The Pursuit.—The Spy.—The Three Wherries on the Thames.
Could Jacob Gray, in his wildest flight of fancy, have for one moment
imagined that Albert Seyton stepped after him from Learmont’s door in a
few moments after he had left it, how different would have been his
feelings to what they were—how changed would have been the expression
of his countenance! Never, in the whole course of their guilty career,
had he and Learmont had so strange an interview. Never had each
succeeded in deceiving each, as they had done on that eventful evening.
Jacob Gray departed with a smile of triumph on his face, and he left
Learmont with its counterpart upon his.
The impatience of Albert Seyton after he had received Learmont’s short
intimation of Jacob Gray’s avowal knew scarcely any bounds, and it
appeared to him an age before Gray passed across the hall to leave the
house.
Albert had taken his station just within a small waiting-room which
commanded a view of the great staircase, and at the first sight of
Jacob Gray descending; his emotions were so powerful that he was
compelled to sit down to recover his composure, during which brief
period, Gray crossed the hall, and passed into the street with a rapid
pace.
The necessity, however, for immediate action soon roused Albert to some
exertion, and being fully equipped for the streets, he made but one
bound across the hall, to the great astonishment of the servants, and
reached the street just in time to see Gray turn the first corner.
The emotion of Albert Seyton had now died away, and he kept but one
object in view, and that was the restoration to him of his much-loved
Ada, as a consequence of his successful pursuit of Jacob Gray.
He became calm, cool, and firm—every nerve seemed stretched to its
utmost tension, and with a speed that was really tremendous, he cleared
the distance between Learmont’s door and the corner at which Gray had
disappeared.
The object of his anxious pursuit was but half a dozen paces in advance
of him, when Albert turned cautiously the corner, and the young man
stepped into a doorway, to allow him to proceed to a safer distance.
It would have been a curious study for any one more free to make
observations than was Albert Seyton, to mark the curious, suspicious
manner in which Gray went along the streets. His home was really not
ten minutes’ walk from Learmont’s house; but something on this one
evening, in particular, seemed to possess him with a notion of extreme
caution, and when he had left Learmont’s door, instead of turning to
the left, which he should have done, and then crossed Whitehall, he
turned to the right, with a resolution of making a detour through the
intricacies of Westminster before he reached his home.
He went on till he emerged into Parliament-street, for he had a great
notion of how much he was disguised in his new wig, and he did not mind
venturing into a crowded thoroughfare so much as he did before.
Crossing then by the House of Lords, he passed Westminster Abbey, and
with a slow, measured step, sauntered down Abingdon-street.
Once or twice Gray had wheeled round to look behind him so suddenly
upon his heels, that had not Albert ever kept at a respectful distance,
and being favoured by the darkness, he must have been discovered; but
Gray passed on again without suspicion, for Seyton on these occasions
had not shown any signs of trepidation, or wish to hide himself, but
had walked carelessly forward with a determination, however, in his own
mind, of knocking at some door rather than come close up to Gray.
The wily Jacob, however, did not once wait for the listless passenger
to pass him, so that Albert was not reduced to that troublesome
alternative, and the pursuit continued the whole length of
Abingdon-street, without any circumstance occurring to awaken suspicion
in Gray’s mind.
It was not, however, altogether so with Albert, for in
Parliament-street he had noticed a man on the opposite side of the way
to be keeping his eye upon Jacob Gray, and when they passed the abbey,
the same man appeared again, and it was evident to Albert that he
wasn’t the only one who was dogging Jacob Gray to his home.
Had he but known that this was Sir Francis Hartleton’s man, how much
future trouble and uneasiness would have been spared him; but as it
was, he only saw in the circumstance an additional cause for alarm on
Ada’s account, for he could not possibly divine what motive any one but
himself could have in tracing Gray to his home, unless it were that the
villain had been making similar applications to the one he, Albert,
fully believed he had made to Learmont, and some other person was
following him home with a similar motive to Learmont’s, when he first
requested him, Albert, to trace the man’s footsteps.
This might or might not be the motive of the spy upon Jacob Gray, but
one thing soon became certain, and that was, that the stranger began to
regard Albert with as much suspicion and distrust as Albert regarded
him, and probably never were two people engaged in one object, more
angry at each other just then, than Albert Seyton and the spy of Sir
Francis Hartleton.
Jacob Gray would have almost fallen dead in the street with fright, had
he imagined for one moment the predicament he was in—but, on the
contrary, he went on applauding himself upon his own cleverness; and,
perhaps, never had he felt so satisfied of his superiority in point of
cunning over all his enemies than he did that night.
“I shall yet, after all that is past,” he thought, “receive a large sum
of money, and be an independent man, while I adequately punish all who
have given me uneasiness. The only men I cannot crush are the
scoundrels who robbed me after my little adventure with Vaughan. I see
no ready way of being revenged upon them, and my only consolation is
that, sooner or later, they are sure to come to the gallows.”
Hugging himself with his idea, although, metaphorically speaking, he,
Gray, may be said to have had the rope then about his neck, the villain
passed on by the low swampy bit of ground on which the Penitentiary is
now built.
He then paused a few moments, as if in doubt which way he should go
next, and Albert Seyton crouched down by some timber which lay upon the
ground, while Sir Francis Hartleton’s man drew back into the shadow of
some irregular small, wretched dwellings which stood near the water’s
edge.
Gray did not keep them long in suspence, for after a slight reflection,
he determined upon adopting his favourite plan of reaching home, with,
at all events, the nearest approach to a certainty of not being
followed, namely, by water. He accordingly walked down to some stairs
by the river side, passing within arm’s length of Albert, and jumped
into a wherry in which was a boy lying fast asleep.
Gray awoke the boy roughly, and when, with a bewildered look, he gazed
into the face of his visitor, Gray said,—
“Can you row me to the stairs, by Burlington House in the Strand?”
“Yes, master,” said the boy, as he began unmooring the wherry.
Gray seated himself in the stem of the boat in silence, and pulling his
cravat over his chin, he with a smile muttered,—
“Humph—Squire Learmont, Jacob Gray is one too many for you. The day of
independence and revenge will come for me soon.”
The boat shot out from the shadow of the dark stairs, and the boy began
pulling easily towards Westminster-bridge.
Scarcely had the boat got a dozen oar’s length from the shore, when
Albert Seyton stood upon the steps, and cried,—
“Boat—boat—hilloa, boat!”
“First oars!” cried another voice,—“quick, my man, first oars here!”
Albert turned to the speaker, and by his side, on the slippery wooden
steps, was the man he had before noticed as following Gray.
For a moment they looked at each other intensely, and the officer
thought to himself—
“I shall know you again, my young spark;” while Albert Seyton was quite
absorbed in the exceedingly ugly face before him, further adorned as it
was, for nature had intersected it by several seams from old wounds
received in many a fray.
“Here you are, your honour,” cried a waterman.
“For me,” said Albert.
“I beg your pardon, young fellow, it’s for me,” said the spy.
Albert turned to him, and in a firm voice said—
“Sir, I will not be bullied out of my right by you; I called a boat
first here, and the first boat I will have.”
So saying, he sprung into the wherry; and not wishing the man to
overhear where he really wished to go, he merely said to the waterman,—
“Pull down the stream.”
The boat was pushed off, and the spy called from the stairs in an angry
voice,—
“Very well, young fellow, just wait till I come across you again; you
may jump better, but I’m d—d if you’ll fight better than I.”
“Go home to your anxious mother,” cried the waterman, who, as Albert
was silent, considered he was bound to take the part of his fare.
“Do not answer him,” said Albert.
“He’s a vagabond, sir,” said the waterman,—“I knows him. He’s a sort o’
sneak as goes arter everybody’s business but his own.”
“Do you see a wherry just ahead?” said Albert.
“Yes, master.”
“I want you to follow it. You shall have treble fare if you keep it in
sight, and not appear to press upon it.”
The waterman gave a long whistle; and then, with a nod of his head, he
said—
“All’s right. It’s Ben’s boy as is pulling; and by G—d, there comes
your friend.”
“My friend?” said Albert, as he looked back towards the stairs.
There was another wherry darting after them, in the stern of which sat
the ugly man.
“Pull away,” said the waterman, with a laugh, as he took long clean
sweeps with his oars,—“a stern chase is a long chase.”