his eyes moistened. He stood looking at the mask, with a rapture and a triumph which no speech could express. At such moments as those, even through that poor, meagre face, the immortal spirit within could still shine out in the beauty which never dies! — even in that frail old earthly tenement, could still vindicate outwardly the divine destiny of all mankind!
They were yet gathered silently round the Shakespeare cast, when a loud knock sounded at the room door. Instantly, old Reuben banged down the lid of the cash box, and locked it; and as instantly, without waiting for permission to enter, a stranger walked in.
He was dressed in a long greatcoat, wore a red comforter round his neck, and carried a very old and ill-looking cat-skin cap in his hand. His face was uncommonly dirty; his eyes uncommonly inquisitive; his whiskers uncommonly plentiful; and his voice most uncommonly and determinately gruff, in spite of his efforts to dulcify it for the occasion.
‘Miss, and gentlemen both, beggin’ all your pardons,’ said this new arrival, ‘vich is Mr Wray?’ As he spoke, his eyes travelled all round the room, seeing everything and everybody in it; and then glancing sharply at the cash box.
‘I am Mr Wray, sir,’ exclaimed our old friend, considerably startled, but recovering the Kemble manner and the Kemble elocution as if by magic.
‘Wery good,’ said the stranger. ‘Then beggin’ your pardon again, sir, in pertickler, could you be so kind as to ‘blige me with a card o’ terms? It’s for a young gentleman as wants you, Mr Wray,’ he continued in a whisper, approaching the old man, and quite abstractedly leaning one hand on the cash box.
‘Take your hand off that box, sir,’ cried Mr Wray, in a very fierce manner, but with a very trembling voice. At the same moment ‘Julius Caesar’ advanced a step or two, partially doubling his fist. The man with the cat-skin cap had probably never before been so nearly knocked down in his life. Perhaps he suspected as much; for he took his hand off the box in great hurry.
‘It was inadwertent, sir,’ he remarked in explanation — ’a little inadwertency of mine, that’s all. But could you ‘blige me vith that card o’ terms? The young gentleman as wants it has heerd of your advertisement; and, bein’ d’awful shaky in his pronounciashun, as vell as ‘scruciatin’ bad at readin’ aloud, he’s ‘ard up for improvement — the sort o’ secret thing you gives, you know, to the oraytors and the clujjymen, at three-and-six an hour. You’ll heer from him in secret, Mr Wray, sir; and precious vork you’ll ‘ave to git him to rights; but do just ‘blige me ‘vith the card o’ terms and the number of the ‘ouse; ‘cos I promised to git ‘em for him today.’
‘There is a card, sir, and I will engage to improve his delivery be it ever so bad,’ said Mr Wray, considerably relieved at hearing the real nature of the stranger’s errand.
‘Miss, and gentlemen both, good mornin’,’ said the man, putting on his cat-skin cap, ‘you’ll heer from the young gentleman today; and wotever you do, sir, mind you keep the h’applicashun a secret — mind that!’ He winked; and went out.
‘I declare,’ muttered Mr Wray, as the door closed, ‘I thought he was a thief-taker from Stratford. Think of his being only a messenger from a new pupil! I told you we should have a pupil today. I told you so.’
‘A very strange-looking messenger, grandfather, for a young gentleman to choose!’ said Annie.
‘He can’t help his looks, my dear; and I’m sure we shan’t mind them, if he brings us money. Have you seen enough of the mask? if you hav’nt I’ll open the box again.’
‘Enough for today, I think, grandfather. But, tell me, why do you keep the mask in that old cash box?’
‘Because I’ve nothing else, Annie, that will hold it, and lock up too. I was sorry, my dear, to disturb your “odds and ends”, as you call them; but really there was nothing else to take. Stop! I’ve a thought! Julius Caesar shall make me a new box for the mask, and then you shall have your old one back again.’
‘I don’t want it, grandfather! I’d rather we none of us had it. Carrying a cash box like that about with us, might make some people think we had money in it.’
‘Money! People think I have any money! Come, come, Annie! that really won’t do! That’s much too good a joke, you sly little puss, you!’ And the old man laughed heartily, as he hurried off, to deposit the precious mask in his bedroom.
‘You’ll make that new box, Julius Caesar, won’t you?’ said Annie earnestly, as soon as her grandfather left the room.
‘I’ll get some wood, this very day,’ answered the carpenter, ‘and turn out such a box, by tomorrow, as — as — ’ He was weak at comparisons; so he stopped at the second ‘as’.
‘Make it quick, dear, make it quick,’ said the little girl, anxiously; ‘and then we’ll give away the old cash box. If grandfather had only told us what he was going to do, at first, he need never have used it; for you could have made him a new box beforehand. But, never mind! make it quick, now!’
Oh, ‘Julius Caesar!’ strictly obey your little betrothed in this, as in all other injunctions! You know not how soon that new box may be needed, or how much evil it may yet prevent!
V
Perhaps, by this time, you are getting tired of three such simple, homely characters as Mr and Miss Wray, and Mr ‘Julius Caesar’, the carpenter. I strongly suspect you, indeed, of being downright anxious to have a little literary stimulant provided in the shape of a villain. You shall taste this stimulant — double distilled; for I have two villains all ready for you in the present chapter.
But, take my word for it, when you know your new company, you will be only too glad to get back again to Mr Wray and his family.
About three miles from Tidbury-on-the-Marsh, there is a village called Little London; sometimes, popularly entitled, in allusion to the characters frequenting it, ‘Hell-End’. It is a dirty, ruinous-looking collection of some dozen cottages, and an alehouse. Ruffianly men, squalid women, filthy children, are its inhabitants. The chief support of this pleasant population is currently supposed to be derived from their connection with the poaching and petty larcenous interests of their native soil. In a word, Little London looks bad, smells bad, and is bad; a fouler blot of a village, in the midst of a prettier surrounding landscape, is not to be found in all England.
Our principal business is with the alehouse. The ‘Jolly Ploughboys’ is the sign; and Judith Grimes, widow, is the proprietor. The less said about Mrs Grimes’s character, the better; it is not quite adapted to bear discussion in these pages. Mrs Grimes’s mother (who is now bordering on eighty) may be also dismissed to merciful oblivion; for, at her daughter’s age, she was — if possible — rather the worse of the two. Towards her son, Mr Benjamin Grimes (as one of the rougher sex), I feel less inclined to be compassionate. When I assert that he was in every respect a complete specimen of a provincial scoundrel, I am guilty, according to a profound and reasonable maxim of our law, of uttering a great libel, because I am repeating a great truth.
You know the sort of man well. You have seen the great, hulking, heavy-browed, sallow-complexioned fellow often enough, lounging at village corners, with a straw in his mouth and a bludgeon in his hand. Perhaps you have asked your way of him; and have been answered by a growl and a petition for money; or, you have heard of him in connection with a cowardly assault on your rural policeman; or a murderous fight with your friend’s gamekeeper; or a bad case for your other friend, the magistrate, at petty sessions. Anybody who has ever been in the country, knows the man — the ineradicable plague-spot of his whole neighbourhood — as well as I do.
About eight o’clock in the evening, and on the same day which had been signalized by Mr Wray’s disclosures, Mrs Grimes, senior — or, as she was generally called, ‘Mother Grimes’ — sat in her armchair in the private parlour