‘It’s none of you or your miserable holes I want. It’s my mate’s wife as I want,’ said the man. ‘You tell me where she lives, or I’ll—I’ll break all your windows and pull your old barracks about your ears.’
He said this with an interlarding of many oaths, and, swaying back and forward, finally lost his balance and dropped upon the roadside, where John, changing the level of the lantern, poured a stream of light upon him, as he sat up with tipsy gravity, leaning against a low wall which bordered the path, and looking up at the group before him with blank, lacklustre eyes.
‘He can’t be left out here in the cold, whatever he is,’ the curate said.
‘That’s all very well for you, Mr. Cattley. Them as hasn’t got to do a thing never see any difficulty in it,’ said the master of the public-house.
‘I can’t stand here bandying words,’ said the curate; ‘if you will not take him in, I must do it. He can’t be left to be frozen to death in the public road. Some of those fellows who are skulking away in the dark not to face me—but I see them well enough.’ Mr. Cattley raised his voice, and terror ran through the loiterers who had been lingering to see what would come of this exciting incident. ‘Some of them can help me along with him to my house. Come along, and lend a hand, before he goes to sleep.’
‘I ain’t a-going to sleep,’ said the stranger, haranguing from what he evidently felt to be a point of ‘vantage. ‘I’m as steady as a church, and a deal soberer nor e’er a one of you. I wants Missis May, as’ll take me in and do for me thankful, along of her husband, as was my mate.’
‘Come along, men,’ said Mr. Cattley, sharply. ‘I’m not strong enough to do it myself, and you won’t leave the boy to drag him, will you, not the boy——’
‘If it’s come to that, sir,’ said the man of the public-house, ‘I’d rather do it nor trouble you. After all, it’s more fit for me to have him than you. Supposing as he can’t pay, I take it you’d rather pay for him than have him in your house. Hey, man, get up and get to bed!’
‘All I’m wishful for,’ said the man, growing more and more solemn, ‘is for some one to direct me where Missis May’s living. It’s she as will be glad to see me wi’ news—news of her man—as was my mate.’
‘Thank you, Johnson,’ said Mr. Cattley, with a reluctance which he felt to be unjust. ‘I will certainly pay, and I’m obliged to you, which is more. Do you want the lantern? Then come along, John, you’ve had enough of this dismal sight.’