The vision of all these circumstances passed rapidly, like a sensation rather than a set of coherent thoughts, through Maitland's consciousness.
"Tell me everything you know of this wretched business," he said, rising and closing the door which led into the outer room.
"Well, sir, you have not been here for some weeks, or you would know that Dicky had found a friend lately--an old shipmate, or petty-officer, he called him--a sailor-man. Well-to-do, he seemed; the mate of a merchant vessel he might be. He had known Dicky, I think, long ago at sea, and he'd bring him here 'to yarn with him,' he said, once or twice it might be in this room, but mainly in the parlor up-stairs. He let old Dicky tattoo him a bit, up there, to put him in the way of earning an honest penny by his trade--a queer trade it was. Never more than a pint, or a glass of hot rum and water, would he give the old man. Most considerate and careful, sir, he ever was. Well, last night he brought him in about nine, and they sat rather late; and about twelve the sailor comes in, rubbing his eyes, and 'Good-night, mum,' sez he. 'My friend's been gone for an hour. An early bird he is, and I've been asleep by myself. If you please, I'll just settle our little score. It's the last for a long time, for I'm bound to-morrow for the China Seas, eastward. Oh, mum, a sailor's life!' So he pays, changing a half-sovereign, like a gentleman, and out he goes, and that's the last I ever see o' poor Dicky Shields till he was brought in this afternoon, out of the snow-cart, cold and stiff, sir."
"And how do you suppose all this happened? How did Shields get _into_ the cart?"
"Well, that's just what they've been wondering at, though the cart was handy and uncommon convenient for a man as 'ad too much, if 'ad he '_ad_; as believe it I cannot, seeing a glass of hot rum and water would not intoxicate a babe. May be he felt faint, and laid down a bit, and never wakened. But, Lord a mercy, what's _that_?" screamed Mrs. Gullick, leaping to her feet in terror.
The latched door which communicated with the staircase had been burst open, and a small brown bear had rushed erect into the room, and, with a cry, had thrown itself on Mrs. Gullick's bosom.