It had now come to pass that Trevelyan had not a friend in the world to whom he could apply in the matter of his wife and family. In the last communication which he had received from Lady Milborough she had scolded him, in terms that were for her severe, because he had not returned to his wife and taken her off with him to Naples. Mr Bideawhile had found himself obliged to decline to move in the matter at all. With Hugh Stanbury, Trevelyan had had a direct quarrel. Mr and Mrs Outhouse he regarded as bitter enemies, who had taken the part of his wife without any regard to the decencies of life. And now it had come to pass that his sole remaining ally, Mr Samuel Bozzle, the ex-policeman, was becoming weary of his service. Trevelyan remained in the north of Italy up to the middle of March, spending a fortune in sending telegrams to Bozzle, instigating Bozzle by all the means in his power to obtain possession of the child, desiring him at one time to pounce down upon the parsonage of St. Diddulph’s with a battalion of policemen armed to the teeth with the law’s authority, and at another time suggesting to him to find his way by stratagem into Mr Outhouse’s castle and carry off the child in his arms. At last he sent word to say that he himself would be in England before the end of March, and would see that the majesty of the law should be vindicated in his favour.

Bozzle had in truth made but one personal application for the child at St. Diddulph’s. In making this he had expected no success, though, from the energetic nature of his disposition, he had made the attempt with some zeal. But he had never applied again at the parsonage, disregarding the letters, the telegrams, and even the promises which had come to him from his employer with such frequency. The truth was that Mrs Bozzle was opposed to the proposed separation of the mother and the child, and that Bozzle was a man who listened to the words of his wife. Mrs Bozzle was quite prepared to admit that Madame T. as Mrs Trevelyan had come to be called at No. 55, Stony Walk was no better than she should be. Mrs Bozzle was disposed to think that ladies of quality, among whom Madame T. was entitled in her estimation to take rank, were seldom better than they ought to be, and she was quite willing that her husband should earn his bread by watching the lady or the lady’s lover. She had participated in Bozzle’s triumph when he had discovered that the Colonel had gone to Devonshire, and again when he had learned that the Lothario had been at St. Diddulph’s. And had the case been brought before the judge ordinary by means of her husband’s exertions, she would have taken pleasure in reading every word of the evidence, even though her husband should have been ever so roughly handled by the lawyers. But now, when a demand was made upon Bozzle to violate the sanctity of the clergyman’s house, and withdraw the child by force or stratagem, she began to perceive that the palmy days of the Trevelyan affair were over for them, and that it would be wise on her husband’s part gradually to back out of the gentleman’s employment. ‘Just put it on the fire-back, Bozzle,’ she said one morning, as her husband stood before her reading for the second time a somewhat lengthy epistle which had reached him from Italy, while he held the baby over his shoulder with his left arm. He had just washed himself at the sink, and though his face was clean, his hair was rough, and his shirt sleeves were tucked up.

‘That’s all very well, Maryanne; but when a party has took a gent’s money, a party is bound to go through with the job.’

‘Gammon, Bozzle.’

‘It’s all very well to say gammon; but his money has been took and there’s more to come.’

‘And ain’t you worked for the money down to Hexeter one time, across the water pretty well day and night watching that ere clergyman’s ’ouse like a cat? What more’d he have? As to the child, I won’t hear of it, B. The child shan’t come here. We’d all be shewed up in the papers as that black, that they’d hoot us along the streets. It ain’t the regular line of business, Bozzle; and there ain’t no good to be got, never, by going off the regular line.’ Whereupon Bozzle scratched his head and again read the letter. A distinct promise of a hundred pounds was made to him, if he would have the child ready to hand over to Trevelyan on Trevelyan’s arrival in England.

‘It ain’t to be done, you know,’ said Bozzle.

‘Of course it ain’t,’ said Mrs Bozzle.

‘It ain’t to be done, anyways, not in my way of business. Why didn’t he go to Skint, as I told him, when his own lawyer was too dainty for the job? The paternal parent has a right to his hinfants, no doubt.’ That was Bozzle’s law.

‘I don’t believe it, B.’

‘But he have, I tell you.’

‘He can’t suckle ’em can he? I don’t believe a bit of his rights.’

‘When a married woman has followers, and the husband don’t go the wrong side of the post too, or it ain’t proved again him that he do, they’ll never let her have nothing to do with the children. It’s been before the court a hundred times. He’ll get the child fast enough if he’ll go before the court.’

‘Anyways it ain’t your business, Bozzle, and don’t you meddle nor make. The money’s good money as long as it’s honest earned; but when you come to rampaging and breaking into a gent’s house, then I say money may be had a deal too hard.’ In this special letter, which had now come to hand, Bozzle was not instructed to ‘rampage.’ He was simply desired to make a further official requisition for the boy at the parsonage, and to explain to Mr Outhouse, Mrs Outhouse, and Mrs Trevelyan, or to as many of them as he could contrive to see, that Mr Trevelyan was immediately about to return to London, and that he would put the law into execution if his son were not given up to him at once. ‘I’ll tell you what it is, B.,’ exclaimed Mrs Bozzle, ‘it’s my belief as he ain’t quite right up here;’ and Mrs Bozzle touched her forehead.

‘It’s love for her as has done it then,’ said Bozzle, shaking his head.

‘I’m not a taking of her part, B. A ............