Transcriber's Notes:
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(University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
DELAWARE;
OR
THE RUINED FAMILY.
EDINBURGH:
PRINTED BY M. AITKEN, 1, ST. JAMES'S SQUARE.
DELAWARE;
OR
THE RUINED FAMILY.
A TALE.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
EDINBURGH:
PRINTED FOR ROBERT CADELL, EDINBURGH;
AND WHITTAKER & CO., LONDON.
MDCCCXXXIII.
DELAWARE;
OR,
THE RUINED FAMILY.
CHAPTER I.
I do most sincerely believe, that the very best way to get all the
characters of this book out of their manifold difficulties, would be,
to end the work at the close of the second volume, and leave the world
to settle it, as it liked. However, as the great object is, to make
known the truth, and as the chances are infinite, that no single
individual of the millions who intend to read this book, would, by the
utmost exertion of their imagination, discover what the truth is, it
may be necessary to go on, and explain what has become of some at
least of the characters which have slipped off the stage Heaven knows
where--especially as they have each much to do, and to suffer, before
they "sleep the sleep that knows no waking."
The great advantage of autobiography is, that a man never troubles his
head about other people's affairs, but goes on with his own tale till
he has done with it; whereas the unfortunate wretch who undertakes to
tell the history of a number of other people, has no better a life of
it than a whipper-in, and is obliged to be continually trotting up and
down, flogging up his straggling characters to a pace with the rest.
The reader, too, may get his brains most tremendously puzzled in the
mean time. But what can be done? If people will not write their own
stories, other people must write them for them, and the work must go
on as best it may. Under these circumstances, we must request the
gentle reader to bring back his mind, or his eyes, to the end of the
fourth chapter of the last volume, since which precise point we have
neglected entirely the history of Henry Beauchamp. However, amends
shall immediately be made to that gentleman, and he shall have the
whole of this volume to himself.
Let it be remembered, then, that he set out from the dwelling of the
miser at Ryebury, promising that punctilious person to return, and
sign at once the more formal and regular documents, for which the
necessary stamps were still to be procured from Emberton--that he
passed William Delaware on his road, concealing himself from him as he
did so; and the reader, if he be so pleased, may dip his hand into the
wallet of imagination, and take out his own particular little scheme,
for leaving the money with which Beauchamp was burdened, in the
chamber of--Blanche Delaware's brother.
Those three last words may seem periphrastic; but if the reader thinks
they are so, he makes a mistake; for at that moment, it was not in the
least as Captain William Delaware, a Master and Commander in his
Majesty's Navy, nor as the son of Sir Sidney Delaware of Emberton,
Baronet, nor in any other quality, shape, or capacity of any kind
whatsoever, that Henry Beauchamp regarded him; but solely and wholly
in relation to Blanche Delaware--or, in short, as the brother of her
he loved. When he avoided him, it was because she had rejected
his--Beauchamp's offered hand; when he placed the money on the table
at Emberton, it was, that the clouds which had so long obscured the
sunshine of her days, might be scattered for ever; and Henry Beauchamp
could no more think of William Delaware, without the connecting link
that bound him to his sister, than one can think of the planetary
system without the sun.
When it was all done, however; and, having regained the shade of the
park trees, Henry Beauchamp was strolling on, slow and sad, towards
Ryebury, he bethought him of what was next to be done, as a
consequence of the very things that were just accomplished. Let it be
remarked that this was the first time he had thought of what was to
follow; for the hurry and confusion of the whole day, which had just
passed over his head, had left him no time for reflection, even had he
been inclined to indulge in it; and the bitter disappointment he had
suffered, had given him no great taste for thought of any kind. All he
had calculated, was the best means of arriving at his immediate
object; and farther than that, he had satisfied himself with the grand
conscience-salve for all mad enterprises--"He dared to say, all would
go right!"
Now, however, when he began to consider the matter, it presented more
difficulties than he had before perceived. He was quite romantic
enough and wealthy enough to have given the money to his cousins, with
pleasure in the gift, and without inconvenience from the consequences;
but, from the delicacy of feeling natural to his own heart, he
perfectly understood that neither Sir Sidney Delaware, nor any of his
family, would be willing to receive such a sum from any one as a
donation--especially from him, circumstanced as he was in regard to
Miss Delaware. Disgusted and wearied with the delays and shuffling of
the miser, and suspecting that his worthy uncle, Lord Ashborough,
might have some share in producing the impediments, he had determined
to put it out of the power of any one to prevent the payment, and
consequently had acted as we have seen; but, now that he had done so,
he found that it would be in no degree easy to give the matter the air
of an ordinary transaction.
People who have met with few difficulties in their undertakings, soon
teach themselves to trust the execution of anything they themselves
find troublesome, to others, and look upon their carrying it through
easily as a matter of course; and as Beauchamp, though not in general
given to _insouciance_, was just then in a state of mental irritation
and impatience, which rendered long reflection of any kind irksome to
him, he determined to throw the burden of the business upon the
shoulders of the miser. "I will tell him," he thought, "to write a
note to William Delaware, the first thing to-morrow, informing him
that he has sent the money by a friend to-night, and is ready to
execute the legal documents in regard to the whole transaction."
Having so far made his arrangements in his own mind, he walked on
slowly, beginning to feel somewhat weary with his day's exertion; and,
as he did so--every other subject which could force his thoughts from
the most painful object they could choose, being lost for the
time--memory naturally led him back to dream of Blanche Delaware, and
her strange and unaccountable conduct towards himself. That he loved
her as deeply and as sincerely as man could love woman, he now felt
but too painfully; but, notwithstanding good Mrs. Wilson's sentimental
anticipations of his antique Roman impatience of existence, Beauchamp
was the last man on earth to drown himself under any circumstances
whatever. Not that he did not feel that the gloss and splendour was,
to him, gone from the earth for ever--not that he did not feel that
his love would endure to his last hour, mingling the poison drop of
disappointment through all the cup of life--not that wounded pride,
and broken hopes, and rebuked self-confidence, and all that can
embitter man's feelings, were not poured like gall and wormwood into
his heart--but, somehow, he had acquired a strange notion, that to lay
hands upon one's own life was not only immoral and unchristian, but
was also cowardly and stupid--the act of a madman, a lout, or a
barbarian. He had never been one of those men that particularly value
life; and certainly he felt that, at the present moment, if any one
had been inclined to take it from him, it was a sort of commodity he
could part with without great regret. Yet, at the same time, even in
that case, he would probably have defended it as a matter of course;
and, as to throwing it away by his voluntary act, such a thing never
entered his mind.
His thoughts, however, in regard to Blanche Delaware were, as we have
said, bitter enough. He loved her deeply--with a first, pure,
steadfast, and yet passionate affection. His heart--so long
guarded--had poured out upon her all its stored enthusiasm and
repressed tenderness; and in the full and confident belief that his
attachment was returned, hope had seduced him into every one of those
waking visions which are so bright to dream and so agonizing to lose.
He had certainly believed that he was loved in return; and the
dissolution of that belief was the most painful part of all. Yet
Beauchamp was both too proud and too just to suppose that he had been
trifled with; or to imagine that a woman, on whom he could have so
fixed his heart, would have been guilty of such petty coquetry. He
rather chose to blame his own vanity; to admit that Blanche Delaware
had been perhaps a little thoughtless; but that he had been far too
confident.
Thus thinking, he walked on towards Ryebury, deviating slightly from
the way, in order that he might not meet William Delaware on his
return, and mingling vague, wild schemes for the future, with the
bitter memories and regrets of the past. He would visit Greece he
thought--perhaps cross over the narrow strait, and wander through
Syria and Judea, or penetrate into Armenia, and pause for a while
amongst the tribes, whose patriarchal habits have been so beautifully
depicted by Morier's entertaining pen, or even travel forward into
India itself, and watch the slow customs of Europe forcing their way
amidst the immemorial habits of the Hindoo. He would do anything, in
short, for amusement--and forgetfulness.
When he at length approached the door of Mr. Tims's house, the moon
had sunk considerably, though she had still some hours to shine; and,
pouring her beams from the side, with the slightest possible angle of
declination towards the back of the house, her light fell full upon
the two steps that led up to the door, without lighting the door
itself. Beauchamp thought he heard a noise in the passage as he
approached; but with his usual indifference, certainly not decreased
either by fatigue or grief, he walked on with the same slow pace in
which he had before been proceeding, and was just in the act of laying
his hand upon the bell, when the door was suddenly and somewhat
unexpectedly thrown open. The faint outline of three men standing in
the dim darkness of the passage, was all that Beauchamp could
perceive; but the moonlight poured full upon his own figure as he
stood alone upon the steps. So unlooked-for a sight in the house of
Mr. Tims caused him to pause in some surprise; and he had no time to
recover from it; for before he could ask any question, or form any
conjecture, he received a violent blow from some heavy instrument on
the head, which instantly felled him to the ground, completely stunned
and motionless.
How long he continued in that state, Beauchamp could hardly tell; but
when he again recovered his consciousness, he found himself lying
extended upon some planks, with a stiff and numb sensation over all
his limbs, a violent headach, and extreme pain in his ancle, while a
rippling sound and buoyant undulating motion seemed to show that he
was in a boat upon the water. For the first moment he could not verify
this supposition by sight, as he seemed to have been cast carelessly
into the boat, and his hat was driven so far over his brows as to
prevent him from seeing anything around.
Before he was well aware of what he was doing, he started up, pushing
back the covering from his eyes; but, as he did so, his unsteady
footing in the boat, together with the violent pain in his ancle, made
him lose his balance, and very nearly fall over into the sea, which
received his hat as he fell, and bore it far away in a moment.
With an involuntary groan from the pain he suffered, Beauchamp
relapsed into his former position; but the single instant he had been
able to stand up, had shown him sufficient to make him comprehend in a
great degree his immediate situation. The moon, he had remarked, just
about to dip below the horizon, was pouring a long, long line of
yellow light over the waves that, rippling away in the far
perspective, seemed like living things of gold, dancing joyfully in
the beams, while over all the rest of the expanse, was to be seen
nothing else but the dark mass of agitated waters heaving up and down
with a dull but solemn sound. He had just caught a glimpse, too, of a
faint line of high coast stretching away to the north-west, and
consequently catching upon its most prominent points the beams of the
setting moon, while all the rest remained in dim gray shadow. Such had
been the more distant objects that Beauchamp had beheld. Those more
immediately around him, were the small open boat in which he was borne
along, and four figures that it contained. Of these--one of which was
that of a woman--two appeared to be death sick, and the other two sat
close beside each other in silence at the stern of the boat. One was
steering, the other gazing fixedly over the side upon the flashing
waters; but the movement of Beauchamp instantly called the eyes of
both, though neither made any observation even when he fell back again
upon the planks. After he had lain there for a moment or two more,
however, the one who was unoccupied whispered something to the
steersman. The other made no reply, and the whisper was repeated. The
steersman then broke forth with a fearful oath, adding, "If you offer
to touch a hair of his head, I will heave you overboard, and send you
to hell an hour before your time!"
His companion muttered something which Beauchamp did not hear, and the
sailor again replied in the same angry tone, "Come, come, rouse out
none of your slack-jaw at me, or blast me if I do not show you who
commands here. You have got your way with me once to-night to my own
damnation, but you shall not do it again!"
Here the matter dropped, and all was silent but the ripple of the
waters. Half an hour more elapsed without a word being spoken; and
though Beauchamp felt very giddy and confused, he endeavoured to think
over the circumstances in which he was placed, and form some plan for
his demeanour towards those by whom he was surrounded.
Although he had very few facts to lead him to such a conclusion, yet
something more than a suspicion of the truth crossed his mind. The
peculiar whistling he had heard, both in going to and coming from
Ryebury, joined with the appearance of the three men in the passage of
the miser's house at that time of night--the assault upon himself, and
his situation at the very moment, all made him conclude that a bold
and extensive robbery had been committed, and that he had been carried
away from an apprehension that he might give the alarm, and lead to
the detection of the robbers.
He suspected also that it might be a matter of doubt in the bosom of
the man who sat by the steersman, whether it would not be best to
dispose of such an evidence against them, as he himself might prove,
by throwing him into the sea; and the answer of the other showed him
that, at all events, there was one of the party averse to such a mode
of proceeding.
From all this he concluded, that as he himself could offer little or
no resistance to whatever his companions chose to do with him, it
would be much better to keep himself as quiet as possible, and to take
no apparent notice of anything that was passing around him. Whether
such might have been his determination, had he felt well, and in the
full use of all his limbs, may be doubtful; but the aching of his head
was intense and stupifying, and from the sensation which he
experienced in his ancle, he felt sure that one at least of the bones
had been dislocated in throwing him into the boat. These sort of
little corporalities are apt to make a man excessively quiescent; and
Beauchamp, though in general not liking particularly to be treated as
a portmanteau, at least without asking the reason why; being now
convinced, that however much he might express his volition, he could
do no more towards executing it than a trunk itself, determined wisely
to keep silence also, and not even to move, any more than the pain he
suffered impelled him to do, for the mere sake of changing his
position.
His companions remained silent for near an hour, and the only words
which then broke the stillness, were spoken by the steersman, who
seemed to be the only seaman of the party. "If she be not under the
lee of Jerry's Knocker, we must run for old Willy Small's, that's all.
We are sure enough with him, and to-morrow we can get another boat,
and so across."
The other made no reply, and very likely did not understand clearly
what his companion meant. Beauchamp, however, who had in his youth
frequented that part of the country; and, as the reader may have
perceived, had forgotten but little of the localities, instantly
remembered that a long promontory, jutting out from the rest of the
coast, and having a calm sheltered bay to the eastward, bore
throughout the country the name of Jerry's Knocker; and he was led to
conclude, from the rest of the sentence, that the respectable people
into whose hands he had fallen, were looking out for some smuggling
vessel to carry them to France.
It very speedily became evident, that whatever they were seeking was
not to be found. The sea began soon to run high off the headland, and
shortly after grew far calmer than before, leading Beauchamp to
imagine--though he could see nothing around--that they had doubled the
point; but the words, "She's weighed, by ----," at once showed that
the vessel was gone; and the steersman, who had been anxiously looking
out, resumed his seat, and brought his boat a point nearer to the
wind.
In about half an hour afterwards, the pitching of the boat ceased
almost entirely, and it was clear she was entering smooth water; while
a warning to be quiet, given somewhat sharply by the steersman to one
of the sea-sick personages, who was now inclined to speak, showed that
they were approaching some spot where other ears might be on the
watch. The thought passed through Beauchamp's mind to try the strength
of his lungs; and, had he been sure that there was any one within
hearing, it is more than probable he would have done so, as he felt
not a little cramped and uncomfortable on the planks of the boat.
However, not being sure that any one would or could come to his aid if
he were to hollow till he grew hoarse, and that the attempt might only
procure him a speedy passage into the sea, he adhered to his former
plan, and, in a moment after, with a gentle rush and a slight shock,
the boat touched the land.
"Run up to yonder light," said the steersman, in a low voice, "tell
the old man that I am here, and bid him come down and lend a hand."
"Why don't you go yourself?" asked the other, in the same whispered
tone. "He doesn't know any of us."
"Because I do not choose," answered the other; and the person to whom
he spoke at once obeyed. Ere two minutes had elapsed, a considerable
addition was made to their party, and the steersman himself, now
springing ashore, held a low consultation with those who joined them.
The other man and the woman, whom Beauchamp had observed, were next
taken out of the boat, and in a moment after a stout old man jumped
in, and stirred him by the shoulder. "Come, master!" he said, "you
must get out, and come along with us--though you seem to take things
vastly quietly."
"I suppose it is the best thing I can do," replied Beauchamp. "But if
you want me out, you must carry me out, my good fellow, for they have
lamed me, and I cannot stand."
"That's a bad job!" replied the other, speaking in a rough but kindly
tone. "Wat will be sorry for that, for they did not intend to hurt
you, I can tell you."
"Perhaps not," said Beauchamp; "though knocking me down and stunning
me on the spot, were not very unlikely to hurt me."
"Ay, but if a man will poke his nose into what he has no business
with, master," replied the other, "he must take what he gets."
"Very true!" answered Beauchamp dryly, though somewhat surprised at
the fellow's coolness. "Very true, indeed! But it was purely
accidental on my part. I had not the slightest intention of intruding
upon the gentlemen in the pursuit of their avocations. But, as I said
before, if you mean me to get out of this boat--and I am heartily
tired of it--you must carry me; for I can only stand upon one leg, and
the ground is somewhat uneven."
"True enough, true enough!" answered the man. "Here, Bill, lend us a
hand to lift the lad out of the boat. They have broke his leg amongst
them. It will teach you, master, to keep out of the way when there is
anything to be run upon the coast. Always sheer off when you see
what's going on. But we will get it spliced for you, never fear. Here,
Bill, I say!"
A youth of about seventeen or eighteen now came up and helped his
father, as it proved the old man was, to lift the stranger on shore.
Beauchamp then, with the assistance of the elder personage, made his
way from the little sandy cove into which the boat had been run, to a
lonely house, standing high up upon the bank, with two boats drawn up
nearly to the door, and about a square yard of cabbage-garden at the
back. The old smuggler, for such he evidently was, led his unwilling
guest in, and was about to conduct him into a room, the door of which
opened at a right angle with that which entered from the shore.
Various signs and symbols, however, within the chamber, made the man
pause ere he went in; and at length he exclaimed, as he still stood in
the entrance--"Well, well! But give us a candle, though! How the devil
can one see up the stairs? It's as dark as Davy's locker!"
Beauchamp made as much use of his eyes as possible; but it was in vain
that he did so, for the persons that the room contained were concealed
from his sight by the half-closed door; and all that he could
distinguish was part of the common interior of a fisherman's
kitchen--a large chest, a deal table, a wide fireplace, and two
shelves covered with clean blue-edged plates and porringers, together
with a vial bottle, half full of ink, and having a pen stuck in the
top of it, pendent by a bit of string from the corner of one of the
shelves.
A moment after, a clean, little, well-salted fisherman's wife, emerged
from behind the door, with a brazen candlestick and three inches of
lighted candle in her hand; and Beauchamp, conducted up stairs with no
inconsiderable agony, was ushered into a small bedroom, (of which
there appeared to be four, by the way,) which, amidst all its faults
and deficiencies, was at least clean.
As they went up the stairs, and for a moment after they entered the
room, the eyes of the smuggler continued to run over his guest's
apparel and face with a look of surprise, and even anxiety, which
increased at every glance; and when he had done, there was a change in
his whole demeanor which might have made Beauchamp smile at any other
time, or under any other circumstances. He now, however, threw himself
down in a chair, exhausted with the pain his exertion had caused him,
and was about to demand that a surgeon should be sent for, when the
old man, setting down the candle on the table, told him with a tone of
respectful civility, that he would return in a moment, and left him.
"Lock the door!" shouted a voice from below, as the smuggler quitted
the room. The door accordingly was locked; and Beauchamp, left alone,
before he proceeded to think over his present situation, according to
his usual deliberate custom, set to work to get his boot off, and see
what was really the state of his ancle.
His leg, however, was so much swelled, that all ordinary efforts were
vain, although he never committed that piece of exuberant impolicy,
the wearing a tight boot. As soon as he discovered this to be the
case, he took his penknife from his pocket, and at once relieved his
foot and leg from their leathern prison. He was then about to proceed
in his examination, when steps coming from below interrupted him; but
another door was opened, and in a moment after he heard the voice of
the old smuggler, and that of the man who had steered the boat,
conversing together somewhat eagerly. At first, as usual, there was a
guard upon their tongues, and all that reached his ear was a sort of
hum; but soon the caution wore away; they spoke loud, and Beauchamp,
without the desire or the capability of moving from the chair in which
he had first sat down, heard distinctly the greater part of all that
past.
"Well, well, Wat!" said the voice of the old man, "D--me, if I'm a man
to leave a poor boy at a pinch! We must just get the cutter run down;
but she cannot be here you know till to-morrow night any how,--It must
be a bad job though, that makes you so wild to get to France, my boy."
"A bad job enough! A bad job enough!" answered a voice that Beauchamp
now remembered full well. "But mark ye, William Small, when ye hear it
all told--Mark ye, I say! I had nothing to do with the worst part of
it. Those two fellows below have cheated me, and made a wretch of me.
D--me, if I would not rather have gone up to the main chains and gone
pitch over, head foremost, into the Bay of Biscay--But they did it,
not I--mind that!"
"I'd bet a puncheon they've killed the officer," replied the other.
"Don't ask any questions, Willy Small!" replied his companion; "Don't
ask any questions--It is safer for us all!"
"Why, that's true enough!" replied the smuggler, "That's true enough!
No, no! I'll not ask nor guess either, and then I know nothing about
it, but that you and t'others wanted the cutter to go a pleasuring;
and I'll take the lowest price you see too, Watty, so they can't bring
me in as art and part for the run goods. But what is to be done with
the young man in the next room? Why, Wat, he seems a gentleman--I
say!"
"Ay! he is a gentleman every inch of him," answered the other; "and
such a one as one seldom sees--I would not have harm happen to him for
the world--Why, you must just keep him for a day or two, till we are
gone and safe, and then let him go. But I say, when you lock the door
to-night upon him, keep you the key yourself, mind you. Those fellows
below, have an ill-will to him; and if it had not been for me, they
would have hove him overboard this blessed night--upon my soul they
would!"
"D--n their eyes and limbs!" exclaimed the other, "I should like to
see them touch him in my house. If I would not tie them together, like
a couple of hogsheads, and sink them out of water-mark. But as to
locking the door, Wat, there is no use of that at all, bless ye. He
can't stir an inch. Why, you've broken his leg amongst you!"
The reply of the other, though sufficiently blasphemous--and we must
here apologize to the more scrupulous reader for admitting into the
dialogues just past, so many profane expletives, which we would not
perhaps have done, having no delight in such matter ourselves, had not
the love of truth and accuracy prevailed--The reply of the other,
then, though sufficiently blasphemous, showed that he was bitterly
grieved for the accident which had happened to Beauchamp; and a long
conversation ensued in regard to the necessity of sending for a
surgeon.
That, however, they both agreed would "blow the whole business"--to
use their own expression--and humanity as usual gave way to
apprehension. Old Willy Small, as the smuggler was denominated,
declared that he was a goodish hand himself at splicing a broken limb,
and that he and his wife would look to it, till the other party were
safe off to France. This seemed to quiet the conscience of the other
upon that particular; and, after concerting some farther plans for
facilitating all the preparations for their journey, they returned to
their comrades below.
The effect of this conversation upon the mind of Henry Beauchamp, was
not certainly to produce any very agreeable sensations. He began to
apprehend that a worse crime than simple robbery had been committed at
the house of the unhappy miser; and though, in one point of view, he
felt little anxiety on his own account--seeing evidently that he would
not want assistance at his need, if anything were attempted against
him--yet he could not help shuddering at his proximity to a gang of
murderers; and contemplated, with no great pleasure, the surgical
offices to be performed upon his own leg by a smuggler and an old
woman. An evil, however, is seldom without its good; and though,
certainly, had it been left to his own choice, he might have found a
more agreeable way of diverting his thoughts from all the painful
subjects that previously occupied them; yet true it most assuredly is,
that corporeal uncomfort, pain, and apprehension, did very materially
lessen----No! not his love for Blanche Delaware; but the first bitter
feeling of the disappointment which her conduct had occasioned.
If it were not so strange to say, and if we could by any means
discover the process by which the mind could arrive at such a result,
we should declare, that, in the midst of all these dangers, troubles,
and uncomforts of a different kind, Beauchamp had found a new store of
hope. How, or why, who can tell? but either his hope was like the
limbs of the skeleton in the Fantocini, which, after being all
disjointed, are suddenly pulled together again by strings that no one
can see; or else it was like a fire of dry wood, which, when it has
appeared for some time quite extinguished, will pour out a small white
flame, when nobody is expecting any such thing, and soon be as bright
again as ever. At all events, he had left Emberton that very morning
without a spark of hope apparently left; and after going through as
much as would have contented him with adventures for the whole of his
life, he could not help thinking that there was something very strange
and unaccountable in Blanche Delaware's whole conduct, and that, if he
could but get the key, all might still go well. Nevertheless, he was
not left long to cogitate upon anything; for, in a minute or two, the
smuggler and the smuggler's wife walked in, in the character of
surgeon and assistant; and, after some awkward explanations of their
purpose, demanded to look at the gentleman's leg, to see if they could
help him. As he knew that it was predetermined not to send for a
surgeon, Beauchamp, who was not disposed to make people look foolish
unnecessarily, did not, as he once intended, propose that expedient.
"You may look at my leg as much as you like, my good people," he said;
"but I have not the slightest intention of letting you do anything to
it, unless what you propose agrees with my own opinion." This being
settled, the woman knelt down, and the man held the candle, and the
stocking being withdrawn, an examination and mumbled consultation of
some length took place.
"It's not broken, sir, do you see!" said the old man, looking up.
"It's only the small bone put out, do you see!"
"I see nothing at all, my good fellow," replied Beauchamp, "except
that it is very painful; and, of course, the more you pinch it the
worse it is."
The man then assured him that, if he would let him try, he would put
it in in a minute; and, after a laborious explanation, Beauchamp
consented. The old man pulled his foot as if he would have pulled it
off: the old woman squeezed his ancle as if she would have broken it
through the middle; but at length, with a sudden snap, the bone
started back into its place, and the patient found instant relief.
Every attempt to stand, however, was still quite out of the question;
and Beauchamp, giving himself entirely up into the hands of such
skilful chirurgeons, suffered his ancle to be bandaged up with clothes
steeped in vinegar and brandy, and himself to be carried to bed, where
the smuggler assured him he ought to lie for at least four days, in
order to perfect his recovery. When all was completed, and his host
and hostess were retiring, Beauchamp listened for a moment, and heard
the key of the door turned with greater satisfaction than he had
imagined the fact of being locked into his own room would ever afford
him.