At this unexpected dênoûment all present appeared to be astounded. The fosterer was lost in astonishment, and the magistrate equally surprised to see a person on whom he was about to deal according to law, summarily removed from his jurisdiction, and by a novel proceeding, by no means so formal and yet very like a _habeas corpus_. While this grand _scena_ was being enacted, a quieter, but not less interesting episode was in progress in the corner; but we must leave the reader in temporary suspense, as, with this occurrence, we intend to commence another chapter. [Illustration: 0137] CHAPTER XIV. THE TABLES TURNED--THE SAILOR’S STORY. “As thou urgest justice, be assur’d Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desir’st.” Shakspere. |Proverbs may be musty matters; but take them generally, and how admirably do they establish facts! “Between the cup and lip” slips are frequent and, as events turned out, Mr. Montague, of comic celebrity, was fated to point that moral. Nothing could have been attended with more decisive success than the villany of the Jew. His boundless audacity had imposed upon a weak-headed country gentleman; and the information he had acquired at the Cock and Punch-bowl by listening at the wanderer’s door, enabled him to describe the property, alleged to have been stolen, with an accuracy that induced the greater number of those who heard the charge, to believe the story of the robbery confirmed. The hour of revenge was come. The girl, deprived of her protector, and thrown loose upon the world, would once more be at his mercy; and the Jew’s dark eyes brightened with fiendish delight. The man who had crossed his schemes, and treated him with contumely, would now be tenant of a prison; and the woman who had turned from him with contempt, and rejected his overtures with abhorrence, might soon be taught to feel that hatred often follows fast upon the steps of love. But what appeared to the Jew to be the hour of his triumph, proved unexpectedly, that of retribution; for to mortal villany Providence assigns a limit.