The men took it for granted that they had been informed of his escape the moment it occurred.
“He must have jumped slap into the water,” said another; “perhaps he’s about somewhere, contriving to keep his head under.”
“He couldn’t do it,” said the first man who had spoken; “it’s my opinion the poor chap’s drowned. They will try these escapes, though no one ever succeeded yet.”
There was a boat moored at the angle of the asylum wall, and one of the men sprang into it.
“Show me the place where he jumped over the wall,” he called to the boy, who pointed out the spot at his direction.
The man rowed up to it.
“Not a sign of him anywhere about here!” he cried.
“Hadn’t you better call to those men?” asked his comrade; “they must have seen him jump.”
The man in the boat nodded assent, and rowed across the river to the two fishermen.
“Holloa!” he said, “have you seen anyone get over that wall?”
One of the men, who had just impaled a fine eel, looked up with a surprised expression, and asked—
“Which wall?”
“Why the asylum, yonder, straight before you.”
“The asylum! Now, you don’t mean to say that that’s the asylum; and I’ve been taking it for a gentleman’s mansion and grounds all the time,” said the angler (who was no other than Mr. Augustus Darley), taking his pipe out of his mouth.
“I wish you’d give a straight answer to my question,” said the man; “have you seen anyone jump over that wall; yes, or no?”
“Then, no!” said Gus; “if I had, I should have gone over and picked him up, shouldn’t I, stupid?”
The other fisherman, Mr. Peters, here looked up, and laying down his eel-spear, spelt out some words on his fingers.
“Stop a bit,” cried Gus to the man, who was rowing off, “here’s my friend says he heard a splash in the water ten minutes ago, and thought it was some rubbish shot over the wall.”
“Then he did jump! Poor chap, I’m afraid he must be drowned.”
“Drowned?”
“Yes; don’t I tell you one of the lunatics has been trying to escape over that wall, and must have fallen into the river?”
“Why didn’t you say so before, then?” said Gus. “What’s to be done? Where are there any drags?”
“Why, half a mile off, worse luck, at a public-house down the river, the ‘Jolly Lifeboat.’ ”
“Then I’ll tell you what,” said Gus, “my friend and I will row down and fetch the drags, while you chaps keep a lookout about here.”
“You’re very good, sir,” said the man; “dragging the river’s about all we can do now, for it strikes me we’ve seen the last of the Emperor Napoleon. My eyes! won’t there be a row about it with the Board!”
“Here we go,” says Gus; “keep a good heart; he may turn up yet;” with which encouraging remarks Messrs. Darley and Peters struck off at a rate which promised the speedy arrival of the drags.
IV
Joy and Happiness for Everybody
Whether the drags reached the county asylum in time to be of any service is still a mystery; but Mr. Joseph Peters arrived with the punt at the boat-builder’s yard in the dusk of the autumn evening. He was alone, and he left his boat, his tridents, and other fishing-tackle in the care of the men belonging to the yard, and then putting his hands in his pockets, trudged off in the direction of Little Gulliver Street.
If ever Mr. Peters had looked triumphant in his life, he looked triumphant this evening: if ever his mouth had been on one side, it was on one side this evening; but it was the twist of a conqueror which distorted that feature.
Eight years, too, have done something for Kuppins. Time hasn’t forgotten Kuppins, though she is a humble individual. Time has touched up Kuppins; adding a little bit here, and taking away a little bit there, and altogether producing something rather imposing. Kuppins has grown. When that young lady had attained her tenth year, there was a legend current in little Gulliver Street and its vicinity, that in consequence of a fatal predilection for gin-and-bitters evinced by her mother during the infancy of Kuppins, that diminutive person would never grow any more: but she gave the lie both to the legend and the gin-and-bitters by outgrowing her frocks at the advanced age of seventeen; and now she was rather a bouncing young woman than otherwise, and had a pair of such rosy cheeks as would have done honour to healthier breezes than those of Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy.
Time had done something, too, for Kuppins’s shock of hair, for it was now brushed, and combed, and dragged, and tortured into a state not so very far from smoothness; and it was furthermore turned up; an achievement in the hairdressing line which it had taken her some years to effect, and which, when effected, was perhaps a little calculated to remind the admiring beholder of a good-sized ball of black cotton with a hairpin stuck through it.
What made Kuppins in such a state of excitement on this particular evening, who shall say? Certain it is that she was excited. At the first sound of the click of Mr. Peters’s latchkey in the door of No. 5, Little Gulliver Street, Kuppins, with a lighted candle, flew to open it. How she threw her arms round Mr. Peters’s neck and kissed him—how she left a lump of tallow in his hair, and a smell of burning in his whiskers—how, in her excitement she blew the candle out—and how, by a feat of leger-de-main, or leger-de-lungs, she blew it in again, must have been seen to be sufficiently appreciated. Her next proceeding was to drag Mr. Peters upstairs into the indoor Eden, which bore the very same appearance it had done eight years ago. One almost expected to find the red baby grown up—but it wasn’t; and that dreadful attack of the mumps from which
