The Pursuit for Britton.
A shudder ran through the gaily attired guests at this awful and most
unlooked for termination of the fête they had come to witness. Many
pulled off their masks, and Ada, as she clung convulsively to Albert,
said,—
“Oh, that I had remained unknown, poor and nameless, rather than
acquired what they say I have, by such awful steps as these.”
Sir Francis Hartleton then spoke aloud, saying,—
“This man has poisoned himself to escape the just penalty of his
crimes, but another act of justice yet remains to be done. Officers,
hasten to the Old Chequers, at Westminster; living or dead, arrest
Andrew Britton.”
There was a wild shriek at this moment at the door of the principal
saloon, and in another moment, brandishing a knife in her hand, mad
Maud rushed forward.
“Who spoke of Andrew Britton?” she cried. “Who talks of him? Tell me
where he is, that I may hunt him. That I may see his blood flow like a
rivulet. Heaven has kept life in me yet that I may see Andrew Britton
die. Ha, ha, ha! He is to die before poor mad Maud, who was hooted and
pelted through mud and mire, till the good angel pitied her. The good
angel—bless you, Heaven bless you—look kindly on poor Maud, who has
come to see Andrew Britton die.”
The guests huddled together in groups, and looked in each other’s faces
with fear and amazement, while each wondered what next would occur to
fill them with terror, ere they could depart from the splendid mansion,
which they had approached with such widely different feelings.
Sir Francis Hartleton, observing the officers pause, as if waiting for
some orders concerning Maud, who they all knew, and felt assured, as
was indeed the fact, that she had strayed from his house, called to
them in a loud voice,—
“To the Chequers—to the Chequers, and secure your prisoner. Hasten, he
may receive an alarm from some one, and yet escape us for a while. I
will see to this poor creature’s safety.”
“Who stays me must have a charmed life,” cried Maud, springing to the
doors and holding above her head the glittering knife, while her eyes
beamed with a scarcely inferior lustre. “To the Chequers—to the
Chequers. Ha, ha, ha! To the Chequers!”
Her voice was harsh and grating to the ear, and she was heard, as she
left the house still shouting—”To the Chequers—to the Chequers,” till
distance drowned the fierce, maniacal cry.
Sir Francis Hartleton then sheathed his sword, and turning to the
Secretary of State, said, with a low bow—
“As a higher authority by far than my humble self, I will leave your
lordship to take what steps may seem to you proper in this house, while
I pursue my proper vocation in attempting the arrest of as great a
criminal as London at present possesses.”
“Who, I?” cried the minister. “Bless my heart, I really don’t know what
to do; but before you go, Sir Francis Hartleton, be so good as to
introduce me to your charming young friend there, who, you say, is to
inherit the Learmont property—I wish just to ask her which way she
means to make her tenants vote at the next election.”
Before the minister had finished this speech, Sir Francis Hartleton had
left the saloon, being perfectly sure that Ada was safe with Albert
Seyton, in order to assist at the capture of Britton, whither we will
follow him, being equally well assured that Ada was in good hands.
The officers had made good speed, and when Sir Francis reached the
street, he found more than fifty of the youngest and most active of
Learmont’s guests hastening towards the Chequers; their strange motley
dresses producing a singular effect, as they were mingled with boys
bearing links, and many stray passengers who joined the throng in
intense curiosity to know whither they were going.
* * * * *
None of the officers had thought proper to interfere with mad Maud, for
there was nothing to be got by running the chance of an ugly wound with
the knife she carried, and the consequence was that she outstripped
every one in the race to the Chequers, being the unconscious cause of
giving an alarm of danger to Britton which he otherwise would not have
received. He was still sitting with Bond, exulting over the success of
his visit to Learmont’s, and regretting that, before he left, he had
not gone to greater lengths in his wild spirit of mischief, when a
scuffle at the door of the Chequers attracted his attention, and then
he heard the voice of Maud—a voice he knew full well, shrieking in its
loudest accents,—
“Andrew Britton! Andrew Britton! I have come to see you die! Savage
Britton, come forth! Murderer, I have come to see you die.”
“Now, by all the foul fiends,” cried Britton, “I will be troubled by
that croaking witch no more.”
He rose from his seat, and despite the remonstrances of Bond, rushed
into the passage to execute summary vengeance upon poor Maud, when he
was seized by one of the officers, who had been quicker than his
fellows, and who cried,—
“Andrew Britton, you are my prisoner.”
For one instant Britton was passive, and then drawing a long breath, he
seized the unlucky officer round the waist, and with one tremendous
throw he pitched him through the open doorway into the street, where he
fell with a deep groan, for a moment obstructing the passage of his
comrades, and giving Britton time to dart up the staircase, which he
did as quickly as his unwieldy bulk would let him. In another moment
the voice of Sir Francis Hartleton—the only one he dreaded—rung in his
ears as the magistrate cried—
“A hundred pounds for the apprehension of Andrew Britton! After him,
men—after him! Follow me!”
Maud stood screaming with a wild unearthly glee in the passage, and
clapping her hands while Sir Francis and his officers rushed up the
narrow staircase of the Chequers. As for Bond, he just looked out at
the parlour door; when he saw how affairs were proceeding, he went
back, and drunk up all Britton’s liquor, after which lifting one of the
low parlour windows, he stepped out, and walked leisurely down the
street with his pipe in his mouth, as if nothing particular had
happened, except that when he reached the corner he knocked the ashes
out of his pipe against a post, and remarked,—
“That’s a smasher!”
Britton was not much intoxicated previous to the arrival of his
enemies, and the shock of finding himself thus openly sought for by his
worst, or at all events, his most dangerous foe, completely sobered
him. “What has happened to Learmont?” was the question he asked of
himself as he reached his attic and bolted the door, in order to gain a
moment’s time for thought. It was but a moment, however, that he had to
spare, and while the confusion and terror of his mind were each instant
growing stronger, he opened the window and clambered out into the
gutter, along which he crawled a few paces, and then commenced the
ascent of the sloping roof of the old house, knowing that upon its
other slope it abutted so closely upon some other houses, that in the
darkness of the night he would have a chance to escape. For the first
time, however, in his life, a mortal fear crept over Britton’s heart,
and when a shout arose in the street from the maskers, some of whom saw
his dark figure crawling up the roof, he was compelled to clutch
desperately to it, to save himself from rolling down headlong.
One glance behind him showed him the officers on the gutter and
preparing to ascend the roof.
“Come down, or we fire!” cried one.
“No—no,” shouted Sir Francis, “take him alive; he cannot escape.”
“Cannot escape?” groaned Britton as he made frantic efforts to reach
the top of the roof, but each time foiled by his own too powerful
struggles, for the small flat tiles kept coming off in his hands, which
were already torn and bleeding from his recent exertions.
Some flambeaux were now elevated on long poles, borrowed from a
neighbouring shop by the maskers, and a broad red glare was cast upon
the roof of the Chequers, bewildering the eyes of the smith as well as
making him visible to all his enemies. Then shouts, hoots, screams, and
all sorts of discordant cries burst from the rapidly increasing crowd
below, while several of the officers began to crawl up the roof after
Britton, who by the most tremendous efforts had nearly succeeded in
gaining the summit.
“Come down, men,” cried Sir Francis to his officers—”he is in our
power—down, all of you.”
The magistrate had sent one of the officers along the gutter with
instructions to ascend the roof as rapidly as possible some distance
on, and getting upon the other slope meet Britton, when he should reach
the top; and seize him. This manœuvre was executed with adroitness and
despatch, for what to the terrified and half-maddened Britton was a
task of immense difficulty, was nothing to the cool and determined
officer, whose head exactly rose up and faced Britton’s as he reached
the summit of the roof.
With a cry of rage Britton clutched the man by the collar, at the same
moment that the officer made a desperate attempt to push him down the
sloping roof into the gutter. Then all the devil in the smith’s nature
seemed to revive—fury kindled his eyes, and with a yell more like that
of a wild beast than a human being, he dragged the officer over the
pinnacle of the roof, as if he had been a child, and dashing down with
them tiles, mortar, and rubbish, the two rolled with tremendous speed
into the gutter.
There was a shout from the crowd below, for Britton’s capture appeared
certain, when a large piece of the flat stone which formed the street
side of the gutter gave way with the shock of the two rolling bodies,
and fell into the street with an awful crash. A shriek then arose from
a hundred throats—one half of either Britton’s body or the officer’s,
no one could tell which, hung over the abyss. There was one plunge of
the feet, and many of the crowd turned away their eyes, as before the
officers above, or Sir Francis Hartleton could get a hold of them, both
Britton and his captor fell over, and locked in an embrace of death,
reached the pavement, with a dull, hideous sound. There was then a rush
forward of the crowd, but it was found in vain to attempt to unlock the
death clutch of the two men—both were dead. Britton’s face was terribly
disfigured, and when, with a wild terrible cry, Maud sprung to the
corpses, it was only by seeing that the one whose face was discernible,
was not Britton, that she could guess the other to be the savage smith,
who had worked her so much woe. She did not exult—she did not scream or
laugh with her usual mad mirth, but a great change came over her face,
and in a low plaintive tone she said,—
“Where am I—is this my wedding-day—what has happened?” She then clasped
her head with her hands, and appeared to be trying to think—reason had
returned, but it was to herald death.
“He who loved me is no more,” she moaned—“the savage smith took his
life—God bless—”
Her head sunk upon her breast—lower—lower still she drooped. Then, some
tried to raise her—they spoke kindly to her, but her spirit had fled.