Promising as these outrages were to Gashford"s view, and much likebusiness as they looked, they extended that night no farther. Thesoldiers were again called out, again they took half-a-dozenprisoners, and again the crowd dispersed after a short andbloodless scuffle. Hot and drunken though they were, they had notyet broken all bounds and set all law and government at defiance.
Something of their habitual deference to the authority erected bysociety for its own preservation yet remained among them, and hadits majesty been vindicated in time, the secretary would have hadto digest a bitter disappointment.
By midnight, the streets were clear and quiet, and, save that therestood in two parts of the town a heap of nodding walls and pile ofrubbish, where there had been at sunset a rich and handsomebuilding, everything wore its usual aspect. Even the Catholicgentry and tradesmen, of whom there were many resident in differentparts of the City and its suburbs, had no fear for their lives orproperty, and but little indignation for the wrong they had alreadysustained in the plunder and destruction of their temples of worship. An honest confidence in the government under whoseprotection they had lived for many years, and a well-foundedreliance on the good feeling and right thinking of the great massof the community, with whom, notwithstanding their religiousdifferences, they were every day in habits of confidential,affectionate, and friendly intercourse, reassured them, even underthe excesses that had been committed; and convinced them that theywho were Protestants in anything but the name, were no more to beconsidered as abettors of these disgraceful occurrences, than theythemselves were chargeable with the uses of the block, the rack,the gibbet, and the stake in cruel Mary"s reign.
The clock was on the stroke of one, when Gabriel Varden, with hislady and Miss Miggs, sat waiting in the little parlour. This fact;the toppling wicks of the dull, wasted candles; the silence thatprevailed; and, above all, the nightcaps of both maid and matron,were sufficient evidence that they had been prepared for bed sometime ago, and had some reason for sitting up so far beyond theirusual hour.
If any other corroborative testimony had been required, it wouldhave been abundantly furnished in the actions of Miss Miggs, who,having arrived at that restless state and sensitive condition of the nervous system which are the result of long watching, did, by aconstant rubbing and tweaking of her nose, a perpetual change ofposition (arising from the sudden growth of imaginary knots andknobs in her chair), a frequent friction of her eyebrows, theincessant recurrence of a small cough, a small groan, a gasp, asigh, a sniff, a spasmodic start, and by other demonstrations ofthat nature, so file down and rasp, as it were, the patience of thelocksmith, that after looking at her in silence for some time, heat last broke out into this apostrophe:-"Miggs, my good girl, go to bed--do go to bed. You"re really worsethan the dripping of a hundred water-butts outside the window, orthe scratching of as many mice behind the wainscot. I can"t bearit. Do go to bed, Miggs. To oblige me--do."
"You haven"t got nothing to untie, sir," returned Miss Miggs, "andtherefore your requests does not surprise me. But missis has--andwhile you sit up, mim"--she added, turning to the locksmith"s wife,"I couldn"t, no, not if twenty times the quantity of cold water wasaperiently running down my back at this moment, go to bed with aquiet spirit."
Having spoken these words, Miss Miggs made divers efforts to rub her shoulders in an impossible place, and shivered from head tofoot; thereby giving the beholders to understand that the imaginarycascade was still in full flow, but that a sense of duty upheld herunder that and all other sufferings, and nerved her to endurance.
Mrs Varden being too sleepy to speak, and Miss Miggs having, as thephrase is, said her say, the locksmith had nothing for it but tosigh and be as quiet as he could.
But to be quiet with such a basilisk before him was impossible.
If he looked another way, it was worse to feel that she was rubbingher cheek, or twitching her ear, or winking her eye, or making allkinds of extraordinary shapes with her nose, than to see her do it.
If she was for a moment free from any of these complaints, it wasonly because of her foot being asleep, or of her arm having got thefidgets, or of her leg being doubled up with the cramp, or of someother horrible disorder which racked her whole frame. If she didenjoy a moment"s ease, then with her eyes shut and her mouth wideopen, she would be seen to sit very stiff and upright in her chair;then to nod a little way forward, and stop with a jerk; then to noda little farther forward, and stop with another jerk; then torecover herself; then to come forward again--lower--lower--lower-byvery slow degrees, until, just as it seemed impossible that she could preserve her balance for another instant, and the locksmithwas about to call out in an agony, to save her from dashing downupon her forehead and fracturing her skull, then all of a suddenand without the smallest notice, she would come upright and rigidagain with her eyes open, and in her countenance an expression ofdefiance, sleepy but yet most obstinate, which plainly said, "I"venever once closed "em since I looked at you last, and I"ll take myoath of it!"
At length, after the clock had struck two, there was a sound at thestreet door, as if somebody had fallen against the knocker byaccident. Miss Miggs immediately jumping up and clapping herhands, cried with a drowsy mingling of the sacred and profane,"Ally Looyer, mim! there"s Simmuns"s knock!"
"Who"s there?" said Gabriel.
"Me!" cried the well-known voice of Mr Tappertit. Gabriel openedthe door, and gave him admission.