First performed at the Queen's Theatre, Long Acre, (under the management of Mr. W. H. Liston) on Monday, Feb. 22, 1869, a New Drama, in Four Acts, by Watts Phillips, entitled
The main incident in this Drama, as connected with Silas Jarrett, is a FACT recorded in one of the most celebrated of criminal trials.
The New Scenery by Mr. Johnson, Mr. Perkins, & Assistants. The New Music Composed by Mr. Schoening. Machinist, Mr. Cawdry. The Properties and Appointments by Mr. Brogden. Dresses by Mr. Coombes, Mrs. Reid, and Assistants.
Not serious!
No, don't—please don't. I've no pretension to anything of the kind; there isn't the slightest mystery concerning either of my parents, and I haven't such a thing as a strawberry mark anywhere about me.
You'll take the Queen's money?
Not if I know it! I wouldn't rob her of a farthing.
A young fellow like you should serve your country.
So I do—that is, I serve my countrymen. I'm a lawyer's clerk.
Mister Triggs! Call me Joe—I can dispense with respect till we're
married.
Well, what nonsense you do talk, Joe; when you know I'm engaged to go to India with Mrs. Doctor McTavish, and before many hours are over shall be a tossing on the briny ocean.
With those wavy outlines—oh!
I've just taken leave of uncle, and my boxes are already on board. A girl must better herself, Joe.
Better herself! Haven't I filed my declaration and made you a legal offer of marriage—before witnesses, mind you—before witnesses!
With prospects, Miss Dobbs—with prospects!
Most people who live in garrets have lots of those—acres of tiles, and forests of chimney pots!
Oh, don't turn up your delicious little snub at seventy pounds a-year! Economically managed it's a fortune.
Economically managed! do I look like economy?
Fat and feelings should always go together.
Nonsense! the husband that I choose must be like a snail in one thing—he must
bring me a house on his back.
Hilloh, sergeant! Hilloh, Polly!
A parting glass, eh, Bob?
Parting glass? not a bit of it—I go with you.
You! You go to the Injies—you!
All but the women.
Yes.
Our Captain!
Takes me out with him as confidential clerk, and
That fellow, Triggs, has loitered on the road as usual. I'd better meet Mr.
St. Clair half way, for this noise is unendurable.
Curse them! what a row they're making! If I knew how to stop their merriment
I would! I can't bear to see people enjoying themselves; it's an insult to my
Why don't you get him to enlist, Sergeant Wattles?
Because I'm the only man from whom he won't take a shilling. By the way, have you ever remarked the singular likeness that exists between him and our young captain?
Who could be off remarking it. It's one of those freaks of Nature which Captain Ormond Willoughby has a right to complain of—that is, if he were aware of the existence of such an idle, quarrelsome vagabond.
How long has he been in Southampton?
About a month, I think.
He landed from one of the French boats, and has been a loafer in the docks
ever since.
You seem flush of money just now. I shouldn't wonder but you could tell me
what the taste of meat is like? I've quite forgotten.
Why don't you work?
There's my last half-crown, Silas.
A poor widow, sir, without bread, and without a halfpenny to purchase any,
though the life of my child—
Your child! Oh! you've a child then? It's an old story—but I like to have it complete. A baby, I suppose; “a little fair-haired, blue-eyed thing;” they're always fair-haired and blue-eyed, the children of the poor!
A girl, six years old, and—starving!
Work! she is dying with hunger! and the fever that—
My own true love!
What's the matter? you are crying? what do you want?
Bread!
Bread?
Not for myself, but for Alice, bread for my child!
Bread! bread! oh! brute, beast, that I was lodging in the same house yet never to have guessed it! I knew that you were poor, very poor! but I never knew it had come to this pass—never!
Help me, Robert, Alice is starving!
But my dear sir, my very dear sir, as a man, I may approve your motive; but as a lawyer—
Impossible! do that, and what becomes of the law courts? What you propose Mr. St. Clair is to sacrifice at least one-third of your fortune.
The whole business is one of simple justice. My uncle's death has left me master of an ample fortune—a portion of which is gained from an estate in India to which our family has no right in equity.
But in law? your uncle gained the cause.
Unjustly, as I'm most reluctantly compelled to believe. It's then for me, as my uncle's inheritor, to make restitution to Mr. Armitage.
He died in India—
Very poor! leaving a widow, as I understand, and a daughter in England. My voyage to Madras is, as you know, to attend the bedside of my sick mother. Spare no pains in my absence to trace out the surviving members of the Armitage family. The re-assignment you already have, and this case which I have just received from my agent contains a sum sufficient to meet their possible necessities till my return.
Will you come up into the office while I write out an acknowledgement?
I'll wait for you here. We won't say good bye till the last bell rings.
our
profession, that's all I know.
Jolly old boy, Trumble! With a rough outside, he's full of the milk of human
kindness.
I beg your pardon, but just one word if you please.
Who are you, fellow?
Oh! don't be afraid, sir! There's nothing wrong about me. My name's Arnold—Robert Arnold, locksmith—leastways, I was a locksmith a few hours ago, but I shall be a soldier when—
What other?
A poor woman, sir, starving! and her child,
Can this be true?
True! I left her but just now, praying her to take heart and wait for my
return; I rushed off to my employer, woke him up by throwing a stone through his
window, and asked him for a loan, but the granite-hearted old hunks, knowing
that I leave Southampton at daybreak, cursed me for a drunken rogue—me!
Robert Arnold! and slammed down his window—I tried elsewhere with like success.
Don't go, sir, don't go. Beggar!
Bring it home to yourself, sir; suppose that you had a child, or a
mother—
have a mother—a sick mother. Let those whom
this money relieves, pray that she may live to look once more upon the face of
her son.
Mamma! mamma!
Open the door, open the door, Mrs. Armitage; it is I—I, Robert Arnold! I
bring you help! What was that cry—that noise? Open, or—
There is more air in the next room. Carry her there—quick! quick!
Heaven be praised—we shall save her yet!
The door below being open, I took the liberty of entering without knocking.
Where am I?
It was this house! I saw him enter! Keep the door fast below!
They're mounting the staircase—ah, the chimney! In a minute I'm on the roof,
but first of all I return, with many thanks, your bunch of keys, Mr. Robert
Arnold— honest Robert, but I doubt if you'll thrive with
it.
Quite!
You didn't see his face?
No, he rushed by me with his head down as I opened the door of the office. I would have caught him, but I tumbled over this basket which he had left in his haste.
Yours!
Who brought them here? and what's the meaning of all this?
They're mine also.
The same, I've no doubt, that were used to force my bureau.
Steal! It was given to me in the street to save this poor woman and her
child.
It is true, gentlemen; it is true.
It's mine—the one just taken from my bureau.
That was the name on the back of that note he offered me.
Me!
Robert Arnold! Robert Arnold is incapable of such an act—
Let him explain how this letter case containing money and papers, which has just been stolen from my office, came into his hands? one of the notes it contained having already been offered for change by him!
By him!
But a few minutes ago, and let him also explain how his basket of tools came to be by my broken bureau?
Minus, this bunch of skeletons which I found on the table here!
The Madras boat just started.
What's the Madras boat to do with me? I belong to the troop ship—you may possibly have perceived a military air about me?
Well, you look like a sort o' Johnny Raw; but clear the way, please, here's
more luggage coming.
Now, my good men, my good men! you may possibly be unaware that I form a part
of the British army respect the defenders of your country, respect the—
I've been looking everywhere for Joe Triggs I thought at least he would have
seen me down to the
In the right direction I hope. Having issued an attachment I take the body!
Parting!
sack in preference to sitting upon it myself.
Mr. Trumble! oh! haven't you heard the news, Joe?
What news?
Robert Arnold has been taken up for robbing the office! Mr. Trumble's office!
Robert Arnold! Oh, come now, that won't do!
The money's been found upon him and—
I don't believe it! I won't believe it!
And so would I—much rather!
It's a plot of some kind, or a case of mistaken identity. It's anything—everything, but the one thing, and that's the truth! Polly, dear! a man doesn't rub shoulders with the law as I've done for fifteen years and not know the signs of a thief when he meets him. The first thing is to engage counsel; I know one, with a face like a warming-pan, and lungs like a blacksmith's bellows. It's more difficult, of course, when a chap's innocent, because he's not up to the thing, but we'll pull him through, we'll pull him through!
You're a good fellow, Joe. Mind we sail in an
hour.
In an hour! And Robert Arnold? what's to become of him? No notion of the law
of evidence—a
Wattles, I've a favour to ask of you; could we arrange it, that I come out by the next boat?
Haven't you got a heart, sergeant?
Yes, of oak.
But that's no reason your head should be made of the same material; I want to do a friend a service.
Your services belong to the Queen.
Of course they do; but I know her, bless her, she's a kind, good-hearted lady, and will stretch a point— besides, she'll have her shilling's-worth out of me before long, having taken the money I shall not shirk the liability. I've a character to lose, sergeant.
Then take my advice, and lose it at once.
You wouldn't advise that if you knew the trouble I've had to get it together. You know Robert Arnold?
I know nothing but the captain's orders. Private friendships must give way to public duty.
But Robert Arnold—
Leave him to the law.
That's a pretty style of baby-farming; you haven't spent fifteen years in a lawyer's office.
Recruits on board! Right shoulder forward— march!
Hilloh! what are you making all this noise about?
It's mine! It's mine!
Edward St. Clair. This paper bears my signature, and these notes are mine.
Give them back? Never!
Rascal!
What does all this mean?
Skulking work, you rascals! If I hear that noise again I'll report everyone of you.
Is that you, Jack Snipe?
I wish it warn't! 'Appy and proud to make the situation over to somebody else.
How dare you answer me?
Get to your work—and that other skulker there, No. 47!
I can bear this fate no longer. Strength, hope, patience, everything has
deserted me—everything but despair. What dreary months have passed since that
terrible condemnation, and yet the crowded court is always before my eyes, and
the stern voice of the judge sounding in my ears! Merciful heaven! what a fate
for an innocent man! The very education my dear mother impoverished herself to
give me that I might make my way in the world, only increases the sense of
degradation. To be condemned to seven years companionship with men whose very
aspect makes me tremble, better death in any form, so that it be swift and sure.
Cheer up, 47! I never see a chap take on as you do. When things can't be mended, grin and bear 'em, that's the motter of yourn to command, Jack Snipe.
But I was innocent.
conviction.
I swear to you—!
Well!
And you'd lose their respect, that's all!
Indeed!
No man is—
No, but he's born with a happetite, and some are born with big 'uns, without any means of satisfyin' 'em. It's all very well for people to talk about the 'ead and the 'art, but the stummick, the stummicks the wulnerable part of man's anatomy.
He died a fightin' the battles of his country, and his wife, who'd followed
him half round this world when he was alive, thought it her dooty, poor
thing! to follow him into t'other, and there was a little kid left for me to
purwide for.
A heavy responsibility!
It were. Bless its 'art! it was a baby! Give it an oyster shell, or
an old stocking to suck, and it 'ud be 'appy for hours. It nestled in my arms
the fust time it saw me, and if I hadn't lain upon it now and then accidentally,
I don't think it would have cried much!
Surely you might have supported it honestly?
And the child?
well,
mind ye! And when I think of a bit of a baby a' pickin' up its livin' like a
houseless dog in the gutters, it's a wonder I don't break out, or do something
desprit!—It's the devil's cunning agin a child's innocence! You wouldn't offer
odds on the child, No 47, would ye?
I feel for you.
Of what?
Of the new warder, him as was appinted last week—you two have met afore?
We have—often. How he comes here is another mystery I cannot solve.
Well, there isn't much love lost atween you! Chut, here he comes, an' with
that creepin' creature as we calls the Polecat. I'd give somethin' to know what
them two are conwersin' about
This will get you a free pardon combined they are irresistable!
I hear, but refuse to exchange words with you, Silas Jarrett.
you?
Nothing, my means are limited!
Now I give you fair warning.
Wish you would give me warning—I'd take it and go
Margaret!
Robert Arnold!
Think of Alice, your daughter.
I do think of her, St. Clair, and remember she owes her life to Robert
Arnold—I must speak to him!
Everything's arranged to take place before the return call. Their plan is to
overpower the Guard, and under cover of the moor fog that's now rising, scatter
and run.
If I hadn't given the office, not so mad as you think. The plans were laid long ago, and once they'd got the free run of the Moor, they'd be as hard to find as the fog itself when the sun shines out in the mornin'.
What signal?
Cough, and cough loudly. Now go, and don't lose sight of him for a moment.
provide for you, too, my friend. You know too much for Silas Jarrett.
Sir!
You know Robert Arnold, a prisoner?
No. 47. Yes.
Can I speak to him—but for five minutes?
You shall speak for me then, you are an honest man, and it is from honest
lips I would have Robert Arnold hear the good news. To-morrow he will be
free—we're only waiting for the necessary papers from London, but I would spare
him another night of agony.
You!
Ah! but I tell you, Robert Arnold is one whose innocence can be proved. However, you shall run no danger for me, I will go the governor.
I shall not forget your kindness. What is your name?
Oh, for so slight a service, I'm amply rewarded already. The real culprit is known, you say.
By a strange chance he was discovered on board ship by the very person he had robbed!
Who arrested him, of course?
No, he escaped by leaping overboard.
He was drowned, then?
We have learn't that he was picked up and landed at a small port on the Devon
coast—but I must rejoin my friends.
Keep your eyes and ears open, 47; it's Isaac Vidler as gives the word. They'd
have given it long ago, but they were afraid o' you.
Of me?
New comers are always suspicious, and as you seemed to hold your head so high
they thought no good of you, but I squared it by swearing as you were a
regular out and outer—one of them desperit coves as 'ud scrag their own
grandmother for her silver thimble. Oh, no thanks; when I takes to a cove he's
sure of my good word.
all hazards. No
friend who ever knew me in the past shall see me in this dress again.
arch, as
has grown grey in prisons; but, shut him up as they will, Isaac is like the
measles—he is always a breakin' out.
No! no!
We can't do without it.
Prisons, isn't what they used to be!
arch! if I may be permitted to advise—?
Hear! hear!
Unfort'nately, my blessed babes in the wood! you are here, and it's just
where you don't want to be.
arch. Fust then, you
catches hold of one of them branches —
Of breaking his neck! thank'ye, patriarch
The screws! the Warders! the Warders!
I'm so glad to see yer!
When did you come?
About an hour ago; and a hot march we've had of it, the country's swarming with rebels—and for the devils who have cut off our little detachment, and driven us in here, we'll give a good account of 'em, never fear.
Fear! Joe Triggs is brave as a lion; I've heard him say so, often.
Yes, certainly, but that was when I was a
Have done, sir! how dare you, and the sergeant present!
Don't, Polly, don't turn your back to me in that broad way! Who could resist such a wide expanse of English waist land?
Don't make a stranger of me. There's nothing I admire so much as love-making,
or a marriage, always providing I'm only a spectator. But I want you to tell me
all about Robert Arnold; I heard something of the story when our
regiment was back in England—it was quite a romance.
Ro-mance!
You never read nothing so interesting even in the “London Journal.”
After making his escape from Dartmoor, quite ignorant of the steps that were being taken for his release, he got away on ship-board and worked his passage out to India, here, after no ends of ups and downs, he hears of his innocence having been proved, and of the arrest of that skulking, ne'er-do-well, Silas Jarrett!
Silas Jarrett! who's Silas Jarrett ?
Lor! you ought to remember him! The drunken chap as you wanted to
'list, when Polly's cruelty driv' me to take the shilling ten year ago in
Southampton.
Ten years ago!
Him as was the living, breathing image—
Of your captain, Mr. Ormond Willoughby.
He was trounced for that and some other little affairs of the same character, and is now working out his fifteen year in Australy. But I say, Wattles—
Sergeant Wattles! keep up the respect though you have left the army.
Confidence for confidence—without prejudice, you know, as we used to say in the law—what's all this about Sir Ormond and Miss Alice Armitage?
That the colonel proposed marriage at Madras and was accepted, only the match were put off as Miss Alice was too young.
Same thing—he was accepted by her guardian, Mr. St. Clair.
Our resident collector—that is to say, who was our resident
collector, for he's now again away at Madras on business.
Leaving Miss Alice, under the care of my mistress, Mrs. Doctor Honoria McTavish. Have done, Joe, will you? I hear Mr. Jack's voice in the counting-house.
Who's Mr. Jack?
Oh! such a duck of a man!
Duck of a man! there you go again, Miss Dobbs, it's your nature to be
expansive, even in your compliments. After all, who is Mr. Jack? what is Mr.
Jack? Mr. Jack is only Mr. Arnold's factotum! Mr. Arnold's confidential
servant, who takes a position no one knows why, and comes from no one knows
where—that's what Mr. Jack is.
What's that for?
Nothing, nothing.
You ain't going, sergeant?
You'll break my heart, Joe.
I wish I could, but I'm not a stonemason.
I won't hear anyone speak against Mr. Jack; and, though he certainly never speaks of his life in England, yet he's everything a man should be.
Is he? an undersized, brown-visaged feller!
Who has always a kind for—
You don't like India, Mr. Jack?
Bother the Injun sunshine! Hasn't our English women got a better article in their eyes—though if all heyes was like yourn, Miss Dobbs, they'd singe us into hashes!
this estate, Mr.
Jack.
If I've offended the lady I apologise, but when in the Injies we does as the Injuns do, and a little hextra warmth is allowable.
Married! thank you, I don't see it; if Miss Dobbs must bring down game she shan't do it with a certificate.
Protection indeed! It is I who should apply for that.
Then why don't you take your declaration off the file and give better people a chance?
Better!
is the
matter, Joe?
Oh, Miss Dobbs, if it hadn't been for you I should have killed him. Did you
see how he ran, when I went like this?
Done! what have I done?
Haven't you made love to me before Joe?
I say, don't! you'll become too moist if you go on in that way—if I did make love to you, I give you my word of honour, I didn't mean it—I swear I didn't mean it!
Mr. Jack.
do it!” Jack does it, mind
yer!
Who's locked you up?
Mrs. McTavish—
She says, there's going to be a battle—a dreadful battle!
She wants to see it.
She talks of a battle as if it were a bit of barley sugar.
In Mrs. McTavish's pocket.
Then I collapses, and shuts up like a two foot rule—
You wont help me?
I would, if I could—but—
You won't help me—you wont?
Then I'll help myself—and down I come—
Oh, but miss, where am I to hide you? Here get behind a flower.
Me! take her away? Oh, lor!
how am I to do it?
do! there's a good, dear, Jacks! Talk
to her in Scotch, you know. I want to speak to Mr. Arnold,
par-tic-u-leer-a-leeraly!
I fear the worst, Mrs. McTavish; and would give all of which I'm possessed if every woman in Bhurtpoor were now in Calcutta.
An' d'ye think these loons will have the owdacity to attack the station?
Sir Ormond Willoughby, who has just arrived, and takes command of the cantonment, thinks it more than likely, they are in the neighbourhood, and in large force.
The deevils!
Ay, I canna say for certain; but they say the medicine chest has a' gane wrong, and they doot the perscriptions.
Doot the preescreeptions! An' every one o' them wreetin' out in the learned languages by the late Dr. McTavish, M. D., F.R.S.S.!
Where is she?
Ay, she's been to the house, and Mrs. Flanagan says your—your—
The ungrateful hussy! Didn't I attend her husband in his last moments?
(L. C.)But I do! I'm going to speak to Sir Ormond Willoughby myself.
You!
Haven't you said he is the noblest of men?
I've every reason to believe it.
Then be sure he'll act up to his reputation. Half
This dreadful rebellion has been a heavy blow to Mr. St. Clair, and it is
said that but for Sir Ormond's assistance he'd be now a ruined man. Sir Ormond
Willoughby now offers you a princely home in England, while I—
And how does that affect me?
Few, I fear.
This must be seen to.
Oh! Colonel Willoughby, can I have a few minutes conversation with you?
I fear not now, but when the danger that threatens us is over—not that there is any real danger to alarm you—but—
such a time, when young and old alike tremble
between life and death—that I would speak of a matter that is life and
death to me.
My guardian Mr. St. Clair, has been more than a benefactor to my family—he has been it's saviour. He is also under great obligations to you! You are rich and I am comparatively poor—with Mr. St. Clair's approval you have honoured me with the offer of your hand.
Oh! if you speak in that way I shall break down before I've got half through what I have to say!
It's only that I want you to give up all idea of marrying me—and also I want you to take upon yourself all responsibility of breaking off the match.
great
sacrifice to you, because we're almost strangers to each other!
Oh! I'm sure I feel greatly flattered and honoured—and I daresay I might have
been proud and happy if—
Well! “if”—
If I hadn't loved somebody else!
Does Mr. St. Clair know of this?
Nobody knows anything about it, but myself and Robert!
love Robert Arnold! I love him with all my heart!
You'll be my friend then?
It's a heavy sacrifice, but a true love should shrink from no sacrifice.
The rebels have crossed the river in force!
Polly—but I say, Polly, listen to reason.
I shan't.
Of course you won't, and I was wrong to expect it of yer. Cast your cruel
eyes on this. your military exercise long ago.
Oh, Polly! can you speak to me like this when I shall soon be face to face with gunpowder?
The temptation's great, I confess, but I'm an Englishman!
Then try to remain one.
My country calls me.
Then let her keep on calling.
But some one must answer the knocks, Polly.
Well, as far as these chaps are concerned, I wish they was run-away ones.
Oh, never mind her—she can take care of herself —but just go and see after Miss Alice, who's crying her little 'art out on the sofa.
she take on she'll
Don't be alarmed, Joe, I'm with you—I'll never leave you.
Well, as—as—speaking man to man yer know— not so well as I expected. These chaps don't fire far enough off. I'm not a coward, not naturally, as far as a black eye goes, but—but perhaps it's constitooshnal; I like to fight with plenty on my side.
know—we're not made of common clay Mr. Triggs—not pipe clay, you know.
Delicate minds shrink from observation, and I don't mind confessing to you, that
if left to myself I would have the moral courage to choose the rear.
We must have been born under the same planet! I'll stick to you like a
mussel to a rock—
What of her?
You like her?
Of course I do.
You love her?
Get out! Love! Look you here! A man loves as he must, not as he
chooses. For my part there's been only three human creeturs as have
ever warmed me up to that point. The fust, was a little chip of a child—as,
happily for itself p'raps—died afore it could know how dear it was to me. The
second as was Mr. Arnold, as has stuck and will stick here
Make your mind easy! It was only my fun! a chap must amuse himself
somehow! But once you places her afore me as Mrs. Triggs, I wouldn't touch her
with a pair of tongs? 'Pon my soul I wouldn't!
Oh! bless you! I don't mean what you mean! What I mean is this! that there
are circumstances connected with my family history, which I'm not called on to
explain; I wouldn't marry any mortal woman.
What are you loitering here for—are you going to be killed like sheep? The rebels have crossed the river.
It's fearful odds—a hundred to one!
You coward! like a man, surrounded by scores of sepoys, and in
deadly peril.
Jack what?
You can't reach him! He's keeping the fort at the other side of the river.
Not reach him! I should like to see who'll stop me.
that, like a fool; for suddenly they take
it into their heads that I meant to betray them, the stupid rogues! As if I
haven't more to fear from capture than they have! I gave them leg bail, and swam
the Jumna, with the bullets sputtering round me like hailstones, I reach the
bank, and, surprised by a party of soldiers, put a bold face upon it, and begin
with “this is smart work, my lads,” expecting a bayonet stab before the words
are out of my mouth; not a bit of it, each chap draws himself up as stiff as a
ramrod, and salutes. take me for, I'm blessed if I know, and as long as I'm not
retaken, my ear couldn't deceive me!
What terrible firing! and it seems to come nearer! Oh! Robert! Robert! heaven preserve your life! it is the dearest thing on earth to me.
And yet I must look again!
is she like?
It's a retreat! and where there's a retreat there's plunder! one!
Why, Jack, you're quite a fire-eater, I never thought you'd so much courage.
Well, you can't be more astonished at it than I am—they says as every bullet has its billet, and I'm blessed when this precious pop popping began, if I didn't think I was the billet for the whole lot of 'em; but never mind me, sir, let's talk of things of more consequence. Where's Sir Ormond?
When I left him he had determined to make a desperate attempt to reach the general, who can't be more than a few miles from here, and hurry reinforcements.
Our only hope is to get the women and children into the fort and defend it to the last.
I know what it is, that is I did know afore the little 'un died. When one o' these innocent things gets into one's heart, they ain't to be picked out like a thorn, mind yer.
And if I am, whose fault is that—I mean, who's the merit?
Another o' the warmints!
Sir Ormond! wounded!
I'm dying! I feel I'm dying! The villain who fired at me, crouched behind a tree and has escaped.
Arnold—Arnold—Alice has spoken to me—I know all! all! her sake you will undertake the task in which I
have failed. Unless the General is here within an hour—these demons
am toppled over, what does it matter what becomes of
such poor scum as me?
Yes, the reinforcements have arrived, but they've come by another route.
vindictive villain, the
Polecat, who owed me a grudge for the bullet I put in his leg—I wish it I might have written!
Our brave defenders!
Excuse me, Miss Dobbs, but you're too expansive.
What, would you have me restrain my feelings at such a time as this?
Certainly not! let 'em overflow by all means—
Well, I'm so happy that I must hug somebody, so for once, Joe, it shall be
you.
Grateful woman!
Your exertions!
Yes, where's our brave colonel?
Ah, you are safe—safe! Thank heaven, you are safe!
So you ain't gone to the races, Polly?
Well, your's is not one o' them forms as requires a tourist's telescope.
Yes, but I won't be Mrs. Joe Triggs, nor Mrs. Anybody else as long as Miss
Alice is so miserable.
And I know that Mr. Arnold is over head and ears in love with her, but what of that?
Simply, that it can't be.
Why, can't it be? Is there a more faithful lovyer in the world, except me? Why, when Mr. Arnold was brought wounded to the hospital and nursed through his long illness by Mr. Jack, was there any other name in his mouth but hers?
He couldn't have a sweeter—
And, when we'd got him on his legs again and he learned that Mr. St. Clair and Miss Alice, and yourself had departed for England, didn't he sell up everything to follow her? And wasn't it only when we got to Madras, that we learned that Sir Ormond Willoughby had sold out and also left for England.
What, Sir Ormond?
Whether it was the siege, or the sea, or a sunstroke, or some unpleasantness of that kind, but, of all the changed men, Sir Ormond Willoughby is the changest.
Why?
That's what I want to find out, as Mr. Jack used to say—
Oh, don't talk of Mr Jack to me! that's another thing as upset Mr. Arnold. No sooner had our ship touched England's shore, than Mr. Jack disappeared and though a month has elapsed, we've never again clapped eyes on him.
Do you think he'd lose a chance of meeting Miss Alice?
Then he'll meet Sir Ormond Willoughby as well, for the baronet joined Mr. St. Clair on the race course and returns with him. But what's the matter? You're not going, Joe?
Yes, I am.
To doubt it, Miss Dobbs, shows your ignorance of anatomy. Where his heart is,
there must Joe Triggs be.
Please pity the poor blind—please pity!
Polly, dear, if you've such a thing as a ha'penny about you give it him, and
we can settle the account when we're married.
Dark from my birth, your ladyship. Could never tell one colour from
another—it's on'y by the feel
This is the splendacious crib; and the servants are all out on the common,
to see the people come back from the races.
Is it all serene, patri-arch?
Labour and vait, my blessed infant—labour and vait. Vot's the good o' vurritting?
arch, I'm
ashamed of yer.
our
tickets, but you haven't yourn, my cherub!
Why, you'd lose one hundred pounds to begin with—that being the waluation
they've kindly set on me for this ten year. Help me to carry out this one thing
that I've set my 'art on and you shall make that amount out of me; do the other
thing, and I walks to the nearest station and gives myself up at once.
'Spose I adds another hunderd to the figger, and another hunderd to that!
Yer takes my breath avay!
seen him!
Your enemy! my enemy! anybody's enemy! the ghost of the man I saw dead—dead,
mind yer, dead!
Inclinations! Have you any reason to believe her inclinations are
fixed elsewhere?
When Alice Armitage becomes my wife I cancel all such obligations.
Speak to Alice yourself, she only can decide.
We are disputing terribly!
So you must come and be umpire! Sir Ormond will excuse you for a few moments.
ennui that
belongs to a great name, besides, I'm beginning to grow fond of innocent
amusements— they're so new to me.
Did Mr. St. Clair hesitate in my mother's need to make a sacrifice for her? An orphan and without a friend, has he not filled a parent's place to me?
He has.
And would you have me reproach myself in the midst of our happiness?
But poverty! ah, I know what poverty means— I saw and recognised its face when a child—a face as terrible as that dreadful one in the fable, which chills the warm blood in the veins, and changes all that is human in us into stone.
Sir Ormond Willoughby knew of our love, and he promised—
Sir Ormond Willoughby is a changed man—to me, to all! So changed, that, at times, even his voice startles me, and I look up with doubt whether it can be the same man, once so generous and so good.
Robert!
Mine is no common love, Alice! No love of yesterday. I have known you from a child—loved you from a child, I may say; for in all that long, dreary, awful time at Dartmoor, your innocent face was as a sunny memory that gave me hope even in the midst of my despair.
don't speak so.
Oh, Alice, my one thought, my only thought for years—don't give me up, dear, don't turn waay from me.
I will seek to move
him, but as a
But why did you leave Mr. Arnold?
And becos, I thought as I'd made a discovery, as I dussn't even whisper to anyone.
What discovery?
What do you mean?
Which meanin' shall be developed hereafter.
I will trust you!
The words you said were these—“Alice has spoken to me—I know all—all!”
All what?
And Miss Armitage has herself told me of the promise you then so nobly made to her of resigning all pretension to a hand which—
not Sir Ormond Willoughby! Your face is the face of the man I
knew and loved, but your eyes—your eyes are the eyes of—
Sir Ormond! Robert! what's the meaning of this?
Robert! for my sake, for mine!
The social scale has indeed become a sliding scale, when ladies and gentlemen
can hold companionship with a felon from Dartmoor.
Not guilty! the plea that every rascal sets up in the dock.
You know the man who robbed me was—
Silas Jarrett!! That's the man! here's the man!
tattooed, read for yourselves, “Silas Jarrett,
traitor.”
We swore you should be a marked man among us.
friend—I go back to
prison, but, you go with me.
ours!
you no malice—
Robert! dear Robert! do not heed what he says! For my part, I am so happy at
the thought that we shall never again be parted, that I can forgive
him! Forgive him with all my heart!