“What! you know Captain Geraldine?” said Mr. Ballance, who was perfectly well acquainted with the carpenter's wife.
“In coorse she does. Hasn't she known me these tin years? Are we not related? Didn't she give me the very horse which I rode, and, to make belave, tould you I'd bought in London?”
“Let her tell her own story. Are you related to Captain Geraldine, Mrs. Hayes?”
“Yes—oh, yes!”
“A very elegant connection! And you gave him the horse, did you, of your own free-will?”
“Oh yes! of my own will—I would give him anything. Do, do, your honour, let him go! His child is dying,” said the old lady, bursting into tears. “It may be dead before he gets to—before he gets there. Oh, your honour, your honour, pray, pray, don't detain him!”
The justice did not seem to understand this excessive sympathy on the part of Mrs. Hayes; nor did the father himself appear to be nearly so affected by his child's probable fate as the honest woman who interested herself for him. On the contrary, when she made this passionate speech, Captain Geraldine only grinned, and said, “Niver mind, my dear. If his honour will keep an honest gentleman for doing nothing, why, let him—the law must settle between us; and as for the child, poor thing, the Lord deliver it!”
At this, Mrs. Hayes fell to entreating more loudly than ever; and as there was really no charge against him, Mr. Ballance was constrained to let him go.
The landlord and his friends were making off, rather confused, when Ensign Macshane called upon the former in a thundering voice to stop, and refund the five guineas which he had stolen from him. Again the host swore there were but fifteen in his pocket. But when, on the Bible, the Ensign solemnly vowed that he had twenty, and called upon Mrs. Hayes to say whether yesterday, half-an-hour before he entered the inn, she had not seen him with twenty guineas, and that lady expressed herself ready to swear that she had, Mr. Landlord looked more crestfallen than ever, and said that he had not counted the money when he took it; and though he did in his soul believe that there were only fifteen guineas, rather than be suspected of a shabby action, he would pay the five guineas out of his own pocket: which he did, and with the Ensign's, or rather Mrs. Hayes's, own coin.
As soon as they were out of the justice's house, Mr. Macshane, in the fulness of his gratitude, could not help bestowing an embrace upon Mrs. Hayes. And when she implored him to let her ride behind him to her darling son, he yielded with a very good grace, and off the pair set on John Hayes's grey.