The Old Associates.—Gray’s Fears.—The Old Attic at the Chequers.
There was a light in the passage, which shed a strong full glare upon
the pallid care worn features of Gray; and Andrew Britton, as he held
him at arm’s length turned nearly as pale as he was with the intense
surprise of the meeting. He was sobered by the shock, and in a husky
whisper he muttered the name of Jacob Gray.
Such awful and abject fear seemed to take possession of Gray that had
not Britton held him, he must have fallen at his feet. All his presence
of mind and cunning appeared to have deserted him, and it was not until
Britton had again pronounced his name that he gasped,—
“Is—is it you, Andrew Britton? I—I am glad to see you look so well.”
“Yes by God,” said Britton, “it is me. What wind from hell blew you
here?”
“I—I, you are looking very well,” said Gray, with a sickly smile.
“Curses on my looks, and yours too, I say again what brought you here?”
“To—to see you, of course. I thought as we had been old friends, I
would come and—and see you. You rather hurt me, Britton.”
“You canting, whining villain,” said Britton, “I will know what brought
you here, or I will smash your head against the door-post.”
“Violent, Britton, still violent to poor Jacob Gray, who comes to do
you good. You know, my dear Britton—”
“Just say that again,” cried Britton, “and I’ll—”
He tightened his grasp upon Gray, who had just breath sufficient to
gasp out—
“Remember—my—confession! The gallows!”
Britton relaxed his hold, and a slight tremor passed over his frame as
he said in a lower tone,—
“Jacob Gray, you must have something damnable to say or propose to me!”
“Not exactly, Britton. But I think there is danger abroad to us both!”
“Danger?”
“Yes, Britton. Of course when I thought any danger threatened, I said
to myself, shall I not warn good, kind, peaceable, inoffensive Britton.”
“You infernal liar!” cried Britton.
“So having,” resumed Gray, not heeding any interruption, “so having
placed my written confession where, in case I return not soon, it would
be easily found and forwarded to Sir Francis Hartleton, I came, you
see, here at once.”
“Sir Francis Hartleton!” cried Britton; “if you have anything really to
say it is of him, I’ll be sworn. He has been hunting me, but I will
have his heart’s hood, I will!”
Gray caught at the suggestion, and immediately replied,—
“Yes—yes, Britton, it was of Sir Francis Hartleton I came to warn you.”
“Indeed, on your soul?”
“On my soul it was. He is hatching some mischief against us all,
Britton, and do you think I will let an old friend fall into danger,
and not warn him? So as I say, after placing my full and carefully
written confession—”
“Now, Jacob Gray,” said Britton, “if you say another word about your
d—d confession, I will brain you on the spot.”
“I only wished you to understand our relative positions, my good
Britton,” said Gray, who was rapidly overcoming his first fright, and
with his usual fertility of invention scheming to overcome Britton by
cunning.
“There, there, that will do. Let me hear no more of it,” said Britton.
“Come in.”
Gray hesitated a moment, and Britton, bending his brows upon him, said,—
“Why, you are as safe in the Chequers at Westminster, as you were at
the Old Smithy at Learmont. Why do you shrink, man? You know, and I
make no secret of it, that I would as soon dash out your brains as look
at you, if I could do so with safety. Come in, I say.”
“I am quite sure,” muttered Gray, “I may depend upon such an old friend
as Britton.”
He followed Britton as he spoke, and the smith, crossing the bar,
ascended two flights of stairs to his own sleeping room, into which he
ushered Jacob Gray.
“I have company down stairs, and be cursed to them,” he said. “Wait
here till I come back to you.”
“You—you won’t be long, Britton?”
“But five minutes.”
Britton left the room, and after proceeding down about three stairs, he
came back and, to Gray’s dismay, locked the door of the room.
“So—so,” murmured Gray, playing his fingers nervously upon the back of
a chair. “Here I am hunted through Westminster, and forced at length to
take refuge with Andrew Britton—he who has avowedly sought my life, and
would take it now, but for fear of my confession. Have I ever been in
such desperate straits as this before? Yes—yes—I have, and yet escaped.
Surely he will not kill me. He dare not. Yet he drinks largely, and may
remember then his revenge, and hatred against me, while he forgets his
own safety. Oh, if Andrew Britton knew how safe it was to murder Jacob
Gray, I should never see another sunrise. I am in most imminent
danger—very imminent danger, indeed, and locked in too. What will
become of me? What have toiled for, what committed crime upon crime
for, what dipped my hands in blood for, if I am to be hunted thus,
impoverished, and a price to be set upon my head?”
Jacob Gray leaned his head upon his hands, and groaned aloud, in the
bitterness of his despair.
Then after a time he rose and carefully examined the door with a
forlorn hope, that he might be able by some means to escape by it, and
slinking down the staircase, leave the house; but it was quite fast,
and although his strength might have been sufficient to break it open,
that was a mode of operation attended with far too much noise to answer
his purpose.
“I am a prisoner here,” he said,—“a prisoner to Andrew Britton, and my
only chance of safety consists now in acting upon his fears, and
arousing his anger more against Hartleton. He is long in coming,—what
can be detaining him? Has he gone to Learmont’s, and are they together
hatching some plot for my destruction? Am I safe, or—or am I on the
very brink of the grave? My heart sinks within me. Surely he has been
gone an hour. Shall I alarm the house? No—no. I am then taken for a
thief; and, perhaps, dragged before Hartleton, who would not fail to
recognise me. There is no weapon here to protect myself,—no means of
escape.”
A sudden thought seemed to strike Gray, and he took up the candle which
Britton had brought from the bar, and left with him.
“Does Britton,” he muttered, “keep his confession here with—my knife?
Oh, if I could find those,—if I could, ’twere worth all the risk I now
run. I would sell him to Learmont for a goodly sum.”
With a stealthy step, and a damp clammy perspiration of fear upon his
brow, Jacob Gray crept about the room, which was at the top of the
house, peering into every hole and corner in search of the much-dreaded
confession of Andrew Britton.
His search was in vain—there was no paper to be found of any
description and he sat down at length in despair.
“’Tis in vain—’tis in vain,” he groaned. “I am the victim of some
contrivance of Britton’s to destroy me, or he would have returned eye
this. I am lost—lost—lost.”
Jacob Gray wrung his hands, and wept like a child, as he thought his
hour was come.
A long, straggling ray of light came in at the window now, and he
started up exclaiming,—
“There is one hope more—the window—the window.”
The casement was one of those with diamond-shaped panes, held together
by thin slips of lead, and Jacob Gray saw that immediately under it was
a filthy gutter.
“One hope—one hope,” he muttered; and cautiously drawing himself
through the window, he closed it again, and stood in the gutter. On one
side of him was the high sloping roof of the attic, and on the other
was a narrow crumbling parapet.
With a shudder, he looked down into the street. An itinerant breakfast
provider had taken up his station immediately below, and several early
passengers were hurrying onwards to different employments.
A boy looked up, and said,—
“There he goes!”
Gray could have cut his throat with pleasure, but he could only curse
him, and creep on, while the urchin pointing him out to the saloon
dealer, who, shading his eyes with his hands, said in a voice that came
clearly to Jacob Gray’s ears,—
“It’s some thief, I’ll be bound, but it’s no business of mine—saloop!”