East Lynne Part 94

"You contemptible worm!" cried Miss Carlyle, "do you think you can outrage me with impunity as you, by your presence in it, are outraging West Lynne? Out upon you for a bold, bad man!"

Now Miss Corny, in so speaking, had certainly no thought of present and immediate punishment for the gentleman; but it appeared that the mob around had. The motion was commented by those stout-shouldered laborers.

Whether excited thereto by the words of Miss Carlyle--who, whatever may have been her faults of manner, held the respect of the neighborhood, and was looked up to only in a less degree than her brother; whether Squire Pinner, their master, had let drop, in their hearing, a word of the ducking he had hinted at, when at East Lynne, or whether their own feelings alone spurred them on, was best known to the men themselves.

Certain it is, that the ominous sound of "Duck him," was breathed forth by a voice, and it was caught up and echoed around.

"Duck him! Duck him! The pond be close at hand. Let's give him a taste of his deservings! What do he the sc.u.m, turn himself up at West Lynne for, bearding Mr. Carlyle? What have he done with Lady Isabel? Him put up for others at West Lynne! West Lynne's respectable, it don't want him; it have got a better man; it won't have a villain. Now, lads!"

His face turned white, and he trembled in his shoes--worthless men are frequently cowards. Lady Isabel trembled in hers; and well she might, hearing that one allusion. They set upon him, twenty pairs of hands at least, strong, rough, determined hands; not to speak of the tagrag's help, who went in with cuffs, and kicks, and pokes, and taunts, and cheers, and a demoniac dance.

They dragged him through a gap in the hedge, a gap that no baby could have got through in a cool moment; but most of us know the difference between coolness and excitement. The hedge was extensively damaged, but Justice Hare, to whom it belonged, would forgive that. Mr. Drake and the lawyer--for the other was a lawyer--were utterly powerless to stop the catastrophe. "If they didn't mind their own business, and keep themselves clear, they'd get served the same," was the promise held out in reply to their remonstrances; and the lawyer, who was short and fat, and could not have knocked a man down, had it been to save his life, backed out of the melee, and contented himself with issuing forth confused threatenings of the terrors of the law. Miss Carlyle stood her ground majestically, and looked on with a grim countenance. Had she interfered for his protection, she could not have been heard; and if she could have been, there's no knowing whether she would have done it.

On, to the brink of the pond--a green, dank, dark, slimy sour, stinking pond. His coat-tails were gone by this time, and sundry rents and damages appeared in--in another useful garment. One pulled him, another pushed him, a third shook him by the collar, half a dozen buffeted him, and all abused him.

"In with him, boys!"

"Mercy! Mercy!" shrieked the victim, his knees bending and his teeth chattering--"a little mercy for the love of Heaven!"

"Heaven! Much he knows of Heaven!"

A souse, a splash, a wild cry, a gurgle, and Sir Francis Levison was floundering in the water, its green poison, not to mention its adders and toads and frogs, going down his throat by bucketfuls. A hoa.r.s.e, derisive laugh, and a hip, hip, hurrah! broke from the actors; while the juvenile ragtag, in wild delight, joined their hands round the pool, and danced the demon's dance, like so many red Indians. They had never had such a play acted for them before.

Out of the pea-soup before he was quite dead, quite senseless. Of all drowned rats, he looked the worst, as he stood there with his white, rueful face, his s.h.i.+very limbs, and his dilapidated garments, shaking the wet off him. The laborers, their duty done, walked coolly away; the tagrag withdrew to a safe distance, waiting for what might come next; and Miss Carlyle moved away also. Not more s.h.i.+very was that wretched man than Lady Isabel, as she walked by her side. A sorry figure to cut, that, for her once chosen cavalier. What did she think of his beauty now? I know what she thought of her past folly.

Miss Carlyle never spoke a word. She sailed on, with her head up, though it was turned occasionally to look at the face of Madame Vine, at the deep distressing blush which this gaze called into her cheeks. "It's very odd," thought Miss Corny. "The likeness, especially in the eyes, is--Where are you going, madame?"

They were pa.s.sing a spectacle shop, and Madame Vine had halted at the door, one foot on its step. "I must have my gla.s.ses to be mended, if you please."

Miss Carlyle followed her in. She pointed out what she wanted done to the old gla.s.ses, and said she would buy a pair of new ones to wear while the job was about. The man had no blue ones, no green; plenty of white.

One ugly, old pair of green things he had, with tortoise-sh.e.l.l rims, left by some stranger, ages and ages ago, to be mended, and never called for again. This very pair of ugly old green things was chosen by Lady Isabel. She put them on, there and then, Miss Carlyle's eyes searching her face inquisitively all the time.

"Why do you wear gla.s.ses?" began Miss Corny, abruptly as soon as they were indoors.

Another deep flush, and an imperceptible hesitation.

"My eyes are not strong."

"They look as strong as eyes can look. But why wear colored gla.s.ses?

White ones would answer every purpose, I should suppose."

"I am accustomed to colored ones. I should not like white ones now."

Miss Corny paused.

"What is your Christian name, madame?" began she, again.

"Jane," replied madame, popping out an unflinching story in her alarm.

"Here! Here! What's up? What's this?"

It was a crowd in the street, and rather a noisy one. Miss Corny flew to the window, Lady Isabel in her wake. Two crowds, it may almost be said; for, from the opposite way, the scarlet-and-purple party--as Mr.

Carlyle's was called, in allusion to his colors--came in view. Quite a collection of gentlemen--Mr. Carlyle and Lord Mount Severn heading them.

What could it mean, the mob they were encountering? The yellow party, doubtless, but in a disreputable condition. Who or what was that object in advance of it, supported between Drake and the lawyer, and looking like a drowned rat, hair hanging, legs tottering, cheeks shaking, and clothes in tatters, while the mob, behind, had swollen to the length of the street, and was keeping up a perpetual fire of derisive shouts, groans, and hisses. The scarlet-and-purple halted in consternation, and Lord Mount Severn, whose sight was not as good as it had been twenty years back, stuck his pendent eye gla.s.ses astride on the bridge of his nose.

Sir Francis Levison? Could it be? Yes, it actually was! What on earth had put him into that state? Mr. Carlyle's lip curled; he continued his way and drew the peer with him.

"What the deuce is a-gate now?" called out the followers of Mr. Carlyle.

"That's Levison! Has he been in a railway smash, and got drenched by the engine?"

"He has been ducked!" grinned the yellows, in answer. "They have been and ducked him in the rush pool on Mr. Justice Hare's land."

The soaked and miserable man increased his speed as much as his cold and trembling legs would allow him; he would have borne on without legs at all, rather than remain under the enemy's gaze. The enemy loftily continued their way, their heads in the air, and scorning further notice, all, save young Lord Vane. He hovered round the ranks of the unwashed, and looked vastly inclined to enter upon an Indian jig, on his own account.

"What a thundering a.s.s I was to try it on at West Lynne!" was the enraged comment of the sufferer.

Miss Carlyle laid her hand upon the shrinking arm of her pale companion.

"You see him--my brother Archibald?"

"I see him," faltered Lady Isabel.

"And you see him, that pitiful outcast, who is too contemptible to live?

Look at the two, and contrast them. Look well."

"Yes!" was the gaping answer.

"The woman who called him, that n.o.ble man, husband, quitted him for the other! Did she come to repentance, think you?"

You may wonder that the submerged gentleman should be walking through the streets, on his way to his quarters, the Raven Inn--for he had been ejected from the Buck's Head--but he could not help himself. As he was dripping and swearing on the brink of the pond, wondering how he should get to the Raven, an empty fly drove past, and Mr. Drake immediately stopped it; but when the driver saw that he was expected to convey not only a pa.s.senger, but a tolerable quant.i.ty of water as well, and that the pa.s.senger, moreover, was Sir Francis Levison, he refused the job.

His fly was fresh lined with red velvet, and he "weren't a going to have it spoilt," he called out, as he whipped his horse and drove away, leaving the three in wrathful despair. Sir Francis wanted another conveyance procured; his friends urged that if he waited for that he might catch his death, and that the shortest way would be to hasten to the inn on foot. He objected. But his jaws were chattering, his limbs were quaking, so they seized him between them, and made off, but never bargained for the meeting of Mr. Carlyle and his party. Francis Levison would have stopped in the pond, of his own accord, head downward, rather than face them.

Miss Carlyle went that day to dine at East Lynne, walking back with Mrs.

Carlyle, Madame Vine and Lucy. Lord Vane found them out, and returned at the same time; of course East Lynne was the headquarters of himself and his father. He was in the seventh heaven, and had been ever since the encounter with the yellows.

"You'd have gone into laughing convulsions, Lucy had you seen the drowned cur. I'd give all my tin for six months to come to have a photograph of him as he looked then!"

Lucy laughed in glee; she was unconscious, poor child, how deeply the "drowned cur" had injured her.

When Miss Carlyle was in her dressing-room taking her things off--the room where once had slept Richard Hare--she rang for Joyce. These two rooms were still kept for Miss Carlyle--for she did sometimes visit them for a few days--and were distinguished by her name--"Miss Carlyle's rooms."

"A fine row we have had in the town, Joyce, this afternoon."

"I have heard of it, ma'am. Served him right, if they had let him drown!

Bill White, Squire Pinner's plowman, called in here and told us the news. He'd have burst with it, if he hadn't, I expect; I never saw a chap so excited. Peter cried."

"Cried?" echoed Miss Carlyle.

"Well, ma'am, you know he was very fond of Lady Isabel, was Peter, and somehow his feelings overcame him. He said he had not heard anything to please him so much for many a day; and with that he burst out crying, and gave Bill White half a crown out of his pocket. Bill White said it was he who held one leg when they soused him in. Afy saw it--if you'll excuse me mentioning her name to you, ma'am, for I know you don't think well of her--and when she got in here, she fell into hysterics."