"Brother Oakley, is sister Oakley within?" This rather cool speech—cool considering all the circumstances—was uttered by no other than the Reverend Mr. Lupin to Mr. Oakley, who was working in his shop on the morning after Johanna had gone upon her perilous enterprise to Todd's.
Mr. Oakley looked up with surprise upon his features.
"What?" he said.
"Is sister Oakley within, brother?"
"Don't call me brother, you canting hypocrite. How do you make out any such relationship, I should like to know?"
"Are we not all brothers in the Lord?"
"Pho! Go along."
"Nay, brother Oakley, my coming to you upon this day hath, in good truth, a meaning."
As he said these words, the countenance of the pious man had upon it a malignant expression, and there was a twinkle about his eyes, which said as plainly as possible, "And that meaning is mischief!" Old Oakley looked at him for some few seconds, and then he said—
"Hark you, Mr. Lupin, you have already meddled too much in my affairs, and I desire now that you will be so good as to leave them alone."
"Humph! brother Oakley, what I have to say, concerns thee to hear, but I would rather say it to thy wife, who is a sister in the faith, and assuredly one of the elect, than I would say it to you, who will assuredly go to a warm place below for your want of faith; so I say again, is sister Oakley within?"
"If you mean my wife," replied the old spectacle-maker, "I am sorry to say that nobody knows less of her going out and coming home than I do."
"Truly, she frequents the Tabernacle of the Lord, called Ebenezer, where we all put up a hearty and moving prayer for you."
"Nobody asks you. I believe you are a set of rascals."
"How pleasant this is."
"What is pleasant?"
"To be nailed. How charming it is for the friends of Satan to call the Saints hard names. Brother Oakley, you are lost, indeed."
"If you call me brother again, you shall be lost, Mr. Lupin. I tell you once for all, I don't know anything of my wife's going out or coming home, and I don't want to see you in my shop any more. If it were not for one person in this world, and that one an angel, if ever one lived upon the earth, I should not care how soon my head was laid low."
"Humph! brother Oakley! Humph!"
Oakley caught up a file to throw at the head of the hypocrite, but there was such an expression of triumph upon his face, that the heart of the old spectacle-maker sunk within him as he thought to himself, "This man brings ill news, or he would never look as he does." The file dropped from his hands, and pushing his spectacles up to the top of his head, he glared at Lupin as he said—
"Speak—speak! What have you to say?"
"Humph!"
"Speak man, if you be a man!"
"Humph, brother Oakley; you have a daughter—Johanna?"
"Yes, yes!" cried old Oakley. "My heart told me that it was of my child this wretch came to speak. Tell me all instantly. Speak—what of my dear Johanna? I will wrest the truth from you. Has anything happened—is she well? Speak—speak!"
Mr. Oakley sprang upon the preacher, and seizing him by the throat, forced him back until he fell upon an old chest in the shop that was full of tools and the lid of which giving way with Lupin's weight and the sudden concussion with which he came upon it, precipitated him into the box among a number of pointed implements, the effect of which may be better imagined than described, as the newspapers say.
"Murder! murder!" screamed the preacher.
"Now you rascal!" cried old Oakley. "Say what you have got to say, and at once, too."
"Murder!" again gasped Lupin. "Brother Oakley, spare my life."
"I will not spare it if you are not quite explicit as regards what you have hinted of my child. Speak at once. Tell me what you have to say?"
"Let me get up. Oh, be merciful, and let me get up."
"No. You can stay very well where you are. Be quiet and speak freely, in which case no harm will come to you."
"Did you say, be quiet, brother Oakley? Truly you would be anything but quiet in my situation. What induces you to keep all your tools in this chest with the points uppermost?"
"You are trying to prevaricate now," said Oakley, suddenly snatching from the wall of his shop an antique sword, that had hung there as a sort of ornament, not entirely inconsistent with his trade. "You are trying to prevaricate with me now, and I must and will have your life. Prepare for the worst. You have now aroused feelings that cannot be so easily quelled again. Your last hour has come!"
The sight of the sword awakened the most lively feelings of terror in the mind of the preacher. He gave a howl of dismay, and made the most frantic efforts to get up out of the tool-chest; but that was no easy matter, particularly as old Oakley flourished the antique sword in dangerous proximity to his nose. At length, lifting up his hands in the most supplicating manner, he cried—
"Mercy—mercy, and I will tell."
"Go on, then. Quick."
"Yes—yes. Oh, dear! Yes. I was sojourning in this ungodly city, and taking my way, deep in thought, upon the wickedness of the world, the greater portion of the inhabitants of which will assuredly go down below, where there is howling and—"
"You rascal, I'll make you howl if you do not come to the point quickly."
A flourish of the sword, so close to the face of Mr. Lupin that he really believed for the moment it had taken the end of his nose off, admonished him that the patience of Mr. Oakley was nearly exhausted, and in a whining tone, he added—
"Truly, I was in the street called Fleet-street; when as I was crossing the way, a young lad nearly upset me into the kennel. He did not see me, but I saw him. Truly, brother Oakley, I saw the face of that—that individual."
"Well, what is that to me? I ask you what is he to me? Go on."
"Oh, oh, oh! Don't say I have not prepared you for the worst. Oh, oh, oh! Now, brother Oakley, I will tell you, even although it provoke an abundance of wrath. That boy—that individual who nearly overthrew me, one of the elect as I am, into the kennel, had the face of your daughter, Johanna."
The spectacle-maker looked confused, as well he might.
"The face of my daughter, Johanna?" he said. "What do you mean? Is all this cock-and-a-bull story about some boy in the street, who happened in your eyes............