I left her, and returned home: it was late.
I went to bed, and having disclosed as much to Timothy
as I could safely venture to do, I fell fast asleep,
but her figure and her voice haunted me in my dreams.
At one time, she appeared before me in her painted,
enamelled face, and then the mask fell off, and I
fell at her feet to worship her extreme beauty; then
her beauty would vanish, and she would appear an image
of loathsomeness and deformity, and I felt suffocated
with the atmosphere impregnated with the smell of
liquor. I would wake and compose myself again,
glad to be rid of the horrid dream, but again would
she appear, with a hydra’s tail, like Sin in
Milton’s Paradise Lost, wind herself round me,
her beautiful face gradually changing into that of
a skeleton. I cried out with terror, and awoke
to sleep no more, and effectually cured by my dream
of the penchant which I felt towards Miss Aramathea
Judd.
Chapter VI
My prescriptions very
effective and palatable, but I lose my
patient—The
feud equal to that of the Montagues and the
Capulets—Results
different—Mercutio comes off unhurt.
The next day I sent Timothy to purchase some highly
rectified white brandy, which I coloured with a blue
tincture, and added to it a small proportion of the
essence of cinnamon, to disguise the smell; a dozen
large vials, carefully tied up and sealed, were despatched
to her abode. She now seldom called unless it
was early in the morning; I made repeated visits to
her house to receive money, but no longer to make
love. One day I requested permission to be present
at their meeting, and to this she gave immediate consent;
indeed we were on the most intimate terms, and when
she perceived that I no longer attempted to play the
fool, I was permitted to remain for hours with her
in conversation. She had, as she told me she
intended, re-enamelled and painted her face, but knowing
what beauty was concealed underneath, I no longer felt
any disgust.
Timothy was very much pleased at his share of this
arrangement, as he seldom brought her the medicine
without pocketing half-a-crown.
For two or three months every thing went on very satisfactorily;
but one evening, Timothy, who had been sent with the
basket of vials for Miss Judd’s assistance,
returned in great consternation, informing me that
the house was empty. He had inquired of the neighbours,
and from the accounts given, which were very contradictory,
it appeared that the rival prophetess had marched
up at the head of her proselytes the evening before,
had obtained entrance, and that a desperate contention
had been the result. That the police had been
called in, and all parties had been lodged in the
watch-house; that the whole affair was being investigated
by the magistrates, and that it was said that Miss
Judd and all her coadjutors would be sent to the Penitentiary.
This was quite enough to frighten two boys like us;
for days afterwards we trembled when people came into
the shop, expecting to be summoned and imprisoned.
Gradually, however, our fears were dismissed, but I
never from that time heard any thing more of Miss
Aramathea Judd.
