'What do you mean, sirrah?' cried Betterton.
'That you are a ruffian,' said Stuart, 'and the same cowardice which made you offer insult to a woman will make you bear it from a man. Now, Sir, I leave you to your fate.' And we were quitting the room.
'What thing is that?' said Stuart, stopping short before the poet; who, with one arm and his face out of the bag, lay on his back, gasping and unable to stir.
'Cut it, cut it!' cried the poor man, in choaking accents.
'Higginson I protest!' exclaimed Stuart, as he snatched a knife from the table, and laid open the bag. Up rose the poet, resurrectionary from his hempen coffin, and was beginning to clench his fist; but Stuart caught his arm, and hurried him and me out of the room.
Stuart, with great eagerness, now began asking me the particulars of all that had occurred at Betterton's; and his rage, as I related it, was extreme.
He then proceeded to tell me how he had discovered my being there. After his departure from Lady Gwyn's, he set off for London, to prosecute his inquiries about my father; and spent some days in this way, to no purpose. At length he returned to Lady Gwyn's, but was much shocked at learning from her that I had robbed her, and absconded; and had afterwards made an assault on her house, at the head of a set of Irishmen. By the description she gave, he judged that Jerry Sullivan was one of them; and not finding us at Monkton Castle, whither she directed him, he posted back to London, in order to make inquiries at Jerry's house. Jerry, who had just returned, related the whole history of the castle; adding that I was to call upon him the moment I should arrive in Town. Stuart, therefore, waited some time; but as I did not appear, he began to suspect that Betterton had entrapped me; so he hastened to the coachmaker, and having explained to him that I was no swindler, and having paid him for the barouche, he told him (as he learned from Jerry) that Betterton was one of those who had assaulted the postilion and constables. The coachmaker, therefore, applied at the police-office; and a party was dispatched to apprehend Betterton. Stuart accompanied them, and thus gained admission (which he could not otherwise have done) into the house.
Higginson now told a lamentable tale of the pranks that Betterton had played on him; and amongst the rest, mentioned, that a servant had seduced him into the bag, by pretending to be his friend, and to smuggle him out of the house, in the character of meal.
He could gather, from several things said while the company were tormenting him, that Grundy had agreed to marry me; and then, for a stipulated sum, to give Betterton opportunities of prosecuting his infamous designs. Thus both of them would escape the penalties of the law.
He likewise informed me, that the female guests were (to use his own words) ladies whom the male guests loved better than they ought to do; and he then explained that the several rooms were furnished according to the fashions of different countries; Grecian, Persian, Chinese, Italian; and that mine was the Gothic chamber.