That, however, they both agreed would "blow the whole business"--to use their own expression--and humanity, as usual, gave way to apprehension. Old Willy Small, as the smuggler was denominated, declared that he was a goodish hand himself at splicing a broken limb, and that he and his wife would look to it, till the other party were safe off to France. This seemed to quiet the conscience of the other upon that particular; and, after concerting some farther plans for facilitating all the preparations for their journey, they returned to their comrades below.
The effect of this conversation upon the mind of Henry Beauchamp was not certainly to produce any very agreeable sensations. He began to apprehend that a worse crime than simple robbery had been committed at the house of the unhappy miser; and though, in one point of view, he felt little anxiety on his own account--seeing evidently that he would not want assistance at his need, if any thing were attempted against him--yet he could not help shuddering at his proximity to a gang of murderers, and contemplated with no great pleasure the surgical offices to be performed upon his own leg by a smuggler and an old woman. An evil, however, is seldom without its good; and though, certainly, had it been left to his own choice, he might have found a more agreeable way of diverting his thoughts from all the painful subjects that previously occupied them, yet true it most assuredly is, that corporeal uncomfort, pain, and apprehension, did very materially lessen--no! not his love for Blanche Delaware--but the first bitter feeling of the disappointment which her conduct had occasioned.
If it were not so strange to say, and if we could by any means discover the process by which the mind could arrive at such a result, we should declare that, in the midst of all these dangers, troubles, and uncomforts of a different kind, Beauchamp had found a new store of hope. How, or why, who can tell! but either his hope was like the limbs of the skeleton in the Fantocini, which, after being all disjointed are suddenly pulled together again by strings that no one can see; or else it was like a fire of dry wood, which, when it has appeared for some time quite extinguished, will pour out a small white flame, when nobody is expecting any such thing, and soon be as bright again as ever. At all events, he had left Emberton that very morning without a spark of hope apparently left; and after going through as much as would have contented him with adventures for the whole of his life, he could not help thinking that there was something very strange and unaccountable in Blanche Delaware's whole conduct, and that, if he could but get the key, all might still go well. Nevertheless, he was not long left to cogitate upon any thing; for, in a minute or two, the smuggler and the smuggler's wife walked in, in the character of surgeon and assistant; and, after some awkward explanations of their purpose, demanded to look at the gentleman's leg, to see if they could help him. As he knew that it was predetermined not to send for a surgeon, Beauchamp, who was not disposed to make people look foolish unnecessarily, did not, as he once intended, propose that expedient.
"You may look at my leg as much as you like, my good people," he said; "but I have not the slightest intention of letting you do any thing to it, unless what you purpose agrees with my own opinion." This being settled, the woman knelt down, and the man held the candle, and the stocking being withdrawn, an examination and mumbled consultation of some length took place.
"It's not broken, sir, do you see!" said the old man, looking up. "It's only the small bone put out, do you see!"
"I see nothing at all, my good fellow," said Beauchamp, "except that it is very painful; and, of course, the more you pinch it the worse it is."
The man then assured him that if he would let him try, he would put it in in a minute; and, after a laborious explanation, Beauchamp consented. The old man pulled his foot as if he would have pulled it off the old woman squeezed his ankle as if she would have broken it through the middle; but at length, with a sudden snap, the bone started back into its place, and the patient found instant relief. Every attempt to stand, however, was still quite out of the question; and Beauchamp, giving himself entirely up into the hands of such skillful chirurgeons, suffered his ankle to be bandaged up with cloths steeped in vinegar and brandy, and himself to be carried to bed, where the smuggler assured him he ought to lie for at least four days, in order to perfect his recovery. When all was completed, and, his host and hostess were retiring, Beauchamp listened for a moment, and heard the key of the door turned with greater satisfaction than he had imagined the fact of being locked into his own room would ever afford him.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Now, Henry Burrel was a great deal too sincere a man, even in his commune with himself, to endeavor by any means to cheat himself into the belief that he was a hero. In short, he had quite sufficient real enthusiasm in his disposition, and quite sufficient contempt for those who affected it without having any, to make him very jealous of letting the portion he did, possess appear openly, even before his own eyes; and, in order to correct such propensities, he had got up, as we have shown before, a system of apathetic indifference to every thing that did not affect himself, which, though sometimes run away with by his zeal or his affections, contrived generally to bridle feelings that would otherwise have been somewhat headstrong.
Left alone in a little bed, in a little room in a smuggler's cottage, on the loneliest part of the sea-shore--locked in, without being able to set a foot to the ground--without a light--and with a confounded smell of fish pervading the whole atmosphere--his first impulse, as all these minor miseries tickled his imagination one after the other, was to laugh heartily. But the impression lasted but a moment; and, when he thought of the more remote, but more dreadful, circumstances connected by an inseparable link with his temporary situation--the murder of a helpless old man, which he doubted not had been committed--the fearful moral offense which three of his fellow-creatures had perpetrated--and the miserable fate of a youth in whom he had taken considerable interest--for he had recognized, as we have before hinted, the voice of poor Wat Harrison--when he thought of all these circumstances, his heart smote him for the moment of levity in which he had indulged; and poured out the full tide of its generous and kindly feelings to wash away the fault of that one instant.