Gray at Home.—Albert’s Joy and Exultation.—The Meeting in the Old Door
Way.
“Make way there!” roared Sir Francis Hartleton’s man, as the boy who
rowed him shot the wherry’s nose between the other two. “Make way
there—curse you all, I am on the king’s business.”
“Make way for his majesty,” cried the man who had carried Albert
Seyton. “He says he’s on the king’s business, but that’s only his
modesty. He’s the king himself, I shouldn’t wonder, disguised as a
fool.”
The spy had scrambled from the boat on to the wooden steps, but he was
so annoyed at this last remark, that snatching his staff from his
pocket, he turned round, saying,—
“If I lose my proper game, I’ll make sure for you for obstructing an
officer. You shall have a lodging in the watch-house, my exceedingly
witty fellow.”
The waterman was, however, a great deal too quick for him; for, as he
tried to step from the stairs into the boat, by one sweep of his oars
he shot the wherry out some three or four yards from the landing, and
the spy stepped up to his knees in the river, and was nearly
precipitated head foremost into the stream.
“Don’t pison the water,” said the waterman; and then he pulled steadily
away.
“I’ll have you another time, my man,” said the spy, quite livid with
rage, as he turned, and again ascended the steps.
In the meantime Jacob Gray had gathered his cloak closely around him,
and smiling to himself at his own cleverness in, as he thought,
thoroughly outwitting Learmont, and even when there was no danger,
approaching his home in so very baffling a manner, was creeping along
close to the houses as usual towards his obscure lodgings.
Albert Seyton, when he reached the top of the stairs, looked anxiously
to the right, and there he saw Gray, not half a dozen yards from him.
To follow so closely would have been very dangerous, undisguised now as
the young man was, and he hung back, still keeping Jacob Gray in his
eye, until the latter had proceeded nearly to a turning which led into
the next street but one in which he lived. The moment, then, that he
was upon the corner Albert walked hastily forward, and by pursuing the
same system at the corner of the next street, he fairly succeeded in
dogging Gray to the little mean shop above which he lodged.
Albert’s heart beat high as he saw him enter the humble abode. His
agitation became extreme, and the thought that he was so near Ada
caused such a tumult of delightful feelings in his breast, that he
forgot all passed suffering—all present cautions, and actually bounded
forward half a dozen paces towards the shop, before his promise to
Learmont came across his mind, and arrested his eager footsteps.
“Oh, oh,” he said, “Ada, my beautiful and true. Even now, although so
near to you, I must not rush to your rescue. My word of honour binds
me, but I can gaze with rapture upon the house in which you are. I can
please myself by fancying I breathe the same air with you. Oh, how
cruel is this that I cannot, for my promise to the rich squire, at once
rush into the house that contains my heart’s treasure, and claim it as
my own, I must control my impatience. Ada, your imprisonment shall now
be but of short duration. Soon now shall I clasp you to my heart.”
Albert now crossed over to the other side of the way, and diving into a
doorway where he was completely hidden, but from whence he could
command a good view of the house in which he so erroneously supposed
Ada to be, he gave himself up to the delirious feeling that he had at
length arrived at the end of all his troubles, and Ada would soon be
his, while the patronage of the rich Squire Learmont would ensure him
ease, and perhaps in time fortune.
There was no sign of inhabitants visible in the whole front of the
house; but in a few more moments, as Albert rose his eye restlessly
from window to window, he saw a dirty narrow curtain moved in one of
the top rooms, and fancy made him think the hand was Ada’s, which he
saw but partially.
“My Ada—my own. Ada—my beautiful,” he cried; “oh! If I could but be
sure now that you were well, and,—”
He was interrupted at this moment by some one popping into the dark
doorway so suddenly as to run against him with great violence.
Albert immediately laid hold of the intruder, and cried—“Hilloa,
friend! Softly here.”
“What do you do here?” cried a man’s voice in no very pleasant accents.
“I may as well retaliate the question.”
“Oh! Be d—d,” cried the man, who was no other than the spy, “I know you
now by your voice. You are the fellow who took a boat before me.”
“Then I presume,” said Albert, “you are the fellow who took a boat
after me.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“What I say.”
“Come, come, no nonsense, young fellow—what do you mean by following
that man you have made such a run after?”
“I never explain my affairs to strangers,” said Albert, coldly.
“I’m an officer.”
“I don’t care if you are a dozen officers,” said Albert, “you have
nothing to do with my private affairs.”
“But I can take you up on suspicion.”
“Can you?”
“Yes, I can, and for your impudence, I will too.”
“Then,” said Albert, “I’ll knock you down first;” and suiting the
action to the word, he grappled with the officer before he was aware,
and although much the lighter and weaker of the two, threw him upon his
back in the passage with so much violence, that he lay stunned.
“I am sorry for this,” thought Albert; “but I can allow no vexatious
interference with me now. Farewell, dear Ada, for a time—your lover
will be with you soon—I will now away to Learmont’s and claim his
proffered assistance.”
Casting then, ever and anon, lingering looks behind at the house, which
he believed contained the object of his fond affections, Albert left
the street; and when he had turned the corner, and could no longer see
even the habitation of Jacob Gray, he started off at a pace which
astonished every one he passed, towards the house of Learmont.
Jacob Gray, when he reached his room, sat down on the side of the
miserable little bed, and began to think of his future plans and hopes,
with a feeling of certainty, as regarded their stability, such as he
had rarely before experienced. It seemed as if Providence having now
hurried him on to the very brink of destruction, was determined that
his fall should be the more dreadful and full of suffering by his
having no sort of anticipation of it. He was as one smiling and making
long calculations on the brink of the grave.
“Learmont,” he said, “has seized the bait—I shall be wealthy and free,
besides satisfying my revenge. They taunt me with being subtle—I trust
that they will find me so. They might long ago have temporised with me,
and ensured their own safety by never awakening in my breast the dark
feelings towards them that now possess it; but they sought my life, and
I swore revenge. Britton and Learmont shall fall in one common
destruction, while Ada shall have more trouble to prove her legitimacy
than will last her life, should she linger to the age of an ancient
patriarch. Yes, I shall be revenged on her, as well as upon Britton and
Learmont.”
He sat then for some moments in deep thought, and a feeling of anxiety
began to creep over him.
“I am getting nervous now,” he muttered; “of late I am fearfully
subject to such gloomy thoughts. I shall be glad when this gloomy,
lonely life is over. It suits not with my disposition. I—I did not feel
it so much when she was with me, but now that I am quite alone, a
shuddering awe creeps around my heart, and I start at the merest
trifle. Gracious Heaven—how my heart beats now! ’Tis time I should have
ease and comfort in some other land, where all things are new and
strange, and there is nothing to remind me of the past—aye, then, I
shall know peace.”
He rose, and paced his room uneasily; but even in his mental agitation
he trod cautiously, as if the very boards would proclaim, to the
world—there trod Jacob Gray, the murderer! Then he produced his
confession, and a strange desire seized him to read it carefully
through, and make some verbal corrections in it, in order that it
should be still more clear and explanatory than it had been. Again, and
again, he read over the document, and was satisfied that its notations
were distinct and clear.
“Yes—yes—if anything should happen to me,” he muttered, “this will
destroy Learmont and Britton, and likewise doom Ada to poverty, while
the estates of Learmont will revert to the crown, or some very distant
branch of the family that will be eager to acquire them. So even I
should not fall quite unavenged. In my death I should be terrible.
Death?—Death? I am not going to die—why did such a thought enter my
brain? ’Tis strange—very strange.—I never thought of death before this
night. I—I am quite well—quite. ’Tis a mere feverish fancy; a vision
crossing the over-excited brain. I have had hundreds of such—such
forebodings. I suppose that is what I must call the strange feeling
that now oppresses me.”
He was now silent for some time, and then, hastily rising, he held the
confession in his hand and glanced around his room, as he said,—
“I will never again carry so important a document as this about with
me. ’Tis far better—far safer in some hiding-place here; and then
suppose it should not be found till some time after my death. That word
again—death—death—pshaw, what have I to do with death, for many years
to come?”
He, nevertheless, trembled, as he strove to reason himself out of his
nervous fears, and he was some time before he could decide upon where
to put his confession, so that it must eventually be found, but still
where a search would be required to bring it to light. He finally
ripped some of the lining from his cloak, and inserted the confession
between that and the cloth.
“There it will be quite safe from any casual observation,” he said,
“while sooner or later it must come to light, and my vengeance would be
greater by a little delay, because Learmont would be lulled into
fancied security if no immediate danger assailed after my death.”
He sunk upon his chair muttering.
“Death again—death again—death again—how that notion haunts me! An
absurd fancy; in my case a most absurd fancy, for never was I so
safe—so free—so likely to obtain all that I wish as I am now—my star is
in the ascendant.”
He hung the cloak on a large hook behind the door of his room, and then
said,—
“How many persons would search this room, and toss this cloak about,
without discovering that it contained anything so important as that now
hidden in it.”
He then proceeded to a cupboard, and taking from it a case bottle, he
drank a quantity of raw spirits, to which he had latterly habituated
himself whenever he felt any disagreeable mental qualms which he could
not reason himself out of.
“Drink—drink,” he muttered, as he returned the case bottle to its
place. “That is the wretch’s last solace. It will for a time banish
care, but it is a deceitful fiend that comes at first with semblance of
great friendship, but sooner or later it will turn upon him who has
been lured by it, and become a deadly foe. I—think I will sleep now—all
is safe, and I am very weary; my confession will be found after my
death—ah, that word again—death—death—nothing else can I think of—come,
welcome sleep.”
He threw himself upon his bed, and exhausted as he was by the few
preceding day’s actions, he soon dropped into slumber—not an unbroken
or easy one, though, for the imagination, now freed from the control of
reason, conjured up fearful images into the brain of the man of crime.