V.
THE POMANDER-BOX.
Any doubts entertained by Leonard Holt as to the manner in which his
rival entered the house, were removed by discovering the open window in
the passage and the rope-ladder hanging to the yard-wall. Taking the
ladder away, and making all as secure as he could, he next seized his
cudgel, and proceeded to Blaize's room, with the intention of inflicting
upon him the punishment he had threatened: for he naturally enough
attributed to the porter's carelessness all the mischief that had just
occurred. Not meeting with him, however, and concluding he was in the
kitchen, he descended thither, and found him in such a pitiable plight,
that his wrath was instantly changed to compassion.
Stretched upon the hearth before a blazing sea-coal fire, which seemed
large enough to roast him, with his head resting upon the lap of
Patience, the pretty kitchen-maid, and his left hand upon his heart, the
porter loudly complained of a fixed and burning pain in that region;
while his mother, who was kneeling beside him, having just poured a
basin of scalding posset-drink down his throat, entreated him to let her
examine his side to see whether he had any pestilential mark upon it,
but he vehemently resisted her efforts.
"Do you feel any swelling, myn lief zoon?" asked old Josyna, trying to
remove his hand.
"Swelling!" ejaculated Blaize,--"there's a tumour as big as an egg.
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