THE AMBUSCADE.
Night came, and with it all black thoughts. Not that they were
black at once, any more than darkness leaps upon the back of noon,
without the intervening cloak of twilight. Oh dear, no! Simon's thoughts
accommodated themselves fitly to the time of day. They had been, for
him, at early morning, pretty middling white, that is whity-brown;
thence they passed, with the passing hour kindly, through the shades of
burnt sienna, raw umber, and bistre; until, just as we may notice in the
case of marking-ink; that which, five minutes ago, was as water only
delicately dirtied, has become a fixed and indelible black.
Simon was resolved upon the spoil, come what might; although his waking
sensations of buoyancy, his noon-day cogitations of a calmer kind, and
his even-tide determined scheming, had now given way to a nervous and
unpleasant trepidation. So he poured spirits down to keep his spirits
up. Very early after dark, he had watched his opportunity while Mrs.
Quarles was scolding in the kitchen, had slipped shoeless and
unperceived, from his pantry into the housekeeper's room, and locked
himself securely in the shower bath. Hapless wight! it was very little
after six yet, and there he must stand till twelve or so: his foresight
had not calculated this, and the devil had already begun to cheat him.
But he would go through with it now; no flinching, though his rabbit
back is breaking with fatigue, and his knocked knees totter with
exhaustion, and his haggard eyes swim dizzily, and his bad heart is
failing him for fear.
Yes, fear, and with good reason too for fear; "nothing easier, nothing
safer," said his black adviser; how easily for bodily pains, how safely
for chances of detection, was he getting at the promised crock of gold!
"Mr. Jennings! Mr. Simon! where in the world was Mr. Jennings?" nobody
knew; he must have gone out somewhere. Strange, too--and left his hat
and great-coat.
Here's a general for an ambuscade; Oh, Simon, Simon! you have had the
whole day to think of it--how is it that both you and your dark friend
overlooked in your calculations the certainty of search, and the chance
of a discovery? The veriest school-boy, when he hid himself, would hide
his hat. I am half afraid that you are in that demented state, which
befits the wretch ordained to perish.
But where is Mr. Jennings? that was the continued cry for four agonizing
hours of dread and difficulty. Sarah, the still-room maid, was sitting
at her work, unluckily in Mrs. Quarles's room; she had come in shortly
after Simon's secret entry; there she sat, and he dared not stir. And
they looked every where--except in the right place; to do the devil
justice, it was a capital hiding-corner that; rooms, closets, passages,
cellars, out-houses, gardens, lofts, tenements, and all the "general
words," in a voluminous conveyance, were searched and searched in vain;
more than one groom expected (hoped is a truer word) to find Mr.
Jennings hanging by a halter from the stable-lamp; more than one
exhilarated labourer, hastily summoned for the search, was sounding the
waters with a rake and rope, in no slight excitement at the thought of
fishing up a deceased bailiff.
It was a terrible time for the ensconced one: sometimes he thought of
coming out, and treating the affair as a bit of pleasantry: but then the
devil had taken off his shoes--as a Glascow captain deals with his cargo
of refractory Irishers; how could he explain that? his abominable old
aunt was shrewd, and he knew how clearly she would guess at the truth;
if he desired to make sure of losing every chance, he could come out
now, and reveal himself; but if he nourished still the hope of counting
out that crock of gold, he'll bide where he is, and trust to--to--to
fate. The wretch had "Providence" on his blistered tongue.
If, under the circumstances, any thing could be added to Simon's
gratification, such pleasing addition was afforded in overhearing, as
Lord Brougham did, the effect which his rumoured death produced on the
minds of those who best had known him. It so happened, Sarah was sick,
and did not join the universal hunt; accordingly, being the only
audience, divers ambassadors came to tell her constantly the same most
welcome news, that Jennings had not yet been found.
"Lawk, Sally," said a helper, "what a blessing it'll be, if that mean
old thief's dead; I'll go to town, if 'tis so, get a dozen Guy's-day
rockets, tie 'em round with crape, and spin 'em over the larches:
that'll be funeral fun won't it? and it'll sarve to tell the neighbours
of our luck in getting rid on him."
"I doan't like your thought, Tom," said another staider youth: "it's
ill-mirth playing leap-frog over tomb-stones, and poor bravery insulting
the dead. Besides, I'm thinking the bad man that's taken from us an't a
going up'ards, so it's no use lending him a light. I wish we may all lie
in a cooler grave than he does, and not have to go quite so deep
down'ard."
"Gee up for Lady-day!" exclaimed the emancipated coachman; "why, Sall, I
shall touch my whole lump of wages free for the fust time: and I only
wish the gals had our luck."
"Here, Sarah," interposed a kind and ruddy stable youth, "as we're all
making free with Mr. Simon's own special ale, I've thought to bring you
a nogging on't: come, you're not so sick as you can't drink with all the
rest on us--The bailiff, and may none on us never see his face no more!"
These, and similar testimonials to the estimation in which Simon's
character was held, must have gratified not a little the hearer of his
own laudations: now and then, he winced so that Sarah might have heard
him move: but her ear was alive to nothing but the news-bringers, and
her eyes appeared to be fixed upon the linen she was darning. That
Jennings vowed vengeance, and wreaked it afterwards too, on the youths
that so had shown their love, was his solitary pleasure in the
shower-bath. But his critics were too numerous for him to punish all:
they numbered every soul in the house, besides the summoned aiders--only
excepting three: Sarah, who really had a head-ache, and made but little
answers to the numerous glad envoys; Jonathan Floyd, whose charity did
not altogether hate the man, and who really felt alarmed at his absence;
and chiefest, Mrs. Quarles, who evinced more affection for her nephew
than any thought him worthy of exciting--she wrung her hands, wept,
offered rewards, bustled about every where, and kept calling
blubberingly for "Simon--poor dear Simon."
At length, that fearful hue and cry began to subside--the hubbub came
to be quieter: neighbour-folks went home, and inmates went to bed. Sarah
Stack put aside her work, and left the room.
What a relief to that hidden caitiff! his feet, standing on the cold,
damp iron so many hours, bare of brogues, were mere ice--only that they
ached intolerably: he had not dared to move, to breathe, and was all
over in one cramp: he did not bring the brandy-bottle with him, as he
once had planned; for calculation whispered--"Don't, your head will be
the clearer; you must not muddle your brains;" and so his caution
over-reached itself, as usual; his head was in a fog, and his brains in
a whirlwind, for lack of other stimulants than fear and pain.
O Simon, how your prudence cheats you! five mortal hours of anguish and
anxiety in one unalterable posture, without a single drop of
creature-comfort; and all this preconcerted too!