'They are innocent, Sir Jaspar! they are noble! they are faultless!' called out Juliet, eagerly returning to the shop; 'they dream not of my claims; they have not the most distant idea that I have the honour to belong to their house. Innocent? they are meritorious! Conceiving me simply a helpless, unpatronized, and indigent Wanderer, they have treated me with a kindness, a consideration, an heavenly benevolence, that, towards a stranger so forlorn, could have been dictated only by the most angelic of natures!'
'Astonishing! incredible!' exclaimed Sir Jaspar. 'What! do they not know your story? Have you made no appeal to their justice, their affections?'
'You will cease, Sir, to wonder, and cease also, I hope, to question me, when I tell you that here, even here, I have not made my situation known! here, even here, – to the friend of my heart, the confidant of my life, the loved and honoured descendant of the house by which I have been preserved, and from which alone I hope for protection! Judge then, how powerful must be my motives for secresy! And she, – she submits to my silence! Too high-minded for distrust, too nobly mistress of herself for impatience; and conscious that even a wish, expressed, would to me have the force of a command, she waits my time! She knows the most dire and barbarous obstacles could alone lead me to reserve and concealment, where my softest consolation would be openness and sympathy!'
Gabriella could offer no answer but by wide extended arms, with which Juliet, gushing into tears, was fondly encircled; while the Baronet, touched, amazed, and enchanted, repeatedly wiped his eyes; when Gabriella, observing, again, at the window, one of the men of whom she had spoken, whispered Juliet to compose herself, or to retire.
There was not time: Riley, who had seen her, bounced into the shop.
'Ah, ha, I have caught you at last, have I, Demoiselle?' he cried, rubbing his hands with joy. 'I could not devise where the deuce you had hidden yourself. I only knew you were in some shabby little bit of a shop in this street. And who do you think is my author for this intelligence? – Won't you guess? – Why Surly! your old friend, Surly!'
Apprehensive of some attack similar to that which she had endured at Brighthelmstone, Juliet ventured not to speak, though she felt too anxious to withdraw: while Sir Jaspar, extremely curious, repeated, 'Old Surly?' in a tone that invited explanation.
'The same, faith! He's come over o' purpose to hunt you out, Demoiselle.'
'Me?' cried Juliet, changing colour; 'and why? – And who is he?'
'Who is he? Well! that's droll, faith! Why you have not forgotten your old crony, the pilot?'
Juliet looked down, to conceal the alarm with which she was seized.
'Why, I'll tell you how it all happened,' continued Riley, mounting upon the counter, as he might have mounted upon his horse; 'I'll tell you how it all happened. About a month ago, in one of my rambles, I met Master Surly; and, for old acquaintance sake, I was prodigiously glad to see him: for I like, as a curiosity, to shew John Bull a Mounseer that i'n't a milk-sop. So we talked over our voyage; but when I told him that I had met with the Demoiselle at Brighthelmstone; and that she had cast off her slough, and was grown a beauty; he asked me a hundred questions, and said that, most likely, she was a person of whom he was in search; and after whom there had been a great hue and cry.'
Juliet now opened various small drawers, shutting them almost at the same moment; but always with her face turned from Riley.
'Well, we parted, and I saw no more of him, and thought no more of him neither, faith! till this very morning, when I popt upon him, all at once, in Piccadilly. And then, he told me that he was just come from Brighthelmstone, where he had been looking for you.'
Juliet though in a tremour that shook her whole frame, faintly said, 'And why?'
'Because, by my account of you, he was satisfied you must be the very person that he was commissioned to find.'
Juliet now seemed scarcely able to sustain herself. Gabriella and Sir Jaspar saw, with deep concern, her emotion; but Riley, unobservant, went on.
'At Brighton, he had discovered that you had journied up to town, in the stage. And he came up after you, in the very same carriage, only yesterday. And, by means of a boy at the inn, who had called your hackney-coach, he had just found out coachy; who informed him, that he had set down a pretty young damsel, that had arrived from Brighton about a week ago, at a small shop in Frith-street, Soho. Upon that, I offered to help him in his search; and we jogged on to these quarters together: for I always liked you, Demoiselle, and always had a prodigious mind to know who you were. But the deuce a bit would you ever tell me. So we have been sauntering and maundering up and down the street, one on one side, and t'other on t'other, in search of you; peeping and peering into every shop, and lounging and squinting at every window. We have had the devil of a job of it to find you, Demoiselle; we have, faith! – But my best sport will be to make Monsieur Surly look you full in the face, as I did myself, without knowing you! though he pretends that that's all one. The French always say that to every thing that they don't like; c'est egal! cries Monsieur, whenever he's put out of his way. However, old Surly stands to it, that he shall discover you in a twinkling; for he's got your description.'
'My description?' Juliet repeated; in a tone of terrour.
'Ay; and there he is, faith! on t'other side the way! An old owl!' cried Riley; striding to the door, and calling aloud, 'Surly! old Surly! Come over, Mounseer Surly!'
Juliet was now precipitately gliding into the little room; but Sir Jaspar, intercepting her flight, warmly entreated, whatever might be her fears or her difficulties, to be accepted as her protector: and, while she was struggling, with speechless impatience, to pass him, the pilot, pulled into the shop by Riley, stood full before her; stared hardily in her face; looked at a paper which he held in his hand, and, grinning horribly a scoffing smile, walked away, without speaking.
Juliet, who seemed nearly fainting, was drawn tenderly into the adjoining room by Gabriella; who was herself in almost equal consternation.
'A pretty feat you have performed here, Sir! An admirable exploit!' said Sir Jaspar, angrily, to Riley; who, laughing heartily at the savage satisfaction of the pilot, had re-mounted the counter. 'And what sort of man must you be to find it so dulcet and recreative, to give chace to a timid, defenceless lamb?'
'What sort of man?' returned Riley; 'faith, I don't know! I don't, faith! But who does? If you can tell me the man who knows himself, you'll do more than has been done yet since the days of old Adam. I never trouble myself with vain researches, and combinations, and developments, and metaphysical analysings. What do they do for us, beside cracking our skulls? They only leave us where they found us; forced to eat and drink, and sleep and wake, and live and die, just the same, since all the discoveries of Newton, as we did before we knew a square from an angle.'
'O ho, you are a philosopher, Sir, then, are you?' said Sir Jaspar; 'a Cynic? guided by contempt of mankind?'
'Not a whit! I only follow my humour. If that happens to please my friends, so much the better; if not, I am but little "of the melting mood;" I go on all the same. I never stop to weigh opinion in the scale of my proceedings.'
'And do you never weigh humanity, neither, Sir? the feelings of others? the good or ill of society?'