"Wait, boy, wait! You know nothing about it. Who are you to judge of such matters, indeed? Remember to whom you are speaking, if you please. I have done what was right; and for your sake I have done it."
"For my sake! Why, I never had seen the young lady before I was told that she was dead and buried—murdered, as everybody said—and the tracing of the criminals was mainly left to you! I longed to help, but I knew that you despised me; and now do you mean to say that you did it?"
Luke Sharp was a quick-tempered man. He had borne a great deal more than usual. And now he spoke with vast disdain.
"To be sure, Kit, I murdered her; as is proved to such a mind as yours by the fact of her being now alive! What can I have done to have a fool for my son?"
"And what have I done to have a rogue for a father? You may knock me down, sir, if you please!"—for Mr. Sharp arose, as if that would be his next proceeding;—"you have always used your authority very much in that manner with me. I don't want to be knocked down; but if it will do you any good, pray proceed to it; and down I go."
"I declare, after all, you have got some little wit," cried the lawyer, with a smile withdrawing, and recovering self-command. "I cannot be angry with a boy like you, because you know no better. Oh, here comes your mother! Your excitement has aroused her. Mamma, you have not the least idea what a lion you have to answer for. I leave him to you, my dear. Soothe him, feed him, and try to find his humming-top."
CHAPTER XLIX.
PROMETHEUS VINCTUS.
"I will not die like this! It is unseemly to die like this!" the Rev. Thomas Hardenow was exclaiming at this very time, but a few miles off. "I hope I am not a coward altogether; but the ignominy is unbearable. In this den of Eumæus, this sty of Sycorax, entangled in the meshes of a foul hog-net, and with hogs' grunt, grunt, for the chorus of my woes! My Prometheus class is just waiting for me at the present moment, so far as I can reckon here the climbing of the day; and I had rendered into English verses that delicious bit of chorus—'With thy woes of mighty groaning, mortals feel a fellow-moaning, And of Colchic land indwellers, maids who never quail in fight;' and so on—how small-minded of me to forget it now!—down to, 'And springs of holy-watered rivers wail thy pitiable woe.' But instead of nymphs of ocean, here comes that old pig again! If he could only grout up that board—which he must do sooner or later—what part of me will he begin upon? Probably this little finger—it is so white and helpless! If I could only, only move!—to be eaten alive by pigs! Well, well—there is not so very much left for them. Infinitely better men have had a lower end than that. Only I would bend my knees—if bend them I could—to the Giver of all good, that I may be insensible before the pigs begin."
His plight was a very unfortunate one; but still in the blackest veil of woe there is sure to be some little threadbare place—from so many people having worn that veil—and even poor Hardenow had one good "look-out." To wit, although he had been without food for six-and-twenty hours now (having been caught in the treacherous toils soon after he set his toes towards his dinner), he was not by any means in the same state in which a Low-Church clergyman must have been. His system was so attuned to fasting, and all his parts so disciplined, that "cupboard" was only whispered among them in a submissive manner; and even his stomach concluded sorrowfully that it must be Friday.
Beyond this considerable advantage—which could not last much longer—there was really little to console him. His cowardly captors, not content with the rabbit-net twined round him, had swathed him also in the stronger meshes of a corded gig-net. And even after that, Black George, having had the handling of his legs, and discovered the vigour of their boniness, was so impressed that he called out—"I never did heckle such a wiry chap. Fetch a pair of they tough thongs, Tickuss, same as thou makest use of for ringing of the pigs, my lad."