The fun was at its height, and the ale cask and the spirit keg would have been valued at one half their original cost, when the company were startled by two hurriedly-repeated knocks at the door, and a young girl stood panting in their midst. No wedding guest this—rather a ghost in all but the strong and youthful grace of budding womanhood.
“Heaven help us! What’s happened to ’e, Meg? Why on earth do you bust in upon a house o’ merriment lookin’ like a corpse? Out wi’ it, lass, and don’t stand gapin’ there, scarin’ us out of our wits, for all the world like a frighted owl.”
“’Tis the p’leece!” she cried.
“Be ye gone stark starin’ mad, you fule of a girl? We ain’t that drunk and disorderly yet that we need fear to look a p’leeceman in the face. P’leece indeed—to a decent respectable woman what’s had no dealin’s wi’ such truck, time out of memory.”
“’Tain’t the drink—’tis the copper off the ship that was wrecked while ago on the Rudge. Some of us ha’ been handlin’ it, and they’re a-comin’ round to every house in the village, wi’ a search-warrant they calls it, and they’re at top o’ street now, an’ ’ll be punchin’ at your door afore you can say Jack Robinson.”
Fear—was it fear for themselves or for others?—had sobered the guests on the instant. Silent and shamed they slunk away into corners, as if they prayed for the earth to swallow them, or were assisting at a funeral instead of a wedding.
Only the mistress of the house retained her self-possession. With a nod at her husband to follow her she retreated with him for consultation into an adjoining room. When they returned—“We’ve been thinkin’ this ’ere matter over,” she said, “and there’s nowt to be done but a corpse in the house.”
“Sakes alive!” cried grandfer, “and whose is the corpse? Not mine, I tell ’e straight. I be as full o’ life and health as the youngest among ’e. Not but what they tell I that I be nearin’ life’s end. Not a bit of it, says I; I be younger and lustier, I be, than this time last year, and lustier then than the year afore. I be intended, I allow, to follow Methusalum, and show what we can do now-along when we sets ourselves serious to the job of livin’.”
“Stop yer silly nonsense, you old fule,” cried the dame, “we’ve no time to listen to your fulery, and none of us wants yer corpse. Not but what a corpse we must have—or maybe a dyin’ man’ll do. Then they wont dare search the house, and we’ll ha’ time to pick up the odds and ends of copper and bury it in the garden. Bad luck that ever I set eyes on it. And ’tis young Ned there that must be the dyin’ man. He’s far and away the most nesh and tender-lookin’ of all of us. And crop his hair short, and lay him in bed wi’ a bandage full over his face, and no one’ll know whether he’s dyin’ or dead. And he was allus that weakly and bad in his breath that we can say he was taken wi’ heart disease, or summat, along o’ the dancin’, and no one’ll be the wiser. Besides, ’tis he what took the copper, so ’tis only fair as he should be at the trouble o’ savin’ on’t. An’ we’ll put ye in Arabella’s room, Ned—sure ’tis no shame to do so for as how ye be a wedded couple. An’ ’tis safer the copper’ll be, seein’ it be stored under her bed, the main of it; not but what there’s two sheets as was flatter nor the rest, an’ they lies ’twixt mattress and blanket. Rare an’ uncomferable ’twill be for ye to lay on, but ’tis yourself what made the bed an’ you must lay on’t. An’ we’ll come an’ let ’e out as soon as ever the p’leece be gone, an’ ’twon’t be long as they’ll stay, soon as ever they hears we’ve dead an’ dyin’ in the house. Up wi’ ’e, Ned, and we’ll have ’e tucked up afore as ever they come nigh the place. Sure ’tis no falsity neither, for what wi’ the scare and the fright ye looks most dead already, so help me, ye does.”
It was not till the end of this harangue that Ned’s temper broke loose, though an angry flush that flamed on his delicate cheek had showed he was nearing the end of his self-control.