pair for other than the intended victims.
“Come in, come in,” implored Elizabeth; “and let me shut the window!”
“She’s me—she’s me—even to the parasol—my green parasol!” cried Lucetta with a wild laugh as she stepped in. She stood motionless for one second—then fell heavily to the floor.
Almost at the instant of her fall the rude music of the skimmington ceased. The roars of sarcastic laughter went off in ripples, and the trampling died out like the rustle of a spent wind. Elizabeth was only indirectly conscious of this; she had rung the bell, and was bending over Lucetta, who remained convulsed on the carpet in the paroxysms of an epileptic seizure. She rang again and again, in vain; the probability being that the servants had all run out of the house to see more of the Daemonic Sabbath than they could see within.
At last Farfrae’s man, who had been agape on the doorstep, came up; then the cook. The shutters, hastily pushed to by Elizabeth, were quite closed, a light was obtained, Lucetta carried to her room, and the man sent off for a doctor. While Elizabeth was undressing her she recovered consciousness; but as soon as she remembered what had passed the fit returned.
The doctor arrived with unhoped-for promptitude; he had been standing at his door, like others, wondering what the uproar meant. As soon as he saw the unhappy sufferer he said, in answer to Elizabeth’s mute appeal, “This is serious.”
“It is a fit,” Elizabeth said.
“Yes. But a fit in the present state of her health means mischief. You must send at once for Mr. Farfrae. Where is he?”
“He has driven into the country, sir,” said the parlour-maid; “to some place on the Budmouth Road. He’s likely to be back soon.”
“Never mind, he must be sent for, in case he should not hurry.” The doctor returned to the bedside again. The man was despatched, and they soon heard him clattering out of the yard at the back.
Meanwhile Mr. Benjamin Grower, that prominent burgess of whom mention has been already made, hearing the din of cleavers, tongs, tambourines, kits, crouds, humstrums, serpents, rams’-horns, and other historical kinds of music as he sat indoors in the High Street, had put on his hat and gone out to learn the cause. He came to the corner above Farfrae’s, and soon guessed the nature of the proceedings; for being a native of the town he had witnessed such rough jests before. His first move was to search hither and thither for the constables, there were two in the town, shrivelled men whom he ultimately found in hiding up an alley yet more shrivelled than usual, having some not ungrounded fears that they might be roughly handled if seen.
“What can we two poor lammigers do against such a multitude!” expostulated Stubberd, in answer to Mr. Grower’s chiding. “‘Tis tempting ‘em to commit felo-de-se upon us, and that would be the death of the perpetrator; and we wouldn’t be the cause of a fellow-creature’s death on no account, not we!”
“Get some help, then! Here, I’ll come with you. We’ll see what a few words of authority can do. Quick now; have you got your staves?”
“We didn’t want the folk to notice us as law officers, being so short-handed, sir; so we pushed our Gover’ment staves up this water-pipe.
“Out with ‘em, and come along, for Heaven’s sake! Ah, here’s Mr. Blowbody; that’s lucky.” (Blowbody was the third of the three borough magistrates.)
“Well, what’s the row?” said Blowbody. “Got their names— hey?”
“No. Now,” said Grower to one of the constables, “you go with Mr. Blowbody round by the Old Walk and come up the street; and I’ll go with Stubberd straight forward. By this plan we shall have ‘em between us. Get their names only: no attack or interruption.”
Thus they started. But as Stubberd with Mr. Grower advanced into Corn Street, whence the sounds had proceeded, they were surprised that no procession could be seen. They passed Farfrae’s, and looked to the end of the street. The lamp flames waved, the Walk trees soughed, a few loungers stood about with their hands in their pockets. Everything was as usual.
“Have you seen a motley crowd making a disturbance?” Grower said magisterially to one of these in a fustian jacket, who smoked a short pipe and wore straps round his knees.
“Beg yer pardon, sir?” blandly said the person addressed, who was no other than Charl, of Peter’s finger. Mr. Grower repeated the words.
Charl shook his head to the zero of childlike ignorance. “No; we haven’t seen anything; have we, Joe? And you was here afore I.”
Joseph was quite as blank as the other in his reply.
“H’m—that’s odd,” said Mr. Grower. “Ah—here’s a respectable man coming that I know by sight. Have you,” he inquired, addressing the nearing shape of Jopp, “have you seen any gang of fellows making a devil of a noise— skimmington riding, or something of the sort?”
“O no—nothing, sir,” Jopp replied, as if receiving the most singular news. “But I’ve not been far tonight, so perhaps—
“
“Oh, ‘twas here—just here,” said the magistrate.
“Now I’ve noticed, come to think o’t that the wind in the Walk trees makes a peculiar poetical-like murmur tonight, sir; more than common; so perhaps ‘twas that?” Jopp suggested, as he rearranged his hand in his greatcoat pocket (where it ingeniously supported a pair of kitchen tongs and a cow’s horn, thrust up under his waistcoat).
“No, no, no—d’ye think I’m a fool? Constable, come this way. They must have gone into the back street.”
Neither in back street nor in front street, however, could the disturbers be perceived, and Blowbody and the second constable, who came up at this time, brought similar intelligence. Effigies, donkey, lanterns, band, all had disappeared like the crew of Comus.
“Now,” said Mr. Grower, “there’s only one thing more we can do. Get ye half-a-dozen helpers, and go in a body to Mixen Lane, and into Peter’s finger. I’m much mistaken if you don’t find a clue to the perpetrators there.”
