Here the cook began to cry, and the housemaid said it was ‘a shame!’ for which partisanship she received a month’s warning on the spot.
‘Do you hear, cook?’ said the lady abbess, stamping her foot impatiently.
‘Don’t you hear your missis, cook?’ said the three teachers.
‘What an impudent thing that cook is!’ said the thirty boarders.
The unfortunate cook, thus strongly urged, advanced a step or two, and holding her candle just where it prevented her from seeing at all, declared there was nothing there, and it must have been the wind. The door was just going to be closed in consequence, when an inquisitive boarder, who had been peeping between the hinges, set up a fearful screaming, which called back the cook and housemaid, and all the more adventurous, in no time.
‘What is the matter with Miss Smithers?’ said the lady abbess, as the aforesaid Miss Smithers proceeded to go into hysterics of four young lady power.
‘Lor, Miss Smithers, dear,’ said the other nine-and-twenty boarders.
‘Oh, the man--the man--behind the door!’ screamed Miss Smithers.
The lady abbess no sooner heard this appalling cry, than she retreated to her own bedroom, double-locked the door, and fainted away comfortably. The boarders, and the teachers, and the servants, fell back upon the stairs, and upon each other; and never was such a screaming, and fainting, and struggling beheld. In the midst of the tumult, Mr. Pickwick emerged from his concealment, and presented himself amongst them.
‘Ladies--dear ladies,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Oh. he says we’re dear,’ cried the oldest and ugliest teacher. ‘Oh, the wretch!’
‘Ladies,’ roared Mr. Pickwick, rendered desperate by the danger of his situation. ‘Hear me. I am no robber. I want the lady of the house.’
‘Oh, what a ferocious monster!’ screamed another teacher. ‘He wants Miss Tomkins.’
‘Ring the alarm bell, somebody!’ cried a dozen voices.
‘Don’t--don’t,’ shouted Mr. Pickwick. ‘Look at me. Do I look like a robber! My dear ladies--you may bind me hand and leg, or lock me up in a closet, if you like. Only hear what I have got to say--only hear me.’
‘How did you come in our garden?’ faltered the housemaid.
‘Call the lady of the house, and I’ll tell her everything,’ said Mr. Pickwick, exerting his lungs to the utmost pitch. ‘Call her--only be quiet, and call her, and you shall hear everything.’