CHAPTER XXXVIII

CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN MR. AND MRS. BUMBLE,

AND MR. MONKS, AT THEIR NOCTURNAL INTERVIEW

It was a dull, close, overcast summer evening. The clouds, which

had been threatening all day, spread out in a dense and sluggish

mass of vapour, already yielded large drops of rain, and seemed

to presage a violent thunder-storm, when Mr. and Mrs. Bumble,

turning out of the main street of the town, directed their course

towards a scattered little colony of ruinous houses, distant from

it some mile and a-half, or thereabouts, and erected on a low

unwholesome swamp, bordering upon the river.

They were both wrapped in old and shabby outer garments, which

might, perhaps, serve the double purpose of protecting their

persons from the rain, and sheltering them from observation. The

husband carried a lantern, from which, however, no light yet

shone; and trudged on, a few paces in front, as though--the way

being dirty--to give his wife the benefit of treading in his

heavy footprints. They went on, in profound silence; every now

and then, Mr. Bumble relaxed his pace, and turned his head as if

to make sure that his helpmate was following; then, discovering

that she was close at his heels, he mended his rate of walking,

and proceeded, at a considerable increase of speed, towards their

place of destination.

This was far from being a place of doubtful character; for it had

long been known as the residence of none but low ruffians, who,

under various pretences of living by their labour, subsisted

chiefly on plunder and crime. It was a collection of mere

hovels: some, hastily built with loose bricks: others, of old

worm-eaten ship-timber: jumbled together without any attempt at

order or arrangement, and planted, for the most part, within a

few feet of the river's bank. A few leaky boats drawn up on the

mud, and made fast to the dwarf wall which skirted it: and here

and there an oar or coil of rope: appeared, at first, to

indicate that the inhabitants of these miserable cottages pursued

some avocation on the river; but a glance at the shattered and

useless condition of the articles thus displayed, would have led

a passer-by, without much difficulty, to the conjecture that they

were disposed there, rather for the preservation of appearances,

than with any view to their being actually employed.

In the heart of this cluster of huts; and skirting the river,

which its upper stories overhung; stood a large building,

formerly used as a manufactory of some kind. It had, in its day,

probably furnished employment to the inhabitants of the

surrounding tenements. But it had long since gone to ruin. The

rat, the worm, and the action of the damp, had weakened and

rotted the piles on which it stood; and a considerable portion of

the building had already sunk down into the water; while the

remainder, tottering and bending over the dark stream, seemed to

wait a favourable opportunity of following its old companion, and

involving itself in the same fate.

It was before this ruinous building that the worthy couple

paused, as the first peal of distant thunder reverberated in the

air, and the rain commenced pouring violently down.

'The place should be somewhere here,' said Bumble, consulting a

scrap of paper he held in his hand.

'Halloa there!' cried a voice from above.

Following the sound, Mr. Bumble raised his head and descried a

man looking out of a door, breast-high, on the second story.

'Stand still, a minute,' cried the voice; 'I'll be with you

directly.' With which the head disappeared, and the door closed.

'Is that the man?' asked Mr. Bumble's good lady.

Mr. Bumble nodded in the affirmative.

'Then, mind what I told you,' said the matron: 'and be careful to

say as little as you can, or you'll betray us at once.'

Mr. Bumble, who had eyed the building with very rueful looks, was

apparently about to express some doubts relative to the

advisability of proceeding any further with the enterprise just

then, when he was prevented by the appearance of Monks: w ho

opened a small door, near which they stood, and beckoned them

inwards.

'Come in!' he cried impatiently, stamping his foot upon the

ground. 'Don't keep me here!'

The woman, who had hesitated at first, walked boldly in, without

any other invitation. Mr. Bumble, who was ashamed or afraid to

lag behind, followed: obviously very ill at ease and with

scarcely any of that remarkable dignity which was usually his

chief characteristic.

'What the devil made you stand lingering there, in the wet?' said

Monks, turning round, and addressing Bumble, after he had bolted

the door behind them.

'We--we were only cooling ourselves,' stammered Bumble, looking

apprehensively about him.

'Cooling yourselves!' retorted Monks. 'Not all the rain that

ever fell, or ever will fall, will put as much of hell's fire

out, as a man can carry about with him. You won't cool yourself

so easily; don't think it!'

With this agreeable speech, Monks turned short upon the matron,

and bent his gaze upon her, till even she, who was not easily

cowed, was fain to withdraw her eyes, and turn them them towards

the ground.

'This is the woman, is it?' demanded Monks.

'Hem! That is the woman,' replied Mr. Bumble, mindful of his

wife's caution.

'You think women never can keep secrets, I suppose?' said the

matron, interposing, and returning, as she spoke, the searching

look of Monks.

'I know they will always keep ONE till it's found out,' said

Monks.

'And what may that be?' asked the matron.

'The loss of their own good name,' replied Monks. 'So, by the

same rule, if a woman's a party to a secret that might hang or

transport her, I'm not afraid of her telling it to anybody; not

I! Do you understand, mistress?'

'No,' rejoined the matron, slightly colouring as she spoke.

'Of course you don't!' said Monks. 'How should you?'

Bestowing something half-way between a smile and a frown upon his

two companions, and again beckoning them to follow him, the man

hastened across the apartment, which was of considerable extent,

but low in the roof. He was preparing to ascend a steep

staircase, or rather ladder, leading to another floor of

warehouses above: when a bright flash of lightning streamed down

the aperture, and a peal of thunder followed, which shook the

crazy building to its centre.

'Hear it!' he cried, shrinking back. 'Hear it! Rolling and

crashing on as if it echoed through a thousand caverns where the

devils were hiding from it. I hate the sound!'

He remained silent for a few moments; and then, removing his

hands suddenly from his face, showed, to the unspeakable

discomposure of Mr. Bumble, that it was much distorted and

discoloured.

'These fits come over me, now and then,' said Monks, observing

his alarm; 'and thunder sometimes brings them on. Don't mind me

now; it's all over for this once.'

Thus speaking, he led the way up the ladder; and hastily closing

the window-shutter of the room into which it led, lowered a

lantern which hung at the end of a rope and pulley passed through

one of the heavy beams in the ceiling: and which cast a dim

light upon an old table and three chairs that were placed beneath

it.

'Now,' said Monks, when they had all three seated themselves,

'the sooner we come to our business, the better for all. The

woman know what it is, does she?'

The question was addressed to Bumble; but his wife anticipated

the reply, by intimating that she was perfectly acquainted with

it.

'He is right in saying that you were with this hag the night she

died; and that she told you something--'

'About the mother of the boy you named,' replied the matron

interrupting him. 'Yes.'

'The first question is, of what nature was her communication?'

said Monks.

'That's the second,' observed the woman with much deliberation.

'The first is, what may the communication be worth?'

'Who the devil can tell that, without knowing of what kind it

is?' asked Monks.

'Nobody better than you, I am persuaded,' answered Mrs. Bumble:

who did not want for spirit, as her yoke-fellow could abundantly

testify.

'Humph!' said Monks significantly, and with a look of eager

inquiry; 'there may be money's worth to get, eh?'

'Perhaps there may,' was the composed reply.

'Something that was taken from her,' said Monks. 'Something that

she wore. Something that--'

'You had better bid,' interrupted Mrs. Bumble. 'I have heard

enough, already, to assure me that you are the man I ought to

talk to.'

Mr. Bumble, who had not yet been admitted by his better half into

any greater share of the secret than he had originally possessed,

listened to this dialogue with outstretched neck and distended

eyes: which he directed towards his wife and Monks, by turns, in

undisguised astonishment; increased, if possible, when the latter

sternly demanded, what sum was required for the disclosure.

'What's it worth to you?' asked the woman, as collectedly as

before.

'It may be nothing; it may be twenty pounds,' replied Monks.

'Speak out, and let me know which.'

'Add five pounds to the sum you have named; give me

five-and-twenty pounds in gold,' said the woman; 'and I'll tell

you all I know. Not before.'

'Five-and-twenty pounds!' exclaimed Monks, drawing back.

'I spoke as plainly as I could,' replied Mrs. Bumble. 'It's not

a large sum, either.'

'Not a large sum for a paltry secret, that may be nothing when

it's told!' cried Monks impatiently; 'and which has been lying

dead for twelve years past or more!'

'Such matters keep well, and, like good wine, often double their

value in course of time,' answered the matron, still preserving

the resoluteindifference she had assumed. 'As to lying dead,

there are those who will lie dead for twelve thousand years to

come, or twelve million, for anything you or I know, who will

tell strange tales at last!'

'What if I pay it for nothing?' asked Monks, hesitating.

'You can easily take it away again,' replied the matron. 'I am

but a woman; alone here; and unprotected.'

'Not alone, my dear, nor unprotected, neither,' submitted Mr.

Bumble, in a voice tremulous with fear: '_I_ am here, my dear.

And besides,' said Mr. Bumble, his teeth chattering as he spoke,

'Mr. Monks is too much of a gentleman to attempt any violence on

porochial persons. Mr. Monks is aware that I am not a young man,

my dear, and also that I am a little run to seed, as I may say;

bu he has heerd: I say I have no doubt Mr. Monks has heerd, my

dear: that I am a very determined officer, with very uncommon

strength, if I'm once roused. I only want a little rousing;

that's all.'

As Mr. Bumble spoke, he made a melancholy feint of grasping his

lantern with fierce determination; and plainly showed, by the

alarmed expression of every feature, that he DID want a little

rousing, and not a little, prior to making any very warlike

demonstration: unless, indeed, against paupers, or other person

or persons trained down for the purpose.

'You are a fool,' said Mrs. Bumble, in reply; 'and had better

hold your tongue.'

'He had better have cut it out, before he came, if he can't speak

in a lower tone,' said Monks, grimly. 'So! He's your husband,

eh?'

'He my husband!' tittered the matron, parrying the question.

'I thought as much, when you came in,' rejoined Monks, marking

the angry glance which the lady darted at her spouse as she

spoke. 'So much the better; I have less hesitation in dealing

with two people, when I find that there's only one will between

them. I'm in earnest. See here!'

He thrust his hand into a side-pocket; and producing a canvas

bag, told out twenty-five sovereigns on the table, and pushed

them over to the woman.

'Now,' he said, 'gather them up; and when this cursed peal of

thunder, which I feel is coming up to break over the house-top,

is gone, let's hear your story.'

The thunder, which seemed in fact much nearer, and to shiver and

break almost over their heads, having subsided, Monks, raising

his face from the table, bent forward to listen to what the woman

should say. The faces of the three nearly touched, as the two

men leant over the small table in their eagerness to hear, and

the woman also leant forward to render her whisper audible. The

sickly rays of the suspended lantern falling directly upon them,

aggravated the paleness and anxiety of their countenances: which,

encircled by the deepest gloom and darkness, looked ghastly in

the extreme.

'When this woman, that we called old Sally, died,' the matron

began, 'she and I were alone.'

'Was there no one by?' asked Monks, in the same hollow whisper;

'No sick wretch or idiot in some other bed? No one who could

hear, and might, by possibility, understand?'

'Not a soul,' replied the woman; 'we were alone. _I_ stood alone

beside the body when death came over it.'

'Good,' said Monks, regarding her attentively. 'Go on.'

'She spoke of a young creature,' resumed the matron, 'who had

brought a child into the world some years before; not merely in

the same room, but in the same bed, in which she then lay dying.'

'Ay?' said Monks, with quivering lip, and glancing over his

shoulder, 'Blood! How things come about!'

'The child was the one you named to him last night,' said the

matron, nodding carelessly towards her husband; 'the mother this

nurse had robbed.'

'In life?' asked Monks.

'In death,' replied the woman, with something like a shudder.

'She stole from the corpse, when it had hardly turned to one,

that which the dead mother had prayed her, with her last breath,

to keep for the infant's sake.'

'She sold it,' cried Monks, with desperate eagerness; 'did she

sell it? Where? When? To whom? How long before?'

'As she told me, with great difficulty, that she had done this,'

said the matron, 'she fell back and died.'

'Without saying more?' cried Monks, in a voice which, from its

very suppression, seemed only the more furious. 'It's a lie!

I'll not be played with. She said more. I'll tear the life out

of you both, but I'll know what it was.'

'She didn't utter another word,' said the woman, to all

appearance unmoved (as Mr. Bumble was very far from being) by the

strange man's violence; 'but she clutched my gown, violently,

with one hand, which was partly closed; and when I saw that she

was dead, and so removed the hand by force, I found it clasped a

scrap of dirty paper.'

'Which contained--' interposed Monks, stretching forward.

'Nothing,' replied the woman; 'it was a pawnbroker's duplicate.'

'For what?' demanded Monks.

'In good time I'll tell you.' said the woman. 'I judge that she

had kept the trinket, for some time, in the hope of turning it to

better account; and then had pawned it; and had saved or scraped

together money to pay the pawnbroker's interest year by year, and

prevent its running out; so that if anything came of it, it could

still be redeemed. Nothing had come of it; and, as I tell you,

she died with the scrap of paper, all worn and tattered, in her

hand. The time was out in two days; I thought something might

one day come of it too; and so redeemed the pledge.'

'Where is it now?' asked Monks quickly.

'THERE,' replied the woman. And, as if glad to be relieved of

it, she hastily threw upon the table a small kid bag scarcely

large enough for a French watch, which Monks pouncing upon, tore

open with trembling hands. It contained a little gold locket:

in which were two locks of hair, and a plain gold wedding-ring.

'It has the word "Agnes" engraved on the inside,' said the woman.

'There is a blank left for the surname; and then follows the

date; which is within a year before the child was born. I found

out that.'

'And this is all?' said Monks, after a close and eager scrutiny

of the contents of the little packet.

'All,' replied the woman.

Mr. Bumble drew a long breath, as if he were glad to find that

the story was over, and no mention made of taking the

five-and-twenty pounds back again; and now he took courage to

wipe the perspiration which had been trickling over his nose,

unchecked, during the whole of the previous dialogue.

'I know nothing of the story, beyond what I can guess at,' said

his wife addressing Monks, after a short silence; 'and I want to

know nothing; for it's safer not. But I may ask you two

questions, may I?'

'You may ask,' said Monks, with some show of surprise; 'but

whether I answer or not is another question.'

'--Which makes three,' observed Mr. Bumble, essaying a stroke of

facetiousness.

'Is that what you expected to get from me?' demanded the matron.

'It is,' replied Monks. 'The other question?'

'What do you propose to do with it? Can it be used against me?'

'Never,' rejoined Monks; 'nor against me either. See here! But

don't move a step forward, or your life is not worth a bulrush.'

With these words, he suddenly wheeled the table aside, and

pulling an iron ring in the boarding, threw back a large

trap-door which opened close at Mr. Bumble's feet, and caused

that gentleman to retire several paces backward, with great

precipitation.

'Look down,' said Monks, lowering the lantern into the gulf.

'Don't fear me. I could have let you down, quietly enough, when

you were seated over it, if that had been my game.'

Thus encouraged, the matron drew near to the brink; and even Mr.

Bumble himself, impelled by curiousity, ventured to do the same.

The turbid water, swollen by the heavy rain, was rushing rapidly

on below; and all other sounds were lost in the noise of its

plashing and eddying against the green and slimy piles. There

had once been a water-mill beneath; the tide foaming and chafing

round the few rotten stakes, and fragments of machinery that yet

remained, seemed to dart onward, with a new impulse, when freed

from the obstacles which had unavailingly attempted to stem its

headlong course.

'If you flung a man's body down there, where would it be

to-morrow morning?' said Monks, swinging the lantern to and fro

in the dark well.

'Twelve miles down the river, and cut to pieces besides,' replied

Bumble, recoiling at the thought.

Monks drew the little packet from his breast, where he had

hurriedly thrust it; and tying it to a leaden weight, which had

formed a part of some pulley, and was lying on the floor, dropped

it into the stream. It fell straight, and true as a die; clove

the water with a scarcely audible splash; and was gone.

The three looking into each other's faces, seemed to breathe more

freely.

'There!' said Monks, closing the trap-door, which fell heavily

back into its former position. 'If the sea ever gives up its

dead, as books say it will, it will keep its gold and silver to

itself, and that trash among it. We have nothing more to say,

and may break up our pleasant party.'

'By all means,' observed Mr. Bumble, with great alacrity.

'You'll keep a quiet tongue in your head, will you?' said Monks,

with a threatening look. 'I am not afraid of your wife.'

'You may depend upon me, young man,' answered Mr. Bumble, bowing

himself gradually towards the ladder, with excessivepoliteness.

'On everybody's account, young man; on my own, you know, Mr.

Monks.'

'I am glad, for your sake, to hear it,' remarked Monks. 'Light

your lantern! And get away from here as fast as you can.'

It was fortunate that the conversation terminated at this point,

or Mr. Bumble, who had bowed himself to within six inches of the

ladder, would infallibly have pitched headlong into the room

below. He lighted his lantern from that which Monks had detached

from the rope, and now carried in his hand; and making no effort

to prolong the discourse, descended in silence, followed by his

wife. Monks brought up the rear, after pausing on the steps to

satisfy himself that there were no other sounds to be heard than

the beating of the rain without, and the rushing of the water.

They traversed the lower room, slowly, and with caution; for

Monks started at every shadow; and Mr. Bumble, holding his

lantern a foot above the ground, walked not only with remarkable

care, but with a marvellously light step for a gentleman of his

figure: looking nervously about him for hidden trap-doors. The

gate at which they had entered, was softly unfastened and opened

by Monks; merely exchanging a nod with their mysterious

acquaintance, the married couple emerged into the wet and

darkness outside.

They were no sooner gone, than Monks, who appeared to entertain

an invincible repugnance to being left alone, called to a boy who

had been hidden somewhere below. Bidding him go first, and bear

the light, he returned to the chamber he had just quitted.
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