A moment after, as soon as the door was shut, he seemed to recollect something, and putting his head out of the window he beckoned up young Wittingham, saying, in a low voice, "You'll need the bull-dogs, so I'll send you down mine. Tell Woolstapler to contrive that you have number one. It will do his business, if tolerably well handled--and I say, Wittingham, don't mention to any one that you have seen me either here or at Oxford. My cousin fancies I am in India still." Then turning to the postillion, he said, "Go on and brush along fast. Sixpence a mile for good going."
Never was such an intimation given to a postillion without the horses suffering for it. I actually once made a Bavarian go seven miles and a half an hour between Ulm and Augsburg by the same process. I record it as amongst the memorable events of my life, proudly satisfied that no man upon earth ever did the same, either before or since. On the present occasion, the postillion, without fear, struck his spurs into the horse's side, laid the whip over the back of the other with that peculiar kind of gentle application which intimated that if the brown-coated gentleman did not get on as hard as his four legs would carry him, the instrument of propulsion would fall more heavily the next time; and away they went, at a pace which was a canter up hill, a trot down, and a gallop over the flat. Captain Moreton leaned back in the chaise and murmured, "We've cut them, by Jove!"
"But what is to be the end of all this?" asked the lady, who seemed to be now thoroughly roused: "if that man is to go on for ever having his own way I do not see any thing that is to be gained. We cannot keep this up much longer, Moreton; and so you thought two days ago. I shall be compelled to come forward and claim the arrears of the annuity by actual want of money. You told me, when we were at the inn there, that you had but ten pounds left, and now you seem to take a different view of the subject. You men are certainly the most vacillating creatures in the world."
"Nay," answered Moreton, bowing his head with an air of persiflage, "ladies, it must be owned, are superior to us in that, as in everything else. Two or three months ago you seemed enchanted with your plan, and declared, though it had not answered yet, it would answer in the end. I only thought it would not answer for want of means, otherwise I was as well disposed towards it as you could be. Now, on the contrary, you are eager to abandon it, while I wish to pursue it, for this simple reason: that I have got the means of carrying it on for some time at least, and see the greatest probability of success. You must recollect, my dear Charlotte, that this is not a matter where a few hundreds or a few thousand pounds are at stake, but many thousands a-year."
As usually happens--for nobody ever hears or attends to more, at the utmost, than the twentieth part of what is said to them, the lady's mind fixed upon one particular sentence, without listening to anything more, and she repeated, as if contemplating and doubting, "You have got the means! You have the means!"
"Ay, indeed, I have," answered Captain Moreton, with a smile; "I have got the means; for, while you were thinking I was doing nothing, I was shrewdly laying out my own plans, by which I have contrived to screw full five hundred pounds out of that terrible miser, Wharton. Was not that somewhat like a coup? With that we can live for some five or six months in Paris--economically, you know, my love--we must not have champagne and oysters every day; but we can do well enough; and before the time is out, the very event we wished to bring about will have happened; otherwise my name is not Moreton. I can see very well how matters are going. He is caught: for the first time in his life really and truly captivated; and, if we but take care to play our game well, he will be married and completely in our power within a few weeks. I know he will never be able to stand that; and there will but be one choice before him, either to buy you off at the highest possible price, or--"
"Buy me!" cried the lady; "if he had the diamond mines of Golconda, he could not buy me! If he could coin every drop of blood in his heart into a gold piece, I would see him mind them all to the very last, and then refuse them all with scorn and contempt. No, no, I will bring him to public shame and trial; I will make him a spectacle, have him condemned as a malefactor, break his proud spirit and his hard heart, and then leave him to his misery, as he has left me. For this I have toiled and longed; for this I have saved and scraped, like the veriest miser that ever worshipped Mammon in his lowest shape; for this I saved every sixpence, and lived in self-inflicted poverty and neglect, till I met you, Moreton, in order to hoard enough to keep me, till this revenge could be accomplished; and often, very often since, I have been tempted to curse you for having, by the extravagance you taught and practised, squandered away the very means of obtaining all that I have longed and pined for."
"You speak in a very meek and Christian spirit," cried Captain Moreton, with a laugh; "but, nevertheless, I will not quarrel with it, Charlotte; for your revenge would serve my purposes too. If we could but get him to commit himself beyond recall, I am his next heir, you know, my dear; and, therefore, the sooner he goes to heaven or Botany Bay, the better for me--don't you think that we could contrive to get up a very well authenticated report of your death in some of the newspapers, with confirmations of all kinds, so as to leave no doubts in his mind?"
"Moreton, upon my life I believe you are a fool," cried the lady, bitterly; "would he not plead that as his excuse?--no, no, if I could so manage it, and, Heaven or the devil send me wit, I care not which, to do it, I would contrive to make him fancy my death certain by small indications, such as none but himself could apply, and which, to the minds of others would seem but frivolous pretexts if brought forward in his own justification. If you can help me to such a plan, I will thank you; if not, we must trust to fortune."
"Good faith! I see no means to accomplish that," cried Moreton.