_How we are discovered and utterly undone._
"What!" cries Dawson, catching his daughter in his arms and hugging her
to his breast, when the first shock of surprise was past. "My own sweet
Moll--come hither to warm her old father's heart?"
"And my own," says she, tenderly, "which I fear hath grown a little
wanting in love for ye since I have been mated. But, though my dear Dick
draws so deeply from my well of affection, there is still somewhere down
here" (clapping her hand upon her heart) "a source that first sprang for
you and can never dry."
"Aye, and 'tis a proof," says he, "your coming here where we may speak
and act without restraint, though it be but for five minutes."
"Five minutes!" cries she, springing up with her natural vivacity, "why,
I'll not leave you before the morning, unless you weary of me." And then
with infinite relish and sly humour, she told of her device for leaving
the Court without suspicion.
I do confess I was at first greatly alarmed for the safe issue of this
escapade; but she assuring me 'twas a dirty night, and she had passed no
one on the road, I felt a little reassured. To be sure, thinks I, Mr.
Godwin by some accident may return, but finding her gone, and hearing
Captain Evans keeps me to my house, he must conclude she has come
hither, and think no harm of her for that neither--seeing we are old
friends and sobered with years, for 'tis the most natural thing in the
world that, feeling lonely and dejected for the loss of her husband, she
should seek such harmless diversion as may be had in our society.
However, for the sake of appearances I thought it would be wise to get
this provision of ham and birds out of sight, for fear of misadventure,
and also I took instant precaution to turn the key in my street door.
Being but two men, and neither of us over-nice in the formalities, I had
set a cheese, a loaf, and a bottle betwixt us on the bare table of my
office room, for each to serve himself as he would; but I now proposed
that, having a lady in our company, we should pay more regard to the
decencies by going upstairs to my parlour, and there laying a tablecloth
and napkins for our repast.
"Aye, certainly!" cries Moll, who had grown mighty fastidious in these
particulars since she had been mistress of Hurst Court; "this dirty
table would spoil the best appetite in the world."
So I carried a faggot and some apple logs upstairs, and soon had a brave
fire leaping up the chimney, by which time Moll and her father, with
abundant mirth, had set forth our victuals on a clean white cloth, and
to each of us a clean plate, knife, and fork, most proper. Then, all
things being to our hand, we sat down and made a most hearty meal of
Mrs. Butterby's good cheer, and all three of us as merry as grigs, with
not a shadow of misgiving.
There had seemed something piteous to me in that appeal of Moll's, that
she might be herself for this night; and indeed I marvelled now how she
could have so trained her natural disposition to an artificial manner,
and did no longer wonder at the look of fatigue and weariness in her
face on her return to London. For the old reckless, careless, daredevil
spirit was still alive in her, as I could plainly see now that she
abandoned herself entirely to the free sway of impulse; the old twinkle
of mirth and mischief was in her eyes; she was no longer a fine lady,
but a merry vagabond again, and when she laughed 'twas with her hands
clasping her sides, her head thrown back, and all her white teeth
gleaming in the light.
"Now," says I, when at length our meal was finished, "I will clear the
table."
"Hoop!" cries she, catching up the corners of the tablecloth, and
flinging them over the fragments; "'tis done. Let us draw round the
fire, and tell old tales. Here's a pipe, dear dad; I love the smell of
tobacco; and you" (to me) "do fetch me a pipkin, that I may brew a good
drink to keep our tongues going."
About the time this drink was brewed, Simon, leading Mr. Godwin by a
circuitous way, came through the garden to the back of the house, where
was a door, which I had never opened for lack of a key to fit the lock.
This key was now in Simon's hand, and putting it with infinite care into
the hole, he softly turned it in the wards. Then, with the like
precaution, he lifts the latch and gently thrusts the door open,
listening at every inch to catch the sounds within. At length 'tis
opened wide; and so, turning his face to Mr. Godwin, who waits behind,
sick with mingled shame and creeping dread, he beckons him to follow.
Above, Dawson was singing at the top of his voice, a sea-song he had
learnt of a mariner at the inn he frequented at Greenwich, with a troll
at the end, taken up by Moll and me. And to hear his wife's voice
bearing part in this rude song, made Mr. Godwin's heart to sink within
him. Under cover of this noise, Simon mounted the stairs without
hesitation, Mr. Godwin following at his heels, in a kind of sick
bewilderment. 'Twas pitch dark up there, and Simon, stretching forth his
hands to know if Mr. Godwin was by, touched his hand, which was deadly
cold and quivering; for here at the door he was seized with a sweating
faintness, which so sapped his vigour that he was forced to hold by the
wall to save himself from falling.
"Art thee ready?" asks Simon; but he can get no answer, for Mr. Godwin's
energies, quickened by a word from within like a jaded beast by the
sting of a whip, is straining his ears to catch what is passing within.
And what hears he?--The song is ended, and Dawson cries:
"You han't lost your old knack of catching a tune, Moll. Come hither,
wench, and sit upon my knee, for I do love ye more than ever. Give me a
buss, chuck; this fine husband of thine shall not have all thy sweetness
to himself."
At this moment, Simon, having lifted the latch under his thumb, pushes
wide open the door, and there through the thick cloud of tobacco smoke
Mr. Godwin sees the table in disorder, the white cloth flung back over
the remnants of our repast and stained with a patch of liquor from an
overturned mug, a smutty pipkin set upon the board beside a dish of
tobacco, and a broken pipe--me sitting o' one side the hearth heavy and
drowsy with too much good cheer, and on t'other side his young wife,
sitting on Dawson's knee, with one arm about his neck, and he in his
uncouth seaman's garb, with a pipe in one hand, the other about Moll's
waist, a-kissing her yielded cheek. With a cry of fury, like any wild
beast, he springs forward and clutches at a knife that lies ready to his
hand upon the board, and this cry is answered with a shriek from Moll as
she starts to her feet.
"Who is this drunken villain?" he cries, stretching the knife in his
hand towards Dawson.
And Moll, flinging herself betwixt the knife and Dawson, with fear for
his life, and yet with some dignity in her voice and gesture, answers
swiftly:
"This drunken villain is my father."