“Johnny, Johnny,” said Solomon—and the simple-hearted fellow cried outright, and wrung his hands—“Oh dear old Johnny, here’s a change! That the Maypole bar should come to this, and we should live to see it! The old Warren too, Johnny—Mr. Haredale—oh, Johnny, what a piteous sight this is!”
Pointing to Mr. Haredale as he said these words, little Solomon Daisy put his elbows on the back of Mr. Willet’s chair, and fairly blubbered on his shoulder.
While Solomon was speaking, old John sat, mute as a stock-fish, staring at him with an unearthly glare, and displaying, by every possible symptom, entire and complete unconsciousness. But when Solomon was silent again, John followed with his great round eyes the direction of his looks, and did appear to have some dawning distant notion that somebody had come to see him.
“You know us, don’t you, Johnny?” said the little clerk, rapping himself on the breast. “Daisy, you know—Chigwell Church—bell-ringer—little desk on Sundays—eh, Johnny?”
Mr. Willet reflected for a few moments, and then muttered, as it were mechanically: “Let us sing to the praise and glory of—”
“Yes, to be sure,” cried the little man, hastily; “that’s it—that’s me, Johnny. You’re all right now, an’t you? Say you’re all right, Johnny.”
“All right?” pondered Mr. Willet, as if that were a matter entirely between himself and his conscience. “All right? Ah!”
“They haven’t been misusing you with sticks, or pokers, or any other blunt instruments—have they, Johnny?” asked Solomon, with a very anxious glance at Mr. Willet’s head. “They didn’t beat you, did they?”
John knitted his brow; looked downwards, as if he were mentally engaged in some arithmetical calculation; then upwards, as if the total would not come at his call; then at Solomon Daisy, from his eyebrow to his shoe-buckle; then very slowly round the bar. And then a great, round, leaden-looking, and not at all transparent tear, came rolling out of each eye, and he said, as he shook his head:
“If they’d only had the goodness to murder me, I’d have thanked ’em kindly.”
“No, no, no, don’t say that, Johnny,” whimpered his little friend. “It’s very, very bad, but not quite so bad as that. No, no!”
“Look’ee here, sir!” cried John, turning his rueful eyes on Mr. Haredale, who had dropped on one knee, and was hastily beginning to untie his bonds. “Look’ee here, sir! The very Maypole—the old dumb Maypole—stares in at the winder, as if it said, ‘John Willet, John Willet, let’s go and pitch ourselves in the nighest pool of water as is deep enough to hold us; for our day is over!’ ”
“Don’t, Johnny, don’t,” cried his friend: no less affected with this mournful effort of Mr. Willet’s imagination, than by the sepulchral tone in which he had spoken of the Maypole. “Please don’t, Johnny!”
“Your loss is great, and your misfortune a heavy one,” said Mr. Haredale, looking restlessly towards the door: “and this is not a time to comfort you. If it were, I am in no condition to do so. Before I leave you, tell me one thing, and try to tell me plainly, I implore you. Have you seen, or heard of Emma?”
“No!” said Mr. Willet.
“Nor anyone but these bloodhounds?”
“No!”
“They rode away, I trust in Heaven, before these dreadful scenes began,” said Mr. Haredale, who, between his agitation, his eagerness to mount his horse again, and the dexterity with which the cords were tied, had scarcely yet undone one knot. “A knife, Daisy!”
“You didn’t,” said John, looking about, as though he had lost his pocket-handkerchief, or some such slight article—“either of you gentlemen—see a—a coffin anywheres, did you?”
“Willet!” cried Mr. Haredale. Solomon dropped the knife, and instantly becoming limp from head to foot, exclaimed “Good gracious!”
“—Because,” said John, not at all regarding them, “a dead man called a little time ago, on his way yonder. I could have told you what name was on the plate, if he had brought his coffin with him, and left it behind. If he didn’t, it don’t signify.”
His landlord, who had listened to these words with breathless attention, started that moment to his feet; and, without a word, drew Solomon Daisy to the door, mounted his horse, took him up behind again, and flew rather than galloped towards the pile of ruins, which that day’s sun had shone upon, a stately house. Mr. Willet stared after them, listened, looked down upon himself to make quite sure that he was still unbound, and, without any manifestation of impatience, disappointment, or surprise, gently relapsed into the condition from which he had so imperfectly recovered.
Mr. Haredale tied his horse to the trunk of a tree, and grasping his companion’s arm, stole softly along the footpath, and into what had been the garden of his house. He stopped for an instant to look upon its smoking walls, and at the stars that shone through roof and floor upon the heap of crumbling ashes. Solomon glanced timidly in his face, but his lips were tightly pressed together, a resolute and stern expression sat upon his brow, and not a tear, a look, or gesture indicating grief, escaped him.
He drew his sword; felt for a moment in his breast, as though he carried other arms about him; then grasping Solomon by the wrist again, went with a cautious step all round the house. He looked into every doorway and gap in the wall; retraced his steps at every rustling of the air among the leaves; and searched in every shadowed nook with outstretched hands. Thus they made the circuit of the building: but they returned to the spot from which they had set out, without encountering any human being, or finding the least trace of any concealed straggler.
After a short pause, Mr. Haredale shouted twice or thrice. Then
