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"You are right," returned Aspel, with a deprecating smile, "that has nothing to do with it. My wits are wool-gathering, Phil. Go: I will mount guard." Phil was gone in a moment, and Aspel leaned his head on his arm against one of the pillars of the portico. He had scarcely breathed a prayer for guidance when May approached.
During the day George Aspel observed that his friend employed himself in making some unaccountable alterations in the arrangements of one part of the shop, and ventured to ask what he was about, but, receiving a vague reply, he said no more.
"I am very glad to see him," interrupted May, recovering herself, "though I confess to some surprise that he should have forsaken Ireland so soon, after saying to me that it was a perfect paradise." Aspel, whose curly flaxen hair almost brushed the ceiling, brought himself down to a lower region by taking a chair, while he said with a meaning smile "Ah!
When Aspel first arrived in London he would have scouted the idea of his having anything whatever to do with such a man as Abel Bones, but he had not proceeded far in his downward course when that disreputable character became, if not a companion, at least an acquaintance.
"My dear sir," said Sir James to Mr Enoch in the back shop, through the half-closed door of which the owl could be seen gazing solemnly at the pelican of the wilderness, "I have called to ask whether you happen to have heard anything of young Aspel of late?" "Nothing whatever," replied Mr Blurt, with a sad shake of his head.
It was him as saved my life at least him and Mr Aspel, you know." "No, I don't know, Tot. Let's hear all about it," replied Mr Bones, with a look of unwonted gravity. Tottie went off at once into a glowing account of the fire and the rescue, to which her father listened with profound attention, not unmingled with surprise. Then he reverted to the aspect of the surrounding country.
I'm more I'm a brute. I tell you what it is, Bones, I'm determined to turn over a new leaf. I'll write to Mr Blurt and tell him where I am, for, of course, I can't return to him in such clothes as these, and and I'll give up drink." Bones met this remark with an unexpected and bitter laugh. "What d'you mean?" demanded Aspel, turning fiercely upon him.
It seems that Sir James went one night, secretly, as it were, to some low locality where Aspel was preaching to poor people, and was so affected by what he heard and saw that he came forward at the close, signed the pledge along with a number of rough and dirty men, and then and there became a total abstainer.
Having taken the required turns our wanderer found himself in a peculiarly low, dirty, and disagreeable locality. The population was in keeping with it so much so that Aspel looked round inquiringly before proceeding to "ask again."
Remorse that most awful of the ministers of vengeance had begun to torment Abel Bones. When he saved Tottie from the fire, Aspel had himself unwittingly unlocked the door in the burglar's soul which let the vengeful minister in.
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