Maddened with anger and disgust, his wife snatched up the stick he had dropped, and struck him on the head as he took a step forward. With a stifled cry he staggered and fell over the embankment, still clutching the box in his arms. Madame let the stick fall, and fell back fainting on the seat of the trap, while the horse, startled by the noise, tore down the road at a mad gallop.
Madame Midas lay in a dead faint for some time, and when she came to herself she was still in the trap, and Rory was calmly trotting along the road home. At the foot of the hill, the horse, knowing every inch of the way, had settled down into his steady trot for the Pactolus, but when Madame grasped the situation, she marvelled to herself how she had escaped being dashed to pieces in that mad gallop down the Black Hill.
Her head felt painful from the effects of the blow she had received, but her one thought was to get home to Archie and Selina, so gathering up the reins she sent Rory along as quickly as she could. When she drove up to the gate Archie and Selina were both out to receive her, and when the former went to lift her off the trap, he gave a cry of horror at seeing her dishevelled appearance and the blood on her face.
‘God save us!’ he cried, lifting her down; ‘what’s come t’ ye, and where’s the nugget?’ seeing it was not in the trap.
‘Lost!’ she said, in a stupor, feeling her head swimming, ‘but there’s worse.’
‘Worse?’ echoed Selina and Archie, who were both standing looking terrified at one another.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Villiers, in a hollow whisper, leaning forward and grasping Archie’s coat, ‘I’ve killed my husband,’ and without another word, she fell fainting to the ground.
At the same time Vandeloup and Pierre walked into the bar at the Wattle Tree Hotel, and each had a glass of brandy, after which Pierre went to his bed, and Vandeloup, humming a gay song, turned on his heel and went to the theatre.
‘AH!’ says Thackeray, pathetically, ‘Prague is a pleasant city, but we all lose our way to it late in life.’
The Wopples family were true Bohemians, and had not yet lost their way to the pleasant city. They accepted good and bad fortune with wonderful equanimity, and if their pockets were empty one day, there was always a possibility of their being full the next. When this was the case they generally celebrated the event by a little supper, and as their present season in Ballarat bid fair to be a successful one, Mr Theodore Wopples determined to have a convivial evening after the performance was over.