CHAPTER LXV.

CHAPTER LXV.An Interview with a Secretary of State.—Sir Francis Hartleton’s Difficulties.In orderto explain the cause of the singular interruption which occurred to the festive scene at the Chequers, we must glance at the proceedings of Sir Francis Hartleton for the preceding two days.We have before hinted at the very awkward position in which Sir Francis Hartleton was placed as a magistrate, having suspicions of the very strongest mature for suspecting some foul crime on the parts of Learmont, Andrew Britton, and the man Gray, of whose existence and identification with the third in the iniquitous proceeding he had only lately had good reason to believe, and yet such suspicions not assuming a sufficiently tangible form to enable him to found a charge upon him.At the same time, working as he was in the dark in trying to unravel a plot the intricacies of which seemed to him to increase instead of diminish as he dived into it, he never knew but what some false step of his—some effort of over-zeal might put the guilty parties not only on their guard of him particularly, but might set them to work to take more effectual steps than they had hitherto done for the suppression of every particle of tangible evidence against them, but might likewise induce deeper and blacker crimes than any they had yet attempted or committed for the preservation of secrets essential to their existence.Thus it was that although Sir Francis Hartleton had a strong perception of the main facts of the case he had in hand as regarded the guilt of Learmont, yet he felt that he could not be too cautious in what he said or did consequent thereon, until some circumstance should arise to give a direct clue to such a chain of evidence as should enable him at once to pounce upon them all, and insure their condemnation on irrefragible proofs.After his first interview with Albert Seyton, he had carefully made a narrative of all the circumstances connected with the affair, and as it will be recollected that by that interview, he was enabled to place together the names of Gray, Britton, and Learmont, in such a manner as to be certain that they were then, or had been, engaged in some great act of villany together, he was in a much better situation for arriving at a correct conclusion with regard to the various circumstances that came crowding upon his recollection.That some crime, most probably a murder, had been committed so many years ago when he, a young man, having more passion and impetuosity than discretion, resided in the village of Learmont on the night of the fire at the Old Smithy, he never entertained a doubt, and the probability that had he been a private individual and not an open enemy as it were of Learmont’s, he would have made some effort of perhaps a hazardous and illegal nature to obtain satisfaction on the affair.Sir Francis, however, was one of those who felt deeply the responsibilities of the situation in which he was placed as one of the ministers of justice, and he would have considered himself as quite unfit for so onerous an office had he acted from impulse instead of reflection in the prosecution of evil-doers. Thus, although ferretting the while, he waited until something should occur to point him a clear and consistent path in the investigation.His own suspicions were simply these. That Learmont had, by the assistance of the savage smith and the man who had rushed from the burning house with the child, committed some great crime for the sake either of stilling for ever some evidence of preceding criminality, or for some then present gains or pecuniary advantage, and hence Andrew Britton’s constant visits to Learmont were for probable claims upon his purse.That Jacob Gray was the man who had so rushed from the burning smithy, and that Ada was the child he had in his arms, Sir Francis, after what was related to him by Albert Seyton, felt almost assured of, and that both Gray and Britton were now preying upon Learmont, he felt convinced.All this, however, did not amount to much, and although greatly strengthening his own previous suspicions of foul play somewhere, afforded him no information as a magistrate. He could make no specific charge against Learmont. He had nothing to say to Britton, and Gray he had never been able to catch hold of, or he would have made an attempt to possess himself of the papers addressed to him, which he thought more than probably contained ample information.He was likewise moved strongly by the picture Albert Seyton had drawn of the persecutions endured by Ada, and setting apart all other considerations, he was most anxious to rescue her from the ills by which she was surrounded.Thus he wanted to discover two things principally. The one was what crime had been committed at the Old Smithy; and the other was, presuming Ada to be the child seen on that memorable occasion—who was she?To neither of these questions could he give himself a rational answer, and he was therefore forced to endeavour to comfort himself in the affair by setting a watch over Britton, another on Learmont, and making what exertions he could himself to ferret out the abode of Jacob Gray, without exciting the suspicions of Learmont.Several times the thought of an active search in the ruins of the Old Smithy at Learmont had suggested itself to his mind, but had been rejected upon the conviction that such a proceeding would be very public, and could not be undertaken by him as a magistrate, without some valid previous excuse.On the day, however, that he considered himself so fortunate as to have unearthed Jacob Gray, and to have him all but in his grasp, Sir Francis Hartleton resolved to bring affairs to some sort of crisis, and adopt reluctantly the only plan that presented itself to him, of securing the safety of Ada and the punishment of two out of three criminals, and that was to arrest Britton on that day, and, confronting him with Gray, induce a clear confession from one or the other of them, under a promise of relief from capital punishment.He, acting upon this feeling, procured ample assistance, and previous to starting for Gray’s house in the marshes of Battersea, he instructed one of his experienced officers to make sure of the rapture of Britton before night.His disappointment at Forest’s house we are aware of, and immediately upon his return, he was careful to countermand the order for Britton’s arrest. This countermand, however, was given to an officer who was seriously hurt in a common street affray before he could communicate his message to him who had the particular charge to capture the smith. Hence it arose that Sir Francis Hartleton was not aware that measures were taking to apprehend Britton, until it was almost too late to prevent it. He, nevertheless, made the attempt, and was as we have seen, just in time personally to stop the arrest, for it was he himself who cried “No!” in the parlour of the Chequers, being this time effectually disguised from the observation of Britton.Sir Francis then immediately returned to his own house, where he had not long been, when he heard rapidly, one after the other, of the two astounding events of the fire at the lone house by Battersea, and the denunciation of a man, by a young and beautiful girl, near Charing Cross, as a murderer.The thought immediately flashed across his mind that this man must be Jacob Gray, and his accuser the persecuted Ada. A very short time, as we are aware, convinced him that his suspicions were well-founded, and his main cause of anxiety being removed, he now resolved to lend all his energies to discover who Ada was, and bring home the crimes of Learmont and his associates to them.The whole affair had now assumed so new and troublesome an aspect, that Sir Francis Hartleton thought it necessary to apply to the Secretary of State for sanction to the proceedings he might wish to adopt.His wish was that the pursuit after Jacob Gray might not be active, but that he should be rather left alone for a time, under a strict surveillance, to see what he would do, and how far he might commit his associates by visits and communication with them. He likewise wished the case of Andrew Britton to be entirely left in his hands, for the violent proceedings of the savage smith had begun to excite the attention of others of the local authorities, and he, Sir Francis Hartleton, was fearful that some imprudent step might be taken by some other magistrate concerning Britton and his mysterious wealth, which might alarm Learmont before he wished him to be at all alarmed.With these views and feelings, Sir Francis Hartleton repaired to the Secretary of State, with whom he had an immediate interview, and to whom he carefully detailed all the circumstances which were within his knowledge, concerning Ada and her fortunes, from the night of the fire at the Old Smithy at Learmont, to the time when she had taken refuge at his house, concluding by saying,—“Sir, I have, from a record of all the circumstances, the strongest reason to believe that this young girl is the same, who, when an infant, was carried from the burning ruins by the blood-stained shrieking man, but still I have no proof; I believe that Jacob Gray is that man, but still I have no proof; I believe that a murder was committed that night at the smithy, but still I have no proof; and moreover, by Gray’s subsequent crimes, we are now entirely cut off from offering him any merciful consideration for a full and free confession of the whole of the circumstances, and Britton, I fear, is not the man to confess at all; if he were, he is most probably awfully and deeply implicated. Therefore, what I wish of you, sir, is authority to stop proceedings against Gray, for the present, and to leave him at large until I procure some more tangible information concerning all these mysteries, always promising that I can arrest him at any time I please.”“Upon my word,” said the secretary, scratching his chin, “it’s a very disagreeable and awkward affair. This Learmont has promised us no less than seven votes in the Commons.”“Has he, sir?”“Yes, and you see—really seven votes—are—are—in point of fact, seven votes.”“He procures them of course by nominating members of his properties?”“Yes, of course.”“Then, sir, should all that property be wrested from him by a conviction for felony, those votes and qualifications must revert to the crown.”“Upon my word that’s true; I dare say he’s a very great rogue; don’t make a disturbance for nothing, Sir Francis, but you can take the authority you require. Of course, the votes are more useful to us in our hands than coming through his; but the family may not be extinct.”“Still, sir, we cannot smother this affair; justice must be done.”“Of course, I know all that; the majesty of justice must be upheld; only, you see, seven votes are something, and I only mentioned how awkward it is—I may say confoundedly awkward—for we have scarcely a majority: but, however, you may take your authority, Sir Francis.”

An Interview with a Secretary of State.—Sir Francis Hartleton’s Difficulties.

In orderto explain the cause of the singular interruption which occurred to the festive scene at the Chequers, we must glance at the proceedings of Sir Francis Hartleton for the preceding two days.

We have before hinted at the very awkward position in which Sir Francis Hartleton was placed as a magistrate, having suspicions of the very strongest mature for suspecting some foul crime on the parts of Learmont, Andrew Britton, and the man Gray, of whose existence and identification with the third in the iniquitous proceeding he had only lately had good reason to believe, and yet such suspicions not assuming a sufficiently tangible form to enable him to found a charge upon him.

At the same time, working as he was in the dark in trying to unravel a plot the intricacies of which seemed to him to increase instead of diminish as he dived into it, he never knew but what some false step of his—some effort of over-zeal might put the guilty parties not only on their guard of him particularly, but might set them to work to take more effectual steps than they had hitherto done for the suppression of every particle of tangible evidence against them, but might likewise induce deeper and blacker crimes than any they had yet attempted or committed for the preservation of secrets essential to their existence.

Thus it was that although Sir Francis Hartleton had a strong perception of the main facts of the case he had in hand as regarded the guilt of Learmont, yet he felt that he could not be too cautious in what he said or did consequent thereon, until some circumstance should arise to give a direct clue to such a chain of evidence as should enable him at once to pounce upon them all, and insure their condemnation on irrefragible proofs.

After his first interview with Albert Seyton, he had carefully made a narrative of all the circumstances connected with the affair, and as it will be recollected that by that interview, he was enabled to place together the names of Gray, Britton, and Learmont, in such a manner as to be certain that they were then, or had been, engaged in some great act of villany together, he was in a much better situation for arriving at a correct conclusion with regard to the various circumstances that came crowding upon his recollection.

That some crime, most probably a murder, had been committed so many years ago when he, a young man, having more passion and impetuosity than discretion, resided in the village of Learmont on the night of the fire at the Old Smithy, he never entertained a doubt, and the probability that had he been a private individual and not an open enemy as it were of Learmont’s, he would have made some effort of perhaps a hazardous and illegal nature to obtain satisfaction on the affair.

Sir Francis, however, was one of those who felt deeply the responsibilities of the situation in which he was placed as one of the ministers of justice, and he would have considered himself as quite unfit for so onerous an office had he acted from impulse instead of reflection in the prosecution of evil-doers. Thus, although ferretting the while, he waited until something should occur to point him a clear and consistent path in the investigation.

His own suspicions were simply these. That Learmont had, by the assistance of the savage smith and the man who had rushed from the burning house with the child, committed some great crime for the sake either of stilling for ever some evidence of preceding criminality, or for some then present gains or pecuniary advantage, and hence Andrew Britton’s constant visits to Learmont were for probable claims upon his purse.

That Jacob Gray was the man who had so rushed from the burning smithy, and that Ada was the child he had in his arms, Sir Francis, after what was related to him by Albert Seyton, felt almost assured of, and that both Gray and Britton were now preying upon Learmont, he felt convinced.

All this, however, did not amount to much, and although greatly strengthening his own previous suspicions of foul play somewhere, afforded him no information as a magistrate. He could make no specific charge against Learmont. He had nothing to say to Britton, and Gray he had never been able to catch hold of, or he would have made an attempt to possess himself of the papers addressed to him, which he thought more than probably contained ample information.

He was likewise moved strongly by the picture Albert Seyton had drawn of the persecutions endured by Ada, and setting apart all other considerations, he was most anxious to rescue her from the ills by which she was surrounded.

Thus he wanted to discover two things principally. The one was what crime had been committed at the Old Smithy; and the other was, presuming Ada to be the child seen on that memorable occasion—who was she?

To neither of these questions could he give himself a rational answer, and he was therefore forced to endeavour to comfort himself in the affair by setting a watch over Britton, another on Learmont, and making what exertions he could himself to ferret out the abode of Jacob Gray, without exciting the suspicions of Learmont.

Several times the thought of an active search in the ruins of the Old Smithy at Learmont had suggested itself to his mind, but had been rejected upon the conviction that such a proceeding would be very public, and could not be undertaken by him as a magistrate, without some valid previous excuse.

On the day, however, that he considered himself so fortunate as to have unearthed Jacob Gray, and to have him all but in his grasp, Sir Francis Hartleton resolved to bring affairs to some sort of crisis, and adopt reluctantly the only plan that presented itself to him, of securing the safety of Ada and the punishment of two out of three criminals, and that was to arrest Britton on that day, and, confronting him with Gray, induce a clear confession from one or the other of them, under a promise of relief from capital punishment.

He, acting upon this feeling, procured ample assistance, and previous to starting for Gray’s house in the marshes of Battersea, he instructed one of his experienced officers to make sure of the rapture of Britton before night.

His disappointment at Forest’s house we are aware of, and immediately upon his return, he was careful to countermand the order for Britton’s arrest. This countermand, however, was given to an officer who was seriously hurt in a common street affray before he could communicate his message to him who had the particular charge to capture the smith. Hence it arose that Sir Francis Hartleton was not aware that measures were taking to apprehend Britton, until it was almost too late to prevent it. He, nevertheless, made the attempt, and was as we have seen, just in time personally to stop the arrest, for it was he himself who cried “No!” in the parlour of the Chequers, being this time effectually disguised from the observation of Britton.

Sir Francis then immediately returned to his own house, where he had not long been, when he heard rapidly, one after the other, of the two astounding events of the fire at the lone house by Battersea, and the denunciation of a man, by a young and beautiful girl, near Charing Cross, as a murderer.

The thought immediately flashed across his mind that this man must be Jacob Gray, and his accuser the persecuted Ada. A very short time, as we are aware, convinced him that his suspicions were well-founded, and his main cause of anxiety being removed, he now resolved to lend all his energies to discover who Ada was, and bring home the crimes of Learmont and his associates to them.

The whole affair had now assumed so new and troublesome an aspect, that Sir Francis Hartleton thought it necessary to apply to the Secretary of State for sanction to the proceedings he might wish to adopt.

His wish was that the pursuit after Jacob Gray might not be active, but that he should be rather left alone for a time, under a strict surveillance, to see what he would do, and how far he might commit his associates by visits and communication with them. He likewise wished the case of Andrew Britton to be entirely left in his hands, for the violent proceedings of the savage smith had begun to excite the attention of others of the local authorities, and he, Sir Francis Hartleton, was fearful that some imprudent step might be taken by some other magistrate concerning Britton and his mysterious wealth, which might alarm Learmont before he wished him to be at all alarmed.

With these views and feelings, Sir Francis Hartleton repaired to the Secretary of State, with whom he had an immediate interview, and to whom he carefully detailed all the circumstances which were within his knowledge, concerning Ada and her fortunes, from the night of the fire at the Old Smithy at Learmont, to the time when she had taken refuge at his house, concluding by saying,—

“Sir, I have, from a record of all the circumstances, the strongest reason to believe that this young girl is the same, who, when an infant, was carried from the burning ruins by the blood-stained shrieking man, but still I have no proof; I believe that Jacob Gray is that man, but still I have no proof; I believe that a murder was committed that night at the smithy, but still I have no proof; and moreover, by Gray’s subsequent crimes, we are now entirely cut off from offering him any merciful consideration for a full and free confession of the whole of the circumstances, and Britton, I fear, is not the man to confess at all; if he were, he is most probably awfully and deeply implicated. Therefore, what I wish of you, sir, is authority to stop proceedings against Gray, for the present, and to leave him at large until I procure some more tangible information concerning all these mysteries, always promising that I can arrest him at any time I please.”

“Upon my word,” said the secretary, scratching his chin, “it’s a very disagreeable and awkward affair. This Learmont has promised us no less than seven votes in the Commons.”

“Has he, sir?”

“Yes, and you see—really seven votes—are—are—in point of fact, seven votes.”

“He procures them of course by nominating members of his properties?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then, sir, should all that property be wrested from him by a conviction for felony, those votes and qualifications must revert to the crown.”

“Upon my word that’s true; I dare say he’s a very great rogue; don’t make a disturbance for nothing, Sir Francis, but you can take the authority you require. Of course, the votes are more useful to us in our hands than coming through his; but the family may not be extinct.”

“Still, sir, we cannot smother this affair; justice must be done.”

“Of course, I know all that; the majesty of justice must be upheld; only, you see, seven votes are something, and I only mentioned how awkward it is—I may say confoundedly awkward—for we have scarcely a majority: but, however, you may take your authority, Sir Francis.”

CHAPTER LXVI.Gray’s Visit to Learmont.—The Disappointment.—A Week of Terror.—The Street Newsvender.Eveningwas casting its broad shadows across the Hampstead fields, and the air was varied with the songs of thousands of birds retiring to roost, when Jacob Gray with pain and difficulty began his descent from the tree which had afforded him so hazardous and painful a refuge for so many hours.Stiffened and benumbed as he was in every limb, he found it no easy matter to crawl down from his high perch; and it was only after many minutes of uneasiness and terror that he at last reached the ground; then he leaned against the trunk of the tree, and with dizzy eyes and a bewildered brain looked anxiously around him. A death-like silence reigned around, broken by nothing but the twittering of the sparrows, and the occasional chirp of a grasshopper. He put his hand up to his wounded face, but the blood had ceased to flow, and he only now felt a heavy, deadening sensation about the region of his wounds. After a time then, he ventured to leave the tree, and with a slow, uncertain and tottering step he walked towards the pond.The direful pangs of hunger, which in his recumbent position in the tree had not greatly afflicted him, now began to make themselves felt in earnest, and Jacob Gray groaned in his agony.“Oh,” he cried, “for a crust—the hardest morsel that ever a dainty beggar cast from him as unworthy of his wallet—I shall die of hunger ere I reach Westminster!”Still he tottered on towards the pond, and when he reached its grassy brink, he lay down as he had done before, and drank largely at the clear water.Then he bathed his face, and washed away partially the stains of blood that had hardened into coagulated masses upon his cheeks; and he was again somewhat refreshed, although still terribly faint from want of sustenance.To abate, if possible, the aching, racking pains in all his limbs, he strove to increase his rate of walking, but that expedient, by increasing the languid circulation of his half-thickened blood, caused his wounds from the shot to burst out bleeding afresh, and the horrible faintness that came over him for want of food made him reel along like a drunken man.It might have been the lingering effects of the opiate that had been so freely administered to him, or it might be his huge draughts of water upon an empty stomach, but, from whatever cause it arose, a deadly sickness came over him just as he neared some cottages at the base of the hill, leading to what is now a pretty collection of suburban cottages, which was then a swampy hollow, with a few miserable huts, occupied by people who sold bundles of dry sticks for firewood ostensibly, but who were in reality had characters, not averse to anything, so that it promised the smallest gain.Jacob Gray held with a shivering, nervous grasp by one of the palings which divided the patch of garden ground belonging to one of these hovels from the waste common, and was dreadfully sick—sick until what little strength had been left to him was frustrated, and he fell, a breathing, but scarcely animate mass, by the side of the palings.His situation was an unfavourable one for attracting the attention of any person who might be in the hut, for the palings hid him, and he had not strength, had he the inclination, to cry for help. How long he remained there he knew not, but it was quite dark, when, the awful sickness having subsided, he made an effort to rise again. With much difficulty he gained his feet, and the moment he did, the horrible feeling of hunger—maddening hunger—came across him with twice its former intensity of pain.“I—I can go no further,” he gasped. “I shall die on the road side if I attempt to reach London from here with—without food, I—I cannot—cannot.”He staggered along the palings till he came to a wide gate which had no fastening, and there, with a feeling of desperation, he crawled through, determined to risk all by craving charity of the cottagers.As he went on by the inner-side of the wide palings, which he was obliged to cling to for support, he struck against some projection which threw him down and very much bruised his knee. As he lay there he put up his hands, to feel what it was, and by the shape of the projection, as well as dipping his hand into its contents, he thought in a moment what it was, and he rose with alacrity to eat greedily from a pig-trough the loathsome remainder of the last meal that had been given to the swine.What will hunger not induce persons to do? Jacob Gray thought he had never so much enjoyed a meal in his life, and when he had devoured the remnants of the mash in the trough, he sat down by the palings, and in about half an hour was sufficiently recovered to make his project of proceeding to the house of Learmont at Westminster not so wild and impracticable.The night was now fairly set in, and there was not much chance of Gray’s ragged, wounded, and emaciated appearance attracting the notice of any one along the dimly lighted road from Hampstead to London.Although his strength was now a little restored, he still felt very ill at every step of his progress, and his only hope became entirely founded upon the chance of finding Learmont within, and inducing in him a belief that his (Gray’s) strange and disordered appearance arose merely from some accident on his road, and not from any circumstances which had put it out of his power to be half so noxious and dangerous as he had been.“Oh,” he thought, “if when I see Learmont he did not know how harmless to him I am without Ada—without a written scrap to leave behind me, to point the finger of suspicion against him—how his fingers would close upon my throat and what music to his ears would be my death rattle. But I must deceive him—I must beard him still—still defy—still taunt him.”It was some hours before Jacob Gray, travelling at the unsteady pace he did, contrived to reach the first houses in London; and when he did so, what would he had not given for but one of the pieces of bright gold he had been so long hoarding, and of which he had been robbed so speedily, in order that he might, ere he adventured to see Learmont, take some means of improving his appearance, and nourishing his wearied frame, in order that a suspicion might not arise in the breast of the crafty squire that all was not as usual with him.Then there was another view of his condition, that when it occurred to his mind, brought a tumult of distracting thoughts into the brain of Jacob Gray; and that view was based upon the uncertainty that beset him with regard to Ada’s actions since denouncing him at Whitehall. Had she gone to Sir Francis Hartleton’s, and so far added to his suspicions of Learmont, as to have induced some step against the squire; or, had she made her name and story so public that the whole of Westminster had rung with it, coupled with the fact, that it was he, Jacob Gray, who had been hunted up the Strand; and that Learmont, residing as he did, within almost a stone’s throw of the whole occurrence, heard sufficient to let him know how innoxious Jacob Gray now probably was in his death, and how impolitic it had now become to let him live again to surround himself with those precautions which had been so suddenly and so strangely torn from him in the course of a few short hours.Whenever all this occurred to Jacob Gray, his steps faltered, and the perspiration of mortal fear broke out upon his brow, for he knew not but that he was hurrying to his destruction, and making powerful efforts to be earlier at the place in which he was to be sacrificed.Still, what other hope had that miserable guilty man. Learmont alone had the power to aid him, Learmont alone held him in dread, and might still fancy he could even in death leave a sting behind him which might topple him from his haughty height of power, and dissipate to the winds of Heaven all his dreams of wild ambition.“Yes, yes,” he muttered, “I must run this awful risk—I must go to Learmont and procure enough gold for my present necessaries, and then concoct some scheme for the dark future.”With a face as pale as monumental marble, save where a few livid marks and streaks of blood showed where he had been wounded, Jacob Gray now turned into the dense mass of houses about St. Giles’s, for the purpose of wending his way as quietly and as far from the public thoroughfares as possible towards Charing-cross.Skulking along by dark places, and shunning anywhere that presented a light aspect, he pursued his route towards the upper end of St. Martin’s lane. A crowd was there collected sufficiently dense to stop his progress, and he dare not, like a man of clear conscience and open heart, push his way through the motley assemblage. In vain he tried to get up one of the side streets which would not take him far out of his way. He had no recourse but to go back some hundred yards or more, or endeavour to get through the mass of persons, the cause of whose assembling he knew not nor cared, so that they would let him pass unobstructed and unquestioned.As he neared, in his efforts to pass, the centre of the throng of persons, he found that they were collected around a man who was, in the loud conventional voice of street singers and proclaimers of news, attracting his auditors by some narrative of deep interest, apparently. In another moment, Gray nearly lost all power of motion as he heard these words:—“Here, my masters, you have a full account with all the particulars of the most horrid murder in the Strand of Mr. Vaughan, together with a copy of verses made on the occasion, and addressed to all young persons, warning them against dice, cards, drink, and Sabbath breaking.”The man then in a loud nasal voice, commenced his verses.Jacob Gray only paused to hear the first line, which consisted of an appeal to young mothers nursing tender babes, and then unable any longer to remain in the throng, he pushed his way through them like a madman, and despite the kicks and cuffs he received, succeeded in passing on and arriving nearly breathless, heated, and alarmed at Charing-cross.

Gray’s Visit to Learmont.—The Disappointment.—A Week of Terror.—The Street Newsvender.

Eveningwas casting its broad shadows across the Hampstead fields, and the air was varied with the songs of thousands of birds retiring to roost, when Jacob Gray with pain and difficulty began his descent from the tree which had afforded him so hazardous and painful a refuge for so many hours.

Stiffened and benumbed as he was in every limb, he found it no easy matter to crawl down from his high perch; and it was only after many minutes of uneasiness and terror that he at last reached the ground; then he leaned against the trunk of the tree, and with dizzy eyes and a bewildered brain looked anxiously around him. A death-like silence reigned around, broken by nothing but the twittering of the sparrows, and the occasional chirp of a grasshopper. He put his hand up to his wounded face, but the blood had ceased to flow, and he only now felt a heavy, deadening sensation about the region of his wounds. After a time then, he ventured to leave the tree, and with a slow, uncertain and tottering step he walked towards the pond.

The direful pangs of hunger, which in his recumbent position in the tree had not greatly afflicted him, now began to make themselves felt in earnest, and Jacob Gray groaned in his agony.

“Oh,” he cried, “for a crust—the hardest morsel that ever a dainty beggar cast from him as unworthy of his wallet—I shall die of hunger ere I reach Westminster!”

Still he tottered on towards the pond, and when he reached its grassy brink, he lay down as he had done before, and drank largely at the clear water.

Then he bathed his face, and washed away partially the stains of blood that had hardened into coagulated masses upon his cheeks; and he was again somewhat refreshed, although still terribly faint from want of sustenance.

To abate, if possible, the aching, racking pains in all his limbs, he strove to increase his rate of walking, but that expedient, by increasing the languid circulation of his half-thickened blood, caused his wounds from the shot to burst out bleeding afresh, and the horrible faintness that came over him for want of food made him reel along like a drunken man.

It might have been the lingering effects of the opiate that had been so freely administered to him, or it might be his huge draughts of water upon an empty stomach, but, from whatever cause it arose, a deadly sickness came over him just as he neared some cottages at the base of the hill, leading to what is now a pretty collection of suburban cottages, which was then a swampy hollow, with a few miserable huts, occupied by people who sold bundles of dry sticks for firewood ostensibly, but who were in reality had characters, not averse to anything, so that it promised the smallest gain.

Jacob Gray held with a shivering, nervous grasp by one of the palings which divided the patch of garden ground belonging to one of these hovels from the waste common, and was dreadfully sick—sick until what little strength had been left to him was frustrated, and he fell, a breathing, but scarcely animate mass, by the side of the palings.

His situation was an unfavourable one for attracting the attention of any person who might be in the hut, for the palings hid him, and he had not strength, had he the inclination, to cry for help. How long he remained there he knew not, but it was quite dark, when, the awful sickness having subsided, he made an effort to rise again. With much difficulty he gained his feet, and the moment he did, the horrible feeling of hunger—maddening hunger—came across him with twice its former intensity of pain.

“I—I can go no further,” he gasped. “I shall die on the road side if I attempt to reach London from here with—without food, I—I cannot—cannot.”

He staggered along the palings till he came to a wide gate which had no fastening, and there, with a feeling of desperation, he crawled through, determined to risk all by craving charity of the cottagers.

As he went on by the inner-side of the wide palings, which he was obliged to cling to for support, he struck against some projection which threw him down and very much bruised his knee. As he lay there he put up his hands, to feel what it was, and by the shape of the projection, as well as dipping his hand into its contents, he thought in a moment what it was, and he rose with alacrity to eat greedily from a pig-trough the loathsome remainder of the last meal that had been given to the swine.

What will hunger not induce persons to do? Jacob Gray thought he had never so much enjoyed a meal in his life, and when he had devoured the remnants of the mash in the trough, he sat down by the palings, and in about half an hour was sufficiently recovered to make his project of proceeding to the house of Learmont at Westminster not so wild and impracticable.

The night was now fairly set in, and there was not much chance of Gray’s ragged, wounded, and emaciated appearance attracting the notice of any one along the dimly lighted road from Hampstead to London.

Although his strength was now a little restored, he still felt very ill at every step of his progress, and his only hope became entirely founded upon the chance of finding Learmont within, and inducing in him a belief that his (Gray’s) strange and disordered appearance arose merely from some accident on his road, and not from any circumstances which had put it out of his power to be half so noxious and dangerous as he had been.

“Oh,” he thought, “if when I see Learmont he did not know how harmless to him I am without Ada—without a written scrap to leave behind me, to point the finger of suspicion against him—how his fingers would close upon my throat and what music to his ears would be my death rattle. But I must deceive him—I must beard him still—still defy—still taunt him.”

It was some hours before Jacob Gray, travelling at the unsteady pace he did, contrived to reach the first houses in London; and when he did so, what would he had not given for but one of the pieces of bright gold he had been so long hoarding, and of which he had been robbed so speedily, in order that he might, ere he adventured to see Learmont, take some means of improving his appearance, and nourishing his wearied frame, in order that a suspicion might not arise in the breast of the crafty squire that all was not as usual with him.

Then there was another view of his condition, that when it occurred to his mind, brought a tumult of distracting thoughts into the brain of Jacob Gray; and that view was based upon the uncertainty that beset him with regard to Ada’s actions since denouncing him at Whitehall. Had she gone to Sir Francis Hartleton’s, and so far added to his suspicions of Learmont, as to have induced some step against the squire; or, had she made her name and story so public that the whole of Westminster had rung with it, coupled with the fact, that it was he, Jacob Gray, who had been hunted up the Strand; and that Learmont, residing as he did, within almost a stone’s throw of the whole occurrence, heard sufficient to let him know how innoxious Jacob Gray now probably was in his death, and how impolitic it had now become to let him live again to surround himself with those precautions which had been so suddenly and so strangely torn from him in the course of a few short hours.

Whenever all this occurred to Jacob Gray, his steps faltered, and the perspiration of mortal fear broke out upon his brow, for he knew not but that he was hurrying to his destruction, and making powerful efforts to be earlier at the place in which he was to be sacrificed.

Still, what other hope had that miserable guilty man. Learmont alone had the power to aid him, Learmont alone held him in dread, and might still fancy he could even in death leave a sting behind him which might topple him from his haughty height of power, and dissipate to the winds of Heaven all his dreams of wild ambition.

“Yes, yes,” he muttered, “I must run this awful risk—I must go to Learmont and procure enough gold for my present necessaries, and then concoct some scheme for the dark future.”

With a face as pale as monumental marble, save where a few livid marks and streaks of blood showed where he had been wounded, Jacob Gray now turned into the dense mass of houses about St. Giles’s, for the purpose of wending his way as quietly and as far from the public thoroughfares as possible towards Charing-cross.

Skulking along by dark places, and shunning anywhere that presented a light aspect, he pursued his route towards the upper end of St. Martin’s lane. A crowd was there collected sufficiently dense to stop his progress, and he dare not, like a man of clear conscience and open heart, push his way through the motley assemblage. In vain he tried to get up one of the side streets which would not take him far out of his way. He had no recourse but to go back some hundred yards or more, or endeavour to get through the mass of persons, the cause of whose assembling he knew not nor cared, so that they would let him pass unobstructed and unquestioned.

As he neared, in his efforts to pass, the centre of the throng of persons, he found that they were collected around a man who was, in the loud conventional voice of street singers and proclaimers of news, attracting his auditors by some narrative of deep interest, apparently. In another moment, Gray nearly lost all power of motion as he heard these words:—

“Here, my masters, you have a full account with all the particulars of the most horrid murder in the Strand of Mr. Vaughan, together with a copy of verses made on the occasion, and addressed to all young persons, warning them against dice, cards, drink, and Sabbath breaking.”

The man then in a loud nasal voice, commenced his verses.

Jacob Gray only paused to hear the first line, which consisted of an appeal to young mothers nursing tender babes, and then unable any longer to remain in the throng, he pushed his way through them like a madman, and despite the kicks and cuffs he received, succeeded in passing on and arriving nearly breathless, heated, and alarmed at Charing-cross.

CHAPTER LXVII.The Disappointment.—The Last Resource.—A Strange Meeting.—The Confession.The clockswere striking ten as Jacob Gray came within sight of Learmont’s house, and then so strongly did all his former fears regarding the possible results of his interview with the squire came across him, that it was many minutes before he could summon courage to ascend the steps of the mansion. There was, however, no other course; and, although his fears were of a nature rather to be increased than diminished, by the feverish nature of his reflection, he reluctantly at length slunk up the steps and knocked at the door, for at that hour it was always closed.The few moments of suspense till the door was opened were agonising to Jacob Gray in the extreme, and all his former faintness, and some of exhaustion came over him as the ponderous portal opened, and a servant stood in the gap and demanded his business.“You know me?” said Gray.The man looked at him doubtingly, for what with his wounds, and the pain, misery, and anxiety, he had gone through, he was sufficiently altered to make his recognition doubtful for a moment, even to those who had seen him often. A second look, however, let the servant know that he had seen him before as one of his master’s very mysterious visitors, and he replied—“Yes, sir, I do know you.”“Tell your master I am here.”“He is not within.”“Not within,”“No, sir. We do not expect him home to-night; he has gone to a party at the Earl of Harrowdon’s, in the Palace-yard.”Gray stood for a moment leaning for support against the door-post—then by a strong effort he spoke—“Thank you—I—I will call to-morrow,” and he descended the steps stupified and bewildered by the cross accidents that seemed to conspire against him.He heard the door closed behind him, and he walked on mechanically for about a hundred yards, when he sat down upon the step of a door, and leaning his face upon his hands, he nearly gave himself up to despair.“What could he do?—What resource was open to him?—Where could he go for food and shelter? A starving fugitive!—With a price set upon his capture. Could there be yet a degree of horror, and misery beyond what he now endured?”“Yes—yes,” he suddenly said, “I—I can beg. Till to-morrow I can beg a few pence to save me from absolute starvation; but, yet that is a fearful risk, for by so doing I shall challenge the attention of the passers by, instead of evading it. I cannot starve; though I must beg—if it be but a few pence to keep me alive until the morning.”Jacob Gray’s appearance was certainly very much in favour of any tale of distress he might relate for the purpose of moving the charitable to pity and benevolence. A more miserable and woebegone wretch could scarcely have been found within the bills of mortality.The first person upon whom Jacob Gray made an attempt in the begging way was a man who was slowly sauntering past, enveloped in a rich and handsome coat, but the moment he heard Gray say,—“I am starving,” he drew his cloak closer around him, as if by so doing he shut out his appeal to humanity, and hurried on at a rapid pace.Gray had not been begging long enough to have learnt humility, and the bitter curses he muttered after the man with the cloak would have made his hair stand on end, had he have heard them.As he was then upon the point of rising from the step, and crawling to some more public thoroughfare, in which he might have a more extended sphere of operation, a strange wild noise smote his ears, and he drew back into the shadow of the doorway with a feeling of alarm.The sound seemed to approach from the further end of the street, and now he could distinguish a voice addressing some one in imploring tones, which were replied to by a harsh voice. The words spoken Gray could not distinguish, but a strange presentiment came over him that he was somehow connected with the persons approaching, or the subject matter of their discourse.Back—back—he shrunk into the doorway, until he was completely hidden in the shadow of the house.The disputants rapidly approached, and then he could hear the rougher voice exclaim,—“There is no harm meant you. You are a foolish woman. I tell you, over and over again, that you are wanted for your own good.”“Murderer, away, away!” cried a voice that struck to the heart of Jacob Gray, for he knew it to be the woman he had seen at the public-house by Vauxhall, when he ran so narrow a chance of capture by Sir Francis Hartleton.“Will you come quietly?” cried the man.“No—no—not with you,” cried Maud, “not with you. Look at your hands, man, are they not dyed deeply with blood? Ha! Ha! Ha! You shrink now. No—no—Maud will not go with you; but I will tell you a secret. Listen—do you know Andrew Britton, the savage smith?”“No, nor don’t want,” said the man. “Come now, listen to reason, Sir Francis Hartleton wants to see you particularly.”“Aye, aye!” said Maud, “that’s a fine device. Tell me where the child is, will you?”“Come now,—it ain’t far,” said the man. “Here have I been hunting all over London for you nearly a day and half now, and when I find you, you won’t come. I tell you Sir Francis means to do something for you.”“Can he restore the dead?”“Not exactly.”“Ah! Ah! Ah! He can—he can. So now I know you are no messenger of his. You come from Andrew Britton,—why? To kill me; but it is of no use—of no use, I tell you. You, and he, and everybody know well that he is to die before I do.”Maud now laid hold of the rails of the house and resolutely refused to move. The man spoke in a perplexed tone as he said,—“Come—come now, don’t be foolish. I must get some help to take you, whether you like it or not, if you won’t come now quietly.”“Beware,” said Maud.The man gave a start, as the poor creature showed him the glittering blade of a knife she had concealed in her bosom. There was a pause of a few minutes, and then Gray heard the man say,—“Very well. Just as you like, I always look after number one first, and I’ll be hanged if I have anything more to do with you.”Maud laughed hysterically as she sat down upon the step, and still kept a clutch upon the iron rail.“Foiled! Foiled!” she exclaimed. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Tell him it is in vain. He may hunt me, but it is written in the book of the Eternal, that Britton, the savage smith of Learmont, is to die before I. Go—go. Ha! Ha! Ha! You will never wash the blood stains out. Never—never—never!”The man made no answer, but walked away at a very rapid pace, no doubt for the purpose of procuring some assistance; for he was an officer who had been ordered by Sir Francis Hartleton to seek for the poor deserted creature, and bring her to him, when he would take measures for placing her in some asylum where she would be free from any violence on the part of Andrew Britton, should he accidentally meet with her.Maud continued to mutter in a low tone after the man had left, but Gray could not closely distinguish what she said, and he remained for some time perfectly quiet, resolving in his mind what he should do. As he communed with himself the deadly spirit of revenge against all whom he imagined to be in any way accessary to producing his present destitute state came over him, and he ground his teeth as he muttered,—“I could kill them all. I could exult in their agonies. I will, I must have revenge. This hag was the cursed cause of all the horrors I have been compelled to wade through, and shall I now suffer her to escape, now that she is in my power?”He cast a rapid glance up and down the street as he added,—“And no one by. Oh? That I had some weapon that silently and surely would do its work, and leave her here a corpse. She shall be one offered on the altar of my revenge! I must, I will work the destruction of them all, and she will be the—the first.”A deathly languor came over Jacob Gray even as he spoke, and he groaned audibly.Maud started at the sound, and turning she fixed her eyes upon his dusky form as it lay hid in the shadow of the doorway, from which, for more than a minute his extreme weakness would not permit him to move.“What man are you?” cried Maud. “You groan—wherefore? Have you lost all you loved?”“I have,” said Gray, with a groan, as he thought of his money.Maud crept up the steps till she came close to him, and then laying her shrivelled hand upon his arm, she said,—“I know you now—I know you.”“Know me?” faltered Gray, making an effort to pass her on the steps.“Yes. Where, and how, and when we meet I shall soon think, but I know you.”Gray felt a little alarmed at this speech, and he replied,—“You are mistaken, I am poor and destitute. We have never meet before.”“Poor and destitute? Hast ever felt the pang of hunger as I have?”“I feel them now.”Maud opened a wallet she had with her, and took some broken victuals from it, which she laid before Gray, saying,—“Eat—eat—and I will think the while where I have met you.”He needed no second invitation, but devoured the not very tempting viands before him, with an eagerness that could leave no doubt of the truth of his statement concerning his hunger.Maud passed her hands several times across her brow as she said,—“I know you, yet I know you not. Did you ever hear of a murder?”“No,” said Gray.“Done with such a thing as this?”She half produced the knife as she spoke, and Gray immediately said with eagerness,—“Give me that!”Maud drew back, and fixed her wild eye upon him as she said,—“Are you a man of blood? Let me see your hands. Are they stained with innocent gore, or free from the damning pollution that begrimes the fool, and drags it shrieking to despair. Answer me man. Saw ye ever the Old Smithy?”“Give me the knife and I will tell you.”“Yes, the knife! He is eager for the knife, who knows its use. Answer me: saw ye the fire—yes, the fire—when was it? Yesternight?”“What fire?”“In a house where dwelt an angel, I knew ’twas that—Yes! Ha! Ha! Ha! And there was a body too that would not burn. There it lay black and cold, untouched amidst the charred fragments of the house. I—I have been there to look for the angel, but she has flown up to her native skies, with not a downy feather of her radiant wings touched by the gross element.”“You, you have been to the house?” stammered Gray.“I have! You knew it? It lies near sweet green fields, and the merry birds mock you as you go it. Listen, and I will tell you what I did. The early dawn was brightening, and old and young with jests and laughter, and mingling voices, went to see the ruins of the ancient house.”“And you went?”“I did. Then some bright spades and hatchets, and they dug for the body of a murdered man. Pile after pile of the blackened rubbish was removed, and then one said,—‘he must be burnt to a cinder,’ but I knew he would be found, no murdered body was ever yet all burnt. The murderer himself has often tried thus to dissipate in the ashes of his victim, all traces of his awful crime, but Heaven will not have it so.”Gray clutched to the railings for support as he said,—“Nonsense—I—I know better.”“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed Maud. “I cannot see well the working of your face, but your voice belies your words. The man was found.”“Well, well. It is nothing to me.”“They said he had been shot,” continued Maud, “and that he must have died in lingering agony. I saw them bring him forth—not a thread of his garments—not a hair of his head—was touched by those flames that had destroyed all else.”“Well—well,” said Gray, “I don’t want to hear more. Will you give me the knife?”Maud had kept her hand upon the handle of the weapon, and Gray had found no opportunity of taking her by surprise, or he would have made an endeavour to destroy the poor creature, upon whose head the chastening hand of Providence had fallen so heavily. A direct attack upon her he dared not make, for first of all he could not trust his present weak state to the chances of a struggle even with her, and secondly, such was not Jacob Gray’s way of doing things.“Will you give me the knife?” he repeated.“No!” said Maud. “I’m keeping it for Andrew Britton.”“Indeed?”“I am—I am.”“If I thought you would use it on Andrew Britton,” muttered Gray, “I would not take it from you for a hundred pounds.”“Listen—listen, I have not told you all,” said Maud.“All what?”“About the fire. You shall hear—all who went there from many motives, left the smoking mass before the sun was at its topmost height in Heaven—but I stayed.”“Why did you stay?”“I thought the angel might come to me, but she did not. I prayed for her to come near again, and show me her pale and beautiful face, but she did not. I wept, but she came not, and then I thought I might find something that should ever remind me of her. And I did—I did.”“You did?““Aye.”“What—what—found you? Tell me, woman.”“Twas very strange that I should find them there,” said Maud thoughtfully.“Find what?”“Where the murdered man had lain there was no trace of fire. The flames had burned round, but touched him not, there I found them.”“Woman, tell me what you found, or—”“Or what?” cried. Maud, her eyes flashing upon the cowardly Gray, who immediately shrunk back, saying,—“Nothing—I—want nothing. Only I am anxious to know what you found.”“You are? Well, well, I found some of these. Here is one.”As she spoke, she took from her breast a small torn scrap of paper and gazed at it attentively.In an instant Gray surmised the truth. In his attempt to get rid of his written confession while standing on the ladder, previous to the murder of Elias, he had dropped many pieces, and then in the exciting scenes that followed utterly forgotten them. Once indeed, while in the tree on Hampstead Heath, he remembered the circumstance, but then he immediately assumed that they had been burnt along with the house.He now trembled in every limb, as the thought came over him, that possibly the poor mad creature might have collected sufficient of the torn pieces to give Sir Francis Hartleton a tangible idea of the whole; and although he felt that, next thing to his life, was the repossession of those torn scraps, he was so overcome by the circumstance of their thus coming to light, that for a few moments he thought he should have fainted.Maud, meanwhile spread out the small crumpled pieces of paper in her hand, and commenced reading in a low muttering voice, “Andrew Britton”—“the temptation”—“a double murder”—“shrieking”—“the child”—“guilt—”“Ha! Ha! Brave words, brave words!” she cried. “Murder and guilt, and Andrew Britton’s name of course; where there is murder and guilt, there must be Andrew Britton.”Gray slowly prepared himself for action. He cast a wary eye around him, but no one was visible. Then he drew himself up to make a rush upon Maud, when he heard a voice some distance from the street say loudly,—“Faster, I say, faster. Who’d be a king if he couldn’t be carried as quick as he likes? On, I say, or I’ll be the death of some of you.”“Andrew Britton!” shrieked Maud, and she bounded from the step and ran down the street with amazing fleetness.Jacob Gray sunk back against the door with a deep groan.

The Disappointment.—The Last Resource.—A Strange Meeting.—The Confession.

The clockswere striking ten as Jacob Gray came within sight of Learmont’s house, and then so strongly did all his former fears regarding the possible results of his interview with the squire came across him, that it was many minutes before he could summon courage to ascend the steps of the mansion. There was, however, no other course; and, although his fears were of a nature rather to be increased than diminished, by the feverish nature of his reflection, he reluctantly at length slunk up the steps and knocked at the door, for at that hour it was always closed.

The few moments of suspense till the door was opened were agonising to Jacob Gray in the extreme, and all his former faintness, and some of exhaustion came over him as the ponderous portal opened, and a servant stood in the gap and demanded his business.

“You know me?” said Gray.

The man looked at him doubtingly, for what with his wounds, and the pain, misery, and anxiety, he had gone through, he was sufficiently altered to make his recognition doubtful for a moment, even to those who had seen him often. A second look, however, let the servant know that he had seen him before as one of his master’s very mysterious visitors, and he replied—

“Yes, sir, I do know you.”

“Tell your master I am here.”

“He is not within.”

“Not within,”

“No, sir. We do not expect him home to-night; he has gone to a party at the Earl of Harrowdon’s, in the Palace-yard.”

Gray stood for a moment leaning for support against the door-post—then by a strong effort he spoke—

“Thank you—I—I will call to-morrow,” and he descended the steps stupified and bewildered by the cross accidents that seemed to conspire against him.

He heard the door closed behind him, and he walked on mechanically for about a hundred yards, when he sat down upon the step of a door, and leaning his face upon his hands, he nearly gave himself up to despair.

“What could he do?—What resource was open to him?—Where could he go for food and shelter? A starving fugitive!—With a price set upon his capture. Could there be yet a degree of horror, and misery beyond what he now endured?”

“Yes—yes,” he suddenly said, “I—I can beg. Till to-morrow I can beg a few pence to save me from absolute starvation; but, yet that is a fearful risk, for by so doing I shall challenge the attention of the passers by, instead of evading it. I cannot starve; though I must beg—if it be but a few pence to keep me alive until the morning.”

Jacob Gray’s appearance was certainly very much in favour of any tale of distress he might relate for the purpose of moving the charitable to pity and benevolence. A more miserable and woebegone wretch could scarcely have been found within the bills of mortality.

The first person upon whom Jacob Gray made an attempt in the begging way was a man who was slowly sauntering past, enveloped in a rich and handsome coat, but the moment he heard Gray say,—

“I am starving,” he drew his cloak closer around him, as if by so doing he shut out his appeal to humanity, and hurried on at a rapid pace.

Gray had not been begging long enough to have learnt humility, and the bitter curses he muttered after the man with the cloak would have made his hair stand on end, had he have heard them.

As he was then upon the point of rising from the step, and crawling to some more public thoroughfare, in which he might have a more extended sphere of operation, a strange wild noise smote his ears, and he drew back into the shadow of the doorway with a feeling of alarm.

The sound seemed to approach from the further end of the street, and now he could distinguish a voice addressing some one in imploring tones, which were replied to by a harsh voice. The words spoken Gray could not distinguish, but a strange presentiment came over him that he was somehow connected with the persons approaching, or the subject matter of their discourse.

Back—back—he shrunk into the doorway, until he was completely hidden in the shadow of the house.

The disputants rapidly approached, and then he could hear the rougher voice exclaim,—

“There is no harm meant you. You are a foolish woman. I tell you, over and over again, that you are wanted for your own good.”

“Murderer, away, away!” cried a voice that struck to the heart of Jacob Gray, for he knew it to be the woman he had seen at the public-house by Vauxhall, when he ran so narrow a chance of capture by Sir Francis Hartleton.

“Will you come quietly?” cried the man.

“No—no—not with you,” cried Maud, “not with you. Look at your hands, man, are they not dyed deeply with blood? Ha! Ha! Ha! You shrink now. No—no—Maud will not go with you; but I will tell you a secret. Listen—do you know Andrew Britton, the savage smith?”

“No, nor don’t want,” said the man. “Come now, listen to reason, Sir Francis Hartleton wants to see you particularly.”

“Aye, aye!” said Maud, “that’s a fine device. Tell me where the child is, will you?”

“Come now,—it ain’t far,” said the man. “Here have I been hunting all over London for you nearly a day and half now, and when I find you, you won’t come. I tell you Sir Francis means to do something for you.”

“Can he restore the dead?”

“Not exactly.”

“Ah! Ah! Ah! He can—he can. So now I know you are no messenger of his. You come from Andrew Britton,—why? To kill me; but it is of no use—of no use, I tell you. You, and he, and everybody know well that he is to die before I do.”

Maud now laid hold of the rails of the house and resolutely refused to move. The man spoke in a perplexed tone as he said,—

“Come—come now, don’t be foolish. I must get some help to take you, whether you like it or not, if you won’t come now quietly.”

“Beware,” said Maud.

The man gave a start, as the poor creature showed him the glittering blade of a knife she had concealed in her bosom. There was a pause of a few minutes, and then Gray heard the man say,—

“Very well. Just as you like, I always look after number one first, and I’ll be hanged if I have anything more to do with you.”

Maud laughed hysterically as she sat down upon the step, and still kept a clutch upon the iron rail.

“Foiled! Foiled!” she exclaimed. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Tell him it is in vain. He may hunt me, but it is written in the book of the Eternal, that Britton, the savage smith of Learmont, is to die before I. Go—go. Ha! Ha! Ha! You will never wash the blood stains out. Never—never—never!”

The man made no answer, but walked away at a very rapid pace, no doubt for the purpose of procuring some assistance; for he was an officer who had been ordered by Sir Francis Hartleton to seek for the poor deserted creature, and bring her to him, when he would take measures for placing her in some asylum where she would be free from any violence on the part of Andrew Britton, should he accidentally meet with her.

Maud continued to mutter in a low tone after the man had left, but Gray could not closely distinguish what she said, and he remained for some time perfectly quiet, resolving in his mind what he should do. As he communed with himself the deadly spirit of revenge against all whom he imagined to be in any way accessary to producing his present destitute state came over him, and he ground his teeth as he muttered,—

“I could kill them all. I could exult in their agonies. I will, I must have revenge. This hag was the cursed cause of all the horrors I have been compelled to wade through, and shall I now suffer her to escape, now that she is in my power?”

He cast a rapid glance up and down the street as he added,—

“And no one by. Oh? That I had some weapon that silently and surely would do its work, and leave her here a corpse. She shall be one offered on the altar of my revenge! I must, I will work the destruction of them all, and she will be the—the first.”

A deathly languor came over Jacob Gray even as he spoke, and he groaned audibly.

Maud started at the sound, and turning she fixed her eyes upon his dusky form as it lay hid in the shadow of the doorway, from which, for more than a minute his extreme weakness would not permit him to move.

“What man are you?” cried Maud. “You groan—wherefore? Have you lost all you loved?”

“I have,” said Gray, with a groan, as he thought of his money.

Maud crept up the steps till she came close to him, and then laying her shrivelled hand upon his arm, she said,—

“I know you now—I know you.”

“Know me?” faltered Gray, making an effort to pass her on the steps.

“Yes. Where, and how, and when we meet I shall soon think, but I know you.”

Gray felt a little alarmed at this speech, and he replied,—

“You are mistaken, I am poor and destitute. We have never meet before.”

“Poor and destitute? Hast ever felt the pang of hunger as I have?”

“I feel them now.”

Maud opened a wallet she had with her, and took some broken victuals from it, which she laid before Gray, saying,—

“Eat—eat—and I will think the while where I have met you.”

He needed no second invitation, but devoured the not very tempting viands before him, with an eagerness that could leave no doubt of the truth of his statement concerning his hunger.

Maud passed her hands several times across her brow as she said,—

“I know you, yet I know you not. Did you ever hear of a murder?”

“No,” said Gray.

“Done with such a thing as this?”

She half produced the knife as she spoke, and Gray immediately said with eagerness,—

“Give me that!”

Maud drew back, and fixed her wild eye upon him as she said,—

“Are you a man of blood? Let me see your hands. Are they stained with innocent gore, or free from the damning pollution that begrimes the fool, and drags it shrieking to despair. Answer me man. Saw ye ever the Old Smithy?”

“Give me the knife and I will tell you.”

“Yes, the knife! He is eager for the knife, who knows its use. Answer me: saw ye the fire—yes, the fire—when was it? Yesternight?”

“What fire?”

“In a house where dwelt an angel, I knew ’twas that—Yes! Ha! Ha! Ha! And there was a body too that would not burn. There it lay black and cold, untouched amidst the charred fragments of the house. I—I have been there to look for the angel, but she has flown up to her native skies, with not a downy feather of her radiant wings touched by the gross element.”

“You, you have been to the house?” stammered Gray.

“I have! You knew it? It lies near sweet green fields, and the merry birds mock you as you go it. Listen, and I will tell you what I did. The early dawn was brightening, and old and young with jests and laughter, and mingling voices, went to see the ruins of the ancient house.”

“And you went?”

“I did. Then some bright spades and hatchets, and they dug for the body of a murdered man. Pile after pile of the blackened rubbish was removed, and then one said,—‘he must be burnt to a cinder,’ but I knew he would be found, no murdered body was ever yet all burnt. The murderer himself has often tried thus to dissipate in the ashes of his victim, all traces of his awful crime, but Heaven will not have it so.”

Gray clutched to the railings for support as he said,—

“Nonsense—I—I know better.”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed Maud. “I cannot see well the working of your face, but your voice belies your words. The man was found.”

“Well, well. It is nothing to me.”

“They said he had been shot,” continued Maud, “and that he must have died in lingering agony. I saw them bring him forth—not a thread of his garments—not a hair of his head—was touched by those flames that had destroyed all else.”

“Well—well,” said Gray, “I don’t want to hear more. Will you give me the knife?”

Maud had kept her hand upon the handle of the weapon, and Gray had found no opportunity of taking her by surprise, or he would have made an endeavour to destroy the poor creature, upon whose head the chastening hand of Providence had fallen so heavily. A direct attack upon her he dared not make, for first of all he could not trust his present weak state to the chances of a struggle even with her, and secondly, such was not Jacob Gray’s way of doing things.

“Will you give me the knife?” he repeated.

“No!” said Maud. “I’m keeping it for Andrew Britton.”

“Indeed?”

“I am—I am.”

“If I thought you would use it on Andrew Britton,” muttered Gray, “I would not take it from you for a hundred pounds.”

“Listen—listen, I have not told you all,” said Maud.

“All what?”

“About the fire. You shall hear—all who went there from many motives, left the smoking mass before the sun was at its topmost height in Heaven—but I stayed.”

“Why did you stay?”

“I thought the angel might come to me, but she did not. I prayed for her to come near again, and show me her pale and beautiful face, but she did not. I wept, but she came not, and then I thought I might find something that should ever remind me of her. And I did—I did.”

“You did?“

“Aye.”

“What—what—found you? Tell me, woman.”

“Twas very strange that I should find them there,” said Maud thoughtfully.

“Find what?”

“Where the murdered man had lain there was no trace of fire. The flames had burned round, but touched him not, there I found them.”

“Woman, tell me what you found, or—”

“Or what?” cried. Maud, her eyes flashing upon the cowardly Gray, who immediately shrunk back, saying,—

“Nothing—I—want nothing. Only I am anxious to know what you found.”

“You are? Well, well, I found some of these. Here is one.”

As she spoke, she took from her breast a small torn scrap of paper and gazed at it attentively.

In an instant Gray surmised the truth. In his attempt to get rid of his written confession while standing on the ladder, previous to the murder of Elias, he had dropped many pieces, and then in the exciting scenes that followed utterly forgotten them. Once indeed, while in the tree on Hampstead Heath, he remembered the circumstance, but then he immediately assumed that they had been burnt along with the house.

He now trembled in every limb, as the thought came over him, that possibly the poor mad creature might have collected sufficient of the torn pieces to give Sir Francis Hartleton a tangible idea of the whole; and although he felt that, next thing to his life, was the repossession of those torn scraps, he was so overcome by the circumstance of their thus coming to light, that for a few moments he thought he should have fainted.

Maud, meanwhile spread out the small crumpled pieces of paper in her hand, and commenced reading in a low muttering voice, “Andrew Britton”—“the temptation”—“a double murder”—“shrieking”—“the child”—“guilt—”

“Ha! Ha! Brave words, brave words!” she cried. “Murder and guilt, and Andrew Britton’s name of course; where there is murder and guilt, there must be Andrew Britton.”

Gray slowly prepared himself for action. He cast a wary eye around him, but no one was visible. Then he drew himself up to make a rush upon Maud, when he heard a voice some distance from the street say loudly,—

“Faster, I say, faster. Who’d be a king if he couldn’t be carried as quick as he likes? On, I say, or I’ll be the death of some of you.”

“Andrew Britton!” shrieked Maud, and she bounded from the step and ran down the street with amazing fleetness.

Jacob Gray sunk back against the door with a deep groan.

CHAPTER LXVIII.Britton and Learmont.—Mind and Matter Produce Similar Results.—Learmont’s Weakness and Fears.—The Chair.Despitethe apathy endured by his habitual state of intoxication, Andrew Britton began to feel some vague sort of apprehension that there was danger at hand, and that he was watched by parties who came and sat down with apparent jollity in the old parlour of the Chequers.When once this idea got possession of his mind, it began to torment him, and, however, after thinking to the best of his ability over the matter, he determined upon consulting with Learmont upon the subject, and leaving it to his cooler judgment to take what steps he thought fit in the affair.According to this resolve he sought the house of Learmont, where he arrived but a very few minutes after Albert Seyton had left, and demanded, with his usual effrontery, an interview with the squire.Learmont had latterly looked upon Andrew with mixed feelings of dread and exultation—dread that he might drink himself to death some day and leave behind him ample written evidence to convict him, Learmont, of heavy crimes—and exultation that all the money the savage smith wrung from his fears was converted into the means of his destruction by his habit of habitual intoxication.When they now met, Learmont forgot for a moment his personal danger in eager notice of the trembling hand and generally decayed state of the smith’s once hardy frame. But he forgot at the same time that anxiety and the constant gnawing of conscience were making even more rapid ravages upon his own constitution than the utmost stretch of intemperance could have done.Britton was pale, and in some degree emaciated; but Learmont was positively ghastly, and had wasted nearly to a skeleton.“Well,” said Learmont, in a hollow and constrained voice, “you come, as usual, for more money, I suppose.”“Yes,” said Britton,—“I don’t mean to go away empty-handed squire, you may take your oath; but I have something more to say on this visit.”“Say it; and begone! I—I—am busy.”“Are you? Perhaps you will be busier still some day. Do you happen to be thirsty?”“No!” said Learmont impatiently.“That’s a pity, because I am; and if it wasn’t for the look of the thing, drinking by one’s self, I’d have a glass of something.”“Andrew—Britton,” said Learmont, jerking out his words slowly from beneath his clenched teeth; “I have warned you more than once before not to trifle with me. Your errand here is specific; you come for the means of carrying on a life of mad riot and intoxication—a life which some of these days may lead you to an excess which will plunge you, and all connected with you, in one common ruin.”“Well, is that all?”“And enough,” cried Learmont, angrily. “Have I ever resisted your demands?”“No.”“Have I ever limited your calls upon my purse?”“No; but how d—d moderate I’ve been—think of that.”“But—but Britton—there was a time when you were not deaf to all reason; hear me now.”“You cannot complain of me, so long as I freely administer to your real and fancied wants. Wherefore, then, should I run a fearful and terrible risk daily from your excesses? You admit—you must admit—that I, to the very spirit and letter, fulfil my contract with you; and yet I run a fearful risk—a risk which can do you no manner of good. What, if you were to die, Andrew Britton? You are a man of wild excesses; I say, if you were to die? Is the end of all my compliances with your demands to be my destruction, when you can desire no more? Speak! How do you warrant me against so hard a condition?”“I don’t warrant you at all,” said Britton. “Recollect you forced me to it. What was I? The smith of Learmont. I toiled day and night; and they called me ‘a savage’ and why? because I was in your toils—I did a piece of work for you that—”“Hush! Hush!” gasped Learmont.“Oh, you are delicate, and don’t like it mentioned. I am not so nice—I murdered for you squire, and you know it. What was my reward? Toil—toil—and you know that too. You taunted me with my guilt and crime. Once, squire, when I threw in your teeth, that the same halter that was made for me, would fit your worshipful neck, you told me that I flattered myself, for that the word of a right worshipful squire, would outweigh the oath of a smith, and cursed me for a fool, but I believed you, and put up with it, till that sneaking hound, Gray, came to me.”“Curses on him!” muttered Learmont.“Ha! Ha!” laughed Britton. “I like him no more than yourself—I have much to lay at his door.”“But to my question, Britton,” said Learmont, impatiently.“Well, to your question—what care I what becomes of you? I have myself and myself only to look to, and you may go to the devil or anywhere else, for all that it matters to me.”“Andrew Britton, once before I told you to beware. You may carry this matter so far that I may turn upon you, and find greater safety in a foreign land than here, and if I once determine upon such a step—”“You will leave me to the hangman?”“I will because you goad me to it.”“And what is there to hinder me from doing the same thing?”“You cannot! You have not the means nor the inclination. To accomplish such an object, you must come to me for a sum of money, which would be equivalent to proclaiming your intention at once, and thus my least danger would be your destruction—you understand me?”“I do; and although there are two words to that bargain—pray in the name of all that’s honourable, what do you want me to do, squire?”“As a matter of common justice between us, I ask you to destroy any written evidence you may have prepared according to the accursed and unjust suggestions of Gray against me; or that in the event of your death, I may, having faithfully fulfilled my bond with you, be then released. Stay, I know what you would say. That, you would tell me, holds out a temptation to me to take your life. I say it does not, Andrew Britton, in your case. Your avarice is not so insatiable as Jacob Gray’s; and, moreover, we never meet but as man to man, and you can take what precautions you please to ensure your own safety.”“No, squire,” said Britton, “it’s worth all the money, I’m d—d if it ain’t to see you in such a fright. You think I’m drinking myself to death, I know you do, and so I am, but it’s an infernally slow process, and if you come to that, you look half dead yourself.”“I—I?”“Yes! Mind you give me none of your nonsense, you know, in case you should pop off all of a sudden.”“I—I am very well,” said Learmont, “strong and well; I never was better.”He dropped into a chair, as he spoke, and a deadly paleness came over his face, robbing it even of its usual sallowness, and giving instead a chalky appearance to the skin, that was fearful to behold.“There, you see,” said Britton, “you ain’t well now—you don’t drink enough. Here you have been making a riot about me, and the chance of my popping off, and you have hardly an ounce of flesh on your cursed long carcase.”“I am better now!” cried Learmont, “I am quite well—very well indeed. You—you have known me long, Andrew Britton—tell me I never looked better in my life, and I will give you a hundred pounds—yes, a hundred pounds, good Britton.”“Can’t be such a cursed hypocrite,” said Britten, who mightily enjoyed Learmont’s fright, “I never saw you look so bad in all my life!”“I am sure you are joking.”“Serious as a horseshoe.”“Well, well, that don’t matter, I never take people by their looks. Sometimes the freshest and the finest go first. You know that well, Andrew Britton.”“That’s very true,” said Britton, “as one we know—a tall proper man enough—you recollect—his name was—”“Peace! Peace! Do you want to drive me mad, Andrew Britton? Where is your hope, but in me? What—what other resource have you? Fiend! Do you dare thus to call up the hideous past to blast me? Peace—peace, I say, Andrew Britton. Leave me—our conference is over.”“Not quite.”“It is—it is. Go—there’s money.”He threw his purse to Britton as he spoke, and then cried,—“Go, go. Go at once.”“You forget,” said Britton, as he coolly pocketed the money, “that I came here to tell you something particular.”“What is it?”“There is danger!”“Danger?” cried or rather shrieked Learmont, springing from his seat. “Danger? No, no; you don’t mean—”“I mean what I say. There’s danger; and giving you credit for a cooler head than mine, though I’m not quite sure of it, I came to tell you.”Learmont leaned heavily upon the arm of the smith, as he said,—“Good Britton, we will stand or fall together; we will not forsake each other, I will help you, Britton. We have known each other long, and been mutually faithful, I’m sure we have. You have still the sense to—to take a life—for our own safety, Britton—always for our safety.”“If I have, it’s more than you have,” said Britton. “Why, you are turning silly. What’s the matter with the man? Have you seen a ghost?”“Ah!” cried Learmont, “don’t speak of that; for, by the—the powers of hell, I think I really have.”“Oh! You think you have?”“I do.”“Where?”“On my very door steps, Andrew Britton, I saw a face. Young and beautiful—so like—so very like—hers who—”“You don’t mean the Lady Monimia?”“Hush, hush. ’Twas she—I knew her—come to look at me, as she looked—now two and twenty years ago, in the spring of her rare beauty, when we—we—quenched her life, Andrew Britton.”“That’s all your beastly imagination,” said Britton, “I wonder at you. On your step, do you say?”“Yes.”“Stuff—you don’t drink enough to clear your head of the vapours. Some of these days you’ll fancy you see your—”“Hush, hush. My conscience tells me the name you were about to pronounce Hush, hush, I say. Oh! Andrew Britton, you are a man rough in speech and manners. Your heart seems callous, but have there been no times—no awful moments when your mental eye has been, as it were, turned inwards on your soul, and you have shrunk aghast from—from yourself, and wished to be the poorest, veriest abject mortal that ever crawled, so you were innocent of man’s blood? Britton—savage, wild as you are, you must have felt some portion of the pangs that bring but one awful consolation with them, and that is, that hell can inflict no more upon us.”“I’ll be hanged if I know what you are driving at,” cried Britton. “I should recommend brandy-and-water.”“No, no; I cannot drink. That vulgar consolation is denied to me. My blood dries up, and my brain inflames, but I get no peace from such a source. Besides it shortens life.”“Have your own way. All I’ve got to say is, that I feel as sure as that I am standing here, that some one has been watching me at the Chequers.”“No—no.”“Yes—yes, I say.”“Some drunken brawl of your own!”“No. Do you know, I suspect that fellow Hartleton is poking and prying about as usual, curse him.”“Aye, Hartleton!” cried Learmont. “There is my great danger. He suspects and watches—Britton, he might die suddenly.”“He might.”“Well, well.”“And he will too, if I catch him.”“Good, Britton. A thousand pounds for news that he is up more.”“What’s the use of your thousand pounds to me? I can but lead the life of a gentleman, and that I am. Why, somebody would cut my throat, if I had a thousand shillings all at once. Good day to you, squire, good day—take care of yourself. Leave me alone if I once catch Master Hartleton at bay.”“Yes, yes; you are courteous, Britton.”“Oh! By-the-by, what do you call one of those things I see in your hall, like a watch-box with two long poles to it?”“A sedan chair.”“Oh! Then I’m d—d if I don’t have one.”“You?”“Yes, me. Why shouldn’t I?—It will be rare fun—upon my life it will. Good morning to you.”So saying, Britton swaggered out of the house, and by way of showing both his knowledge and his independence to Learmont’s servants in the hall, when he got there, he said pointing the sedan-chair,—“What’s that?”“A chair,” said one.“You think I didn’t know that, did you, spooney?” he replied, as he gave the unfortunate footman a crack on the head that made him dance again.

Britton and Learmont.—Mind and Matter Produce Similar Results.—Learmont’s Weakness and Fears.—The Chair.

Despitethe apathy endured by his habitual state of intoxication, Andrew Britton began to feel some vague sort of apprehension that there was danger at hand, and that he was watched by parties who came and sat down with apparent jollity in the old parlour of the Chequers.

When once this idea got possession of his mind, it began to torment him, and, however, after thinking to the best of his ability over the matter, he determined upon consulting with Learmont upon the subject, and leaving it to his cooler judgment to take what steps he thought fit in the affair.

According to this resolve he sought the house of Learmont, where he arrived but a very few minutes after Albert Seyton had left, and demanded, with his usual effrontery, an interview with the squire.

Learmont had latterly looked upon Andrew with mixed feelings of dread and exultation—dread that he might drink himself to death some day and leave behind him ample written evidence to convict him, Learmont, of heavy crimes—and exultation that all the money the savage smith wrung from his fears was converted into the means of his destruction by his habit of habitual intoxication.

When they now met, Learmont forgot for a moment his personal danger in eager notice of the trembling hand and generally decayed state of the smith’s once hardy frame. But he forgot at the same time that anxiety and the constant gnawing of conscience were making even more rapid ravages upon his own constitution than the utmost stretch of intemperance could have done.

Britton was pale, and in some degree emaciated; but Learmont was positively ghastly, and had wasted nearly to a skeleton.

“Well,” said Learmont, in a hollow and constrained voice, “you come, as usual, for more money, I suppose.”

“Yes,” said Britton,—“I don’t mean to go away empty-handed squire, you may take your oath; but I have something more to say on this visit.”

“Say it; and begone! I—I—am busy.”

“Are you? Perhaps you will be busier still some day. Do you happen to be thirsty?”

“No!” said Learmont impatiently.

“That’s a pity, because I am; and if it wasn’t for the look of the thing, drinking by one’s self, I’d have a glass of something.”

“Andrew—Britton,” said Learmont, jerking out his words slowly from beneath his clenched teeth; “I have warned you more than once before not to trifle with me. Your errand here is specific; you come for the means of carrying on a life of mad riot and intoxication—a life which some of these days may lead you to an excess which will plunge you, and all connected with you, in one common ruin.”

“Well, is that all?”

“And enough,” cried Learmont, angrily. “Have I ever resisted your demands?”

“No.”

“Have I ever limited your calls upon my purse?”

“No; but how d—d moderate I’ve been—think of that.”

“But—but Britton—there was a time when you were not deaf to all reason; hear me now.”

“You cannot complain of me, so long as I freely administer to your real and fancied wants. Wherefore, then, should I run a fearful and terrible risk daily from your excesses? You admit—you must admit—that I, to the very spirit and letter, fulfil my contract with you; and yet I run a fearful risk—a risk which can do you no manner of good. What, if you were to die, Andrew Britton? You are a man of wild excesses; I say, if you were to die? Is the end of all my compliances with your demands to be my destruction, when you can desire no more? Speak! How do you warrant me against so hard a condition?”

“I don’t warrant you at all,” said Britton. “Recollect you forced me to it. What was I? The smith of Learmont. I toiled day and night; and they called me ‘a savage’ and why? because I was in your toils—I did a piece of work for you that—”

“Hush! Hush!” gasped Learmont.

“Oh, you are delicate, and don’t like it mentioned. I am not so nice—I murdered for you squire, and you know it. What was my reward? Toil—toil—and you know that too. You taunted me with my guilt and crime. Once, squire, when I threw in your teeth, that the same halter that was made for me, would fit your worshipful neck, you told me that I flattered myself, for that the word of a right worshipful squire, would outweigh the oath of a smith, and cursed me for a fool, but I believed you, and put up with it, till that sneaking hound, Gray, came to me.”

“Curses on him!” muttered Learmont.

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Britton. “I like him no more than yourself—I have much to lay at his door.”

“But to my question, Britton,” said Learmont, impatiently.

“Well, to your question—what care I what becomes of you? I have myself and myself only to look to, and you may go to the devil or anywhere else, for all that it matters to me.”

“Andrew Britton, once before I told you to beware. You may carry this matter so far that I may turn upon you, and find greater safety in a foreign land than here, and if I once determine upon such a step—”

“You will leave me to the hangman?”

“I will because you goad me to it.”

“And what is there to hinder me from doing the same thing?”

“You cannot! You have not the means nor the inclination. To accomplish such an object, you must come to me for a sum of money, which would be equivalent to proclaiming your intention at once, and thus my least danger would be your destruction—you understand me?”

“I do; and although there are two words to that bargain—pray in the name of all that’s honourable, what do you want me to do, squire?”

“As a matter of common justice between us, I ask you to destroy any written evidence you may have prepared according to the accursed and unjust suggestions of Gray against me; or that in the event of your death, I may, having faithfully fulfilled my bond with you, be then released. Stay, I know what you would say. That, you would tell me, holds out a temptation to me to take your life. I say it does not, Andrew Britton, in your case. Your avarice is not so insatiable as Jacob Gray’s; and, moreover, we never meet but as man to man, and you can take what precautions you please to ensure your own safety.”

“No, squire,” said Britton, “it’s worth all the money, I’m d—d if it ain’t to see you in such a fright. You think I’m drinking myself to death, I know you do, and so I am, but it’s an infernally slow process, and if you come to that, you look half dead yourself.”

“I—I?”

“Yes! Mind you give me none of your nonsense, you know, in case you should pop off all of a sudden.”

“I—I am very well,” said Learmont, “strong and well; I never was better.”

He dropped into a chair, as he spoke, and a deadly paleness came over his face, robbing it even of its usual sallowness, and giving instead a chalky appearance to the skin, that was fearful to behold.

“There, you see,” said Britton, “you ain’t well now—you don’t drink enough. Here you have been making a riot about me, and the chance of my popping off, and you have hardly an ounce of flesh on your cursed long carcase.”

“I am better now!” cried Learmont, “I am quite well—very well indeed. You—you have known me long, Andrew Britton—tell me I never looked better in my life, and I will give you a hundred pounds—yes, a hundred pounds, good Britton.”

“Can’t be such a cursed hypocrite,” said Britten, who mightily enjoyed Learmont’s fright, “I never saw you look so bad in all my life!”

“I am sure you are joking.”

“Serious as a horseshoe.”

“Well, well, that don’t matter, I never take people by their looks. Sometimes the freshest and the finest go first. You know that well, Andrew Britton.”

“That’s very true,” said Britton, “as one we know—a tall proper man enough—you recollect—his name was—”

“Peace! Peace! Do you want to drive me mad, Andrew Britton? Where is your hope, but in me? What—what other resource have you? Fiend! Do you dare thus to call up the hideous past to blast me? Peace—peace, I say, Andrew Britton. Leave me—our conference is over.”

“Not quite.”

“It is—it is. Go—there’s money.”

He threw his purse to Britton as he spoke, and then cried,—

“Go, go. Go at once.”

“You forget,” said Britton, as he coolly pocketed the money, “that I came here to tell you something particular.”

“What is it?”

“There is danger!”

“Danger?” cried or rather shrieked Learmont, springing from his seat. “Danger? No, no; you don’t mean—”

“I mean what I say. There’s danger; and giving you credit for a cooler head than mine, though I’m not quite sure of it, I came to tell you.”

Learmont leaned heavily upon the arm of the smith, as he said,—

“Good Britton, we will stand or fall together; we will not forsake each other, I will help you, Britton. We have known each other long, and been mutually faithful, I’m sure we have. You have still the sense to—to take a life—for our own safety, Britton—always for our safety.”

“If I have, it’s more than you have,” said Britton. “Why, you are turning silly. What’s the matter with the man? Have you seen a ghost?”

“Ah!” cried Learmont, “don’t speak of that; for, by the—the powers of hell, I think I really have.”

“Oh! You think you have?”

“I do.”

“Where?”

“On my very door steps, Andrew Britton, I saw a face. Young and beautiful—so like—so very like—hers who—”

“You don’t mean the Lady Monimia?”

“Hush, hush. ’Twas she—I knew her—come to look at me, as she looked—now two and twenty years ago, in the spring of her rare beauty, when we—we—quenched her life, Andrew Britton.”

“That’s all your beastly imagination,” said Britton, “I wonder at you. On your step, do you say?”

“Yes.”

“Stuff—you don’t drink enough to clear your head of the vapours. Some of these days you’ll fancy you see your—”

“Hush, hush. My conscience tells me the name you were about to pronounce Hush, hush, I say. Oh! Andrew Britton, you are a man rough in speech and manners. Your heart seems callous, but have there been no times—no awful moments when your mental eye has been, as it were, turned inwards on your soul, and you have shrunk aghast from—from yourself, and wished to be the poorest, veriest abject mortal that ever crawled, so you were innocent of man’s blood? Britton—savage, wild as you are, you must have felt some portion of the pangs that bring but one awful consolation with them, and that is, that hell can inflict no more upon us.”

“I’ll be hanged if I know what you are driving at,” cried Britton. “I should recommend brandy-and-water.”

“No, no; I cannot drink. That vulgar consolation is denied to me. My blood dries up, and my brain inflames, but I get no peace from such a source. Besides it shortens life.”

“Have your own way. All I’ve got to say is, that I feel as sure as that I am standing here, that some one has been watching me at the Chequers.”

“No—no.”

“Yes—yes, I say.”

“Some drunken brawl of your own!”

“No. Do you know, I suspect that fellow Hartleton is poking and prying about as usual, curse him.”

“Aye, Hartleton!” cried Learmont. “There is my great danger. He suspects and watches—Britton, he might die suddenly.”

“He might.”

“Well, well.”

“And he will too, if I catch him.”

“Good, Britton. A thousand pounds for news that he is up more.”

“What’s the use of your thousand pounds to me? I can but lead the life of a gentleman, and that I am. Why, somebody would cut my throat, if I had a thousand shillings all at once. Good day to you, squire, good day—take care of yourself. Leave me alone if I once catch Master Hartleton at bay.”

“Yes, yes; you are courteous, Britton.”

“Oh! By-the-by, what do you call one of those things I see in your hall, like a watch-box with two long poles to it?”

“A sedan chair.”

“Oh! Then I’m d—d if I don’t have one.”

“You?”

“Yes, me. Why shouldn’t I?—It will be rare fun—upon my life it will. Good morning to you.”

So saying, Britton swaggered out of the house, and by way of showing both his knowledge and his independence to Learmont’s servants in the hall, when he got there, he said pointing the sedan-chair,—

“What’s that?”

“A chair,” said one.

“You think I didn’t know that, did you, spooney?” he replied, as he gave the unfortunate footman a crack on the head that made him dance again.

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