 the nest. Hearing a suspicious noise below, she rose, and
deliberately loaded a pair of horse-pistols, weapons Mel had worn in his
holsters in the heroic days gone; and with these she stepped downstairs straight
to the cellar, carrying a lantern at her girdle. She could not only load, but
present and fire. Dandy was foremost in stating that she called him forth
steadily, three times, before the pistol was discharged. He admitted that he was
frightened, and incapable of speech, at the apparition of the tall, terrific
woman. After the third time of asking he had the ball lodged in his leg and
fell. Mrs. Mel was in the habit of bearing heavier weights than Dandy. She made
no ado about lugging him to a chamber, where, with her own hands (for this woman
had some slight knowledge of surgery, and was great in herbs and drugs) she
dressed his wound, and put him to bed; crying contempt (ever present in Dandy's
memory) at such a poor creature undertaking the work of housebreaker. Taught
that he really was a poor creature for the work, Dandy, his nursing over, begged
to be allowed to stop and wait on Mrs. Mel; and she who had, like many strong
natures, a share of pity for the objects she despised, did not cast him out. A
jerk in his gait, owing to the bit of lead Mrs. Mel had dropped into him, and a
little, perhaps, to her self-satisfied essay in surgical science on his person,
earned him the name he went by.
    When her neighbours remonstrated with her for housing a reprobate, Mrs. Mel
would say: »Dandy is well-fed and well-physicked: there 's no harm in Dandy«; by
which she may have meant that the food won his gratitude, and the physic reduced
his humours. She had observed human nature. At any rate, Dandy was her creature;
and the great Mel himself rallied her about her squire.
    »When were you drunk last?« was Mrs. Mel's address to Dandy, as he stood
waiting for orders.
    He replied to it in an altogether injured way:
    »There, now; you've been and called me away from my dinner to ask me that.
Why, when I had the last chance, to be sure.«
    »And you were at dinner in your new black suit?«
    »Well,« growled Dandy, »I borrowed Sally's apron. Seems I can't please ye.
