‘This is exceedingly strange,’ thought the spinster lady. ‘I must adopt more active measures.’ And with great tenderness, she prodded Mr Griffiths with the point of her umbrella. The billiard-marker groaned in his sleep. ‘Mr Jellicoe!’ she exclaimed in her deepest and most threatening tones. She had counted upon this exclamation producing an instantaneous and astonishing effect upon her companion; and she was wofully disappointed when he merely groaned again.
‘Gracious!’ she said to herself: ‘he is ill. He would never go on like that, if he were not ill. The fright has been too much for him. Oh, how sorry I am! These men are such weak creatures. I must stop the carriage!’ And, throwing down the sash of the window, she put out her head and cried to the driver to pull up his horses. But the driver, like the billiard-marker, had been very liberally feed; and he was determined that nothing should stop him until he reached Harlech; he therefore cracked his whip, to drown Miss Marrable’s voice, and drove down the next hill at a pace which threatened to shake the carriage to pieces.
‘Stop, stop! For goodness’ sake, stop!’ shouted Miss Marrable; but finding that her words were not listened to, she drew in her head, and strove to revive the wretched man in front of her. She held her salts-bottle to his nose; she chafed his hands; she fanned his brow; and she allowed his feverish head to rest upon her shoulder; but she could not awaken him.
‘If he should die!’ she thought. ‘I intended to frighten him; but not so much as this. Oh! this is terrible!’ And once more she tried to prevail upon the driver to stop; but in vain. The sight of distant lights, however, gave her at length some satisfaction. The carriage entered a long avenue, the gate of which lay ready opened for it; and about an hour and a quarter after leaving Abermaw, it drew up before the Joneses’ house near Harlech.
With a sigh of relief, Miss Marrable threw open the door and sprang out, to find herself in the presence of half-a-dozen people who were congregated upon the steps.
‘Quick!’ she cried; ‘don’t ask questions! He is ill; he is dying. Take him out!’
The Joneses, who had not been prepared for the apparition of a middle-aged spinster, and who were expecting Mr Jellicoe and Miss Allerton, were somewhat astonished.
‘Who is inside?’ asked Mr Tom Jones, the son and heir of the family.
‘Oh! Mr Jellicoe! Be quick! For mercy’s sake, be quick!’
‘You don’t mean it!’ cried Tom, rushing to the carriage to succour his friend. But an instant later he burst into a violent fit of laughter. ‘Why, it’s not Jellicoe at all!’ he said. ‘It’s Griffiths, the billiard-marker from the Cors-y-Gedol; and he is hopelessly drunk. Nice companion, indeed!’