THOMAS IS CAPTURED.
As soon as he had resolved upon this he set out. There was plenty of
time. He would walk. Tired as he was beginning to be, motion was his
only solace. He walked through Hampstead, and by Haverstock Hill,
Tottenham Court Road, and Holborn to the City. By this time the moon
was up. Going by Ludgate Hill, he saw her shining over St. Paul's right
through the spire of St. Martin's, where the little circle of pillars
lays it open to the sky and the wind; she seemed to have melted the
spire in two. Then he turned off to the left, now looking out for a
messenger. In his mind he chose and rejected several, dallying with
his own eagerness, and yielding to one doubt after another about each
in succession. At last he reached the farther end of Bagot Street.
There stood Poppie with her "murphy-buster." Had it been daylight, when
her dress and growth would have had due effect upon her appearance,
probably Thomas would not have known her; but seeing her face only by
the street-lamp, he just recollected that he had seen the girl about
Guild Court. He had no suspicion that she would know him. But Poppie
was as sharp as a needle; she did know him.
"Do you know Guild Court, my girl?" he asked.
"I believe you," answered Poppie.
"Would you take this letter for me, and give it to Miss Burton, who
lives there, and wait for an answer? If she's not at home, bring it
back to me. I will take care of your potatoes, and give you a shilling
when you come back."
Whether Poppie would have accepted the office if she had not recognized
Thomas, I do not know. She might, for she had so often forsaken her
machine and found it all right when she returned that I think the
promise of the shilling would have enabled her to run the risk. As
it was, she scudded. While she was gone he sold three or four of her
potatoes. He knew how to deliver them; but he didn't know the price,
and just took what they gave him. He stood trembling with hope.
Suddenly he was seized by the arm from behind, and a gruff voice he
thought he knew, said:
"Here he is. Come along, Mr. Worboise. You're wanted."
Thomas had turned in great alarm. There were four men, he saw, but they
were not policemen. That was a comfort. Two of them were little men.
None of them spoke but the one who seized him. He twisted his arm from
the man's grasp, and was just throwing his fist at his head, when he
was pinioned by two arms thrown round him from behind.
"Don't strike," said the first man, "or it'll be the worse for you.
I'll call the police. Come along, and I swear nothing but good will
come of it--to you as well as to other people. I'm not the man to get
you into trouble, I can tell you. Don't you know me?--Kitely, the
bookseller. Come along. I've been in a fix myself before now."
Thomas yielded, and they led him away.
"But there's that child's potatoes!" he said. "The whole affair will be
stolen. Just wait till she comes back."
"Oh! she's all right," said Kitely. "There she is, buttering a
ha'p'orth. Come along."
They led him through streets and lanes, every one of which Thomas knew
better than his catechism a good deal. All at once they hustled him
in at a church door. In the vestibule Thomas saw that there were but
two with him--Mr. Kitely, whom he now recognized, and a little man
with his hair standing erect over his pale face, like corn on the top
of a chalk-cliff. Him too he recognized, for Mr. Spelt had done many
repairs for him. The other two had disappeared. Neither Mr. Salter nor
Mr. Dolman cared to tempt Providence by coming farther. It was Jim who
had secured his arms, and saved Kitely's head. Mr. Kitely made way for
Thomas to enter first. Fearful of any commotion, he yielded still, and
went into a pew near the door. The two men followed him. It is time I
should account for the whole of this strange proceeding.
Jim Salter did not fail to revisit the Mermaid on the day of Tom's
departure, but he was rather late, and Tom was gone. As to what
had become of him, Mr. Potts thought it more prudent to profess
ignorance. He likewise took another procedure upon him, which, although
well-meant, was not honest. Regardless of Thomas's desire that Jim
should have a half-sovereign for the trouble of the preceding day,
Mr. Potts, weighing the value of Jim's time, and the obligation he
was himself under to Tom, resolved to take Tom's interests in his own
hands, and therefore very solemnly handed a half-crown and a florin, as
what Thomas had left for him, across the counter to Jim. Jim took the
amount in severe dudgeon. The odd sixpence was especially obnoxious. It
was grievous to his soul.
"Four and sixpence! Four bob and one tanner," said Jim, in a tone of
injury, in which there certainly was no pretense--"after a-riskin'
of my life, not to mention a-wastin' of my precious time for the
ungrateful young snob. Four and sixpence!"
Mr. Potts told him with equal solemnity, a righteous indignation
looking over the top of his red nose, to hold his jaw, or go out of his
tavern. Whereupon Jim gave a final snuff, and was silent, for where
there was so much liquor on the premises it was prudent not to anger
the Mermaid's master. Thereupon the said master, probably to ease his
own conscience Jim-ward, handed him a glass of old Tom, which Jim, not
without suspicion of false play, emptied and deposited. From that day,
although he continued to call occasionally at the Mermaid, he lost all
interest in his late client, never referred to him, and always talked
of Bessy Potts as if he himself had taken her out of the water.
The acquaintance between Dolman and him began about this time to grow
a little more intimate; and after the meeting which I have described
above, they met pretty frequently, when Mr. Dolman communicated to
him such little facts as transpired about "them lawyers," namely, Mr.
Worboise's proceedings. Among the rest was the suspicious disappearance
of the son, whom Mr. Dolman knew, not to speak to, but by sight, as
well as his own lap-stone. Mr. Salter, already suspicious of his man,
requested a description of the missing youth, and concluded that it
was the same in whom he had been so grievously disappointed, for the
odd sixpence represented any conceivable amount of meanness, not to
say wickedness. This increased intimacy with Jim did Dolman no good,
and although he would not yet forsake his work during work-hours, he
would occasionally permit Jim to fetch a jug of beer from a neighboring
tavern, and consume it with him in his shop. On these occasions they
had to use great circumspection with regard to Dolly's landlord, who
sat over his head. But in the winter nights, Mr. Spelt would put up the
outside shutter over his window to keep the cold out, only occasionally
opening his door to let a little air in. This made it possible to get
the beer introduced below without discovery, when Dolman, snail-like,
closed the mouth of his shell also, in which there was barely room for
two, and stitched away while Jim did the chief part of the drinking and
talking--in an undertone--for him--not so low, however, but that Spelt
could hear not a little that set him thinking. It was pretty clear that
young Worboise was afraid to show himself, and this and other points he
communicated to his friend Kitely. This same evening they were together
thus when they heard a hurried step come up and stop before the window,
and the voice of Mr. Kitely, well known to Dolman, call to the tailor
overhead.
"Spelt, I say. Spelt!"
Mr. Spelt looked out at his door.
"Yes, Mr. Kitely. What's the matter?"
"Here's that young devil's lamb, Worboise, been and sent a letter to
Miss Burton by your Poppie, and he's a-waitin' an answer. Come along,
and we'll take him alive."
"But what do you want to do with him?" asked Spelt.
"Take him to Mr. Fuller."
"But what if he won't come?"
"We can threaten him with the police, as if we knew all about it. Come
along, there's no time to be lost."
"But what would you take him to Mr. Fuller for?"
My reader may well be inclined to ask the same question. I will
explain. Mr. Kitely was an original man in thinking, and a rarely
practical man in following it up, for he had confidence in his own
conclusions. Ever since he had made the acquaintance of Mr. Fuller,
through Mattie's illness, he had been feeling his influence more and
more, and was gradually reforming his ways in many little things that
no one knew of but himself. No one in London knew him as any thing
but an honest man, but I presume there are few men so honest that if
they were to set about it seriously, they could not be honester still.
I suspect that the most honest man of my acquaintance will be the
readiest to acknowledge this; for honesty has wonderful offshoots from
its great tap-root. Having this experience in himself, he had faith in
the moral power of Mr. Fuller. Again, since Lucy had come to live in
the house, he had grown to admire her yet more, and the attention and
kindness she continued to show to his princess, caused an equal growth
in his gratitude. Hence it became more and more monstrous in his eyes
that she should be deprived of her rights in such a villainous manner
by the wickedness of "them Worboises." For the elder, he was afraid
that he was beyond redemption; but if he could get hold of the younger,
and put him under Mr. Fuller's pump, for that was how he represented
the possible process of cleansing to himself, something might come of
it. He did not know that Thomas was entirely ignorant of his father's
relation to the property of the late Richard Boxall, and that no
man in London would have less influence with Worboise, senior, than
Worboise, junior. He had had several communications with Mr. Fuller
on the subject, and had told him all he knew. Mr. Fuller likewise had
made out that this must be the same young man of whom Lucy had spoken
in such trouble. But as he had disappeared, nothing could be done--even
if he had had the same hope of good results from the interview as Mr.
Kitely, whose simplicity and eagerness amused as well as pleased him.
When Mr. Kitely, therefore, received from Poppie Thomas's letter to
give to Lucy, who happened to be out, he sped at once, with his natural
promptitude, to secure Mr. Spelt's assistance in carrying out his
conspiracy against Thomas.
As soon as the two below heard Mr. Spelt scramble down and depart
with Mr. Kitely, they issued from their station; Mr. Dolman anxious
to assist in the capture, Mr. Salter wishing to enjoy his disgrace,
for the odd sixpence rankled. As soon as they saw him within the
inner door of the church they turned and departed. They knew nothing
about churches, and were unwilling to enter. They did not know what
they might be in for, if they went in. Neither had they any idea for
what object Thomas was taken there. Dolman went away with some vague
notion about the Ecclesiastical Court; for he tried to read the papers
sometimes. This notion he imparted with equal vagueness to the brain
of Jim Salter, already muddled with the beer he had drunk. Dolman
went back to his work, hoping to hear about it when Spelt came home.
Jim wandered eastward to convey a somewhat incorrect idea of what had
happened to the inhabitants of the Mermaid. Having his usual design on
the Mermaid's resources, his story lost nothing in the telling, and, in
great perplexity, and greater uneasiness, Captain Smith and Mr. Potts
started to find out the truth of the matter. Jim conducted them to the
church door, which was still open, and retired round the corner.
Meantime the captors and the culprit waited till the service was over.
As soon as Mr. Fuller had retired to the vestry, and the congregation
had dispersed, Mr. Kitely intimated to Thomas that he must follow him,
and led the way up the church. With the fear of the police still before
his eyes, Thomas did follow, and the little tailor brought up the rear.
Hardly waiting, in his impatience, to knock at the door, Mr. Kitely
popped his head in as Mr. Fuller was standing in his shirt-sleeves, and
said with ill-suppressed triumph:
"Here he is, sir! I've got him!"
"Whom do you mean?" said Mr. Fuller, arrested by surprise with one arm
in his coat and the other hand searching for the other sleeve.
"Young Worboise. The lawyer-chap, you know sir," he added, seeing that
the name conveyed no idea.
"Oh!" said Mr. Fuller, prolongedly. "Show him in, then." And on went
his coat.
Thomas entered, staring in bewilderment. Nor was Mr. Fuller quite at
his ease at first, when the handsome, brown sailor-lad stepped into the
vestry. But he shook hands with him, and asked him to take a chair.
Thomas obeyed. Seeing his conductors lingered, Mr. Fuller then said:
"You must leave us alone now, Mr. Kitely. How do you do, Mr. Spelt?"
They retired, and, after a short consultation together in the church,
agreed that they had done their part and could do no more, and went
home.