Mr. Cursty, on second thoughts, began to imagine that perhaps it might end the affair more quietly if he did as the man urged, and though Mrs. Sandboys was for having the whole matter explained in her presence, Cursty deemed it more prudent to retire in company with the beadle, and accordingly stepped into the passage to ascertain what on earth could be the nature of the present charge against him.
There the parish official explained to the gentleman, in as low a tone as possible, that he was wanted at the work’us on a case of desertion.
“Desertion of what?—of whom?—shouted out the innocent Mr. Sandboys, in the height of his indignation. “I never was in t’army in all my life.”
But the beadle mildly insinuated that he was afeard the matter didn’t consarn the harmy, though p’raps it might have summat to do with the hinfant-ry; but whether it were a child or a wife what Mr. Sandboys had left chargeable to the parish, he couldn’t say; all he knowed was, that he had horders to take the gen’elman back with him, on a charge of that naytur, and then he hoped no offence, and he axed the gen’elman’s pardon, but he’d a delikit dooty to preform, and he always struv to preform it with every regard to the feelings of the ladies and gen’elmen consarned; whereupon, having looked cautiously round, and whispered in Cursty’s ear that if he’d leave it all to him, it shouldn’t stand him in no more than 3s. 6d. a week, and what was more, he’d take care the papers didn’t get hold on it, the officer kept touching his hair and nodding his head in a manner that plainly indicated he expected some small gratuity for the discretion he had used, and the services he had proffered in connexion with the “delikit” dooty he had to preform.
“I thought I’d keep it dark, you know, sir, from your old ’ooman,” he added, as Mr. Sandboys seemed disposed to pay no attention to his hints. “Females takes these little tender matters to heart, so that many gen’elmen’s told me it’s been worth scores of pounds to ’em my minding my p’s and q’s in the presence of their good ladies. Bless you, if I was to out with all I knows, I should ruin the peace of half the families in our parish. Gen’elmen will be gen’elmen, you know, sir;” and then making that peculiar noise out of the corner of his mouth, in which the drivers of horses delight, he nudged the astounded Cursty familiarly in the ribs, while he added, “but ladies can’t, for the lives on ’em, make no allowance for the secret hammers of the lawful partners of their buzzems.” And “the authority” having delivered himself of these sentiments, went through the same insinuating pantomime as before.
But Mr. Sandboys being wholly unaccustomed to hints of such a nature, hurried quickly past the obsequious functionary, and telling his bewildered Aggy that some other misunderstanding had occurred, though what it was, and what it referred to, was more than he could make out just then, seized his hat, and without waiting to listen to her remonstrances, suddenly left the house in company with the parochial officer.
On reaching the workhouse, the mystery concerning which the bewildered Cursty had been puzzling his brains for the last hour, was quickly explained. The Flower Hawker, who had become possessed of Mr. Sandboys’ inexpressibles, had retired into the country on the “tramp,” leaving his “pardner” behind to take up her abode in the workhouse until his return. On entering that establishment, however, and undergoing the change of dress customary on such occasions, the “marriage lines” belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys, which the woman had appropriated (owing to the total absence of any similar document appertaining to herself) were discovered secreted in her bosom, and the name Christopher Sandboys being recognised by the authorities as that of the pickpocket who had been arrested at the Crystal Palace, the parish officers had made it their business to track out the whereabouts of the said Christopher; and learning at the police-office that he had recently been discharged from custody, and had afterwards retired in company with his witness, a gentleman from Craven-street in the Strand, they had directed their constable to bring “the man” before them, so that he might be made responsible for the maintenance of his wife.
Mr. Sandboys had no little difficulty in making “the Board” comprehend and believe the facts of the case; for though the woman denied that he was her husband, as stoutly as Cursty did that she was his wife, the ever suspicious authorities could not help fancying but what there was some trick in the affair, and that the woman persisted in her statement of having picked up the paper in the street, merely from a desire to keep “her pardner” out of trouble, so that it was not until Mr. Sandboys had sent for Major Oldschool to speak once more to his respectability, that he was allowed to return to the bosom of his family.
Mrs. Sandboys was too delighted at obtaining possession of her marriage certificate once more to do other than laugh heartily at what had occurred, and though Cursty felt inclined to trace the finger of Destiny in the whole affair, Aggy, from the pleasant termination of the occurrence, could not consent to look upon the circumstance as a disappointment, and made up her mind to go the very next shilling-day to the Exhibition. Cursty, however, was fully persuaded that they should never set foot within the Crystal Palace, and was for going home by the first train in the morning; and it was not until Major Oldschool consented, provided Mr. Sandboys would remain his guest till the Monday following, that he himself would accompany them and see them safe through the entire expedition.
This offer was more than Mr. Sandboys could withstand; and accordingly, on the condition that, come what may, the family should leave town for Buttermere the day after their visit to the Exhibition, he at length consented to make one more trial under the guidance of his excellent friend, Major Oldschool. In this frame of mind we must now leave the family for awhile, to revert to another member of the same establishment.