Then George tells me that he has seen by chance, at the lawyer’s office, a fine old lady that has brought his mother plain before him; and he runs on about that old lady till he quite forgets himself, and paints her picter to me as she used to be, years upon years back. So I says to George when he has done, who is this old lady he has seen? And George tells me it’s Mrs Rouncewell, house-keeper for more than half a century to the Dedlock family down at Chesney Wold in Lincolnshire. George has frequently told me before that he’s a Lincolnshire man, and I says to my old Lignum that night, ‘Lignum, that’s his mother for five and for-ty pound!’”

All this Mrs Bagnet now relates for the twentieth time at least within the last four hours. Trilling it out, like a kind of bird; with a pretty high note, that it may be audible to the old lady above the hum of the wheels.

“Bless you, and thank you,” says Mrs Rouncewell. “Bless you, and thank you, my worthy soul!”

“Dear heart!” cries Mrs Bagnet, in the most natural manner. “No thanks to me, I am sure. Thanks to yourself, ma’am, for being so ready to pay ’em! And mind once more, ma’am, what you had best do on finding George to be your own son, is, to make him — for your sake — have every sort of help to put himself in the right, and clear himself of a charge of which he is as innocent as you or me. It won’t do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law and lawyers,” exclaims the old girl, apparently persuaded that the latter form a separate establishment, and have dissolved partnership with truth and justice for ever and a day.

“He shall have,” says Mrs Rouncewell, “all the help that can be got for him in the world, my dear. I will spend all I have, and thankfully, to procure it. Sir Leicester will do his best, the whole family will do their best. I — I know something, my dear; and will make my own appeal, as his mother parted from him all these years, and finding him in a jail at last.”

The extreme disquietude of the old housekeeper’s manner in saying this, her broken words, and her wringing of her hands, make a powerful impression on Mrs Bagnet and would astonish her but that she refers them all to her sorrow for her son’s condition. And yet Mrs Bagnet wonders, too why Mrs Rouncewell should murmur so distractedly, “My Lady, my Lady, my Lady!” over and over again.

The frosty night wears away, and the dawn breaks, and the post-chaise comes rolling on through the early mist, like the ghost of a chaise departed. It has plenty of spectral company, in ghosts of trees and hedges, slowly vanishing and giving place to the realities of day. London reached, the travellers alight; the old housekeeper in great tribulation and confusion; Mrs Bagnet quite fresh and collected — as she would be, if her next point, with no new equipage and outfit, were the Cape of Good Hope, the Island of Ascension, Hong Kong, or any other military station.

But when they set out for the prison where the trooper is confined, the old lady has managed to draw about her, with her lavender-coloured dress, much of the staid calmness which is its usual accompaniment. A wonderfully grave, precise, and handsome piece of old china she looks; though her heart beats fast, and her stomacher is ruffled, more than even the remembrance of this way-ward son has ruffled it these many years.

Approaching the cell, they find the door opening and a warder in the act of coming out. The old girl promptly makes a sign of entreaty to him to say nothing; assenting with a nod, he suffers them to enter as he shuts the door.

So George, who is writing at his table, supposing himself to be alone, does not raise his eyes, but remains absorbed. The old house-keeper looks at him, and those wandering hands of hers are quite enough for Mrs Bagnet’s confirmation; even if she could see the mother and the son together, knowing what she knows, and doubt their relationship.