‘Oh Simmun!’ cried Miss Miggs. ‘Oh my blessed Simmun! Oh mim! what are my feelings at this conflicting moment!’
Of a rather turbulent description, it would seem; for her nightcap had been knocked off in the scuffle, and she was on her knees upon the floor, making a strange revelation of blue and yellow curl-papers, straggling locks of hair, tags of staylaces, and strings of it’s impossible to say what; panting for breath, clasping her hands, turning her eyes upwards, shedding abundance of tears, and exhibiting various other symptoms of the acutest mental suffering.
‘I leave,’ said Simon, turning to his master, with an utter disregard of Miggs’s maidenly affliction, ‘a box of things upstairs. Do what you like with ‘em. I don’t want ‘em. I’m never coming back here, any more. Provide yourself, sir, with a journeyman; I’m my country’s journeyman; henceforward that’s MY line of business.’
‘Be what you like in two hours’ time, but now go up to bed,’ returned the locksmith, planting himself in the doorway. ‘Do you hear me? Go to bed!’
‘I hear you, and defy you, Varden,’ rejoined Simon Tappertit. ‘This night, sir, I have been in the country, planning an expedition which shall fill your bell-hanging soul with wonder and dismay. The plot demands my utmost energy. Let me pass!’
‘I’ll knock you down if you come near the door,’ replied the locksmith. ‘You had better go to bed!’
Simon made no answer, but gathering himself up as straight as he could, plunged head foremost at his old master, and the two went driving out into the workshop together, plying their hands and feet so briskly that they looked like half-a-dozen, while Miggs and Mrs Varden screamed for twelve.
It would have been easy for Varden to knock his old ‘prentice down, and bind him hand and foot; but as he was loth to hurt him in his then defenceless state, he contented himself with parrying his blows when he could, taking them in perfect good part when he could not, and keeping between him and the door, until a favourable opportunity should present itself for forcing him to retreat up-stairs, and shutting him up in his own room. But, in the goodness of his heart, he calculated too much upon his adversary’s weakness, and forgot that drunken men who have lost the power of walking steadily, can often run. Watching his time, Simon Tappertit made a cunning show of falling back, staggered unexpectedly forward, brushed past him, opened the door (he knew the trick of that lock well), and darted down the street like a mad dog. The locksmith paused for a moment in the excess of his astonishment, and then gave chase.
It was an excellent season for a run, for at that silent hour the streets were deserted, the air was cool, and the flying figure before him distinctly visible at a great distance, as it sped away, with a long gaunt shadow following at its heels. But the short-winded locksmith had no chance against a man of Sim’s youth and spare figure, though the day had been when he could have run him down in no time. The space between them rapidly increased, and as the rays of the rising sun streamed upon Simon in the act of turning a distant corner, Gabriel Varden was fain to give up, and sit down on a doorstep to fetch his breath. Simon meanwhile, without once stopping, fled at the same degree of swiftness to The Boot, where, as he well knew, some of his company were lying, and at which respectable hostelry—for he had already acquired the distinction of being in great peril of the law—a friendly watch had been expecting him all night, and was even now on the look-out for his coming.
‘Go thy ways, Sim, go thy ways,’ said the locksmith, as soon as he could speak. ‘I have done my best for thee, poor lad, and would have saved thee, but the rope is round thy neck, I fear.’