“Oh, sir,” replied Devallé, “I am yours devotedly: ask me no questions; for I do not like to have what I know tugged out of my conscience by an attorney, like jaw-teeth with nippers, or corks from a bottle by a twisting screw; for I have a large family, and am more than fifty years old. I will tell you frankly, that I did give Miss that letter: I was sent on a special mission with it to her from Demerara. I went out in the same ship with Mr. Godfrey Fairfax: on landing, we found that his father had just died, and left him heir to all; then, as flesh is grass, he sent me back at once with orders—if Miss was not married—to give her his billet-doux. That's the truth: I confess it freely, for it's useless to deny it; and our heads will lie low enough a hundred years hence. Perhaps you will not take it uncivil in me to say, that you would have found all that I have said, and more, in fewer words, if, instead of calling me sirrah, and so forth, you had perused Mr. Godfrey's letter. Excuse me, but the philosopher could not read the stars until somebody told him to buy a telescope. I am for civility, mutual improvement, and freedom all over the world. And now, gentlemen, I hope you will permit me to retire. I must find my wife and family: I have not made a single inquiry for them yet; though they occupy all my waking thoughts, and are the dramatis personae of my little dreams. I humbly withdraw, but shall soon be in the neighbourhood again,—for locomotion is salubrious; and, if this present match with Miss be not strangled, I hope to have the honour of seeing you in church, in order, humble as I am, to forbid the banns. You would not smile, perhaps, if it occurred to your recollection, as it does to mine, that lions have been emancipated by mice, and more than one hero has been choked by a horsebean. It is for these reasons, I apprehend, judging from analogy,—a doctrine I reverence,—that cattle pasturing on a common or warren, abhor rabbit-burrows, and we, ourselves, detest and exterminate scorpions and wasps.—Gentlemen, your most humble and very devoted servant, Cæsar Devallé.”
With his usual multitude of obeisances, the Little Black Porter now left Doctor Plympton and the attorney to peruse the love-letter of Godfrey Fairfax to Isabel. It abounded with professions of the most passionate attachment; the deepest regret was expressed at the writer's present inability to return to England; but he vowed to fly to Isabel, on the wings of love, early in the ensuing summer, if she still considered his hand worthy of her acceptance. He stated, that he was unable to solve the mystery of her escape from the trunk: he feared that something unpleasant had happened, but clearly exonerated his fond, confiding Isabel from having borne any share in the base plot which had evidently been played off against him.
These allusions to the affair of the trunk, were beyond Doctor Plympton's comprehension; Burdock, however, obtained a tolerably dear insight to the circumstances from Isabel, Patty, George Wharton, and Cæsar Devallé, at an interview which he subsequently had with the Little Black Porter in Fumival's Inn. When he communicated the result of his investigations on the subject to the Doctor, that worthy personage protested that he should pass the residue of his life in mere amazement.
George Wharton quitted Doctor Plympton's house, without seeing Isabel again, on the eventful morning when the pen was placed in her hand to execute the marriage settlement; and, with the full approbation of his father's attorney, he sailed, by the first ship, to his native land. Isabel prevailed upon the Doctor to write to Godfrey Fairfax, inviting him to fulfil his promise of paying them a visit. She also wrote to Godfrey herself, by the same packet: but the fickle young man had changed his mind before the letters reached him; and six years after the departure of George Wharton from England, Adam Burdock was employed to draw a marriage settlement between the still blooming coquette, Isabel Plympton, and her early admirer, Charles Perry, who for the preceding fifteen months had been a widower. The Little Black Porter did not think proper to return to Demerara again; and he was seen in a very decent wig, by the side of the gallery clock, when Mr. Wilberforce last spoke against slavery, in the House of Commons.
