The single gentleman, rather bewildered by finding himself the centre of this noisy throng, alighted with the assistance of one of the postilions, and handed out Kit's mother, at sight of whom the populace cried out, 'Here's another wedding!' and roared and leaped for joy.
'The world has gone mad, I think,' said the single gentleman, pressing through the concourse with his supposed bride.'Stand back here, will you, and let me knock.'
Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd.A score of dirty hands were raised directly to knock for him, and seldom has a knocker of equal powers been made to produce more deafening sounds than this particular engine on the occasion in question.
Having rendered these voluntary services, the throng modestly retired a little, preferring that the single gentleman should bear their consequences alone.
'Now, sir, what do you want!' said a man with a large white bow at his button-hole, opening the door, and confronting him with a very stoical aspect.
'Who has been married here, my friend?' said the single gentleman.
'I have.'
'You! and to whom in the devil's name?'
'What right have you to ask?' returned the bridegroom, eyeing him from top to toe.
'What right!' cried the single gentleman, drawing the arm of Kit's mother more tightly through his own, for that good woman evidently had it in contemplation to run away.'A right you little dream of.
Mind, good people, if this fellow has been marrying a minor--tut, tut, that can't be.Where is the child you have here, my good fellow.You call her Nell.Where is she?'
As he propounded this question, which Kit's mother echoed, somebody in a room near at hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in a white dress came running to the door, and supported herself upon the bridegroom's arm.
'Where is she!' cried this lady.'What news have you brought me?
What has become of her?'
The single gentleman started back, and gazed upon the face of the late Mrs Jarley (that morning wedded to the philosophic George, to the eternal wrath and despair of Mr Slum the poet), with looks of conflicting apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity.At length he stammered out,'I ask YOU where she is? What do you mean?'
'Oh sir!' cried the bride, 'If you have come here to do her any good, why weren't you here a week ago?'
'She is not--not dead?' said the person to whom she addressed herself, turning very pale.
'No, not so bad as that.'
'I thank God!' cried the single gentleman feebly.'Let me come in.'
They drew back to admit him, and when he had entered, closed the door.
'You see in me, good people,' he said, turning to the newly-married couple, 'one to whom life itself is not dearer than the two persons whom I seek.They would not know me.My features are strange to them, but if they or either of them are here, take this good woman with you, and let them see her first, for her they both know.If you deny them from any mistaken regard or fear for them, judge of my intentions by their recognition of this person as their old humble friend.'
'I always said it!' cried the bride, 'I knew she was not a common child! Alas, sir! we have no power to help you, for all that we could do, has been tried in vain.'
With that, they related to him, without disguise or concealment, all that they knew of Nell and her grandfather, from their first meeting with them, down to the time of their sudden disappearance;adding (which was quite true) that they had made every possible effort to trace them, but without success; having been at first in great alarm for their safety, as well as on account of the suspicions to which they themselves might one day be exposed in consequence of their abrupt departure.They dwelt upon the old man's imbecility of mind, upon the uneasiness the child had always testified when he was absent, upon the company he had been supposed to keep, and upon the increased depression which had gradually crept over her and changed her both in health and spirits.Whether she had missed the old man in the night, and knowing or conjecturing whither he had bent his steps, had gone in pursuit, or whether they had left the house together, they had no means of determining.Certain they considered it, that there was but slender prospect left of hearing of them again, and that whether their flight originated with the old man, or with the child, there was now no hope of their return.
To all this, the single gentleman listened with the air of a man quite borne down by grief and disappointment.He shed tears when they spoke of the grandfather, and appeared in deep affliction.
Not to protract this portion of our narrative, and to make short work of a long story, let it be briefly written that before the interview came to a close, the single gentleman deemed he had sufficient evidence of having been told the truth, and that he endeavoured to force upon the bride and bridegroom an acknowledgment of their kindness to the unfriended child, which, however, they steadily declined accepting.In the end, the happy couple jolted away in the caravan to spend their honeymoon in a country excursion; and the single gentleman and Kit's mother stood ruefully before their carriage-door.
'Where shall we drive you, sir?' said the post-boy.
'You may drive me,' said the single gentleman, 'to the--' He was not going to add 'inn,' but he added it for the sake of Kit's mother; and to the inn they went.
Rumours had already got abroad that the little girl who used to show the wax-work, was the child of great people who had been stolen from her parents in infancy, and had only just been traced.
Opinion was divided whether she was the daughter of a prince, a duke, an earl, a viscount, or a baron, but all agreed upon the main fact, and that the single gentleman was her father; and all bent forward to catch a glimpse, though it were only of the tip of his noble nose, as he rode away, desponding, in his four-horse chaise.
What would he have given to know, and what sorrow would have been saved if he had only known, that at that moment both child and grandfather were seated in the old church porch, patiently awaiting the schoolmaster's return!