It is both curious and interesting to observe the multitude of unlikely
ways in which the ends of justice are ofttimes temporarily defeated.
Who would have imagined that an old pump would be the cause of extending
Morley Jones's term of villainy, of disarranging the deep-laid plans of
Mr Larks, of effecting the deliverance of Billy Towler, and of at once
agonising the body and ecstatifying the soul of Robert Queeker? Yet so
it was. If the old pump had not existed--if its fabricator had never
been born--there is every probability that Mr Jones's career would have
been cut short at an earlier period. That he would, in his then state
of mind, have implicated Billy, who would have been transported along
with him and almost certainly ruined; that Mr Queeker would--but hold.
Let us present the matter in order.
Messrs. Merryheart and Dashope were men of the law, and Mr Robert
Queeker was a man of their office--in other words, a clerk--not a
"confidential" one, but a clerk, nevertheless, in whose simple-minded
integrity they had much confidence. Bob, as his fellow-clerks styled
him, was sent on a secret mission to Ramsgate. The reader will observe
how fortunate it was that his mission was _secret_, because it frees us
from the necessity of setting down here an elaborate and tedious
explanation as to how, when, and where the various threads of his
mission became interwoven with the fabric of our tale. Suffice it to
say that the only part of his mission with which we are acquainted is
that which had reference to two men--one of whom was named Mr Larks,
the other Morley Jones.
Now, it so happened that Queeker's acquaintance, Mr Durant, had an
intimate friend who dwelt near a beautiful village in Kent. When
Queeker mentioned the circumstance of the secret mission which called
him to Ramsgate, he discovered that the old gentleman was on the point
of starting for this village, in company with his daughter and her
cousin Fanny.
"You'll travel with us, I hope, Queeker; our roads lie in the same
direction, at least a part of the way, you know," said the hearty little
old gentleman, with good-nature beaming in every wrinkle, from the crown
of his bald head to the last fold of his treble chin; "it will be such a
comfort to have you to help me take care of the girls. And if you can
spare time to turn aside for a day or two, I promise you a hearty
welcome from my friend--whose residence, named Jenkinsjoy, is an antique
paradise, and his hospitality unbounded. He has splendid horses, too,
and will give you a gallop over as fine a country as exists between this
and the British Channel. You ride, of course?"
Queeker admitted that he could ride a little.
"At least," he added, after a pause, "I used frequently to get rides on
a cart-horse when I was a very little boy."
So it was arranged that Queeker should travel with them. Moreover, he
succeeded in obtaining from his employers permission to delay for three
days the prosecution of the mission--which, although secret, was not
immediately pressing--in order that he might visit Jenkinsjoy. It was
fortunate that, when he went to ask this brief holiday, he found Mr
Merryheart in the office. Had it been his mischance to fall upon
Dashope, he would have received a blunt refusal and prompt dismissal--so
thoroughly were the joys of that gentleman identified with the woes of
other people.
But, great though Queeker's delight undoubtedly was on this occasion, it
was tempered by a soul-harassing care, which drew forth whole quires of
poetical effusions to the moon and other celestial bodies. This secret
sorrow was caused by the dreadful and astonishing fact, that, do what he
would to the contrary, the weather-cock of his affections was veering
slowly but steadily away from Katie, and pointing more and more
decidedly towards Fanny Hennings! It is but simple justice to the poor
youth to state that he loathed and abhorred himself in consequence.
"There am I," he soliloquised, on the evening before the journey began,
"a monster, a brute, a lower animal almost, who have sought with all my
strength to gain--perchance _have_ gained--the innocent, trusting heart
of Katie Durant, and yet, without really meaning it, but, somehow,
without being able to help it, I am--_not_ falling in love; oh! no,
perish the thought! but, but--falling into something strangely,
mysteriously, incomprehensibly, similar to--Oh! base ingrate that I am,
is there no way; no back-door by which--?"
Starting up, and seizing a pen, at this point of irrepressible
inspiration, he wrote, reading aloud as he set down the burning
thoughts--
Oh for a postern in the rear,
Where wretched man might disappear;
And never more should seek her!