Tales of the Wonder Club Volume III Part 30

"And how is our patient, Dame Hearty?" enquired Dr. Bleedem of our hostess, who was waiting upon the members at table this morning instead of her daughter.

"Still very feverish, doctor," was the reply. "The poor child has caught a dreadful cold from being turned out of her warm bed and carried into the cold night air and the snow by those ruffians, and she with scarce a st.i.tch of clothing on."

"Poor dear!" cried Dr. Bleedem, compa.s.sionately. "I'll come and see how she is getting on after breakfast."

"Why, doctor," observed Mr. Crucible, "you've got your work pretty well cut out for you. There's his lordship--well, you can dissect him; and his man, too, for the matter of that. Then there's the coachman, who was brought back here in his lordship's carriage early this morning, with his shoulder-blade broken; then the horses, with their knees broken: and now it's our sweet Helen----"

"Say, doctor," broke in Professor Cyanite, "was that rascally bully sufficiently conscious before his death to give an account of himself?"

"Oh, yes, he was conscious, though he hadn't time to say much. I saw from the first that the case was fatal. He admitted that he had been a d----d scoundrel, but added that his lordship was every whit as bad--and worse. He alleged that had he taken a situation as servant under an honest man, instead of entering the service of an unprincipled rake and debauchee like Lord Scampford, that he himself might have become an honest man. He showed some contrition for the part he had played last night, and begged me to ask the lady's forgiveness for the same, as well as to pray for his soul. Then his mind seemed to wander, and he called out: 'There's his lordship! I see him enveloped in a sheet of flame, with fire issuing from his eyes and mouth, and from the tips of his fingers. He is beckoning to me! He is calling me down to h.e.l.l! How horrible the forms that hover round me. Mercy! mercy! Oh! my G.o.d,' Here he uttered a despairing groan, and spoke no more."

"Ha! Quite dramatic again," remarked the tragedian, who had no thought but what had reference to the stage; "the repentant sinner on his death-bed--excellent! I will take a note of that, and introduce it into my next play."

"Then there is the rescuer; you forget him," observed the poet. "The mysterious stranger, with cloak and slouched hat, appearing on the spot in the very nick of time to succour Beauty in distress."

"True, true," a.s.sented the tragedian; "I had nigh forgot. If this episode wouldn't bring down the house I don't know what would."

"I wonder who he was," observed Mr. Oldstone. "His sudden appearance was most remarkable; his disappearance no less so."

In the middle of this discussion, the door opened, and our host entered with a letter, which he handed to the antiquary, who mechanically put it in his pocket as of no immediate importance, without even looking at the handwriting, while he joined in the merry banter of the other members, who, as soon as our landlord made his appearance fixed upon him at once as the b.u.t.t of their satire.

"Hullo, Jack!" cried one, "got over your little nap at last, eh?"

"That last gla.s.s of your home-brewed ale, by way of a night cap was most effectual," jeered another.

Our host, however, did not view the matter by any means in the light of a joke, and answered savagely, "Ah! the dastardly cowards! They _did_ me at last. Can't make out how they found time to do it. Such a trick was never played me before, and I'll take jolly good care they don't catch me again."

"Well, that's not likely under the circ.u.mstances, is it, Jack?" replied Mr. Hardcase.

"Just like these lawyer fellows," observed Professor Cyanite, "they are always tripping one up."

"Nor yet anyone else," persisted the landlord. Then added, "To think that _my_ daughter who has been brought up from a kid under my very eyes, and never seen no one save her parents and you gentlemen of the club, who have always treated her with courtesy as though she were a high born lady--she, what's never heard a word in her life as she didn't oughter have heard--what never knowed nothink of the ways of this wicked world--that _she_, poor child, should be subjected to outrage from two ruffianly bullies--one o' them a peer of the realm, forsooth, and all on account of her picter being exhibited at that d----d Royal Academy!" He concluded with a thump of his fist on the breakfast table that set all the cups and saucers rattling, and felt better afterwards.

"Yes, it was a narrow shave. Wasn't it, Jack?" remarked Parna.s.sus. "If it hadn't been for that stranger----"

"Ah! I'ld like to find out who _he_ was. _That_ I would. Can any of you gentlemen guess?" demanded our host.

"Not I."

"Nor I," replied several voices at once.

"Why on earth don't he show hisself?" asked Jack. "Well, he's a trump, whoever he is, say I."

The company now broke up, and the members of the club began to set about their several avocations. Dr. Bleedem went upstairs to visit his fair patient, and Mr. Oldstone found himself once more alone. He paced the room slowly, with his hands clasped behind his back and his chin upon his breast, as if lost in a reverie. Then suddenly blurted out, with a snort, "The d----d rascals! The double-dyed sons of Belial! To dare to carry off _my_ Helen! That sweet child that I love as if she were my own flesh and blood. And how nearly they succeeded!" Here his eyes filled with tears, and thrusting his hand into his large pocket in search of his handkerchief, his fingers clutched something crisp, and he recollected the letter that Jack Hearty had put into his hand at breakfast. "Some shoemaker's bill, I suppose," he muttered, as he mopped his eyes with his handkerchief. "Hullo!" he exclaimed, glancing at the handwriting. "What! am I dreaming? Isn't this the writing of my young friend Vand.y.k.e McGuilp? But how? I am only just in possession of his letter from Rome, and this letter bears no postmark, being brought here by some casual messenger. Then he must be _here_! Don't understand it at all." Here he broke the seal and read as follows:

"_Letter from Mr. Vand.y.k.e McGuilp to Mr. Oldstone_

"MY DEAR FRIEND,

"I am nearer to you than you imagine. I send these lines by a boy from a neighbouring village, where I slept last night, but which I leave this morning, without being able to call upon you, as I have important family business in the adjacent county of ---- which I cannot afford to neglect. I had no sooner sent off to you my last letter, dated from Rome, when I received orders to return post haste to England at all costs, as my uncle had been taken suddenly ill, and now lies on his death-bed. He is not expected to last long, and I must be in the house when he dies, and remain till the funeral is over.

"I daren't risk seeing you even for a moment, but I _had_ to be very near you last night, though you knew me not. I had heard from the gossip of the village that a grand carriage and pair with liveried coachman and footman were putting up at 'The Headless Lady,' and I guessed the worst and prepared myself accordingly to frustrate the diabolical plans of those villains. If I were to be hanged to-morrow for it, I should die happy in the consciousness of having rescued innocence from the clutches of vice.

"Immediately after the fray I reported myself to the authorities, who will by this time have sent over a constable to the hostel to interview his lordship's coachman and footman. For the present I am free, but I am bound to appear when called for at the next a.s.sizes.

Matters are apt to go hard with a commoner like myself when the slain man happens to be a person of t.i.tle; but I have hopes, as both the serving men are bound to give evidence that my act was to protect innocence; also that Lord Scampford first drew his sword upon me, having previously attempted to shoot me. No more for the present. With kind remembrances to all,--I remain,

"Your very faithful friend, "VANd.y.k.e MCGUILP."

Our antiquary had hardly finished reading the letter, and thrust it into his pocket, when Dr. Bleedem re-entered the room with a very serious expression on his face.

"Well, doctor," said Mr. Oldstone cheerily, not noticing his countenance, "What news?"

"Bad, bad, very bad indeed," replied the leech gravely. "She is in a high fever and delirious. Quite off her head. If I ever get her through this----"

"Good heavens! doctor," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Oldstone, "you don't mean to say that there is any actual danger of her life?"

"Very considerable danger, I am afraid," responded the physician. "She will require the most careful nursing, such as I am afraid she is not likely to get even from her own mother."

"Doctor, you frighten me," cried Oldstone. "Surely someone can be found to attend upon her to relieve her mother."

"They are a rough lot about here, and not always dependable," answered Bleedem. "It must be someone who will remain with her all night long without going to sleep. If she ever _should_ get over it----"

"Nonsense! doctor. She _must_ get over it, if _I_ myself have to sit up to attend upon her."

"Well, well, we must see how we can manage; but it is a very bad case, for besides the chill she caught, which was of itself enough, there was, in addition, the mental shock to the nervous system. She is so delicately organised."

"Poor dear! poor dear!" whimpered Oldstone. "If _she_ dies under your treatment, doctor, I shall never----"

"Under _my_ treatment!" exclaimed Dr. Bleedem, with vehemence. "G.o.d bless the man! She'ld die all the sooner under anyone else's. Do you think I shan't do my best to bring her round--if it were only for my reputation. If _I_ fail, no man in the whole wide world will be able to save her."

Our antiquary then, by way of changing the conversation, fearing he had somewhat nettled the physician, inquired, "By the way, doctor, did she discourse much during her delirium?"

"Lord, yes; a lot of rubbish, of course," replied the leech. "Imagined she was undergoing again the adventure of last night. Thought Lord Scampford was after her with his bully. Stretched out her arms for succour towards an imaginary angel, whom she said had been sent down from heaven to protect her; ever and anon confounding him with Mr.

McGuilp."

Here the man of medicine indulged in the ghost of a smile.

"Did she indeed, doctor? Well, this is most interesting. Now, while you have a moment of leisure, oblige me by reading this letter."

Here the antiquary handed over the epistle of our artist to Dr. Bleedem.

The physician seized it gravely, read it through in silence to the end; re-read it, slowly folded it up, and returned it to Oldstone.

"Humph! remarkable--very," he observed, after a pause.

Further discussion on the subject was checked by the entry of the other members for their mid-day meal, during which no secret was made as to the ident.i.ty of the mysterious stranger.

"Well, well, well," cried our host, when the mystery had been cleared up. "If I didn't half suspect it all along. Why, bless my soul, if I think there could be found another man in the world capable of it. Eh, Molly?"