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He was, in fact, the incarnation of that great spirit which the laws of the world raise up against the world, and by which the world's injustice on a large scale is awfully chastised; on a small scale, merely nibbled at and harassed, as the rat that gnaws the hoof of the elephant: the spirit which, on a vast theatre, rises up, gigantic and sublime, in the heroes of war and revolution in Mirabeaus, Marats, Napoleons: on a minor stage, it shows itself in demagogues, fanatical philosophers, and mob-writers; and on the forbidden boards, before whose reeking lamps outcasts sit, at once audience and actors, it never produced a knave more consummate in his part, or carrying it off with more buskined dignity, than William Gawtrey.
But the hoard was amassed so slowly; now old Gawtrey was attacked by illness; now there was some little difficulty in the rent; now some fluctuation in the price of work; and now, and more often than all, some demand on her charity, which interfered with, and drew from, the pious savings.
At the sound of that name the company started in dismay and confusion, and the police officer, forgetting himself for the moment, sprang from his seat, and put his right hand into his blouse. "Ho, there! treason!" cried Gawtrey, in a voice of thunder; and he caught the unhappy man by the throat. It was the work of a moment. Morton, where he sat, beheld a struggle he heard a death-cry.
He and Birnie exchanged silent nods; and the former, leaving his work, conducted them up a very filthy flight of stairs to an attic, where a bed, two stools, one table, and an old walnut-tree bureau formed the sole articles of furniture. Gawtrey looked rather ruefully round the black, low, damp walls, and said in a crestfallen tone: "We were better off at the Temple of Hymen.
The new comer wore the republican beard and moustache of a sandy grey his hair was the same colour; and a black patch over one eye increased the ill-favoured appearance of his features. "Diable! Monsieur Giraumont! but you are more like Vulcan than Adonis!" said Gawtrey. "I don't know anything about Vulcan, but I know how to make five-franc pieces," said Monsieur Giraumont, doggedly.
The countenance of the lady herself was fair and noble, and Philip felt a strange thrill at his heart as, with a slight inclination of her' head, she turned from the room. "Ah!" said Gawtrey, laughing, "this is not the first time I have been paid by relations to break off the marriages I had formed. Egad! if one could open a bureau to make married people single, one would soon be a Croesus!
At both doors now were heard the sound of voices. "Open in the king's name, or expect no mercy!" "Hist!" said Gawtrey. "One way yet the window the rope." Morton opened the casement Gawtrey uncoiled the rope. The dawn was breaking; it was light in the streets, but all seemed quiet without. The doors reeled and shook beneath the pressure of the pursuers.
And the coiner crept to the door of the private stairs. He unlocked and opened it cautiously. A man sprang through the aperture: "Yield! you are my prisoner!" "Never!" cried Gawtrey, hurling back the intruder, and clapping to the door, though other and stout men were pressing against it with all their power. "Ho! ho! Who shall open the tiger's cage?"
We have seen that a scruple of conscience or of pride, not without its nobleness, had made him refuse the importunities of Gawtrey for less sordid raiment; the same feeling made it his custom to avoid sharing the luxurious and dainty food with which Gawtrey was wont to regale himself.
On turning into a small room adjoining the parlour in which Gawtrey sat, Morton found Fanny standing gloomily by a dull, soot-grimed window, which looked out on the dead walls of a small yard. Mrs. Boxer, seated by a table, was employed in trimming a cap, and putting questions to Fanny in that falsetto voice of endearment in which people not used to children are apt to address them.