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As a matter most imperatively of course, not a farthing more should be forthcoming, and many oaths avouched that stern determination. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, after such an enormous bribe to each as if shame of any kind had part or lot in those feminine accomplices: it was a sanguine thought of Mr. John Dillaway.
And now, after all the shattering storms, and haggard sufferings, and degrading terrors of that voyage, they neared the metropolis of sin; some town on Botany Bay, a blighted shore where each man, looking at his neighbour, sees in him an outcast from heaven. They landed in droves, that ironed flock of men; and the sullenest-looking scoundrel of them all was John Dillaway.
The count was spinning a pigeon English yarn of how he'd fought a duel with rapiers. When he'd finished, old Dillaway pounded his knee and sung out: "That's bus'ness! That's the way to fix 'em! No lawsuits, no argument, no delays. Just take 'em out and punch holes in 'em. Did you hear that, Brown?" "Yes, I heard it," says Peter, kind of absent-minded like. "Fighting with razors, wan't it?"
Oh, precious thought of change! for within three hours there was light a-head, light beneath the tangled underwood: he struggled through the last cluster of thick bushes, longing for a sight of fertile plain, and open country. Who knows? are there not men dwelling there with flocks and herds, and food and plenty? Yes yes, and Dillaway will do among them yet. You envious boughs, delay me not!
And before the season was over the engagement was announced. Old Dillaway took it pretty well, considering. He liked Peter, and his having no money to speak of didn't count, because Ebenezer had enough for all hands. The old man said he'd been hoping for a son-in-law sharp enough to run the "Consolidated Stores" after he was gone, and it looked, he said, as if he'd found him.
Well, ma'am, there's one comfort left; the fellow married her for money, and he's caught in his own trap; never a penny of mine shall either of them see. Henceforth, Lady Dillaway, we have no daughter; dear John is the only child left us for old age."
For another thread, if the reader, in his ample curiosity, wishes to be informed how it became possible for me to learn the fate of Dillaway, let him know, that up to the hour of escape, I derived it easily from living witnesses; and thereafter, that certain settlers, having set out to explore the country, found a human skeleton stretched upon a thicket which, from the débris of convicts' clothes, and the hatchet stamped with his initials, was easily decided to be that bad man's.
We see right off that this was the real Cashmere-on-the-Hudson; the village folks were stranded on the flats old Dillaway filled the whole ship channel. "Well," I says to Jonadab, "it looks to me as if we was getting out of soundings. What do you say to coming about and making a quick run for Orham again?" But he wouldn't hear of it. "S'pose I've spent all that money on duds for nothing?" he says.
Therefore, let us boldly trespass from the trodden paths, let us rather shake off the shackles of custom than hug them as an ornament approved: and, notwithstanding both parental deaths, seemingly ill-timed for the happiness of innocence, let us acquiesce in the facts, as plain matters of history, not dubious thoughts of fiction; and let us gather to the end any good we can, either from the miserable solitude of a selfish Dillaway, or from the hearty social circle of our happy married pair.
Neither count it sufficient to answer me with an inconclusive "tu quoque:" I know it, I feel it, I confess it, I would away with it. Returned from her unsuccessful embassage, Lady Dillaway determined kind, calm soul to hide the bitter truth from poor Maria, that her father was inexorably adverse.
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