“And what would you say, ma’am, supposing you had done it, when you found yourself served, the next morning perhaps, with a warrant for abduction of a maiden under age, and then committed for trial as a criminal? What would you say to that, Mrs. Wilcox?”
“I should say that the laws was outrageous, and made for the encouragement of vice and wickedness. And I should put it in the newspapers, right and left, till the public came and broke down the doors of the jail, and got up a public subscription for me.”
“Where is her father? What is he about?” My uncle thought it waste of time to argue after that. “Her father is the only person who can interfere. Has he been knocked on the head, and killed by one of his own battering rams?” Mr. Orchardson’s knowledge of scientific matters was more elementary than even mine.
“Not to my knowledge, sir; though like enough that will be the end of him. He have gone to the ends of the earth, I believe, to arrange for going ever so much further in the Spring. There is no help to be got from him, sir, now, if there ever was any chance of it. The poor young lady is delivered as a lamb between two lions to devour her, with a tigress patting them on the back, and holding her down while they carry it out. What will Mr. Kit say, if you allow it, sir?”
“You may be quite sure that I will never allow it, though at present I cannot see what to do. You have quicker wits than we have, ma’am; I ask you again, is there anything you can think of? Has her father any friends who would take her in?”
“Not one, to my knowledge,” answered Mrs. Wilcox, after counting on her finger-tips some names that she had heard of; “that dreadful creature have contrived to make every lady in the land afraid of her. And the poor Professor only knows the learned men, and the learneder they are the less they cares for one another. ’Tis the learning that is at the foot of all this trouble. You must see it so yourself, sir, when you come to think about it.”
“And the law, Mrs. Wilcox, the law is still worse. She is not of age, you see; and her father has placed her, or at any rate left her, in the charge of that woman, whom he has been fool enough to marry. If my nephew were in health, I should say to him at once, ‘Take the bull by the horns, or at least take the young lady, get a licence, and marry her, and defy those people. Her father’s consent has been given; and if he chooses to leave her in that helpless state, you must rescue her, and have no shilly-shallying. But for me to come and take her, is another pair of shoes. It might ruin her fair name, as well as get me into trouble; and what could I do with her, when I had got her?”
“You are right, sir; I see it all as clearly as you put it. But will you come up, and have a talk with her? A word from you would go as far as ten from me. And it would make her feel so much less forsaken like. I could manage to get her down to my little place, and the news I have got for her about poor Mr. Kit will set her up in one way, while it knocks her down in another. Oh, how she have cried, to think that he could be so false to her, because she wouldn’t believe a single word of it, all the blessed time! And now, if I can send my little Ted to her to-night—the sharpest little chap he is, in all the brick and mortar trade; he have never lost a sixpence, sir, from all them roaring navvies—though you might not think it, it will brisk her up amazingly. There is nothing so hagonizing to the female spirit, sir, as to find itself forsaken by the other sex. And your nephew, Master Kit, he mustn’t think of dying yet; no cough about him, sir, nor nothing in the kidneys, only got a chill from being frozen to a hicicle, and his head upon the moon, which goes for nothing. Lor’, sir, the number of young men comes every day, from the best part of London, too, according to my Ted, a-staring at the great works round our way, which is to be the fashion in a few more years, and not a head among them fit to go upon a donkey! It doesn’t matter what’s the matter with the head, one item, sir, in these times now upon us and increasing daily. Keep your spirits up, sir, and I shall tell Miss Kitty. A young man, as is all right, except inside his head, isn’t no more to complain of than a cuckoo-clock, that have left off striking, and keeps better time for that. What time did you say the last ’bus at Hampton was, sir? If I was to lose it, wherever should I be? And a good step from here to Hampton, too.”
“I will send you to Hampton, in the spring-cart, Mrs. Wilcox,” said my uncle, warmly joining in her estimate of the age; “and to-morrow, if the roads permit, I shall hope to call upon you, about eleven o’clock; and if you can manage to get Miss Fairthorn to meet me, why, it may be a little comfort to her, and we may be able perhaps to see what can be done for her.”