I hastily slipped something on: went into our room. Had up the landlord, the landlady; and it really was wonderful—gave me for the time quite a shock at human nature—to see how little they were moved—in fact not moved at all—by my wretchedness, my downright misery. "Oh," I thought, every other minute, "if I once get him home again!" And then the next moment, some horrid sight would come before me—and no one, no one to help or advise me. Yes. The landlady counselled me to have a cup of tea, and the landlord advised me to make myself comfortable. "Things o' the sort"—he said—"never come to nothing, now-a-days. Besides, he'd given the word to the constables—and I might make myself easy they'd all be locked up in a jiffy."
"Could he tell me"—I asked—"the most likely road to take?"
"Why, no," he said, "some folks took one, some another. Some liked the cliffs, some the Devil's Dyke; but as he'd sent all ways, why, again he assured me, I had nothing to do but to make myself comfortable."
And even as the horrid man said this, his more dreadful wife—not but what the woman meant well; only I couldn't abide her for her composure at such a time—the woman came to me stirring a cup of tea with, as she said, just a spoonful of brandy in it to settle my spirits.
What a thought! I to take tea with brandy in it, and Frederick perhaps at that moment—
Josephine—I'll do the girl so much justice at last—was running to and fro, upstairs and downstairs—and putting the house, from one end to the other, in a ferment. At last the landlady desired her to be quiet, and not go about making noise enough to tear people out of their beds. If all the world was gone out to be shot, that was no reason why their house should be ruined!
Well, I won't attempt to describe the two hours I suffered! How, sometimes, I thought I'd have a horse and go galloping anywhere, everywhere.
"It's all over, Ma'am!"—cried Josephine, running in.
"Over!" and I saw death in the girl's face.
"Over, Ma'am. They fired two shots, Ma'am—two a-piece—they say, and"—