons of the metropolis; and he had asked a question with that view. But no answer had been given which seemed to aid him in his project, and his purpose had been abandoned as being too complex and requiring more intelligence than he gave himself credit for possessing. So he had turned down a street with which he was so far acquainted as to know that it would take him to the Islington Angel,--where various roads meet, and whence he would know his way eastwards. He had just pa.s.sed the Angel, and the end of Goswell Road, and was standing with his mouth open, looking about, trying to make certain of himself that he would not go wrong, thinking that he would ask a policeman whom he saw, and hesitating because he feared that the man would want to know his business. Then, of a sudden, he heard a woman scream, and knew that it was Ruby's voice. The sound was very near him, but in the glimmer of the gaslight he could not quite see whence it came. He stood still, putting his hand up to scratch his head under his hat,--trying to think what, in such an emergency, it would be well that he should do. Then he heard the voice distinctly, "I won't;--I won't," and after that a scream. Then there were further words. "It's no good--I won't." At last he was able to make up his mind. He rushed after the sound, and turning down a pa.s.sage to the right which led back into Goswell Road, saw Ruby struggling in a man's arms. She had left the dancing establishment with her lover; and when they had come to the turn of the pa.s.sage, there had arisen a question as to her further destiny for the night. Ruby, though she well remembered Mrs.

Pipkin's threats, was minded to try her chance at her aunt's door.

Sir Felix was of opinion that he could make a preferable arrangement for her; and as Ruby was not at once amenable to his arguments he had thought that a little gentle force might avail him. He had therefore dragged Ruby into the pa.s.sage. The unfortunate one! That so ill a chance should have come upon him in the midst of his diversion! He had swallowed several tumblers of brandy and water, and was therefore brave with reference to that interference of the police, the fear of which might otherwise have induced him to relinquish his hold of Ruby's arm when she first raised her voice. But what amount of brandy and water would have enabled him to persevere, could he have dreamed that John Crumb was near him? On a sudden he found a hand on his coat, and he was swung violently away, and brought with his back against the railings so forcibly as to have the breath almost knocked out of his body. But he could hear Ruby's exclamation, "If it isn't John Crumb!" Then there came upon him a sense of coming destruction, as though the world for him were all over; and, collapsing throughout his limbs, he slunk down upon the ground.

"Get up, you wiper," said John Crumb. But the baronet thought it better to cling to the ground. "You sholl get up," said John, taking him by the collar of his coat and lifting him. "Now, Ruby, he's a-going to have it," said John. Whereupon Ruby screamed at the top of her voice, with a shriek very much louder than that which had at first attracted John Crumb's notice.

"Don't hit a man when he's down," said the baronet, pleading as though for his life.

"I wunt," said John;--"but I'll hit a fellow when un's up." Sir Felix was little more than a child in the man's arms. John Crumb raised him, and catching him round the neck with his left arm,--getting his head into chancery as we used to say when we fought at school,--struck the poor wretch some half-dozen times violently in the face, not knowing or caring exactly where he hit him, but at every blow obliterating a feature. And he would have continued had not Ruby flown at him and rescued Sir Felix from his arms. "He's about got enough of it," said John Crumb as he gave over his work.

Then Sir Felix fell again to the ground, moaning fearfully. "I know'd he'd have to have it," said John Crumb.

Ruby's screams of course brought the police, one arriving from each end of the pa.s.sage on the scene of action at the same time. And now the cruellest thing of all was that Ruby in the complaints which she made to the policemen said not a word against Sir Felix, but was as bitter as she knew how to be in her denunciations of John Crumb. It was in vain that John endeavoured to make the man understand that the young woman had been crying out for protection when he had interfered. Ruby was very quick of speech and John Crumb was very slow. Ruby swore that nothing so horrible, so cruel, so bloodthirsty had ever been done before. Sir Felix himself when appealed to could say nothing. He could only moan and make futile efforts to wipe away the stream of blood from his face when the men stood him up leaning against the railings. And John, though he endeavoured to make the policemen comprehend the extent of the wickedness of the young baronet, would not say a word against Ruby. He was not even in the least angered by her denunciations of himself. As he himself said sometimes afterwards, he had "dropped into the baronite" just in time, and, having been successful in this, felt no wrath against Ruby for having made such an operation necessary.

There was soon a third policeman on the spot, and a dozen other persons, cab-drivers, haunters of the street by night, and houseless wanderers, casuals who at this season of the year preferred the pavements to the poorhouse wards. They all took part against John Crumb. Why had the big man interfered between the young woman and her young man? Two or three of them wiped Sir Felix's face, and dabbed his eyes, and proposed this and the other remedy. Some thought that he had better be taken straight to an hospital. One lady remarked that he was so mashed and mauled that she was sure he would never "come to" again. A precocious youth remarked that he was "all one as a dead un'." A cabman observed that he had "'ad it awful 'eavy." To all these criticisms on his condition Sir Felix himself made no direct reply, but he intimated his desire to be carried away somewhere, though he did not much care whither.

At last the policemen among them decided upon a course of action.

They had learned by the united testimony of Ruby and Crumb that Sir Felix was Sir Felix. He was to be carried in a cab by one constable to Bartholomew Hospital, who would then take his address so that he might be produced and bound over to prosecute. Ruby should be even conducted to the address she gave,--not half a mile from the spot on which they now stood,--and be left there or not according to the account which might be given of her. John Crumb must be undoubtedly locked up in the station-house. He was the offender;--for aught that any of them yet knew, the murderer. No one said a good word for him.

He hardly said a good word for himself, and certainly made no objection to the treatment that had been proposed for him. But, no doubt, he was buoyed up inwardly by the conviction that he had thoroughly thrashed his enemy.

Thus it came to pa.s.s that the two policemen with John Crumb and Ruby came together to Mrs. Pipkin's door. Ruby was still loud with complaints against the ruffian who had beaten her lover,--who, perhaps, had killed her loved one. She threatened the gallows, and handcuffs, and perpetual imprisonment, and an action for damages amidst her lamentations. But from Mrs. Hurtle the policemen did manage to learn something of the truth. Oh yes;--the girl lived there and was--respectable. This man whom they had arrested was respectable also, and was the girl's proper lover. The other man who had been beaten was undoubtedly the owner of a t.i.tle; but he was not respectable, and was only the girl's improper lover. And John Crumb's name was given. "I'm John Crumb of Bungay," said he, "and I ain't afeared of nothin' nor n.o.body. And I ain't a been a drinking; no, I ain't. Mauled un'! In course I've mauled un'. And I meaned it. That ere young woman is engaged to be my wife."

"No, I ain't," shouted Ruby.

"But she is," persisted John Crumb.

"Well then, I never will," rejoined Ruby.

John Crumb turned upon her a look of love, and put his hand on his heart. Whereupon the senior policeman said that he saw at a glance how it all was, but that Mr. Crumb had better come along with him just for the present. To this arrangement the unfortunate hero from Bungay made not the slightest objection.

"Miss Ruggles," said Mrs. Hurtle, "if that young man doesn't conquer you at last you can't have a heart in your bosom."

"Indeed and I have then, and I don't mean to give it him if it's ever so. He's been and killed Sir Felix." Mrs. Hurtle in a whisper to Mrs.

Pipkin expressed a wicked wish that it might be so. After that the three women all went to bed.

CHAPTER LXXII.

"ASK HIMSELF."

Roger Carbury when he received the letter from Hetta's mother desiring him to tell her all that he knew of Paul Montague's connection with Mrs. Hurtle found himself quite unable to write a reply. He endeavoured to ask himself what he would do in such a case if he himself were not personally concerned. What advice in this emergency would he give to the mother and what to the daughter, were he himself uninterested? He was sure that, as Hetta's cousin and asking as though he were Hetta's brother, he would tell her that Paul Montague's entanglement with that American woman should have forbidden him at any rate for the present to offer his hand to any other lady. He thought that he knew enough of all the circ.u.mstances to be sure that such would be his decision. He had seen Mrs. Hurtle with Montague at Lowestoft, and had known that they were staying together as friends at the same hotel. He knew that she had come to England with the express purpose of enforcing the fulfilment of an engagement which Montague had often acknowledged. He knew that Montague made frequent visits to her in London. He had, indeed, been told by Montague himself that, let the cost be what it might, the engagement should be and in fact had been broken off. He thoroughly believed the man's word, but put no trust whatever in his firmness.