The Troublesome Shoe-maker.—Gray’s Agony and Danger.—The Flight.
Jacob Gray no longer was necessitated to take a temporary lodging among
the sheds of Covent-garden market, for upon, by the dim light of a
lamp, examining Learmont’s purse, he found a sum nearly approaching to
twenty guineas in it, and a ghastly smile same across his face, as, by
the mere possession of money, he felt, or fancied he felt, considerably
stronger and better than he had been for many days.
He walked with a firmer step and an air of greater self-possession than
before. One of his first acts was to dive into a back street, for the
purpose of finding some place in which he could lodge for the night,
and he had not gone far before he saw a small dingy-looking
public-house, where he thought he might find all he wanted in the way
of rest and refreshment without risk.
It is strange how intense mental anxiety will overcome and smother
almost entirely the consciousness of bodily pain. So it was with Jacob
Gray—for although he had been suffering much pain now for many hours
from his wounded face, his great anxiety of mind had thrown such mere
physical annoyance quite into the shade; but now that he had money in
his pocket, and fancied he saw light in the darkness of fate, he began
to experience great agony from the wound, and previous to seeking
refreshment or rest he wished to procure surgical assistance lest any
shots should be remaining in his face. With this intent he walked on
until he came to a chemist’s shop, near Westminster-bridge. On entering
the little doorway, for a very little mean shop it was, he asked of a
man behind the counter to examine his face.
“You have been wounded, and had better go to some hospital,” said the
surgeon, who was one of the self-taught and self-dubbed medical men who
flourished up to within the last thirty years.
“I have wherewithal to pay you for your services,” said Gray, taking
out Learmont’s purse and laying down a guinea.
Upon this the surgeon, with a good deal of practical skill, carefully
examined Gray’s face, and extracted several of the shots which had
remained just beneath the skin.
“How did this accident happen to you?” said the surgeon.
“A careless boy was shooting sparrows,” replied Jacob Gray.
“Ah! People never will be careful in the use of fire-arms. You will do
very well now; a little dry lint is all you require, but wash your face
frequently with diluted milk.”
“Thank you,” said Gray, receiving fifteen shillings out of his guinea;
“should I feel any uneasiness, I will call again.”
“That fellow has been robbing somebody, I’ll be sworn, and been shot at
for his pains,” remarked the surgeon when Gray had gone. “Well—well,
it’s all one to me, from a peer to a pickpocket.”
Gray felt very much relieved by the manipulation of the surgeon, and he
retraced his steps towards a small public-house he had before noticed,
and which from its plainness and obscurity, he thought would furnish
him a tolerably secure retreat till he could venture out again.
He was dreadfully weary, and the stars were beginning to disappear,
while a faint sickly light was slowly spreading itself over the eastern
horizon.
A very few minutes’ walk brought him to the door of the house, and he
dived down a steep step to enter it. A dim light only was in the bar,
although it was one of those houses that keep open the whole of the
night, under pretence of accommodating travellers, but really to
accommodate thieves, watchmen and police-officers.
“Can I,” said Gray, to a man who was yawning in the bar,—“can I have a
bed here, and some refreshment?”
The words were scarcely out of his lips, when he heard a noise behind
him; and turning hastily around, his eyes were blasted by the sight of
his tormentor, the amateur officer and Shoemaker, who, with a glass of
some steaming beverage in one hand, and a pipe in the other, stood
glaring at Jacob Gray as if he was some awful apparition.
“Bless me,” he at length found voice to say, “is it you?”
“I have no knowledge of you, sir,” said Gray, while a cold perspiration
bedewed his limbs, and he glanced uneasily at the door, between which
and him stood the troublesome man.
“I—I—you—you,” stammered the shoemaker, “you met me you know about two
hours ago, and you said you was a going home.”
“Well, sir.”
“It’s an odd time of night to be out.”
“Then why don’t you go home?” said Gray, summoning all the presence of
mind he could to his aid.
“Ah—yes—exactly, that is, a—hem!” said the shoemaker, feeling very much
confused, for he was afraid to promote hostilities with Gray, and
equally reluctant to let him go.
“Can you accommodate me,” said Gray, turning to the woman, “and two
friends?”
“Three of you!” groaned the shoemaker.
“Yes,” said Gray, “I have two friends waiting for me.”
“There’ll be a great deal of danger in having anything to do with him,”
thought the shoemaker, “but I’d wager ten guineas he’s the man that
killed Vaughan.”
“I can’t accommodate you all,” said the woman. “You can stay here, if
you like; and your friends can get a bed at the King’s Arms at the
bottom of the street.”
“Thank you,” said Gray, “I will speak to them;” and he moved towards
the door.
The little shoemaker, however, was not to be so easily cajoled, but
gulping down his glass of hot liquor, with a speed that nearly choked
him, and brought the tears into his eyes, he moved to the door at the
same time as Gray, resolved to stick to him now as long as there was no
actual bodily peril.
Gray paused at the door, and gave the man a look which caused him to
recoil a step or two within the house. Then he walked out into the
street; but the shoemaker, although daunted for a moment, was not quite
got rid of, and with a hurried whisper to himself of,—
“It would be the making of me to take him single-handed, and get all
the reward,” he bustled after Gray, with the intention of watching him.
In this, however, the amateur officer was disappointed; for Gray, after
proceeding half-a-dozen paces, turned sharp round, and caught the
shoemaker just coming out of the door of the public-house.
Gray was trembling with fear, but he had sense enough to feel that a
bold face very frequently hides a shrinking heart, and he endeavoured
to throw as much boldness as possible into his voice and manner as he
said,—
“Do you want anything with me, sir?”
“Oh no, no, nothing,” said the shoemaker, “only I thought you might be
curious in old houses, as you had popped into this one. It’s a most
ancient house, and I was going to tell you that twenty-three years ago,
to-day, my father apprehended the famous Jack Sheppard at the bar of
this very house. Now that’s curious—what I call very curious.”
“Indeed,” said Gray, walking on and inwardly cursing his tormentor.
“Yes,” continued the shoemaker, keeping up with him, “if my father took
him; one of his ladies was with him, and she got my father’s finger
between her teeth, and wouldn’t leave go till she had bit it to the
bone. Well, sir, my father took Jack to the watch-house in Great
George-street, and what do you think happened there?”
“I cannot say.”
“When they got to the door, my father knocked, and the moment it was
open, Jack seized hold of him like a tiger, and pitched him in right
upon the stomach of the night-constable saying, ‘Take care of him. Good
night, and off he went.’”
They had now reached the corner of the street, and Gray turned to his
companion, saying,—
“Sir, I do not wish your company.”
“Past four and a cold morning,” growled an asthmatic watchman, from
some distance off, at this moment.
“I’ll stick by him,” thought the shoemaker, “and when we come up to the
watchman, I’ll call upon him to help me to take him. I must have him
somehow.”
“Oh, you don’t want company! well, sir, I’ll only walk with you till
you meet your two friends.”
Had Jacob Gray, at that moment of goaded passion, possessed any weapon
that would have noiselessly and surely put an end to the ambition and
the life of the troublesome shoemaker, he would have used it with
exquisite satisfaction; but being quite unarmed, he considered himself
powerless; and as is the case in many contests in life, the affair
resolved itself simply to one point, namely, which should succeed in
frightening the other. But then the watchman might be a powerful
auxiliary to his opponent, and Jacob Gray screwed his courage up to the
sticking place, to endeavour to get rid of his companion before such
aid should arrive. He therefore turned abruptly and cried in a fierce
angry tone,—
“How dare you, sir, intrude yourself upon me?”
The shoemaker started back several paces, and in evident alarm, cried,—
“No violence—no violence.”
“Then leave me to pursue my walk alone,” said Gray. “In a word, sir, I
am well armed, and will not be intruded on; your design may be to rob
me, for aught that I know.”
“Far from it—far from it,” said the man. “I am a respectable tradesman.”
“Then you ought to know better than to force your company upon those
who desire it not,” said Gray.
“Very well, sir; very well. No offence; I’ll leave you. Good evening,
or rather morning.”
“Past four, and a cold morning,” said the watchman again, and while the
shoemaker paused irresolute for a moment, Gray walked hastily past the
guardian of the night.
He felt then how impolitic it would be to look back, but he could not
resist the impulse so to do, and saw the watchman in earnest
conversation with his late companion, while the eyes of both were bent
upon him.
The danger was great, but Gray felt that he should but provoke it to
wear a still worse aspect by exhibiting any fear; so, although he kept
all his senses on the qui vive, and every nerve strung for action, he
walked but slowly away, with something of the same kind of feeling that
an adventurous hunter might be supposed to feel in some Indian jungle
when retreating before a crouching tiger, who he feels would spring
upon him were he to show the least sign of trepidation, but who it is
just possible may let him off if he show a bold front.
Jacob Gray reached in a few moments the corner of a street, and then he
ventured another glance over his shoulder at the motions of the enemy.
His heart sickened as he saw the watchman give a nod to his companion,
and then commence running after him (Gray), at full speed.
With a spasmodic kind of gasp, produced by a choking sensation in his
throat, as his extreme danger now rushed upon his brain, Jacob Gray
dived down the narrow turning, and fled like a hunted hare.