"But stay, stay, my good friend!" cried Beauchamp. "Is the post-chaise--"
"Lord-a'-mercy, now!" cried the man, before his guest could finish, the sentence, at the same time pulling off his hat, and throwing it down upon the ground with a despairing sort of fling. "Lord-a'-mercy, now, if I did not forget all about it! This murder has turned my brain, I do think; for I never went into a house or shed in the whole place, but set off home as hard as I could go, to ask if your honor would stand by me."
"Humph!" said Beauchamp, "this is pleasant."
CHAPTER XXX.
"Well," thought Beauchamp, "I certainly did calculate upon being at Dorchester to-night, as firmly as if I had never read the Rambler. Oh, Seged, Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia! But never mind! to-morrow, at all events, nothing shall stop me; and by that time this leg of mine will be nearly well, so that some advantage at least will be gained by the disappointment."
The following morning the son, instead of the father, was accordingly dispatched to the post-town of ----, to order down a chaise to the nearest point of the high-road; and he was, moreover directed to take advantage of the conveyance, to return so far upon his way, in order to give Beauchamp notice of its arrival. This precaution was not unnecessary, for the boy was a lout who might very probably have suffered the chaise to go on without him; but having taken these measures, Beauchamp very confidently expected to hear that his vehicle was in waiting at or about the hour of two.
His lameness had by this time so far worn off, that he could move from place to place with tolerable ease; and he spent the morning principally on the sea-shore, partly in thoughts which were all the busier from the forced inactivity of his body, partly in removing any remaining traces of apprehension from the mind of the old smuggler, who continued working leisurely and lazily at his boat, the damage done to which had evidently been considerable. A little before two o'clock, Beauchamp settled his accounts with his hostess; and all charges being left to his own liberality, and his purse being luckily and miraculously still in his pocket, he presented the worthy dame with a sum so much above either her expectations, or the value of her mackerel and pickled pork, as, in the first place, to make her turn red with surprise and satisfaction, and then to run out to tell her husband what the stranger had given them. Two o'clock however, passed, and old Billy Small, began to regret that he had sent young Billy Small, instead of going himself. Three o'clock passed, and Beauchamp joined most sincerely in the regret, especially when he heard the old man exclaim, in the tone of a discovery, "I'd bet a puncheon, now, that Bill has gone and got drunk at the 'lection. I forgot this was the first day of the 'lection for the borough, or I would ha' gone myself, to a certainty. He's drunk, no doubt!"
The father, however, did the son injustice; for toward half-past three, the good youth appeared lumbering over the hill, and entered the cottage, wiping his brow, indeed, but with a sober pace. In answer to Beauchamp's inquiries--which were made with more eager haste than he generally indulged in--the young man replied that all the horses in the town, and for many miles round it, were engaged in the 'lection, so that not one was to be got for love or money.
Now, Beauchamp found himself so strongly inclined to be cross, that--instead of either sending all elections to that distinguished personage who has gained more by them and their consequences than any one else--I mean the devil--or vituperating the post-horses, or any of the other things concerned, as some persons would have done when put out of temper by similar mischances--he acted, of course, in a way of his own, and laughed outright, merely exclaiming, "Well, I must buy a shirt of you, Small, if you will sell me one; for at present I certainly do not come within the old beau's definition of a gentleman!"
As Beauchamp now determined to send no more to a town in which the election of a fit and proper person to represent his Majesty's lieges in Parliament was going on, his next questions related to the boat, or rather to the boats. The smaller of the two, old Small assured him, though it served well enough to catch mackerel in the little sheltered bay before the house, would never do to go any distance; but he promised Beauchamp that the other boat should be ready to carry him to the next coast town by three o'clock on the following day.