CHAPTER XXI.
WHEREIN THOMAS DIBBLE “RUNS AWAY,” AND MEETS WITH A
VERY REMARKABLE COMPANION.
Mrs. Dibble insisted upon Miss Somerton and her father remaining in her house until the next day, when Paul was to reappear at Bow Street; and this increase in the Dibbleonian establishment made it necessary that Mr. Thomas Dibble should sleep on the sofa in the parlour.
“I’ll make you up a comfortable bed, Thomath,” said Mrs. D., when all the other members of the household had retired to rest, “particularly on account of your sympathy with that young man; for if ever there was innocence anywhere it is in his face: though however that purse could get into his box is a matter as I have yet to learn. It’s very well for Mr. Williamson, that barrister gentleman—who reminds me of a young man as made me an offer before I left boarding-school, which my parenth were particular in sending me to on account of the position I was expected to take in the world—and he may say it with perfect truth, that some one has got into the house and put that purse into his box; but how to get the police to believe it is another thing: but we shall see in the morning.”
“They’ll believe it, Maria,” said Thomas, very solemnly, with his eyes fixed upon his wife’s buxom figure, which would obtrude its plumpness and its whiteness through her tight dresses, either in front or behind, and more particularly in an evening when Mrs. Dibble unbuttoned her dress for the purpose of being able to breathe more freely.
“They will?—it’s all very well to say they will, but if Mr. Williamson can do no more than show the animas, as he calls it, of the persecutor Mr. Gibbs, it strikes me—judging from the villainous manner of those policeman, who will not allow anyone else to speak except themselves—that Mr. Williamson will only waste his breath.”
And Mrs. Dibble went on laying sheets and blankets between a sofa and three chairs, and tucking them down at the foot and making the two pillows go as far as possible in height by the aid of the sofa cushions and an old carpet-bag; whilst Dibble looked on very sadly, but calmly, and wondered what Mrs. Dibble would think in the morning when she entered the room and found that the extempore bed had never been used.
“Will you give me a kiss before you go to bed, Maria?” said Dibble, in an appealing tone.
“Of course I will, Thomath; for the way as you snatched that five hundred pounds out of the fire, as I may say, deserves ever so many kisses, Thomath, and as done everything to make our lives happy again, though, as I have said before, it was not the money so much as deceiving me, Thomath; I did think I never could have forgiven that; but there, it’s all over, Thomath, and seeing other people in trouble makes one’s heart softer than usual: and so bless you, Thomath, bless you.”
Whereupon Mrs. Dibble put her arms round poor Dibble’s neck and bade him good-night.
“And good-bye!” said Dibble, when she was going up-stairs; “And good-bye, Maria!” he repeated when he heard the door shut upon her. For Thomas Dibble when he went out into the back kitchen and contemplated the water-butt, determined to run away. Not only to run away, but to leave behind him a confession of the part he had taken in the conspiracy against Paul Somerton.
He sat down before the handful of smouldering cinders in the little parlour grate, and thought out his plan. He had suffered much from Mrs. Dibble about the five hundred pounds; he had purchased peace by its return, and she had forgiven him. But how had he bought peace? If he remained where he was, he would be sure to confess, and then what would Maria say? what would Paul say? what would his sister say? what did his own conscience say now? He could not endure the latter, even in secret, and how could he bear the former?
No, he would run away. His master was at home, in grief and sorrow for the disgrace of his son. That son had dishonoured the name of Tallant, and Paul Somerton was on the verge of becoming an outcast. It would be better that he, Thomas Dibble, should go forth and become a wanderer and a beggar than that the innocent should suffer, and bring disgrace upon a respectable family.
Then poor old Dibble thought about his oath, and fear came upon him in a remembrance of the dreadful consequences which Mr. Gibbs had described. Then he thought of Maria, but a bitter memory of the wretched life he had led with her, during the monetary interregnum, steeled him slightly against her, and he consoled himself with the feeling that at least she had the money back again.
A hundred other things occurred to Thomas as reasons why he should run away, and why he should not. It was dishonourable to take an oath and take a man’s money without sticking to the bargain; but no gentleman ought to have inveigled a poor man into such a plot. No matter which way Thomas looked at the case, he saw himself a disgraced man; but he thought there was far less disgrace in running away than in staying behind, and a thousand times more disgrace in letting the affair go on than in preventing the conspiracy from taking effect.
So Thomas decided that he would go, that he would be a wanderer, a beggar, a tramp,—anything but a persecutor of the innocent. He would eat Mrs. Dibble’s bread-and-butter no longer.
It occupied him nearly two hours to write out in his big, round, straggling hand a brief account of his share in the plot to ruin Paul, and having done this, and signed it, and laid it in the middle of the parlour table, directed to Paul Somerton, he wrote on another sheet of paper, “Farwell, Maria, and if for ever, may you forgiv your herring sinner, T. Dibble.”
Then the model porter of the Meter Works thought it would be only fair to let Mr. Gibbs know that he had confessed all. He, therefore, wrote a very short but very large letter to “Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs, Esq.,” determining to leave London by the West End, and put the letter under the door of Mr. Gibbs’ lodgings as he passed by.
It was on a fine, bright, starlight autumn morning that Thomas Dibble went forth on his pilgrimage.
Turning out of his way a little he pushed the letter under Mr. Gibbs’ door, and then directed his steps towards Paddington. He preferred to take the longest way through the streets, because he thought he would like to tread them once more, and say good-bye, as it were, to familiar scenes. On past Westminster he trudged, with a little bundle over his shoulder, on past the Houses of Parliament, where he encountered an early coffee man, and invested in an early cup of his refreshing beverage. He would fain have had a pennyworth of pudding, but the pudding men were all abed, and so were the vendors of chesnuts. The police were awake, and Thomas chuckled quietly to himself, as he passed certain active members of the force, upon the way in which they would be sold at Bow Street next day.
He trudged on past Charing Cross and through the Haymarket, along Regent Street and past Regent’s Circus, meeting a few roysterers, early workmen going to half-built houses, and printers going home from daily newspaper offices; he saw a few shambling tramps hanging about doorways, and seeking intervals of repose on doorsteps, whence they were ousted occasionally by policemen; he met stray cabs with early fares, scavengers, and slouching women reeling from infamous dens in by-streets; and he wondered when it would be daylight.
By-and-by the great city and its smiling suburbs were left behind, and Thomas was on the white highway, with hedges right and left, and market-gardens behind them; and then morning dawned, and he journeyed on beside carts, and waggons, and met tramps with dusty boots and jackets; for the autumn had been a particularly dry season, and the roads were covered with dust.
At length the afternoon began to wane, and Dibble turned into the fields, over a stile, and sat down beside some half-cut corn and untied his bundle. A piece of bread and cheese dropped out, and Thomas, being hungry, fell to with a will. Whilst he was eating, a miserable, lean, lank-looking dog came crouching and smelling towards him. Alone in the wide world, Thomas naturally felt some little sympathy with the vagrant dog, and he threw it a piece of bread and then a piece of cheese. The animal, making certain apologetic snaps at the crumbs, ate them, and then stood upon his hind-legs and seemed to beg for more. Dibble could not help smiling at the quaint, gaunt, spectral-looking dog, with all its ribs showing through its tight ragged skin; and he fed it again. Then the animal walked round Dibble, on his hind-legs, and performed a sort of double shuffle. Dibble was highly amused with this performance, and he laughed very heartily and patted the dog on the head. The animal wagged his tail, turned a somersault, and stood upon his head in such a comical fashion that poor Dibble fairly rolled on his back with laughing, the dog leaping over him and barking in the most extraordinary and un-doglike fashion.
Thus Thomas Dibble made friends with this singular animal, and resolved to have it as his travelling companion if his dogship would consent. The dog was nothing loth, and the companionship led to important results in the history of Thomas Dibble’s adventures.