What a relief to that hidden caitiff! his feet, standing on the cold, damp iron so many hours, bare of brogues, were mere ice—­only that they ached intolerably:  he had not dared to move, to breathe, and was all over in one cramp:  he did not bring the brandy-bottle with him, as he once had planned; for calculation whispered—­“Don’t, your head will be the clearer; you must not muddle your brains;” and so his caution over-reached itself, as usual; his head was in a fog, and his brains in a whirlwind, for lack of other stimulants than fear and pain.

O Simon, how your prudence cheats you! five mortal hours of anguish and anxiety in one unalterable posture, without a single drop of creature-comfort; and all this preconcerted too!

CHAPTER XXVI.

PRELIMINARIES.

AT last, just as the nephew was positively fainting from exhaustion, in came his kind old aunt to bed.  She talked a good deal to herself, did Mrs. Quarles, and Simon heard her say,

“Poor fellow—­poor, dear Simon, he was taken bad last night, and has seemed queerish in the head all day:  pray God nothing’s amiss with the boy!”

The boy’s heart (he was forty) smote him as he heard:  yes, even he was vexed that Aunt Bridget could be so foolishly fond of him.  But he would go on now, and not have all his toil for nothing.  “I’m in for it,” said he, “and there’s an end.”

Ay, Simon, you are, indeed, in for it; the devil has locked you in—­but as to the end, we shall see, we shall see.

“I shouldn’t wonder now,” the good old soul went on to say, “if Simon’s wentured out without his hat to cool a head-ache:  his grand-father—­peace be with him! died, poor man, in a Lunacy ’Sylum:  alack, Si, I wish you mayn’t be going the same road.  No, no, I hope not—­he’s always so prudent-like, and wise, and good; so kind, too, to a poor old fool like me:”  and the poor old fool began to cry again.

“Silly boy—­but he’ll take cold at any rate:  Sarah!” (here Mrs. Quarles rung her bell, and the still-maid answered it.) “Sarah Stack, sit up awhile for Mr. Jennings, and when he comes in, send him here to me.  Poor boy,” she went on soliloquizing, “he shall have a drop or two to comfort his stomach, and keep the chill out.”

The poor boy, lying perdu, shuddered at the word chill, and really wished his aunt would hold her tongue.  But she didn’t.

“Maybe now,” the affectionate old creature proceeded, “maybe Simon was vexed at what I let drop last night about the money.  I know he loves his sister Scott, as I do:  but it’ll seem hard, too, to leave him nothing.  I must make my will some day, I ’spose; but don’t half like the job:  it’s always so nigh death.  Yes—­yes, dear Si shall have a snug little corner.”

The real Simon Pure, in his own snug little corner, writhed again.  Mrs. Quarles started at the noise, looked up the chimney, under the bed, tried the doors and windows, and actually went so near the mark as to turn the handle of the shower-bath; “Drat it,” said she, “Sarah must ha’ took away the key:  well, there can’t be nothing there but cloaks, that’s one comfort.”