When Ben and Mrs. Oakley had thus disposed of Mr. Lupin, and left him to his solitary and not very pleasant reflections in a cell of the round-house, they found themselves together in the open street, and Ben, as he cast a woeful glance at her, said— "Well, how does yer feel now? Easy does it! Oh, you aint a-been and behaved yourself properly lately—you is like the old bear as we calls Nosey. He's always a-doing what he shouldn't, and always a-never doing what he should."
"Ben?"
"Well, blaze away. What is yer going to say now?"
"I feel, Ben, that I am a very different woman from what I was—very different."
"Then you must have gained by the exchange, for you was, I will say it, anything but a pleasant bit o' goods. There's poor old Oakley a-making of spectacles all days, and a-wearing of his old eyes out—and there's Miss Johanna, bless her heart! as wise a little bit o' human nature as you'd wish to see, whether she's in petticoats or the other things; and yet you neglects 'em both, all for to run arter a canting snivelling wagabone like this Lupin, that we wouldn't have among the beasteses at the Tower, if so be he'd come and offer himself."
"I know it, Ben—I know it."
"You know it! Why didn't you know it before?"
"I don't know, Ben; but my eyes are open now. I have had a lesson that to my dying day I shall never forget. I have found that piety may only be a cloak with which to cover up the most monstrous iniquity."
"Oh, you have made that discovery, have you?"
"I have, indeed, Ben."
"Well, I knowed as much as that when I was a small baby. It only shows how back'ard some folks is in coming for'ard with their edication."
"Yes, Ben."
"Well, and what is you going to be arter now?"
"I wish to go home, and I want you to come with me, and to say a kind word for me; I want you to tell them how I now see the error of my ways, and how I am an altered woman, and mean to be a very—very different person than I was."
Here Mrs. Oakley's genuine feelings got the better of her, and she began to weep bitterly; and Ben, after looking at her for a few moments, cried out—
"Why, it's real, and not like our hyena that only does it to gammon us! Come, mother Oakley, just pop your front paw under my arm, and I'll go home with you; and if you don't get a welcome there, I'm not a beef-eater. Why, the old man will fly right bang out of his wits for joy. You should only see what a house is when the mother and the wife don't do as she ought. Mother O., you should see what a bit of fire there is in the grate, and what a hearth."
"I know it—I ought to know it."
"You ought to know it!" added Ben, putting himself into an oratorial attitude. "You should only see the old man when dinner time comes round. He goes into the parlour and he finds no fire; then he says—'Dear me!'"
"Yes—yes."
"Then he gives a boy a ha'penny to go and get him something that don't do him no sort of good from the cook's shop, and sometimes the boy nabs the ha'penny and the shilling both, and ain't never heard of again by any means no more."
"No doubt, Ben."
"Then, when tea comes round, it don't come round at all, and the old man has none; but he takes in a ha'porth of milk in a jug without a spout, and he drinks that up, cold and miserable, with a penny-loaf, you see."
"Yes—yes."
"And then at night, when there ought to be a little sort of comfort round the fireside, there ain't none."
"But Johanna, Ben—there is Johanna?"
"Johanna?"
"Yes. Is she not there to see to some of her father's comforts? She loves him—I know she does, Ben!"
Ben placed his finger by the side of his nose, and in an aside to himself, he said—
"Now I'll touch her up a bit—now I'll punish her for all she has done, and it will serve her right." Then, elevating his voice, he added—"Did you mention Johanna?"
"Yes, Ben, I did."
"Then I'm sorry you did. Perhaps you think she's been seeing to the old man's comforts a little—airing his night-cap, and so on—Eh? Is that the idea?"
"Yes, I know that she would do anything gladly for her father. She was always most tenderly attached to him."
"Humph!"
"Why do you say, Humph, Ben?"
"Just answer me one question, Mrs. O. Did you ever hear of a young girl as was neglected by her mother—her mother who of all ought to be the person to attend to her—turning out well?"
"Do not terrify me, Ben."
"Well, all I have got to say is, that Johanna can't be in two places at once, and as she isn't at home, how, I would ask any reasonable Christian, can she attend to the old man?"
"Not at home, Ben?"
"Not—at—home!"
"Oh, Heaven! why did I not stay in that dreadful man's house, and let him murder me! Why did I not tell him at once that I knew of his crime, and implore him to make me his next victim! Oh, Ben, if you have any compassion in your disposition you will tell me all, and then I shall know what to hope, and what to dread."
"Well," said Ben, "here goes then."
"What goes?"
"I mean I'm a-going to tell you all, as you seem as if you'd like to know it."
"Do! Oh, do!"
"Then of course Johanna being but a very young piece of goods, and not knowing much o' the ways o' this here world, and the habits and manners o' the wild beasteses as is in it, when she found as the old house wasn't............