Nothing could have been attended with more decisive success than the villany of the Jew. His boundless audacity had imposed upon a weak-headed country gentleman; and the information he had acquired at the Cock and Punch-bowl by listening at the wanderer’s door, enabled him to describe the property, alleged to have been stolen, with an accuracy that induced the greater number of those who heard the charge, to believe the story of the robbery confirmed. The hour of revenge was come. The girl, deprived of her protector, and thrown loose upon the world, would once more be at his mercy; and the Jew’s dark eyes brightened with fiendish delight. The man who had crossed his schemes, and treated him with contumely, would now be tenant of a prison; and the woman who had turned from him with contempt, and rejected his overtures with abhorrence, might soon be taught to feel that hatred often follows fast upon the steps of love.
But what appeared to the Jew to be the hour of his triumph, proved unexpectedly, that of retribution; for to mortal villany Providence assigns a limit.
The sudden appearance of the sailor, and the confusion it had occasioned, prevented the entrance of a second personage from being generally observed. Indeed, he slided so quietly into the room, that he seemed modestly endeavouring to avoid any particular attention. The stranger was a stout well-proportioned man, of middle height, and apparently of middle age; and from dress and appearance, it would have been impossible to guess to what order of the body politic he especially appertained. Except for a certain wide-awake expression of the face, he might have passed current for a mail-coachman, a publican, or a drover. Probably, to a horse-dealer he bore the closest affinity. He was dressed in a blue coat with gilt buttons, and extensive skirts and pockets. His vest was scarlet; his unmentionables drab kerseymere, to which jockey-boots were added. Round his neck a spotted silk handkerchief was knotted; and a white hat, with a remarkably broad brim, completed his costume.
Every eye had been directed upon the sailor and the companion of Mark Antony; but lie of the scarlet vest seemed unmoved by a scene that had interested all besides. Indeed, he was a person on whom effect, such as Napoleon would term “theatrical,” would have been absolutely thrown away. His feelings were impervious even to a fainting fit; and he had no more sentiment about him than an oyster. Gliding behind the backs of the spectators, he reached the spot whence Mr. Montague had delivered his address to the man of worship, and stooping to the Jew’s ear, whispered something which possessed the charm of a spell. To the very lip, colour fled from the sallow countenance of the Israelite. He appeared as motionless as if he had been mesmerized; while by a sort of sleight-of-hand the red-vested operator united his wrists together, quickly as if it had been done by magic, next moment it was discovered that Mr. Montague was manacled. The stranger then handed a paper to the gentleman upon the bench, with a request that he would “back that warrant for the apprehension of the prisoner, Ikey Lazarus.”
Of all the descendants of “the Shallows” Mr. Blundell looked the silliest. At last, however, he managed to comprehend that the Israelite was a returned convict, and added his signature to the order for the Jew’s arrest. The court, “in most admired disorder,” was broken up; the runner retiring with his captive; the sergeant and his companions to finish a compotation from which they had been unexpectedly disturbed; and the fosterer to seek some tidings of his lost mistress, who, as he was informed, had been removed by the sailor in a carriage to the inn.
“When consciousness returned, the poor wanderer found herself in the same apartment from which, not an hour since, she had been removed on a charge of felony. She unclosed her eyes. Was it an illusion? A look of love was bent upon her pallid countenance—and a long lost brother held her to his heart.
“William,” she murmured.
“Dear, dear, Julia,” returned the sailor, with a kiss.
“Am I waking?—are you alive, William?”
“Ay, girl,” replied the sailor, “and sound and hearty as English oak itself.”