Those of the guests who had not already departed, were sitting or lying asleep upon the floor or on the chairs. The last to succumb had been Lord Chudleigh, not because his was the strongest head, but because he had drunk the least and struggled the hardest not to fall a victim to the punch. Sir Miles had long since sunk peacefully upon the floor, where he lay in oblivion, one of the men having loosened his cravat to prevent the danger of apoplexy. Solomon Stallabras, among whose vices was not included the love of strong drink, was one of the earliest to depart; the young Templar whom the Doctor exhorted to virtue early in the evening, was now lying curled up like a child in the corner, his virtuous resolutions, if he had ever formed any, forgotten. Others there were, but all were crapulous, stupid, senseless, or asleep.

The Doctor stood over his victims, victorious. He had taken, singly, more punch than any three of them together; yet there they all lay helpless, while he was steady of head and speech; it was past two o’clock in the morning; the candles, low now, and nearly spent, burned dim in the thick, tobacco-laden air; the walls were streaming with the heat generated by the presence of so many men and so much drink. Roger, with the red nose and pale cheeks, still stood stolidly at the door, waiting for the half-finished bowl and the last orders; beside him, his fellow-lackey and clerk William.

“Turn all out, Roger,” said the Doctor.

“Aye, sir,” said Roger.

Both men addressed themselves to the task. They were accustomed to turn out their master’s guests in this fashion. First, they lifted the fallen form of Sir Miles, and bore him carefully to his lodging; then they carried out the young Templar and the others who lay snoring upon the floor, and deposited them upon the stalls of the market outside, where the fresh air of the night might be expected to restore them speedily.

Meanwhile, Roger and William, for their better protection, would themselves watch over them until such time as they should awake, rise, and be ready to be led home with tottering step and rolling gait, for such reward as the varlets might demand.

The Doctor’s clerks had a hard life. They began to tout on Ludgate Hill and the Fleet Bridge at eight; they fought for their couples all the morning with other touts; in the evening, they waited on the Doctor’s guests; at midnight, they bore them into the market; there they watched over them till they could be taken home. A hard and difficult service. But there were few of the men about the Fleet who did not envy a situation so well paid; indeed, one cannot but admire the hardness of men to whom a daily fight, with constant black eyes, broken teeth, and bleeding nose, appears of such slight importance in the day’s work, as not to be taken into account.

There remained Lord Chudleigh, who had fallen asleep in his chair, and was the last.

“As for this young gentleman, Roger,” said the Doctor, “carry him upstairs and lay him upon my bed; he is of different stuff. Do not wake him, if you can help it.”

Nothing but an earthquake or an explosion of gunpowder could have awakened the young man, so senseless and heavy was he. They bore him up the stairs, the Doctor following; they took off his boots, his coat, and waistcoat, put on him the Doctor’s nightcap, and laid him in the bed.

All finished, the Doctor bade them drink off the rest of the punch, and begone.

The Doctor, left quite alone, opened the windows and doors, and stepped out into the market. At two o’clock on a cold October morning, even that noisy place is quiet; a west wind had driven away the smoke, and the sky was clear, glittering with innumerable stars. The Doctor threw open his arms and took a deep breath of the cold air, standing with his wig off, so that the wind might freshen his brain. Before him he saw, but he took no heed, the helpless forms of his guests, lying on the stalls; beside them sat, wrapped in heavy coats, his two serving-men, looking like vultures ready to devour their prey, but for fear of their master, who would infallibly cause them to be hanged.

After a few minutes in the open air, the Doctor returned to his room; he was sober, although he had taken enough punch to make ten men drunk; and steady of hand, although he had smoked so much tobacco; but the veins on his face stood out like purple cords, his eyes were bloodshot, his great lips were trembling.

He did not go to bed, but lit a fresh pair of candles, and sat in his chair thinking.

His thoughts carried him back to some time of trouble, for he presently reached out his hand, seized his tobacco-pipe, and crushed it in fragments; then he took the glass from which he had been drinking, and crushed that, too, in his great strong fingers.

“I knew not,” he murmured, “that the villain was dead. If I had known that he was ill, I should have gone to see him, if only to remind him, with a curse, of the past. He is dead; I can never curse him face to face, as I hoped to do. I did not think that he would die before me; he seemed stronger, and he was younger. I looked to seek him out at any time, when I wanted a holiday, or when I wanted a diversion. I thought I would take him in his own house, and show him, in such words as only I can command, how mean a creature he was, and what a treacherous cur. Now he is dead. He actually never will be punished at all.”

This reflection caused him the greatest sadness. He shook his head as he thought it over.

“It is not,” he said to himself, “that I wished to be revenged on him (though doubtless, as men are but frail, that desire entered somewhat into my hopes), so much as that I saw in him a man who, above most men, deserved to be punished. I break the law daily, incurring thereby the penalty of a hundred pounds, which I never pay, for each offence. Yet truly am I less burdened in my conscience than should have been this Lord Chudleigh. And he hath died in honour. In this world one man steals a pig, and receives the approbation of his kind; another looks over a wall, and is clapped in gaol for it; one man slaughters a thousand, and is made a duke; another kills one, and is hanged. I am in prison, who never did anything against the law until I came here, nor harmed any except my creditors. My lord, who thought the ten commandments made for creatures of baser blood, and the round world, with all that therein is, only created for his own insatiable appetite, lives in honour and dies—what can I tell?—perhaps in grace; fortified, at least, with the consolations of the Church and the benedictions of his chaplain. So all things seem matter of chance. As Solomon Stallabras says, in one of his fables:

He yawned; then, struck with a sudden thought, he took one of the candles and softly mounted the stairs. Shading the light with his hand, he looked upon the face of the young man sleeping on his bed. A handsome young man, with regular features strongly marked, delicate lips, and pointed chin.

“Truly,” said the Doctor, “a youth of great beauty. Another David. He is more handsome than his father, even in those young days when he caressed me to my ruin, and led me on with promises to my undoing. Yet he hath the trick of the Chudleigh lip, and he hath his father’s nose. Would that his father were alive, and that it was he and not his son lying here at my mercy! The son is something; out of regard to his father’s memory, he shall not get off scot-free. But what is to be done? There is nothing, I think, that I would not do”—his red face grew purple as he thought of his wrongs—“were his father living, and could I make him feel through his son. Nothing, I believe. As I am a Christian man, if my lord were alive this day, I think I could tie a stone round the boy’s neck and chuck him into the Fleet Ditch at Holborn Bridge. And yet, what a poor and miserable thing to do! A moment of brutal satisfaction in thinking of the father’s agony—an eternity of remorse. But his father is dead; he cannot feel at all any more, whatever I do. If I could”—his face grew dark again, and he ground his teeth—“I believe I could drag the boy downwards, little by little, and destroy his very soul, to make his father suffer the more.”

He gasped and caught his breath.

“Why,” he murmured, “what is this? It is well for men that they are not led into temptation. This young lord hath fallen into my hands. Good. What shall I do with him? He knows nothing. Yet he must suffer something. It is the law. We are all under the law. For the third and fourth generation—and he is only the first generation. His children and his grandchildren will have to suffer after him. It is not my fault. I am clearly carrying out the law. He is providentially led here, not that I may take revenge upon the son of my enemy for his father’s wrong, but that he might receive chastisement at my hands, being those of the fittest person, even as Solomon was chosen to slay both Joab and Shimei. What then shall I do? The Reverend Gregory Shovel cannot murder the boy; that would be the common, vulgar thought of a Fleet Market butcher or a hodman. Murder? A nauseous thought.”

He took up the candle and stole noiselessly down the stairs, as if the thought had driven him from the place.

When he was back in his own room he began to walk up and down, thinking.

“He is but a boy,” he said, “a handsome boy; ’twould be a sin to harm him. Yet, being sent here as he is, in a way that can be no other than providential, ’twould be a sin to let him go. How if I make him pay all my debts, and so leave the Liberties and live respectably ever after? Respectably!” he laughed a little. “Why, who would believe that the great Doctor Shovel could be respectable? The mud of this place, this dwelling beside a ditch, hath entered into my soul as the iron of the chains entereth into the soul of the prisoner. My name is too deeply daubed with the Fleet mud; it cannot be cleansed. And should I give up my place? Should I leave to another the honour I have won and the income I make therefrom? Shall there be another Chaplain of the Fleet while I survive? No; that will never do. How could I live away from this room wherein I wallow day and night? Here am I at mine ease; here I get wealth; I cannot leave this place.”

He was in great perplexity. He wandered up and down; he was torn between his wrath against the father and his consciousness that it would be a mean and dreadful villainy to take revenge upon the son.

“I must have taken too much punch,” he said, “thus to be agitated. Punch, like wine, ‘is a mocker, strong drink is raging.’ The Christian should forgive; the father is dead; the lad is a handsome lad and may be good. Besides, whatever I do to the boy, his sire will neither know nor feel. I might as well suppose that the legs and heads on Temple Bar feel what is said about them below. I am a fool; yet am I but a man. For such a crime even a saint would feel a righteous wrath. Yet it is cowardly to take revenge upon the son, the committer of the crime having gone to his own place. Yet he is that man’s son. What then to do?”

He turned the question over a thousand times, yet found no answer. At last a thought came to him. He nodded his head and laughed aloud. Then he sought his arm-chair, adjusted his ample gown so as to get the greatest amount of comfort out of it, placed his feet upon a stool, and folded his arms.

“I have taken at least a quart of punch more than is good for me. That is most certain. Otherwise I should have known at once what I should do. I have actually forgotten the peculiarities of my own position. Which shows that I am neither so young nor so strong as I have been. Perhaps the system wants a fillip. I will take a dose of Norway tar-water to-morrow. But first, my lord, you shall find out, early in the morning, why I am called the Chaplain of the Fleet.”