"Now, George," observed my guardian, "as we require no new assurances on your part, so I believe we need give you none on ours.""Not at all, sir. I thank you with all my heart. If I was not innocent of this crime, I couldn't look at you and keep my secret to myself under the condescension of the present visit. I feel the present visit very much. I am not one of the eloquent sort, but Ifeel it, Miss Summerson and gentlemen, deeply."He laid his hand for a moment on his broad chest and bent his bead to us. Although he squared himself again directly, he expressed a great amount of natural emotion by these simple means.
"First," said my guardian, "can we do anything for your personal comfort, George?""For which, sir?" he inquired, clearing his throat.
"For your personal comfort. Is there anything you want that would lessen the hardship of this confinement?""Well, sir," replied George, after a little cogitation, "I am equally obliged to you, but tobacco being against the rules, Ican't say that there is."
"You will think of many little things perhaps, by and by.
'Whenever you do, George, let us know."
"Thank you, sir. Howsoever," observed Mr. George with one of his sunburnt smiles, "a man who has been knocking about the world in a vagabond kind of a way as long as I have gets on well enough in a place like the present, so far as that goes.""Next, as to your case," observed my guardian.
"Exactly so, sir," returned Mr. George, folding his arms upon his breast with perfect self-possession and a little curiosity.
"How does it stand now?"
"Why, sir, it is under remand at present. Bucket gives me to understand that he will probably apply for a series of remands from time to time until the case is more complete. How it is to be made more complete I don't myself see, but I dare say Bucket will manage it somehow.""Why, heaven save us, man," exclaimed my guardian, surprised into his old oddity and vehemence, "you talk of yourself as if you were somebody else!""No offence, sir," said Mr. George. "I am very sensible of your kindness. But I don't see how an innocent man is to make up his mind to this kind of thing without knocking his head against the walls unless he takes it in that point of view.
"That is true enough to a certain extent," returned my guardian, softened. "But my good fellow, even an innocent man must take ordinary precautions to defend himself.""Certainly, sir. And I have done so. I have stated to the magistrates, 'Gentlemen, I am as innocent of this charge as yourselves; what has been stated against me in the way of facts is perfectly true; I know no more about it.' I intend to continue stating that, sir. What more can I do? It's the truth.""But the mere truth won't do," rejoined my guardian.
"Won't it indeed., sir? Rather a bad look-out for me!" Mr. George good-humouredly observed.
"You must have a lawyer," pursued my guardian. "We must engage a good one for you.""I ask your pardon, sir," said Mr. George with a step backward. "Iam equally obliged. But I must decidedly beg to be excused from anything of that sort.""You won't have a lawyer?"
"No, sir." Mr. George shook his head in the most emphatic manner.
"I thank you all the same, sir, but--no lawyer!""Why not?"
"I don't take kindly to the breed," said Mr. George. "Gridley didn't. And--if you'll excuse my saying so much--I should hardly have thought you did yourself, sir.""That's equity," my guardian explained, a little at a loss; "that's equity, George.""Is it, indeed, sir?" returned the trooper in his off-hand manner.
"I am not acquainted with those shades of names myself, but in a general way I object to the breed."Unfolding his arms and changing his position, he stood with one massive hand upon the table and the other on his hip, as complete a picture of a man who was not to be moved from a fixed purpose as ever I saw. It was in vain that we all three talked to him and endeavoured to persuade him; he listened with that gentleness which went so well with his bluff bearing, but was evidently no more shaken by our representations that his place of confinement was.
"Pray think, once more, Mr. George," said I. "Have you no wish in reference to your case?""I certainly could wish it to be tried, miss," he returned, "by court-martial; but that is out of the question, as I am well aware.
If you will be so good as to favour me with your attention for a couple of minutes, miss, not more, I'll endeavour to explain myself as clearly as I can."He looked at us all three in turn, shook his head a little as if he were adjusting it in the stock and collar of a tight uniform, and after a moment's reflection went on.
"You see, miss, I have been handcuffed and taken into custody and brought here. I am a marked and disgraced man, and here I am. My shooting gallery is rummaged, high and low, by Bucket; such property as I have--'tis small--is turned this way and that till it don't know itself; and (as aforesaid) here I am! I don't particular complain of that. Though I am in these present quarters through no immediately preceding fault of mine, I can very well understand that if I hadn't gone into the vagabond way in my youth, this wouldn't have happened. It HAS happened. Then comes the question how to meet it"He rubbed his swarthy forehead for a moment with a good-humoured look and said apologetically, "I am such a short-winded talker that I must think a bit." Having thought a bit, he looked up again and resumed.
"How to meet it. Now, the unfortunate deceased was himself a lawyer and had a pretty tight hold of me. I don't wish to rake up his ashes, but he had, what I should call if he was living, a devil of a tight hold of me. I don't like his trade the better for that.
If I had kept clear of his trade, I should have kept outside this place. But that's not what I mean. Now, suppose I had killed him.
Suppose I really had discharged into his body any one of those pistols recently fired off that Bucket has found at my place, and dear me, might have found there any day since it has been my place.
