“You’re faint,” said the single gentleman, who did nothing himself but walk about the room. “I see what’s the matter with you, ma’am. You’re faint.”
“Thank you, sir, I’m not indeed.”
“I know you are. I’m sure of it. I drag this poor woman from the bosom of her family at a minute’s notice, and she goes on getting fainter and fainter before my eyes. I’m a pretty fellow! How many children have you got ma’am?”
“Two sir, besides Kit.”
“Boys, ma’am?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are they christened?”
“Only half baptised as yet, sir.”
“I’m godfather to both of ’em. Remember that, if you please ma’am. You had better have some mulled wine.”
“I couldn’t touch a drop indeed sir.”
“You must,” said the single gentleman. “I see you want it. I ought to have thought of it before.”
Immediately flying to the bell, and calling for mulled wine as impetuously as if it had been wanted for instant use in the recovery of some person apparently drowned, the single gentleman made Kit’s mother swallow a bumper of it at such a high temperature that the tears ran down her face, and then hustled her off to the chaise again, where—not impossibly from the effects of this agreeable sedative—she soon became insensible to his restlessness, and fell fast asleep. Nor were the happy effects of this prescription of a transitory nature, as, notwithstanding that the distance was greater, and the journey longer, than the single gentleman had anticipated, she did not awake until it was broad day, and they were clattering over the pavement of a town.
“This is the place!” cried her companion, letting down all the glasses. “Drive to the waxwork!”
The boy on the wheeler touched his hat, and setting spurs to his horse, to the end that they might go in brilliantly, all four broke into a smart canter, and dashed through the streets with a noise that brought the good folks wondering to their doors and windows, and drowned the sober voices of the town-clocks as they chimed out half-past eight. They drove up to a door round which a crowd of persons were collected, and there stopped.
“What’s this?” said the single gentleman thrusting out his head. “Is anything the matter here?”
“A wedding sir, a wedding!” cried several voices. “Hurrah!”
The single gentleman, rather bewildered by finding himself the centre of this noisy throng, alighted with the assistance of one of the postilions, and handed out Kit’s mother, at sight of whom the populace cried out, “Here’s another wedding!” and roared and leaped for joy.
“The world has gone mad, I think,” said the single gentleman, pressing through the concourse with his supposed bride. “Stand back here, will you, and let me knock.”
Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd. A score of dirty hands were raised directly to knock for him, and seldom has a knocker of equal powers been made to produce more deafening sounds than this particular engine on the occasion in question. Having rendered these voluntary services, the throng modestly retired a little, preferring that the single gentleman should bear their consequences alone.
“Now sir, what do you want?” said a man with a large white bow at his buttonhole, opening the door, and confronting him with a very stoical aspect.
“Who has been married here, my friend?” said the single gentleman.
“I have.”
“You! and to whom in the devil’s name?”
“What right have you to ask?” returned the bridegroom, eyeing him from top to toe.
“What right!” cried the single gentleman, drawing the arm of Kit’s mother more tightly through his own, for that good woman evidently had it in contemplation to run away. “A right you little dream of. Mind, good people, if this fellow has been marrying a minor—tut, tut, that can’t be. Where is the child you have here, my good fellow. You call her Nell. Where is she?”
As he propounded this question, which Kit’s mother echoed, somebody in a room near at hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in a white dress came running to the door, and supported herself upon the bridegroom’s arm.
“Where is she?” cried this lady. “What news have you brought me? What has become of her?”
The single gentleman started back, and gazed upon the face of the late Mrs. Jarley (that morning wedded to the philosophic George, to the eternal wrath and despair of Mr. Slum the poet), with looks of conflicting apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity. At length he stammered out,
“I ask you where she is? What do you mean?”
“Oh sir!” cried the bride, “If you have come here to do her any good, why weren’t you here a week ago?”
“She is not—not dead?” said the person to whom she addressed herself, turning very pale.
“No, not so bad as that.”
“I thank God,” cried the single gentleman feebly. “Let me come in.”
They drew back to admit him, and when he had entered, closed the door.
“You see in me, good people,” he said, turning to the newly-married couple, “one to whom life itself is not dearer than the two persons whom I seek. They would not know me. My features are strange to them, but if they or either of them are here, take this good woman with you, and let them see her first, for her they both know. If you deny them from any mistaken regard or fear for them, judge of my intentions by their recognition of this person as their old humble friend.”
“I always said it!” cried the bride, “I knew she was not a common child! Alas sir! we have no power to help you, for all that we could do, has been tried in vain.”
With that, they related to him without disguise or concealment, all that they knew of Nell and her grandfather, from their first meeting with them, down to the time of their sudden disappearance; adding (which was quite true) that they had made every possible effort to trace them, but without success; having been at first in great alarm for their safety,
