"Come, why don't you stir your stumps? I suppose I must wait on myself—fine manners!—But, ho, ho—a bell, by gosh—mighty grand—never mind—I am used to call for my own wants."
A hearty tug at the frail bell-rope sent a shrill alarum half-way through the long lath-and-plaster row of Paradise Place, and left the instrument of the sound in the hand of its creator.
Up came the maid-servant, a formal old woman, most respectable.
"Hark ye, old girl!" said Darvil; "bring up the best you have to eat—not particular—let there be plenty. And I say—a bottle of brandy. Come, don't stand there staring like a stuck pig. Budge! Hell and furies! don't you hear me?"
The servant retreated, as if a pistol had been put to her head, and Darvil, laughing loud, threw himself again upon the sofa. Alice looked at him, and, still without saying a word, glided from the room—her child in her arms. She hurried down-stairs, and in the hall met her servant. The latter, who was much attached to her mistress, was alarmed to see her about to leave the house.
"Why, marm, where be you going? Dear heart, you have no bonnet on!
What is the matter? Who is this?"
"Oh!" cried Alice, in agony; "what shall I do?—where shall I fly?" The door above opened. Alice heard, started, and the next moment was in the street. She ran on breathlessly, and like one insane. Her mind was, indeed, for the time, gone; and had a river flowed before her way, she would have plunged into an escape from a world that seemed too narrow to hold a father and his child.
But just as she turned the corner of a street that led into the more public thoroughfares, she felt her arm grasped, and a voice called out her name in surprised and startled accents.
"Heavens, Mrs. Butler! Alice! What do I see? What is the matter?"
"Oh, sir, save me!—you are a good man—a great man—save me—he is returned!"