XXI. A Sunny Morning.—The Chamber in the Old House…

XXI. A Sunny Morning.—The Chamber in the Old House

The morning gathered each moment strength and beauty, for it was beautiful, although the trees were stripped of their summer verdure, and the earth no longer sent forth sweet flowers to—

Load with perfumes

The soft dreaming idle air

That steeped in sunshines.

Music, and all dear delight,

Hung, tranquilly ’twixt heaven and earth.

The sun, however, was bright, and the air, although the soft voluptuous warmth of summer, was full of health and life. The little waves on the river sparkled like silver broken into fragments and strewed upon the surface of the stream. For miles the clear cloudless sky reflected nothing but pure sunshine, beautiful although cold; it shone upon the palaces, the churches, and the bridges, and upon the meanest hovels pregnant with squalid poverty; it shone upon all alike. It found its way in floods of beauty, softened by rich colouring of glass and drapery, into the chambers of the rich and great, and it struggled through the dingy panes of the cottage windows, making, perchance, more happiness there than in the lordly mansion, which more frequently is the habitation of an aching heart.

There was one small room into which that clear morning sun shone in all its dearly-welcomed beauty, and there was one heart that was cheered by its presence, and smiled gladly in its radiant light; that room into which it shone was the sleeping chamber of the young boy, Harry, and that heart that welcomed its rays was his—a heart that ever beat in unison with all that was good—all that was beautiful.

The apartment was a small one adjoining a spacious room that was on the second floor of the house, and communicating with it by folding doors. It contained little else than a small couch and a few necessary articles of the toilette. A large mat lay at the door, on which reposed the dog, which was poor Harry’s only companion—his only friend.

The boy was up and leaning upon the window-sill, gazing earnestly through a small chink that was left in the beading (for the window was blocked up from without) which enabled him to see, and without danger of being observed by any one in the street, and likewise was quite of sufficient width to allow the morning sun to stream into the little room.

With a deep sigh he turned from the window, and the dog at the same moment rose, and with grateful gestures approached its kind master.

“The sun is shining, my poor Joy,” said Harry, mournfully; “but you and I may not gambol in its beams. The world without this gloomy house seems bright and beautiful, but we are prisoners, ’tis very, very strange; Gray tells me he is my uncle, and that there is a fearful secret connected with the family that forces him to shut himself and me up in this mysterious manner. Uncle Gray, I doubt you. Such a tale might suit the ears of a child, but—I—I am one no longer. Can this man be my uncle? His behaviour is so strange to me, alternately harsh and kind, affectionate and cruel. Alas! I know not what to think. Oh, how my heart yearns for the bright sunshine, the open sky, and the green fields! How long am I to be thus immured? Heaven only knows. I—will—I must seek some other explanation. I know he fears me, I have seen him shrink before my eyes. I have marked him tremble and turn pale at a chance word I uttered, and yet I had no clue to such feelings, because I knew not which word it was that moved him so; and this disguise, too, which he persuades, begs, implores of me to wear, as he says, for my life’s sake; ’tis very strange. These are not the garments of a young maiden as I am. What have I done that I should, thus forswear sex, liberty, sunshine, joy, all that makes life rich, and beautiful to the young? Alas! Alas! What have I done to be a dreary prisoner? In all my weary years, short, but oh, how long to me! But one face beamed with kindness on me, that face was Albert Seyton’s; but one voice spoke to me in accents of love and pity—that voice was Albert Seyton’s; but one heart seemed ever to really feel for me a pang of sorrow, and—and—that heart was Albert Seyton’s.”

The young girl, for such she was, sunk into a chair and wept bitterly. Then suddenly dashing aside the tears that obscured her beautiful eyes, she said,—

“No—no, I will not weep. No, Uncle Gray, if such you be, you shall not wring another tear from me. You have made me a lonely being; you have been harsh, unkindly—nay, you have struck me; but you shall not see me weep, no—no, I will not let you see a tear. You have torn me from the young heart that in my solitude found me and loved me as an orphan boy, supposing me such. Oh, Uncle—Uncle, you are cruel! Another day shall not pass without an explanation with you, Uncle Gray. I—I—will have reasons—ample reasons—full explanations from thee. And he wanted to kill my poor dog, too, because it loved me—because I had found some living thing that looked fondly in my face. Oh, Uncle! Uncle! you have raised a spirit in my breast—a spirit of resistance and opposition, that in happier circumstances would have slumbered for ever.”

For a few minutes the young girl stood in deep thought, then, with a remarkable alteration of tone and manner, she said, suddenly,—

“Come, Joy, come; we will go to Uncle Gray, our breakfast should be waiting.”

She opened the door which led into the larger room, and crossing that, closely followed by the dog, passed out of it by another door that opened upon the staircase. Slowly then, she descended the creaking, time-worn steps and pushing open a small door at their feet, entered the room which has already been described to the reader, and in which we last left Jacob Gray.

Gray was in the room, and he cast a suspicious glance at the young creature who entered the room, as if he would read from her countenance in what mood she was in that morning.

“Oh,” he said, “you have risen early, Harry, and—and Joy, too, is with you—poor dog!”

Joy’s only answer to this hypocritical pity was a low growl, and getting under a chair, he exhibited a formidable mouthful of teeth as a warning to Jacob Gray not to attempt any familiarity.

“Do not call me Harry,” cried the girl, “you know it is not a fitting name for me, Uncle.”

Gray’s face assumed a paler shade, as he replied in a low tone,—

“Wherefore this sudden passion—eh?”

“Uncle Gray, I have been thinking—”

“Thinking of what, child?”

“Call me child no more,” replied the girl, pushing the dark ringlets from her brow, and gazing steadily at Gray. “Call me child no more, Uncle Gray, and to prove to you that I am something more, I tell you now that the poor tale that frightened the child will not now do for me.”

“W—w—what do you mean?” gasped Gray, his lips trembling with ghastly fear.

“I mean,” continued the other, “that the time has come when I must know all. Who am I—my name—my lineage—my friends—kindred—where, and who are they? Why am I here an innocent victim to the crimes, perchance of others? The reasons of this solitary confinement, its duration, the circumstances that would rescue me from it—this—all this I want to know fully—amply, and I must know it, Uncle Gray.”

To describe the wild stare of astonishment and dismay that sat upon the face of Jacob, as the fragile and beautiful creature before him poured forth with earnest firmness this torrent of questions, would be impossible: rage, fear, dismay, all seemed struggling for mastery in Gray’s countenance, and the girl had done, and stood in an attitude that a sculptor might have envied, bending half forward with a flush of excitement upon her cheeks, awaiting the answer of the panic-stricken man before her. It was several minutes before that answer came. Once, twice, thrice, did Jacob Gray try to speak in vain, and when he did produce an articulate sound, his voice was hollow and awful to hear.

“W—what devil,” he said, “has prompted you to this? What busy fiend has whispered in your ears? Speak—speak!”

“I have spoken,” said the girl. “I ask but that I have the right to know.”

“The right! How know you that?”

“How know I that! My heart tells me. ’Tis a right of nature, born with the lowest, and no greater with the highest.”

“Then—you would destroy me!”

“No, I would destroy no one; give no one even a passing pang; but oh! Uncle, I am young, and life is new and precious. I have read of sunny skies, and smiling happy flowers; I have read of music’s witchery, until my heart has sighed to create its own dear melody. I have read of love, pure, holy love, such as could knit together young hearts for ever in a sweet companionship; and oh! How my heart has yearned for the sunlight, the flowers, the music, the sweet murmuring sound of moving waters, the dear love that gilds them all with more than earthly beauty, because it, and it alone, is the one gift that clings yet to man from Heaven! How my heart has leaped upwards, like a living thing, to read of kind words softly spoken, of purest vows breathed from heart to heart, making as it were sweet music, and its still sweeter echo! Oh! How I have clasped my hands an cried aloud for music filling the sunny air width a mild embroidery of tones! I have asked of Heaven to send me warm hearts to love me; to place me on the mountains, that I may look around me and adore the God that made the valleys look so beautiful! I have prayed to wander through the verdant valleys, that I might look up to the mountains, so lifting my thoughts to the great Creator. I have wept—sobbed aloud for all the dear companionships of youth—the thousand sparkling, glowing charms that lend life its romance, and make the world an Eden, Heaven a dear inheritance! The dreary echo of my own voice alone has answered me! My own deep sobs have come back to my ears in endless mockery, and I was alone; a chill would then gather round my heart, for I was alone. The smile of a father never—never gladdened my heart! A mother’s gentle kiss never rested on my brow! I—I am a lonely thing; a blight and a desolation is around me; no—no one loves me!”

To describe the exquisite intonation of voice with which these words were uttered would be impossible. The gushing tenderness, the deep pathos, the glowing tones! Oh, what must be the construction of that heart that could listen unmoved to such an appeal? Gray trembled like an aspen leaf, his eyes glared from their sockets, and he stretched out his hands before him as he would keep off some spectre that blasted his sight, and seared his very brain.

“Peace! Peace!” he shrieked; “peace! You want to—kill me, to drive me mad; but that voice—that manner—those speaking eyes!—Peace, Ada; peace, I say!”

“Ada!” cried the girl; “that, then, is my name?”

“No, no, no, no!” cried Gray. “God of Heaven!—no, no, no, no!—I—did not say Ada?”

“You did, and something tells me that it is my name—the name you have concealed from me so long. I am Ada. Uncle, some strong passion, some awful fear at your heart overcame your caution. I am Ada; but Ada what? Tell me, for the love of Heaven, all, and if you have done me wrong, Uncle, I will, forgive you, as I live!”

Jacob Gray’s voice trembled and the perspiration stood in cold drops upon his brow, as he said, faintly,—

“Water! Water! Water!—I—I am faint!”

Ada, for henceforward we will call her by that name, filled a glass with sparkling cold water, and handed it in silence to the trembling man. With a shaking hand he raised it to his lips, and drank deeply of it; the glass dropped from his nervous grasp, and lay in fragments on the floor.

“I—I am better now,” said Gray.

Ada stood before him—her dark eyes bent on his with a scrutinising glance, beneath which he shrunk abashed.

“Now then, Uncle Gray,” she said, “now that you are better, will you answer me?”

Gray looked at her for a moment or two in silence before he replied; then he said slowly,—

“What if I refuse to answer the question you ask?”

“Then is our compact broken,” cried Ada.

“And—and—what will you do? What, can you do?”

“What can I do? I can toil, work, attend upon those who may perchance repay my service with a smile, ample and dear wages to the poor, desolate child of harshness and misfortune. I will leave you and this gloomy abode for ever, and trust to the mercy of that Providence that finds food for the merest insect that buzzes in the evening time!”

“Humph!” muttered Gray. “I never knew Providence to feed anything yet. Providence will let you die on a door-step, and rot in a kennel!”

“Peace,” cried Ada, “and profane nor that you cannot comprehend. I repeat I will leave you, without sufficient reason for my stay be given me. Blind obedience to you is past. There was a plan which would have ensured its continuance.”

“Indeed! What plan?”

“A simple one,” said Ada, mournfully: “Uncle Gray, you might have bound me to you by the ties of such dear affection that I should have smiled upon my bondage, and obedience without inquiry would have seemed to me a pleasant virtue.”

“I—I have used you well,” stammered Gray.

“Well!” cried Ada; “Uncle, you have scoffed at my childish tears. I have felt even your blows: you would kill even my poor dog. Used me well?”

Gray looked down for a few moments; then he said,—

“To-night—or—or—say to-morrow morning. Yes, let it be to-morrow morning, and I will tell you all.”

“To-morrow morning? Well, be it so!”

“Yes,” continued Gray, “give me but till to morrow morning, and you shall ask me no more questions.”

“Tell me, though, now,” said the girl, kindly, “is Ada my name?”

“It is.”

“And what more?”

“Wait—wait till to-morrow. I—I have breakfasted—take yours. I have business abroad.”

Jacob Gray rose, and keeping his small, keen, grey eyes fixed on Ada, he left the room. Outside the door he paused, and, raising his clenched hand, while his face was distorted with passion, he muttered, “To-morrow, to-morrow, you shall be a stiffened corpse!”

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XXII. Learmont at Home.—His Exultation.—The Smith.—The Plot

Learmont, after committing the cold-blooded and brutal murder in the Bishop’s Walk, hastily wiped his blood-stained sword, and walked quickly onwards till he came to the further extremity of the avenue. He then darted down a narrow opening, which led him first away from, and then by a circuitous route, to the back of the river.

“Boat!—Boat!” he cried, impatiently, and from a mean habitation a boy immediately emerged.

“Can you row me across?” cried Learmont.

“Yes, your worship,” replied the boy. “This way, an’ it please your honour.”

He led the way to a wherry which was moored close to some little wooden steps, and Learmont, seating himself in the boat, said,—

“Quick!—Quick! I am in haste.”

The boy handled his skulls with dexterity, and the boat soon reached the Middlesex shore. Throwing him a piece of silver, Learmont strided over the boy, and was soon at his own house in Westminster. Without deigning the slightest notice to his servants at the hall of the mansion, who made obsequious way for him as he entered, he strode onwards till he came to the room in which he had sat the preceding evening, when his thoughts had been so great a torment to him, and, flinging himself into a chair, he began to think over the singular events of the night, and to arrange the plan that he had already conceived for the destruction of Gray, and the possession of his young charge.

“This is indeed a stroke of good fortune,” he said. “By Gray’s destruction I gain much. The dull-witted sot Britton is not half the annoyance that this Jacob Gray has proved to me. I hate—I abhor him. Let me consider how the case stands.—He lives in a solitary, miserable abode, out of the way of note or observation. Oh, Master Gray, you have outwitted yourself here! With him, of course, is the great object of all my fears. My worst enemy is that boy, whose existence I am so far sure of from the statement of the babbling fool who has paid with life for meddling with affairs beyond his comprehension. So far, so good. Those papers containing Gray’s written confession that he speaks of, let me consider well of them. The object of writing them was that they should be found, in case of his death—found where? In his home, of course, and easily found, too, most easily; because they were to fall into the hands of persons not searching for them; so they must be in some place easy of discovery; and most simple of access. How easy then will it be for me to find them, knowing that they are there, and determined to leave no nook or corner unsearched till I do find them. Good, good; and the result: Gray dead—the boy is in my power, and the confession, which was to preserve him so well to be my torment—in the flames. Yes, all is clear, quite clear; and now for the immediate means.”

For several minutes he paced the apartment in silent thought, then suddenly pausing, he exclaimed:—

“Certainly; who so proper as Britton? It is a great and important principle in all these matters to confine them to as few hands as possible. Britton already knows enough for mischief, and his knowledge being a little extended, cannot make him much more noxious. He shall aid me. He and I will storm your garrison, Master Jacob Gray! Cunning, clever, Jacob Gray! And then, why then, I have but one more object to accomplish, and that is the death of Britton! The boy, too—By Heavens, I always had my doubts if it were a boy! This drunken fool, who I have been compelled to put out of the way of mischief, saw him though, and doubt vanishes. He shall either die, or be rendered innoxious! Oh, clever, artful, Jacob Gray, I have you on the hip!”

A servant now opened the door slowly, and Learmont turning quickly on him with a frowning brow, cried,—

“How now, sirrah? Why this intrusion?”

“An’ it please your worship,” said the man, “there is one below who would have speech of your worship.”

“Speech of me?”

“Ay, truly; an’ it please your—”

“Pshaw!” cried Learmont. “Use fewer words! Who is it that waits to see me?”

“He says he brings a message from the Old Smithy; but I thought, your worship—”

“You thought,” cried Learmont, making two gigantic strides, and seizing the trembling domestic by the throat. “You thought! Wretch! If you dare to think about any of my visitors, I’d give your brains to a dog, and if your tongue but wags of aught you see or hear in this house, I’ll tear it out by the roots!”

“The—the—Lord have—m—mercy upon us!” groaned the servant. “I—I—I’ll never think again, your worship, as long as I—I live!”

“Begone! And show him who asks for me to this room.”

The terrified man made haste from the apartment, and in three or four minutes Britton, the smith, staggered into the room with an air of the most insolent and independent familiarity.

His face was bloated and swollen from his deep debauch of the previous night, and his eyes looked sleepy and blood-shot. His attire hung loosely on his huge form, and he was altogether the picture of ferocity, and sensuality.

“Good morning to you, squire,” he said, as he threw himself into a chair. “By G—you are well lodged here. You haven’t a spare room, have you?”

Learmont stood with his back to the light, so that he was not in a favourable position for the smith to notice the working of his countenance, where indignation, hatred and policy were battling for pre-eminence.

“Away with this nonsense,” cried Learmont. “What brings you here?”

“What brings me here? Why, my legs, to be sure. It’s too short a distance to think of riding.”

“Your errand?” cried Learmont.

“Money!” bellowed Britton, in a still louder voice.

“Money! Again so soon?”

“Ay; so soon. I have found a mine, and I don’t see why I should not work it, as that infernal Jacob Gray says.”

“Oh! Jacob Gray says that, does he?” sneered Learmont.

“On my faith he does. ’Tis a shrewd knave, but I hate him. I hate him, I say!”

“Indeed!” says Learmont. “He says you are a beastly sot, good Britton.”

“Does he?”

“Ay, does he. A thick skulled, drunken idiot.”

“Ha! He says that of me?”

“Even so; a mere lump of brutality—savage beast!”

“Now curses on him!” muttered Britton.

“How much money do you want?” said Learmont, very suddenly.

“Twenty pieces.”

“Twenty? Pshaw, make them forty or fifty, provided you have likewise your revenge on Jacob Gray.”

“Revenge on Jacob Gray? I tell you, squire, I’d go to hell to have revenge on Jacob Gray.“

“Have you traced his abode?”

“No—no—curses on him. I watched him, but he doubled on me, and I lost him.”

“Indeed! Then you know not where he lives, or rather, hides?”

“No; but I will though. I—”

“I will show you.”

“You—show—me—squire—”

“Yes. I will take you to his house, where he hides alone; with, at least, none but the boy.”

“You—you can, squire?”

“I can, and will, to give you revenge, Britton; and when you have killed him—when you see his heart’s blood flowing—then—then, Britton, come to me and ask for unbounded wealth.”

Britton sprang to his feet—

“I will tear his heart out,” he cried. “Kill him? I will torture him.”

“To call you a muddle-headed beast,” said Learmont; “a thick-skulled sot! A brute! A savage! A drivelling drunkard!”

“Enough! Enough!” cried Britton; “he dies—had he a hundred lives I’d take them all.”

“Now that’s brave,” cried Learmont; “that’s gallant, and like you, Britton. He shall die.”

“Die! Of course he shall,” roared Britton. “When shall I seek him? Tell me when?”

“To-night.”

“To-night? Shall it be to-night?”

“Ay, shall it. Meet me on the bridge at midnight, and I will take you to the bedside of Jacob Gray; you shall have your revenge.”

“On the bridge, hard by?”

“Yes, Britton. At the hour of midnight. Do you not fail. I shall be there.”

“Fail! I would be there, squire, if ten thousand devils held me back.”

“Away then, now. Drink nothing till that is accomplished. Speak to no one—brood only over your revenge; and when it is done, come to me for any sum you wish. It shall be yours. Jacob Gray now robs you of what you ought to have, Britton.”

“I know it, curses on him! But he shall do so no longer.”

“He kept you poor for years at the smithy.”

“He did.”

“And now calls you a drivelling idiot.”

“Oh, he dies! He dies!”

“Away then now with you; be careful, sober, and trust no one.”

“At midnight, squire, on Westminster-bridge.”

“Yes; midnight.”

The smith shook his clenched hand as he left the room, muttering,—

“I shall have my revenge! I shall have my revenge!”

Fortune now, indeed, appeared to have favoured the Squire of Learmont, beyond his most sanguine expectations. What was there to stay his progress up the slippery steep of his ambition?

Who was there to say to him, “Thus far shalt thou go and no further?” Did not every circumstance conspire to favour his greatest—his most arrogant wishes? Nay, even the very fear and disquiet of the last ten years of his life had unconsciously, as it were, conspired to place him on the proud height he so much panted for, and fancied he should enjoy so truly, for by such circumstances the revenues of the broad estates of Learmont had accumulated to the vast sum which he now had in his hands; a sum so large, that, in a country like England, where even crime has its price, there was no refinement of luxury or vice that he could not command.

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Chapter XXIII

The Projected Murder.—The Unconscious Sleeper.—A Night of Horror.

It wanted but one hour of midnight, and silence reigned about the ruined and deserted street in which Jacob Gray resided. Heavy clouds hung in the sky, and not a star peeped forth to look with shining beauty on the darkened world. A misty vapour, betokening the breaking of the frost, arose from the surface of the Thames, and occasionally a gust of wind from the south-west brought with it a dashing shower of mingled rain and sleet. A clammy dampness was upon every thing both within doors and without; the fires and lights in the barges on the river burnt through the damp vapour with a sickly glare. It was a night of discomfort, such as frequently occur in the winter seasons of our variable and inconstant climate. It was a night to enjoy the comforts of warm fire-sides and smiling faces; a night on which domestic joys and social happiness became still more dear and precious from contrast with the chilling prospect of Nature in the open air.

In the room which has already been described to the reader as the one in which Jacob Gray usually sat in his lone and ruinous habitation, he now stood by the window listening to the various clocks of the city as they struck the hour of eleven.

A bright fire was blazing on the hearth, but still Jacob Gray trembled and his teeth chattered as he counted the solemn strokes of some distant church bell, the sound of which came slowly, and with a muffled tone, through the thick murky air.

In a few minutes all was still again. The sounds had ceased. Nothing met the ear of Jacob Gray but the low moaning of the gathering wind as it swept around his dilapidated dwelling. Then he turned from the window and faced the fire-light, but even with its ruddy glow upon his face, he looked ill and ghastly. His step was unsteady, he drew his breath short and thick, and it was evident from the whole aspect and demeanour of the man that his mind was under the influence of some excitement of an extraordinary nature.

In vain he strove to warm the blood that crept rather than flowed in healthy currents through his veins. He held his trembling hands close to the fire. He strove to assume attitudes of careless ease. He even tried to smile, but produced nothing but a cold and ghastly distortion of the features of his face.

“Surely,” he muttered, “the—the night must be very cold. Yes, that is it. It is a chilling night. Eleven—eleven o’clock. I—I—meant to do it at eleven; at—at least before twelve. Yes, before twelve—there is time, ample time. ’Tis very—very cold.”

With a shaking hand, he poured from a flask, that was upon the table, a quantity of raw spirit, and quaffed it off at a single draught. How strange it is that the mind can, under peculiar circumstances so entirely conquer the body and subvert, as it were, the ordinary laws of nature! Such, was the frightful state of excitement which Jacob Gray had worked himself up to, that he might as well have swallowed an equal quantity of water, for all the effect that the strong spirit had upon him. Still he trembled, still his teeth chattered in his head, and his very heart appeared to him to be cold and lifeless in his breast. He heaped fuel upon the fire, he paced the room, he strove to think of something else than the one subject that filled his brain, but all was in vain. He had determined that night to murder the hapless girl whom he had wronged so much, and he had passed a day and evening of unspeakable agony in working up his mind to do the deed calmly and surely.

Ten o’clock he had pitched upon as the hour, then half-past ten, then eleven, and still he trembled with dismay, and could not for his life command his nerves to do the dreadful deed.

He now flung himself into a chair by the fire-side, and covering his face with his hands he rocked to and fro, in agonising thoughts. In a low tone then he held unholy communion with himself.

“I—I must do it,” he said. “I must do it. I always thought it would come to this. When she became of age to inquire I was sure to be tortured by question upon question. What resource have I? I dare not do her justice, and tell her who she is. No—no. She has been my safeguard hitherto, she may now be my destruction; should she leave me she may either fall into the hands of Learmont, in which case I lose my chief hold upon him, or, what is worse, she tells her strange tale to some one, who may hunt me to force an explanation of her birth. There is but one resource; she—she must die. Yes, she must die. Learmont still fancying ’tis a boy, must still be tortured by the idea that such an enemy lives, and requires but a word from me to topple him from his height of grandeur to a felon’s cell. Yes—yes. That must be the course. There is no other—none—none. Then I will accumulate what sum of money I can, and leave England for ever—for—for well I know the savage smith thirsts for my blood, and—and—should he discover my place of concealment, my death were easy, and the packet containing my confession, which, while I live, is equally dangerous to me as to Learmont and Britton, would fall into their hands.”

He rose and paced the room again for several minutes in silence; then taking from the table a small-hand lamp, he lit it, and clutching it with a nervous grasp in his left hand, he muttered,—

“Now—now. It is—time. Ada, you will not see another sun rise. You must die. ’Tis self-preservation, which even divines tell us is the first great law of nature, that forces me to do this act. I—I do not want to kill thee. No—no; but I—I must—I must do it; I cannot help the deed. Ada, you must die—die—die.”

He placed the lamp again upon the table, and approaching with a stealthy step a cupboard in the room, he took from it a double-edged poniard. With a trembling hand he placed the weapon conveniently within his vest, and then casting around him a hurried and scared glance, as if he expected to find some eyes fixed upon him, he walked to the door of the room.

There he paused, and, divested himself of his shoes, after which, with a slow, stealthy movement, he began ascending the stairs to the chamber in which reposed, in innocence and peace, the unconscious Ada.

Suddenly he paused, and staggered against the wall, as a new thought struck his mind.

“The hound! the hound!” he gasped. “I—I had forgotten the dog.”

Here seemed at once an insurmountable obstacle to the execution of his murderous intention, and for several minutes Jacob Gray sat down on the staircase in deep thought, while his face was distorted by contending passions of hate—fear—and rage.

“Curses—curses on the dog!” he muttered, as he ground his teeth together and clenched his hands in impotent malice. “To be foiled by a half-starved hound! I, Jacob Gray, with my life hanging as it were by a single thread, to be prevented from taking the secret means of preserving myself by this hateful dog. Curses! Curses! I—I—yes—yes. There is a chance—one chance, the poison that Learmont placed in my hands for the purpose of drugging Britton’s wine cup! That—yes, that may rid me of the dog! I will try. Let me recollect. The animal sleeps by the door, sometimes on the mat on the outside, and sometimes within the chamber. We shall see—we shall see—the poison! Ay, the poison!”

Cautiously he descended the few steps he had gained, and going to a drawer in the table, which he had the key of, and which stood close to the blazing fire, in the room he had so recently left, he took from it the phial of poison which he, Learmont, had given to him. After a moment’s thought, he repaired to the cupboard, and taking from it the remains of some meat, upon which he had dined, he poured at least one-half the contents of the small bottle of poison over it.

“This deadly liquid,” he said, “has a grateful smell. If I can induce the hound to fasten on this meat, his death is certain and quick, for Learmont is not a man to do this by halves. Poison from him I should assume to be deadly indeed! Ay, deadly indeed!”

Jacob Gray’s hatred for the dog seemed to have got in some degree over his extreme nervousness, and it was with a firmer step now than he could command before, that he cautiously again ascended the narrow staircase conducting to Ada’s chamber.

Still, however, in his heart, he quailed at the murder—the deliberate, cold-blooded murder of that innocent and beautiful girl, and he presented the ghastly appearance of a resuscitated corpse, rather than a human being who had not passed the portals of the grave. The feeling of honourable humanity was a stranger to the bosom of Jacob Gray. He did not shrink from the murder of the poor and persecuted Ada, because it was a murder—no, it was because he, Jacob Gray, had to do it, unaided and un-cheered in the unholy deed, by aught save his own shivering and alarmed imagination. Jacob Gray had no compunction for the deed; his only terror arose from the fact that he could not shift its consummation on to some one else’s shoulders.

He would gladly have held a light to guide the dagger of another assassin, but he did shrink from the personal danger and the personal consequences of doing it himself. He was one of those who would watch the door while the murder was doing—hold a vessel to catch the blood—anything but do the deed himself.

His little accession of strength and confidence now only arose from the fact that owing to the intervention of the circumstance of the dog, the murder was, as it were, put off for a little time; he must first dispose of the dog, then the murder itself, with all its damning train of fears and agonies, would take its former prominent place in his mind, and again would Jacob Gray tremble to his very heart’s core.

Stealthily he moved his way up the staircase, his great object being to ascertain if the dog was within or without the chamber of Ada.

His doubts were soon resolved, for suddenly a low growl from the faithful animal smote his ears.

Jacob Gray gave a malignant smile, as he said in a low whisper, “The dog is outside the door.”

The growl of the hound now deepened to a louder note, and just as that again was shaping itself to a short angry bark, Jacob Gray threw up the piece of poisoned meat on to the landing on the top of the staircase.

Folding his lamp then under the lappels of his coat, Jacob Gray sat down on the staircase, with a feeling of gratification on his mind, that, in all human probability he was at length revenged on the poor animal, whose only crime had been too much affection and fidelity towards the hand that fed and caressed him, and the voice that spoke to him in kindly tones.

All was as still as the grave after the meat had been thrown, and after several minutes of suspense, Jacob Gray began to feel anxious for some indication of the success of his scheme. Cautiously, he then ascended a step or two, and paused—no sound met his ears. A few steps more were gained—then a few more and finally, by stretching out his arm with the light, he could command a view of the landing-place, but he looked in vain for the dog: the animal was nowhere to be seen. Jacob Gray now stood fairly upon the landing, and peered carefully around him, with the hope of seeing the body of his foe, but such was not the case.

The open door of the outer room which led to Ada’s smaller sleeping chamber now caught his eyes, and at once afforded a clue to the retreat of the dog.

With a soft footfall that could not have possibly disturbed the lightest sleeper, Gray entered that room, and moving his hand slowly round him, so as to illuminate by turns all parts of the apartment, he saw, at length, the object of his search.

Close up to the door leading to Ada’s room was the hound quite dead. The faithful creature had evidently made an effort to awaken, its gentle and kind mistress, for its paws were clenched against the bottom of the door, where there was a crevice left.

For a moment Jacob Gray glanced at the fixed eyes of the dog, then he spurned it from the door with his foot, as he muttered,—

“Humph! So far successful and now for—for—”

“The murder,” he would have said, but in one moment, as if paralysed by the touch of some enchanter’s wand, all his old fears returned upon him, and now that there was no obstacle between him and the commission of the awful deed he meditated, he leaned against the wall for support, and the perspiration of fear rolled down his face in heavy drops, and gave his countenance an awful appearance of horror and death-like paleness.

“What—what,” he stammered, “what if she should scream? God of Heaven, if she should scream!”

So terrified was he at the supposition that his victim might, in her death-struggle, find breath to scream, that for a moment he gave up his purpose, and retreated slowly backwards from the room.

Suddenly now the silence that reigned without was broken by the various churches striking twelve.

Gray started as the sounds met his ear.

“Twelve! Twelve!” he exclaimed. “It—it—should have been done ere this. To-morrow. The to-morrow that she looks for is come. I—I thought not ’twas so late. It must be done! It must be done!”

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Chapter XXIV

The Attempted Assassination.—A Surprise.—Ada’s Surmises.—The Agony of Gray.

The last faint echo from the slowest clock had died away upon the midnight air, when Jacob Gray started from his position of deep attention, and placing his small lamp on one of the window sills, he drew from his breast the knife with which he intended to take the life of the hapless Ada.

“She—she surely sleeps sound,” he muttered through his clenched teeth, “or all these clocks with their solemn and prolonged echoes must have awakened her. Yes; I—I—hope she sleeps sound. I—would not have a struggle—a struggle. Oh, no, no, not for worlds. I—can fancy her clinging to the knife and screaming—shrieking even as—as—her—father did—when he had his death wound. That would be horrible. Oh, most horrible—and yet I must kill her. I must kill her. Did she not brave me to my face? Did she not tell me that she suspected me and my motives, and that no more would she keep herself immured for my sake? I—she—she did, and more than this, far more, she taunted me with. Yes—I—I am quite justified—she must die!”

The door which led into the inner chamber was in two compartments, and when Gray gently pushed against them, they both opened slightly, and the dim, sickly light of a lamp from the interior room, to his surprise, gleamed through the crevice, meeting the kindred ray of the one which Jacob Gray had placed so carefully out of the way of, as he thought, the eyes of the sleeping girl.

He crept into the room, and stood motionless for many minutes, regarding the sight that met his eyes. Seated by a small table, on which was the lamp dimly burning and near its expiration, was Ada, completely dressed, but fast asleep. Her face rested partially upon an open book, which she had evidently been reading before retiring to rest, when sleep must have come upon her unawares, and sealed her eyelids in forgetfulness.

Her long hair fell in beautiful disorder upon the table, and the one eyelash that was visible hung upon her fair cheek wet with tears. She had been weeping, but whether from some vision that crossed her slumbers, or from lonesome and unhappy thoughts previous to dropping into that temporary oblivion of sorrow, could not be known.

Jacob Gray stood like one spell-bound by some horrible apparition, for to the wicked can there be a more horrible apparition than youth, beauty, and innocence?

“She—she sleeps,” he gasped; “but by some strange fatality has not retired to bed. My—my task is now ten times more difficult. I—I know not what to do.”

The knife trembled in his grasp, and he shook vehemently; then, as a low murmuring sound escaped the lips of Ada, he sunk slowly down, first crouchingly, then on his knees, and lastly he grovelled on the ground at her feet in mortal agony, lest she should awaken and see him there, with those starting eyes, those livid lips and that knife, which he came to bury in her innocent and gentle heart.

Some fearful vision was passing over the imagination of the sleeping girl. Fancy was busy in the narrow chambers of the brain, and pictured to her some scene of sorrow or terror; deep sobs burst from the breast—then she spoke, and her words thrilled through Jacob Gary like liquid fire.

“Spare, oh, spare him!” she said; “he is my father—my own father. Spare him; oh, spare—spare—”

She awoke not even in her agony of spirit, but wept bitterly; then the tears decreased and sobs only were heard; the vision, like a thunder-storm, was passing away, low moans succeeded, and finally all was still again.

It was, however, many minutes before Jacob Gray again rose from his crouching position of abject fear, but at length he did so, and with the glittering knife in his hand, he stood within a pace of his innocent victim.

Then arose in his mind the awful question of where should he strike? And, like a vulture, he hovered for a time over his prey, with the fatal steel uplifted, doubting where he should make the sudden swoop.

By an accidental parting of the silken curls that floated upon Ada’s neck and shoulders, he saw a small portion of her breast; it was there then he determined to strike. He glanced at the blade of the knife, and he thought it long enough to reach even to her heart.

“Now—now!” he groaned through his clenched teeth. “Now!”

The steel was uplifted; nay, it was upon the point of descending, when one heavy knock upon the outer door of the lone house echoed through the dreary pile, and arrested the arm of the murderer, while the blood rushed in terror like a gush of cold water to his heart.

There was then an awful silent pause, when again that solemn heavy knock awakened the echoes of the empty house.

Slowly, inch by inch, as if his arm worked by some machinery, Jacob Gray brought the knife by his side, and still bending over the unconscious Ada, he listened for a repetition of that knock, as if each melancholy blow was struck upon his own heart.

Again it came, and then again more rapidly, and Jacob Gray trembled so violently that he was fain to lean upon the table at which Ada slept for support.

That movement awakened Ada, and starting from her position of rest, she suddenly, with a cry of surprise, confronted the man who had sought her chamber with so fell and horrible a purpose. One glance at the knife which Jacob Gray held in his hand, and then a searching look at his face, told her all. She clasped her hands in terror as she exclaimed—

“You—you—come to kill me?”

“No—no,” stammered Gray, trying to smile, and producing his usual painful distortion of features. “No—no—I did—not—no—no! Ada, I did not.”

“That knife?” said Ada, pointing to it as she spoke.

“The knife,” repeated Gray. “Hark, some one knocks, Ada, at our lonely home.”

“Those looks of terror,” continued the young girl, “those blanched cheeks, those trembling hands, all convince me that I have escaped death at your hands.”

“No; I say no,” gasped Gray.

“And my hound too,” added Ada: “my fond, faithful dog, where is he, uncle Gray?”

“Yes; the dog,” cried Gray, eagerly catching at the hope of persuading her that it was solely to compass the destruction of the hound he had thus stolen to her room. “I admit I did seek the dog’s life; you vexed me about the animal.”

The knocking at the door sounded now more loudly than before, and the knocker was evidently plied by an impatient hand.

“Hark, hark!” cried Gray. ”Ada, hear me; whoever knocks without can be no friend of ours.”

“Indeed?” said Ada.

“’Tis true; I am the only friend you have in the wide world.”

“You mean, I suppose, since you have killed my poor dog,” said Ada, pointing through the open doorway to the inanimate body of the animal.

“The dog is dead,” said Gray.

“Uncle,” replied Ada, mildly, but firmly; “now hear me. You have broken the compact. Let those who knock so loudly for admission enter, I will not avoid them. Were they ten times my enemies they could not be more cruel than thou art.”

“Ada, you know not what you say,” cried Gray. “They cannot be friends, and, they may be foes. ’Tis light enough for me to note them from a lower window. Yes, I will see, I will see. Remain thou here, Ada. Stir not—speak not.”

“I promise nothing,” said Ada. “You shall no longer prescribe rules of conduct for me, uncle Gray. I tell you I will promise nothing.”

Gray made an impatient gesture with his hands, and quitted the room. He repaired to a window on the ground floor, in one corner of which he had made a clear spot for the express purpose of reconnoitering the doorway, and applying his eye now close to this, he could by the dim light trace the forms of two men upon his threshold. Too well were those forms engraven on his memory. It needed not a second glance to tell him that the savage smith, Britton, and Squire Learmont were his unwelcome and most clamorous visitors.

Now, indeed, the measure of Jacob Gray’s agony appeared to be full. For a moment he completely surrendered himself to despair; and had Learmont then forced the door, he would scarcely have made an effort to escape the sword of the man of blood.

“Ha! Ha!” he heard the smith say; “I like to knock thus, it alarms poor, clever, cunning Jacob. It shatters his nerves. Oh, oh, oh!”

“Can you depend on the men you have placed at the back of the house to intercept his escape that way?” said Learmont.

“Depend upon them?” replied Britton. “Of course. They ain’t paid, and are quite sober, as you see; they are ready for any cut-throat business. Let’s knock again. Oh, oh, how Jacob Gray must be shaking!”

The taunts of the smith seemed to act as a stimulant to the sickened energies of Gray. He roused himself and muttered, as he shook his clenched hand in the direction of the door—

“Indeed, Master Britton. Do not even yet make too sure of cunning Jacob Gray. He may yet prove too cunning for the sot, Britton. You think you have me so safely that you can afford to tantalize me by knocking, when a small effort of your united strength would burst yon frail door from its frailer hinges. We shall see—we shall see.”

He bounded up the staircase to the room in which he had left Ada. She was standing by the body of the dog with the lamp in her hand.

“Ada! Ada!” cried Gray; “we are lost—lost. We shall be murdered, if you will not be guided by me.”

Ada only pointed to the door.

Gray was thoroughly alarmed at her decisive manner, and another loud knock at the door at that moment did not tend to pacify his nervous tremors.

“There are those at the door who come purposely to seek your life!”

“Your life, most probably, Uncle Gray.”

“Ada! Ada!” cried Gray. “Each minute—nay, each moment is precious. There is no escape, none—none!”

“You are alarmed, Uncle Gray,” said Ada.

The perspiration of fear—intense fear, was standing upon the brow of Gray, as he felt that each fleeting moment might be his last. From exultation at the thought of still deceiving Britton and Learmont, he dropped to a state of the most trembling, abject terror.

“God of Heaven!” he cried; “you—you will not, cannot refuse to save me!”

“Our compact is broken,” said Ada. “I do not believe that I have so much to fear from those who seek admittance here as from him who but a few minutes since stood over me as I slept—”

“No—no!” shrieked Gray. “It was not I—”

“It was you,” said Ada.

“I did not mean to—to kill you.”

“The knife was in your hand, uncle; you had destroyed my faithful guard; you trembled; your guilt shone forth with an unholy and hideous lustre from your eyes. Uncle Gray, God can alone see into the hearts of men, but, as I hope for heaven, and—and to meet there my dear father, whom I never knew, I do suspect you much, Uncle Gray.”

“Mercy!—Have mercy on me, Ada.”

“Ask that of Heaven.”

“In your chamber, you have clothing befitting your sex; for such an emergency as this I provided it. Go, oh, go at once, and you may escape as a girl from those who come here to murder a boy.”

Ada glanced at the trembling man, who, with clasped hands and trembling limbs, stood before her, and then with a firm voice she said,—

“No, no, I cannot.”

With a loud crash at this moment the street-door was burst from its hinges.

Gray gave one frantic scream, and threw himself at the feet of Ada.

“Save—oh, save my life!” he cried. “Have mercy on me, Ada! You shall do with me as you please; I will be your slave,—will watch for you when you sleep,—tend upon you, discover your wishes ever by a look. But oh, save me—save me. I cannot—dare not die!”

Ada shuddered at the wild frantic passion of Gray. She struggled to free herself from his grasp, for he clung to her with a desperate clutch.

“Mercy! Mercy!” he shrieked.

In vain she retreated backwards from him; he crawled after her on his knees, shrieking “Mercy! Mercy!”

Now Ada had gained the door of her own room, and with loathing and horror, she tried in vain to disengage herself from Gray.

“They come! Ah, they come!” suddenly cried Gray, springing to his feet. “Now, Ada, hear the secret you pine to know!”

“The secret?” cried Ada.

“Yes, I am your father. These men will apprehend me for murder; but I am your father.”

For an instant Ada passed her hands upon her eyes, as if to shut out the hideous phantasma of a dreadful dream, and then, with a cry of exquisite anguish, she rushed through the folding doors and closed them immediately after her.

“That—that will succeed,” gasped Gray, wiping from his brow the cold perspiration that hung there in bead-like drops. “The lie is effective; she may not believe it, but now she has not time to think. She will save me now!”

He rushed to the door of the room which led to the staircase, and in a moment locked it. Then he stood with his arms folded, and an awful demoniac smile played upon his pale and ghastly face, awaiting the issue of the next few minutes, which comprised to him the fearful question of life or death.

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Chapter XXV

The Escape.—Taunts.—The Confession.—Learmont’s Rage and Discomfiture.

But few moments remained to Jacob Gray for sad or exultant communion with his own thoughts. A heavy blow from without dashed the door open, and Learmont, with a drawn sword in his hand, closely followed by Britton, carrying a lighted link, entered the room.

“Well met; Jacob Gray,” cried Learmont. “Your cunning is now at fault. You are scarcely a match for Squire Learmont, who you thought you had so safely in your toils.”

“Ho! Ho!” sneered Britton, holding the torch close to the pale, agitated face of Gray. “So we have unearthed the fox at last. Cunning—clever Master Jacob Gray—amazingly artful Master Gray.”

“You have triumphed but for a short time,” added Learmont. “Your own cunning has been your destruction, Jacob Gray, your life is not now worth five minutes’ purchase.”

“Taunt on,” said Gray, “I know not what you mean or what you want.”

“Well you know,” cried Learmont, angrily, “you had a double hold upon my fears, Jacob Gray, but that double hold depended upon a slender foundation. So long as you could keep your hiding-place secret you were safe, but no longer.”

“I—I still do not understand you,” said Gray, who was anxious to give Ada some time to complete the change he did not doubt she was making in her apparel.

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Learmont. “It were a thousand pities you should die in ignorance of what had been the result of your extreme cleverness, Jacob Gray. Suppose me, as I shall be now, possessed of the boy, and the confession, which of course, must be somewhere handy, else it is objectless.”

“Well—well,” said Gray, trembling, “suppose all that.”

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” chuckled the smith. “Upon my soul that’s good, cunning Jacob—clever, artful, deep-designing Jacob. Why, supposing all that we mean to cut your throat.”

“We waste time,” cried Learmont. “Where is the boy?”

“Ay, the boy, the cherub, the boy!” cried Britton.

“He is not here,” said Gray, with as much boldness as he could assume.

Learmont gave a smile of contempt as he said,—

“Indeed, he is not here, and yet Jacob Gray is here. That is very probable. Now I tell you he is here, and what is more, he cannot escape. The back of the house is guarded by persons who have orders to cut down whoever attempts to leave it that way. Britton and I came in at the front. We have well searched the lower rooms, so you see we have taken our measures almost as cleverly as Jacob Gray took his when he came to Learmont to whisper in his ear that the boy still lived!”

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” roared the smith, patting Gray on the back. “How feel you, Master Jacob? Does your blood dance merrily through your veins, or have you still some stroke of cunning un-played off that shall put us yet to shame? By hell, if you have, Jacob Gray, I’ll—I’ll give you my head!”

“Agreed,” said Gray.

“Give me the light,” cried Learmont.

He snatched the link from the hand of Britton, and made two strides towards the inner room.

Gray with difficulty suppressed a scream of alarm, but before Learmont could lay hand on the lock, Ada flung the door open, and walked composedly forth.

She was attired in a plain, but neat girl’s dress. A small hooded cloak was clasped round her neck; and now that she was attired in the proper costume of her sex, she looked several years older, and the change in her general appearance was so great that even Jacob Gray would scarcely have recognised her.

She showed no nervousness, no haste, no sign of trepidation as she stepped from the room, and her voice was soft, and musical, and quite calm as she paused and said,—

“Good evening, Mr. Gray. I have put all Harry’s things in order.”

Then curtseying to Learmont, who stood almost directly in her way, she passed across the outer room, and disappeared through the broken doorway.

For several minutes not a word was spoken by either of the three men there assembled. Oh, what precious minutes they were to Jacob Gray!

Learmont then, without a word, entered the inner room. In a few moments he returned with his face distorted by passion, and placing his sword’s point against the throat of Gray, he said,—

“Where is the boy?”

“Not here—on my soul not here!” cried Gray, trembling with fear that Learmont’s passion might get the better of his prudence, and that by one thrust of his weapon he might shed his life blood.

“Where is he?”

“Where is he?” echoed Gray, to whom each moment gained for Ada thoroughly to escape, was equal to a drop of blood to his heart.

“Answer me!” shrieked Learmont.

“I repeat the boy is not here.”

“One moment more I give you,” added Learmont, “to declare to me where the boy is, or you die, as sure as—as that I hate you from my soul!”

“Pause yet a moment, Squire Learmont,” sneered Gray. “If my life has hitherto been valuable, and my safety precious to you, they are doubly so now.”

“No, Jacob Gray,” cried Learmont, “that tale will do no more. We have hunted you down. It is not probable that the cautious Jacob Gray has trusted the boy we seek with the secret of his birth.”

“You are right,” said Gray, “I have not.”

“And you are candid,” sneered Learmont.

“Ho! Ho!” laughed Britton. “Poor Jacob Gray has forgotten even to lie—”

“Exactly,” snarled Gray, “because the truth will do as well. That is a piece of philosophy which the muddled brains of savage Britton would never have conceived.”

Britton made a furious rush at Gray, but the latter stepped behind Learmont, saying,—“It is still the interest of Squire Learmont to protect Jacob Gray.”

“Hold, Britton,” cried Learmont. “Stay your arm yet a moment. We—we will hear him.”

“You need not be alarmed, squire,” said Gray. “Our relative positions are still the same.”

“How mean you? Your retreat is discovered.”

“True, but—”

“And the confession which has hitherto ensured your safety, must be here, and easily found, else it were valueless, and would defeat its object.”

“Indeed!” said Gray. “Now, hear me. The boy is not here! The confession is in his hands.”

Learmont trembled as he slowly dropped the point of his sword, and fixed his eyes upon Jacob Gray’s countenance, as if he would read his very soul.

“Go on, go on,” he said.

“I repeat, the boy has the confession. He knows not what it is. It is sealed.”

“Well. Go—go—on.”

“But he has express instructions, which, be assured, he will fulfil to the letter; that if he and I do not meet at an appointed spot, by an appointed hour, he is to hasten to Sir Francis Hartleton, and deliver the packet. You understand my position, Squire Learmont? And even your dull-pated Britton may now see the expediency of being careful of your dear friend, Jacob Gray. Fancy any delay being thrown in my way now, which should prevent me from meeting the boy. How disagreeable it would be to me to see hung, kind Britton, while I had my free pardon in my pocket for being evidence against you. Do you understand?”

There was a most remarkable difference in the expression of the smith’s countenance and that of Learmont’s, while Gray was speaking. The former became nearly purple with suppressed rage, while the squire turned of an ashy, ghastly paleness, and seemed scarcely equal to the exertion of standing erect.

“Gray—Jacob Gray,” he gasped. “You do not—you cannot mean that—that—”

“That what, squire?” said Gray. “Why do you hesitate? I will answer any question; candidly.”

“Have you,” continued Learmont, “indeed set all our lives in such a chance as your meeting a boy at an appointed hour in this great city?”

“I have,” answered Gray; “or rather I should say you have.”

“Yes, Squire Learmont, you thirst for my blood! You would hunt me to death could you do so with safety to yourself! Beware! I say, and give up the chance!“

Learmont attempted to sheath his sword, but his hand trembled so excessively, that it was several moments before he could accomplish it. When, however, he had succeeded, he turned to Gray, and said,—

“At what hour—are—you to meet the boy?”

Gray smiled, as he said,—

“Perhaps your next question, sir, may be where I am to meet him?”

“I—I merely asked the hour.”

“Whatever the appointed hour may be,” said Gray, “be assured I shall not meet him, let the consequences be what they may, until I am assured that you and this angry smith are not dogging my footsteps.”

“Let—us—go, Britton,” said Learmont.

“Jacob Gray,” said Britton, striding up to him, and grinding his words through his set teeth, “there will come a time for vengeance.”

“Exactly,” said Gray, calmly.

“An hour will come when I shall have the pleasure, and I would pay dearly for it, of cutting your throat.”

“You shall pay dearly for it when you do,” said Gray; “and, in the meantime cunning, clever, extremely artful Master Britton, I bid you good morning.”

“Wretch!” cried Britton.

“Oh very cunning Britton,” sneered Gray; “amazingly clever, artful, deep Master Britton—Ha! Ha! Ha!”

“Now, if I dared!” cried Britton, half drawing a knife from his breast.

“But you dare not,” cried Gray.

“You are too cunning, far too cunning, clever Britton—Ha! Ha!”

“Away! Away!” said Learmont. “Come, Britton, we waste time.”

“Ay, and precious time, too,” added Gray, “only Master Britton is so very—so extremely cunning and clever.”

“Come, come,” cried Learmont, seizing Britton by the arm.

“Nay, do not hurry away,” sneered Gray. “Shall I offer you refreshments? ’Tis some distance to Westminster. Will you go by water, cunning Britton?”

Britton’s passion was too great for utterance, and he walked to the door, which he kicked open with a violence that split it from top to bottom.

“You will like to hear, Squire Learmont,” said Gray, “that all is right. I will do myself the honour of paying you a visit to-morrow.”

Learmont turned at the door, and cast a glance at Gray, that even he quailed under, and then, followed Britton down the staircase.

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Chapter XXVI

The Morning.—The Body of the Murdered Man.—The Old Inn.—Jacob’s Reflections.

When Learmont and the smith had left the house, and Jacob Gray felt that his great and inevitable danger was over, he sunk into a chair, and a fit of trembling came over him that he was many minutes in recovering from.

“They are foiled this once,” he muttered; “but they may not be again—’twas a rare chance, a most rare chance, I—I must leave her now. I am hunted—hunted like a wild animal, from den to den. Oh! How they would have rejoiced in my destruction. This is a sad life to lead—and—and if, before they came, I had taken her life, I should even now be lying a stiffened corpse on these boards—yet, what can I do? She is my torment; she will be my destruction!”

He then rose, and paced the room for some time with hasty and unequal steps. Suddenly pausing, he trembled again with the same awful intensity that he had done before, and in a hoarse, husky whisper, said,—

“What if she come not back? She suspects me. It is time she were here again. Oh! If she should seek protection elsewhere! More danger!—More danger!—Into what a tangled web of horrors am I placed! Can I fly? What money have I? A large sum, but yet not enough. Oh! If Learmont would give me at once a sum of money which would suffice me in a foreign land, and trust my word to go, and if I could trust him to let me live to go. Ah! There it is!—There it is! We cannot trust each other—not for a moment—no, not for a moment.”

Jacob Gray muttered these gloomy meditations in a low, anxious tone, and almost at every word he paused to endeavour to detect some token of the return of Ada. None, however, met his ears, and, after two hours of mental agony of mind had thus passed over the head of Jacob Gray, he crept down the staircase, and stood at the door looking anxiously about him by the dim morning light that was beginning, with its cold grey tints, to struggle through the darkness of the sky.

“She does not come,” he muttered—“she does not come. What shall I do—whither seek her? Yet—I—I must endeavour to find her.”

He now turned his attention to the broken lock of the door, and after some time, succeeded in closing it after him tolerably securely, then searching in the road till he found a piece of chalk, he wrote on the door,—

“Wait—J.G.”

“Should she return during my absence,” he thought, “she will recognise my writing and initials to wait my return. She is most probably near at hand, waiting for me to search for her.”

Casting again a cautious, scrutinising glance around him, Jacob Gray walked slowly down the ruined street, peering into each doorway as he went, with the hope of seeing Ada.

His search was unsuccessful. He could see no trace of Ada; and a thousand feelings of alarm and suspicion began to crowd upon his mind. He paused irresolutely at the end of the street, uncertain which way he should shape his course. At last, with a sudden resolution, he walked in the direction of Westminster Bridge.

As he neared Lambeth, he observed that the watermen, who plied at the different stairs by the side of the river, seemed particularly engrossed by some subject of importance, for they were congregated together in knots of two, three, and four, discoursing earnestly and vehemently.

He approached one, and touching his arm, said,—

“What is the matter, friend?”

“Murder’s the matter,” replied the man.

“Murder!”

“Ay, murder. There has been a murder done in the Bishop’s Walk.”

“In the Bishop’s Walk?”

“Yes; the body was found cold and stiff—the body of a waterman; but we will have justice.”

“What was his name?” said Gray.

“Sheldon. He plied at the bridge stairs opposite.”

“I thank you, friend,” said Gray, as he walked on muttering to himself,—

“Now, I’d lay my life this murder is Britton’s doing. Oh, if I could fix him with it—and yet there might be danger. At the gallows he might denounce me—yes, he would. It must have been by means of this man somehow that my retreat was so quickly discovered—yet how, I cannot divine.”

He now observed a small public-house, at the door of which was a throng of persons, and pressing forward, he soon learned that there the body of the murdered man lay.

Impelled by a curiosity that he could not resist, Gray entered the house, and calling for some liquor, commenced a conversation with the landlord, which somewhat altered his opinion concerning the murderer.

“I saw Sheldon,” said the host, “and intend to swear to it solemnly, pass my house at an unusual hour in company with a stranger. I was looking out to see the state of the night when I saw them pass on towards the Bishop’s Walk.”

“What kind of man was he with?” said Gray.

“A tall man.”

“Thin and dark?”

“Nay, as for his complexion I can say nothing, for in the dark, you know, all cats are grey.”

“True; but you could swear to the man being tall and thin, Master Landlord?”

“In faith I could, and your tall, thin men are just what I dislike—bah! They seldom drink much.”

“Most true—I thank you. ’Tis a barbarous murder.”

“Would you like, sir, to see the corpse?” said the landlord, in an under tone.

“The corpse?” echoed Gray.

“Ay; he was a fine fellow. You must know that Sir Francis Hartleton has been here—”

“The magistrate?”

“Yes. He is here, and there, and everywhere; and no sooner did he hear of the body of a murdered man being found in the Bishop’s Walk, than he had a cast across the Thames from his own house in Abingdon-street.”

“Yes—yes,” said Gray, abstractedly.

“He had the body brought here,” continued the loquacious landlord, “and he says to me,—‘Landlord, allow no one to see or touch the corpse or it’s clothing until you hear from me.’—‘No, your worship,’ says I, and I’ve kept my word for excepting neighbour Taplin, the corn-factor, Mrs. Dibbs, next door, Antony Freeman, the hosier, John Ferret, the bishop’s steward, Matthew Briggs, who keeps the small wareshop at the corner, Matthew Holland, the saddler, Dame Tippetto, the old midwife, and just a few more friends, no one has crossed the threshold of the room the corpse lies in. That I could take my solemn oath of, sir, I assure you.”

“No doubt—no doubt,” said Gray, “I—I will, if it so please you, see the body.”

“Come along, then,” said the landlord, placing his finger by the side of his nose, and keeping up a succession of winks all the way up the staircase, till he came to the room door in which the body of the murdered waterman was lying.

Jacob Gray entered after the landlord, and closed the door behind him.

“Now, sir, you will see him,” said the host. “Just let me move a shutter, and you will have a little more light. There, sir—there he lies. Ah, he was fond of his glass—that he was—a fine fellow.”

A stream of light came from the partially unclosed shutter, and Gray saw the corpse of the man whom he had tempted to commit a murder upon Britton himself, lying cold and stark in the bloody embrace of death.

The body lay upon a table, and the warmth of the house had caused the wound to bleed slightly again. The face was ghastly and pale, and the wide open staring eyes gave an awful appearance to the fixed rigid countenance.

“See there, now,” cried the landlord. “You may note where he has been run through the breast; don’t you see the rent?”

“I do,” said Gray.

“There are two such wounds.”

“Don’t it strike you,” remarked Gray, “that these are sword wounds?”

“Of course it does.”

“Then who but a gentleman accredited to wear a weapon could have killed the man?”

“That’s true. I’ll solemn swear to that,” cried the landlord.

“The tall, thin, dark man,” added Gray, “must be some gentleman, residing probably hereabout, or directly across the bridge.”

“No doubt; I’ll swear.”

“Most properly,” added Gray. “Good day to you, sir. I may perchance look in again.”

“Come to the inquest, sir,” said the landlord. “There you shall have it all out, I’ll warrant. There you shall hear me solemnly swear everything.“

“Perchance, I may,” said Gray, as he descended the staircase. “Will it be to-day?”

“To-morrow, at noon; as I understand, sir.”

“Thank you. Thank you.”

Gray left the house, and when he was some paces from the door, he muttered.—

“So, Master Learmont, I have another hold upon your kind generosity. That by some strange chance, which I cannot conjecture, this waterman found out my place of abode, and thus communicated it to you, Squire Learmont. I am convinced. Humph! He has got his wages. I could accuse you of a crime, good, kind, considerate Learmont, that would not in the least compromise my own safety. We shall see—we shall see. I—I must now make my way homewards again. Surely by this time Ada has returned. She must be waiting. Home! Home! And then, to think of another place in which to hide my head from my worst foe, and yet my only source of wealth.”

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Chapter XXVII

Ada’s Flight and Despair.—Old Westminster Bridge at Daybreak.—The Smith.—Mad Maud.

When Ada, the beautiful and persecuted child of the dead, passed from the room in the garments befitting her sex, she thought her heart must burst with the suppressed feelings which were conjured up in its inmost recesses. One awful question occurred to her to be traced in letters of liquid fire upon her brain, and that was: “Is it true that Jacob Gray is my father?” His assertion of the fact had come upon her so entirely unawares that, as Gray had himself exultingly supposed, she had not time to think—but the doubt—the merest suspicion that it might true, was madness. Ada did not—she could not, even at the moment that Gray declared himself her father, believe his words; but still the doubt was raised, and although all reason—all probability—all experience gave the lie to the assertion, there was still the awful intrusive thought that it might be so.

Upon the impulse of that small possibility, that in that moment of despair and agony of soul Jacob Gray had spoken truly, Ada acted. She could not run the dreadful risk of sacrificing even a brutal and criminal father, and with a speed that in her state of mind was marvellous, she altered herself, in her girl’s clothing, and, as we have seen, for the time, saved Jacob Gray from death.

As she descended the narrow, dilapidated staircase, she pressed her hands convulsively upon her heart to still its tumultuous beatings. Her position in life appeared to her to be all at once strangely altered. If—and oh! That horrid if,—if conveying as it did a possibility of the fact—if Jacob Gray was really her father!—What was she now to do?—How think of him?—How address him? Could she ever bestow upon him the smallest fraction of that dear love which flows in so easy and natural a current from a child to its parent? Could she call him father?—No, she felt that she could not. She examined her feelings to endeavour to detect some yearnings of natural love and duty—some of that undefined, mysterious instinct she had read of as enabling the parent to single out the child—the child the parent, from the great mass of humanity; but the search—the self-examination was in vain. Jacob Gray was to her but the cruel, vindictive tyrant, rioting in oppression and brutality when un-resisted, and shrinking from her like a beaten hound when she dared to confront him, and question his acts.

“God of Heaven!” she said, when she had reached the street; “there should be some similarity of thought, some community of feeling between a father and his child. Do I and Jacob Gray think alike in anything? Have we one feeling in common?—No,—not one.”

As the probabilities of his not being her father crowded upon her mind, now that the intense excitement of the minute was over, Ada became more happy and composed, and she slackened her pace, seeing that she had already placed a considerable distance between herself and the house which had been to her a prison for so long a period.

“I will not, cannot believe it,” she said to herself; “that man is no father of mine. ’Twas a trick—a master-stroke in the extremity of his fortunes to bend me to his wishes, for some reasons which I know not, and cannot even hazard the wildest guess of. My father? Jacob Gray, my father? Oh, no, no, no! Rather never let me look upon a father’s face, than feel assured of such a horror as that! It cannot—cannot be. Oh, what would I not give to be assured of the lie! Had I worlds of riches in my grasp, I would unloose my hold and let them fly from me to be assured, past all doubt—past all hesitation, that Jacob Gray was to me neither father nor uncle.”

The dank fog that hung upon the Thames was now slowly clearing from before the face of heaven, and by the time Ada had reached Westminster Bridge, she could see through several breaks in the sky, glimpses of the starry host looking down upon the rapidly departing night.

The excitement the young girl had gone through had hitherto supported her against the intense coldness of the raw air, but now she trembled in every limb, and as she stood upon the silent bridge, trying to pierce with her dark, lustrous eyes, the heavy fog, and to catch a glimpse of the rushing stream below, she felt the cold to her very heart, and all the miseries of her homeless, friendless situation, rushing at once like a full tide upon her mind, she shrank into one of the little alcoves of the bridge, and sinking upon the rude wooden seat, she burst into tears, and sobbed aloud in the deep anguish of her heart.

Suddenly then she started to her feet, as she heard a heavy footstep approaching. Her first impulse was to leave her place of refuge, and walk quickly onwards, but a second thought caused her to shrink back, with the hope that the stranger would pass on, and she should escape his observation.

Nearer and nearer she heard the heavy measured tread approaching, and an undefinable sensation of fear crept over her as the sounds echoed from one side of the old bridge to the other.

Now and then the person, whoever it was, would pause in his walk, and indistinct mutterings, as if he were communing with himself, reached the ears of Ada.

As he came near she could detect the words he used, and her ears were shocked by oaths of the most awful character, coupled with invectives and horrible imprecations against some one. Involuntarily Ada shrank still closer within the alcove, and now the stranger paused nearly opposite to where she was concealed, and she could hear his words distinctly.

“Curses on him,” he muttered; “I swear, I, Andrew Britton, swear by all the furies of hell that I will have that man’s blood! He shall bitterly rue his taunts, most bitterly. By Heaven, I would like to tear his heart out. I—I could set his blood flowing like a torrent. I could exult in any agony inflicted upon him. Cunning Britton am I? Taunt on—taunt on; every dog will have his day.”

There was now a dead silence for some moments, and Ada strove to recollect where and when she had heard that voice before.

“Can this be one of those from whose visits my—my—no, no, not my father—my uncle shrank from in so much terror? It surely is—or else I have heard his voice in some dream. Ha! He comes—he comes!”

Britton, for it was he, advanced a pace or two and leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, still muttering deep and awful curses. He was so close to Ada that she could have touched him with her small white hand, had she chosen, but she stilled the very beating of her heart as much as possible, in instinctive terror of that man.

“It’s all to do over again now,” he said: “all over again—with the additional difficulty that he is upon his guard. Oh, could I but light on that boy; I—I’d wring his neck—and then—then Jacob Gray, I would invent some method of burning you to death painfully; some method that would take long in doing this—I should see you writhe in your agony. By the fiends there’s comfort in the thought. Oh, that I had him here—here clinging to the parapet of this bridge while I—I, Andrew Britton, was slowly—yes, very slowly, sawing his fingers till he loosed his hold and fell. Then he would strike against yon projection. Ha! Ha! That would be one pang—I should hear him shriek—what music! Then down—down he would go into the water, mingling his blood with it! I should see him rise again, and his heart would break in another shriek. Ha! Ha! Ha!—I am better with the very thought. He—a step—I will to the Chequers, and drown care in a flagon!”

A strange wild voice was now heard singing in a kind of rude chaunt. The tones were feeble and broken, but Ada, with a feeling of pleasure, recognised in them those of a woman. Her attention, however, was in a moment again turned to Britton, who all at once exclaimed, “What voice is that? I—I know that voice, although I have not heard it for some time now.”

The voice became more distinct as the singer approached, and there was a wild earnestness in the manner in which the following words were spoken, which touched Ada to the heart:—

“The winter’s wind is cold,

But colder is my heart,

I pray for death full oft,

Yet may not now depart,

I have a work to do,

The gentle child to save,

Alas! That its poor father

Should want a shroud and grave.”

“Now I know her—now I know her!” cried Britton. “Damnation, it’s—it’s Mad Maud! Shall I fly from her—or—or kill her?”

Before he could decide upon a course of action, the poor creature was close to him. She laid her hand upon his arm—

“Found—found,” she shrieked. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Found at last. Andrew Britton I have travelled many miles to find thee out.”

“Away, cursed hag!” cried Britton,

“I have sought you,” continued the poor woman, “oh, how I have sought you and Learmont too. You see I am mad, and so I know more than ordinary people. The day is coming—the day of vengeance, and I have come to London to see it. I have asked often—often for you, Andrew Britton, and now you are found.”

“Devil!” cried Britton, “why do you haunt me?”

“Haunt you! Yes, that is the word, I do haunt you! I will haunt you to the last.”

“Indeed! Perhaps you may meet with some accident.”

“No, no; I will tell you who I asked for you. You will not be surprised.”

“Who?—Who dared you ask for me?”

“There was a man hung last Monday—”

“Well, w—what is that to me? If there were fifty men hung? What is it to me, I say?”

“Nothing—oh, nothing, Andrew Britton; but I asked if he knew your hiding-place.”

“Why ask him?”

“Because the good and just cannot know you; you belong not to them; I asked the man who stood beneath the gibbet if he had been tempted to crime by Andrew Britton, the savage smith of Learmont; I asked the hangman if he knew you, and when he said he did not, I described you to him, that he might recognise you, when his cold clammy hands, are about your neck!”

“Prating idiot!” said Britton, “if you tempt me to the deed, I’ll cast you over the bridge!”

“You dare not, Andrew Britton! You dare not,” cried Maud. “Savage as you are, you dare not do that! Strange, too, as you boast yourself, you could not!”

“Indeed!“ answered Britton. “Now, by Heaven—”

“Hold—hold! Whatever you do, swear not by Heaven;—that Heaven you will never see! What have you to do with Heaven, that you should record your blustering oaths in its pure annals? Swear not by Heaven, Andrew Britton, or you may provoke a vengeance that may be terrible even to you.”

“Tell me,” said Britton, in an evidently assumed tone of mildness, “what brought you to London?”

“A holier errand, Britton, than that which has brought you, God knows I came to save, but you came to destroy.”

“Save who?”

“The child! The child!”

“You speak in riddles, Maud. What child?”

“I am mad!” replied the woman. “I know I am mad, but I have not forgotten—no, no. I cannot tell how long ago it is, but I saw the child of the dead brought forth by the bleeding man!”

“You rave,” cried Britton.

“No—no; I had no clue to that young child. To wander in search of it was hopeless till—till I found that you, Andrew Britton, were on the move. So long as the sound of your hammer rose on the night air at Learmont, I stayed there,—I hovered round your dwelling.”

“You played the spy upon me?” cried Britton.

“I did—I did; and wherefore should I not? I have followed you to this city. You came to seek the child; so have I. But you came quickly, with gold to urge you on your way; I have been many weeks begging from door to door. I asked two things wherever I went; one was a morsel of broken bread, and the other was to place my face towards London; now I am here,—here, Britton, I came to save the child.”

“Wretch!” cried Britton; “if your madness may be feigned for all I know. Swear to me that you will at once, return to Learmont.”

“Return?”

“Ay; you shall not dog my steps. I know not what you mean. You rave, woman—you rave.”

“Do I rave? Well, well, perhaps ’tis true. But I saw the child.”

“Tell me one thing, Maud. Do you know who that child is?”

There was a pause of a moment and Ada’s heart beat with tumultuous emotion, as she thought that now she might hear by this strange accidental meeting the secret of her birth.

“Yes,” said Maud; “yes—I know.”

“You are sure,” said Britton.

“I know, I know,” repeated Maud.

“Then, if there is a heaven above us, or a hell beneath us,” cried Britton, “you shall not leave this bridge alive.”

“Hush—hush!” cried Mad Maud, “I have dreamt it often, and believe it. You are to die before I do; it is so arranged, Andrew Britton.”

Ada looked out with trembling apprehension from her place of concealment, and she saw, by the rapidly increasing light of the coming day, the savage smith casting rapid glances around, as if to assure himself that no one was within sight of the deed of blood he was about to commit. For a moment an awful apathy crept over the heart of Ada, and she felt as if she were condemned to crouch in that little alcove without power of voice or action, and see the murder committed.

Mad Maud did not appear to have comprehended the last muttered threat of Britton, for she stood with her arms folded across her breast, murmuring in a low tone to herself, and apparently unheedful even of the presence of her enemy. Ada then saw the smith fumble awhile in his breast, and then he drew forth a knife. She saw it glitter in the faint light.

“Yes, yes,” said Maud, in a low tone, “I recollect all, or nearly all. How difficult it is to separate the dreams from the reality. The spirit of the dead man still haunts the place! Yes; that is real! He cries for his child!—His little child!—And there is a garb on his breast! Let me think. How has he lived so long after his murder? Oh, yes—I know now: it is by drinking the blood continually from his own wounds! Ay, that would preserve him!”

Britton made a step towards her.

“The child!” she cried suddenly.

“You shall torment me no longer,” he cried.

“Ha!” shrieked Maud, as she saw the knife uplifted, “you dare not—cannot do it!”

She shrank back, but Britton followed close upon her, Ada again saw the knife uplifted, and by a violent effort, like a person recovering from a nightmare, she screamed.

The sound seemed to Britton so great a surprise, that he staggered, and dropped the knife from his trembling hand.

Her own voice appeared to have broken the spell of horror that bound up the faculties of Ada, and now, by an impulse which lent her strength and courage, she rushed from the place of concealment, and, snatching the knife from the ground, she fled quickly along the bridge, crying, “Help!—Help!”

She had not proceeded many paces when she was caught in the arms of some one who cried,—

“Hilloa!—hilloa! What now, little one?”

“Help!—Murder on the bridge!” cried Ada. “Oh!—Haste!—Haste!—Save the woman!”

It was the watchman going his rounds, and he hurried onwards, as fast as his chilled limbs would permit him, towards the spot indicated by Ada, who closely followed him.

“He has killed her!” exclaimed Ada, as she saw Maud lying apparently lifeless on the stones.

“Murder done!” cried the watchman.

Ada cast an anxious glance around her, and she thought that at the further extremity of the bridge she caught sight of the flying figure of the man who she believed had done the deed.

“There!” she said, pointing in the direction—“Pursue him!—There flies the murderer!”

The watchman immediately threw down the lantern, and with a great clattering of his iron-shod shoes, rushed across the bridge.

“Alas!—Alas!” cried Ada, clasping her hands. “What can all this mean? Who is this poor mad creature?—And who that fearful man? The mystery in which my birth, name, and fate is involved, grows more and more inexplicable. Was it of me she talked so strangely and so wildly? Oh! If she could but breathe to me one word, to assure me that Jacob Gray was not my father, how richly would the terrors of this fearful night be repaid!”

Ada knelt by the body of Maud as she spoke, and placed her hand over her heart, to endeavour to trace some sign of vitality.

“She lives—she lives!” suddenly cried Ada, as she felt the regular beating of the organ of life. “Perchance the villain has only struck her. He may not, after casting away his knife, have had the means of harming her very seriously.”

A deep groan now came from the lips of the insensible woman.

“Speak—oh, speak!” cried Ada.

Maud opened her eyes. They glared with the wild fire of insanity on Ada.

“Do you know me?” said the girl.

“Know you?—Know you? Are you an angel or a devil?”

“Alas!” cried Ada. “There is no hope.”

Maud passed her hand across her eyes for several moments as if trying to clear the mist that beset her memory and mental faculties. Then she said,—

“Where is he?”

“The man you were talking with?”

“Yes, Britton, the savage smith of Learmont.”

“He has fled.”

“Yes—yes—fled. He was pursued by the dead man asking for his child.”

“What child?” said Ada, in a voice trembling with anxiety.

“I saw its little arms cling round its father’s murderer. I heard him shriek—I heard him say the hell of conscience had began its awful work within his guilty breast.”

“The child—the child,” cried Ada,—“what was its name? Oh, tell me, if you can, its name?”

“Its name,” repeated Maud. “It was the child of the dead. It—it reminded me of my own. Listen! When I was young—for I was young once—and my hair hung in long silken rights from my brow, when my eyes danced in the pure light of heaven, and my heart mounted with joy, singing like the lark that carries its sweet notes even to the gates of heaven. Long—long ago I clasped to my breast such a dear child as that. So you see it reminded me of my own dear infant.”

“And you knew not its name?” said Ada.

“Its name!—No, I cannot tell you its name! but I will tell you a dream.”

“Answer me one question,” said Ada. “The child, I heard you say, you came to London to save. Was its name Gray?”

“Gray—Gray. Who is Gray?”

“There is hope even,” sighed Ada, “in the want of confirmation of a terrible doubt. If I am the child she raves so strangely of, she knows me not by that most hateful name.”

“Will you hear my dream?” said Maud, endeavouring to rise from the cold stones.

Ada saw that blood was trickling from her head, but whether she had struck it in falling, or the man who had attempted her destruction had inflicted the wound, was doubtful. Ada, however, assisted her to her feet, and as she did so she heard the tread of the watchman as he returned slowly from his pursuit.

“He’s off,” cried the man. “Hilloa!—Ain’t the woman dead?”

“Dead!” shrieked Maud, suddenly confronting the watchman, “is Andrew Britton dead?”

“Who?”

“Andrew Britton, the savage smith; because he is to die before me. Ha! Ha! Yes, Andrew Britton will die before I do.”

With wild laughter she flew rather than ran across the bridge in the direction of Lambeth, and her voice echoed in the still morning air, as she shrieked,—

“Andrew Britton—Andrew Britton—I am not dead!—Not dead yet!”

The watchman stared after her in amazement, and Ada took the opportunity, while he was thus fully engaged, of walking quickly onwards until she had cleared the bridge and the solemn spires of Westminster Abbey came upon her sight.

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Chapter XXVIII

Ada’s Wanderings.—The Pearl Necklace.—A Kind Heart.—The Park.—A Joyous Meeting.—The Arrangement.

Cold and hunger now began to exercise a sensible influence upon the fragile frame of Ada. Her step became languid and slow, and she began to feel that her strength was fast deserting her. Her dislike to return to Jacob Gray was very great, and yet where else in that great city could she find a place whereon to lay her aching limbs? The sense of her own extreme destitution came vividly across her imagination, and had it not been for the curious gaze of the early passengers she met, she could have wept freely in her bitterness of heart. Listlessly she walked onwards, and thought, from its very intensity, became at last a positive pain. Money she had none; and, in fact, so secluded from the world had she been kept by the fears of Jacob Gray, that she would not have known how to procure the means of supporting life, even had she possessed valuable property about her.

A cold, glaring winter’s sun shone forth from a clear sky, mocking the earth with an appearance of warmth, which made the sharp wind that whistled round the corners of the streets seem doubly keen and piercing.

“Must I return to that dismal house?” thought Ada—“must I again throw myself on the mercy of that man who calls himself my father?”

She paused in doubt and irresolution, and no one who passed could fail to mark the air of deep dejection which sat upon the pale anxious face of the young girl.

It so chanced that she stopped opposite to the shop-door of a jeweller and dealer in precious stones, in Parliament-street, and as she clung to the little wooden rail that guarded the window, she saw the keen, sparkling eyes of an old man fixed on her from within. His beard and general appearance proclaimed him a Jew, and scarcely had Ada shrank from his gaze, and paused a step or two onwards, when she heard a voice behind her saying,—

“My dear, will you sell that necklace?”

Ada turned quickly. The old man from the shop stood before her, and repeated his question.

“Will you sell that necklace?”

“Necklace?” said Ada.

“Yes; the little necklace you have round your pretty little neck, my dear.”

Ada now recollected that among her female attire she had found the necklace; and hastily clasped it on when dressing, to elude the search of Jacob Gray’s furious visitors.

“I am tired and hungry,” said Ada.

“Are you indeed. Bless me!” cried the old man. “Walk into my shop. You see I am an old man. Walk in—do walk in.”

Ada suffered herself to be led into the little shop, and unclasping the necklace, she said—

“Will it fetch me a meal?”

“A meal?” said the jeweller, and his eyes sparkled as he took the necklace. “A meal? Why it’s real—no, I mean mock—mock pearls—”

“And valueless?” said Ada.

“No—no—not quite—not quite, my dear. Here is a new guinea—a bright new guinea!”

Ada took the coin, and said, languidly—

“Alas! I am so strange here, I know not even how to dispose of this to procure me food.”

“Indeed?” said the jeweller. “Do you know nobody? Have you no friends?”

“Do you—can you,” said Ada, and a radiant blush suffused her cheeks as she spoke—“can you tell me, if you know where a Sir Seyton lives?”

“Does he know you had a necklace?” said the Jew.

“No, I scarcely knew it myself.”

“Indeed!” cried the jeweller, lifting up his eyes and hands. “My dear, I don’t know the gentleman you mention.”

“I thank you,” said Ada, rising.

She left the shop, and looking back after she had gone a few paces, she could not derive how it was that the Jew was putting up his shutters with nervous haste. She little knew that her necklace was of Indian pearls, and worth a very large sum indeed.

To her joy, after she had proceeded a few paces further, she saw that the second house, down a small turning to her left, was a little dairy—and immediately entering, she requested of the old woman who served, a draft of milk.

It was handed to her, and she drank it off with great pleasure and laid on the little counter her guinea.

“Would you like the rest, miss?” said the old woman; “you do seem tired, to be sure.”

“I am tired,” said Ada, “and would gladly rest myself, if I am not in your way.”

“Dear heart, no,” said the old woman. “Come in here, it’s warmer than the shop. What weather we do have to be sure.”

Ada accompanied, the woman to the little parlour at the back of the shop, and the good dame placed before her some rolls and more milk, of which the wearied girl partook with more pleasure than she ever made breakfast with before.

“You are too young to be out by yourself,” said the dame; “and a great deal too pretty too.”

Ada shook her head, as she said,—

“Do you know where resides a Mr. Seyton?”

“No,” replied the woman. “This London is such an immense place, that it’s like looking for a needle in a bottle of hay to find anybody.”

“If I could find him,” sighed Ada, “he would be my friend. Is there a gentleman named Sir Francis Hartleton?”

“Indeed there is; and if you want him, he lives close at hand. He is a magistrate, and as good a man as ever breathed.”

“Indeed,” said Ada, “’Tis very strange!”

“What’s strange, my dear?”

“Oh, nothing—nothing. Can you show me to his house?”

“Yes; if you come to the door, I can point it out for you, though he very likely to be at his office, and that’s across the park.”

Ada accompanied the old woman to her outer door, and she pointed out to the refreshed and much revived girl a handsome house, as the residence of Sir Francis Hartleton.

She again tendered her guinea, but the kind-hearted woman replied—

“Pho, pho, my dear. You sha’n’t change your guinea for a sup of milk.”

The tears gathered to Ada’s eyes at this trifling act of kindness, and she grasped the hand of the good dame, warmly, as she said, in a voice of emotion,—

“I am not used to kindness.”

“Not used to kindness? Ah, well, poor thing! If your friend, Sir Francis Hartleton, ain’t in the way, come here again.”

“If I live,” said Ada, “I will visit you again.”

She then, with a sweet smile, walked from the little dairy, and slowly approached the house of Sir Francis Hartleton. She paused as she neared it, and many anxious doubts and fears crossed her mind, concerning the result of an interview with the magistrate; to whom Jacob Gray’s mysterious bundle of papers was addressed, and above all, rose like a spectre, the still clinging horrible supposition that Jacob Gray might possibly be her father. She could not positively swear that he was not. In defiance of all probability he might have spoken the truth.

She stood by the portico of the magistrate’s house, and her irresolution increased each moment that she strove to reason with her fears.

“Dare I,” she thought, “run this dreadful risk? Heaven knows what that paper may contain which Gray sets such store by. Some awful history of crime and suffering, perchance, which would bring him to a scaffold and proclaim me the child of a murderer. Can I make conditions with the magistrates? Can I say to him, I will direct you to a packet addressed to yourself, containing, I know not what, which you can send a force, if necessary, to possess yourself of, but which you must act upon only so far as may be consistent with my feelings? Alas, no! I feel that such would not be acceded to, and I am tortured by doubts and anxieties—dreadful fears—Jacob Gray, what devil tempted you to raise so dreadful a supposition in my mind that you might be my father? And yet I do not, cannot believe you. No—but I doubt—ay doubt. There lies the agony! The fearful irresolution that cramped my very soul—cripples my exertions to be free, and makes me the unhappy, wretched thing I am. No, I cannot yet betray thee to death, Jacob Gray, although you would have taken my life, even while I slept unsuspectingly beneath your roof, I cannot, dare not yet betray thee.”

Scarcely, in the confusion of other feelings, knowing whither she went, she passed the door of Sir Francis Hartleton’s house, nor paused till she found herself in the Bird Cage Walk, in St. James’s Park. It was still very early, but the fine bracing morning had attracted many pedestrians to the park, and the various walks were beginning to assume a gay appearance, the fashionable hour of promenading being then much earlier than it is at present.

Many an admiring glance was cast upon the beautiful Ada as she slowly took her uncertain way beneath the tall ancient trees which have now given place to young saplings, the fall beauty of which the present generations will never enjoy. The cool air that blew across the wide expanse imparted a delicate bloom to her cheeks, that many a court beauty would have bartered a portion of her existence to obtain. The hat she wore but partially confined the long dancing black ringlets that fell in nature’s own freedom on her neck and shoulders; and, withal, there was a sweet pensiveness in her manner, and the expressions of her face, which greatly charmed and interested all the gentlemen, and greatly vexed and discomposed all the ladies, who, with one accord, voted it to be affectation.

How little they dreamt of the deep sorrow that was in the young girl’s heart.

She walked on till she reached the Great Mall, and then, feeling somewhat weary she sat down on one of the wooden seats, and seeing nothing, hearing nothing, she gave herself up to her own thoughts, and tears trickled slowly from her eyes, as all her meditations tended to the one conclusion that she must starve or go back to the lone house and Jacob Gray.

She was aroused from her reverie by some one repeatedly, in an affected drawl pronouncing the word,—

“Delicious: de—licious; oh, de—licous!” immediately in front of where she sat.

Ada looked up, and balancing himself before her, nearly on his toes, was an affectedly dressed person who was staring at her through an opera-glass, and repeating the word delicious, as conveying his extreme admiration of her. When Ada looked up he advanced with a smirk and a bow, and laying his hand on his embroidered waistcoat, said, in the same drawling, affected tone—

“My charming little Hebe—what unearthly change—what glorious concatenation of sublime events have procured St. James’s Park the felicity of beholding you? Eh, eh, my delicious charmer?”

“Sir,” said Ada, annoyed by the tone of the remarks, the substance of which she scarcely heard or comprehended.

“Charming simplicity!” cried the beau; “permit me.”

He seated himself with these words by the side of Ada, and attempted, by an affected, apeish manner, to take her hand.

Ada shrunk from his touch, and rising with an innocent dignity, that appalled for a moment the fine gentleman, she said—

“I do not know you, sir,” and walked onwards, leaving him the questionable credit of having turned her out of the seat.

“Charming! charming!” she heard him say, after a few moments, as he pursued her along the Mall.

Ada was excessively annoyed at this most disagreeable intrusion, and she quickened her pace in the hope of distancing the gallant; such, however, was not the event, for he was nearly close to her when she arrived at the next seat, which was occupied but by one gentleman, who was reading a book.

“One stranger,” thought Ada, “may protect me from the insults of another,” and she paused close to the seat on which was the gentleman reading.

“’Pon honour,” cried the beau who had followed her; “you walk most vulgarly fast. Ah! Ah! Really now, a delicious little creature like you ought to glide, not walk—to glide—positively glide. Ah! Ah! That would be delicious.”

The gentleman who was reading looked up, his eyes met Ada’s.

“Harry!” he cried.

“Albert!” she replied, and bursting into tears, she clung convulsively to the arms of Albert Seyton.

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Chapter XXIX

The Young Lovers.—The Gallant of a Hundred Years Since.—Hopes and Fears.—The Dream of a True Heart.

It was several moments before Ada or Albert Seyton could speak from excess of joyful emotion, and it was then the drawling, affected voice of the beau that recalled them to a consciousness of where they were, and that some one besides themselves was in the world.

“’Pon honour—really—damme!” cried Ada’s persecutor. “This is extraordinary.”

“Sir,” said Albert Seyton.

“Well, sir,” said the beau.

“I thought you spoke to me.”

“’Pon honour no; I wouldn’t condescend on any account. Oh, no, ’pon honour.”

“I have no desire for your conversation,” said Albert, turning his back to him.

“My dear, my charming, delicious damsel,” sais the beau, smiling at Ada.

“Do you know, sir,” said Albert rising, “that it is a high crime to commit an assault in the Park?”

“Well, ’pon honour what then?”

“Only this, that if you will come outside the gates, I’ll cane you within an inch of your life.”

“Eh, oh—a perfect savage—a wild beast, ’pon honour,” said the beau, making a precipitate retreat.

“Oh, Harry; dear, dear Harry!” said Albert; “by what kind mercy of Heaven are you here?”

“Albert, do not call me Harry.”

“My own girl, I know you by no other name. I am not surprised to see you in these becoming garments.”

“You—you did not know—”

“That my playmate, Harry, was a beautiful girl,” interrupted Albert. “No—I did not—my father it was who first breathed the suspicion that such was the fact. And now tell me some dear feminine name to call you by.”

“My name is Ada.”

“Ada? A charm is in the sound. My own dear, dear Ada. How came you here—have you thought of me? Where is your uncle? Are you happy—dear Ada, are you glad, to see me?”

“Albert,” said Ada, smiling through her tears, “I will answer your last question first—I am glad to see you, so very glad that I could weep for joy.”

“Nay, dear Ada, weep not. You shall never weep again if Albert Seyton can save a tear from dimming your eyes.”

“I know it,” said Ada; “you were ever kind to the poor persecuted Ada.”

“I loved you, Ada.”

“Oh, Albert; I have passed through such horrors since we met.”

“Horrors, Ada?”

“Yes; and even now I shudder to think of my situation. I am destitute, homeless, hopeless.”

“No, Ada,” said Albert; “there you wrong yourself and my love; destitute you cannot be while I have an arm to labour for you—homeless you shall not be, for my father, who is an honourable gentleman, will love you as his adopted daughter. Can you then call yourself friendless, Ada?”

“Albert, I am—I am.”

“What, Ada; what can you be but what I know you are—all truth, all innocence and virtue?”

“Suppose—suppose,” gasped Ada, looking beseechingly in Albert’s face, as if her whole existence hung upon his reply—“suppose my name was a disgrace.”

“A disgrace?”

“Yes; suppose I had found a father whose hands were stained with blood.”

“Oh, no—no—Ada. This is some chimera of your own overwrought fancy.”

“Suppose it’s true, Albert Seyton; could you—dared you then call me your Ada?”

“I could—I dared.”

“If—I were—the child of a—a—”

“A what?”

“A murderer!”

Albert took her hand gently and tenderly.

“Ada,” he said, “crime is not hereditary. You are sinless, spotless, and if I desert you because you may have the misfortune to be the child of one who is guilty, may God desert me in my utmost need.”

“Albert,” sobbed Ada, “I—I do not believe it; but it is a remote possibility that Jacob Gray is my father.”

“Nor do I believe it,” said Albert, “’Tis against all nature—depend upon it, Ada, it is not true.”

“But—but if it were?”

“My Ada,” was his only reply, accompanied by a smile that fell like sunlight on the young girl’s innocent heart.

“You would not, even then, despise me, Albert?” she said.

“Despise you? Oh how can you associate that word with yourself? Despise you, Ada; if you knew the weary miles I have traversed in search of you, you would then feel how truly my happiness is wound up in yours. Not a street, court, or lane in the great city, has been un-trodden by me to look for you since your sudden departure from Mrs. Strangeways.”

“My uncle hurried me from there to a more secret place of concealment. We have now for some time inhabited a dilapidated house in Lambeth, which you might pass a hundred times, and never guess that aught human lodged within its crumbling walls.”

“And still you know not the cause of all this mystery?”

“No; all is dark and mysterious as ever, Albert, except my name, my Christian name, and that in a moment of unguarded passion, Jacob Gray let slip from his lips. Oh, you know not what a pleasure it was to me, in my desolation, to find I had a right to a name.”

“My poor Ada.”

“Yes, Albert, I am your poor Ada.”

“But rich in all true wealth, beauty, innocence, and dear virtue, such as no gold can buy.”

“The kind words of those who love are so very grateful,” sighed Ada, “and they are so new to me.”

“Tell me all that has happened to you since we last parted,” said Albert. “My own history is very shortly summed up. My father, remained some few weeks longer at Mrs. Strangeways, and then having by dint of earnest applications and remonstrances, procured some portion of what was his due from the Government, we have come close here by Buckingham House, and I am myself in the hope of procuring a situation as private secretary to a man, they say, of enormous wealth and great liberality.”

“I joy in your prospects,” said Ada. “Alas! Mine is a darker retrospect—a gloomier future.”

“Nay, Ada, our happiness must go hand-in-hand; or farewell to it for Albert Seyton.”

Ada sighed.

“You forget, Albert, that I am beset with difficulties—strange mysteries are around me; who and what I am, even, I know not; although perhaps my ignorance is my greatest joy, while it is my constant source of anxiety, for I have hope now which might by a knowledge of the truth be extinguished for ever.”

“Your hope shall become a bright certainty,” said Albert, fervently; “and now, tell me, Ada, of your present situation. You have more freedom, or you would not be in the Great Mall of St. James’s Park.”

“My freedom is but transitory,” sighed Ada.

“How so?”

“Last night there came with furious knocking at our house, two men. My uncle said they came to take his life and mine, but that, not finding me, they would allow him to escape.”

“’Tis very strange.”

“He urged me then to change my boyish clothing for these garments. I resisted his request; he implored me—begged of me to do so, saying that those who sought me knew me but as a boy, and would allow a girl to pass out unmolested. Still I refused, for he had taken the life of a poor dog that loved me, and my mind was sore against him. He kneeled to me, wept, and at the last moment declared himself my father and a murderer!”

“Good Heavens!”

“Yes; the words fell like a thunderbolt on my heart. The men were at the door; there was not time to think. With frantic speed I did his bidding.”

“And the plan succeeded?”

“It did. With wondering looks they let me pass. I wandered I know not where;—to some bridge I came at length, and there, as I lay crouching from the cold of the raw morning, one of the men passed over.”

“One of those who sought Jacob Gray?”

“Yes, the most violent. There, within my hearing, he had an altercation with a poor mad wanderer, from whom I heard his name.”

“His name, Ada?—It may afford some clue.”

“It may. She called him Andrew Britton.”

“Andrew Britton!—I will not forget.”

“He attempted her murder. My screams, I believe, saved her life.”

“And their discourse, Ada?—What said they?”

“Their speech was of some child to whom great wrong had been done years since. Oh, Albert, my heart told me it was of me they spoke.”

“Could you learn nothing of the woman?”

“Alas! No. Her wits were gone. She wandered strangely in her speech; madness had taken possession of her, and she, who seemed to know the mystery which envelopes me, could not shape her thoughts to tell me.”

“Heaven, Ada, will work out your deliverance in its own good time from this tangled web of guilt and mystery that is cast around you. I still think, as I thought before, that the packet which Gray keeps so carefully concealed would unravel all.”

“And perhaps destroy him!”

“It might be so.”

“Then, Albert, arises the terrible doubt that bad, wicked, cruel as he is, he may be the father of the wretched Ada.”

“I cannot for one moment think so,” said Albert; “and yet, I own the thought is terrible.”

“If we err, Albert, oh, let us err safely. I cannot call down upon him the vengeance of the laws he has outraged. If some proposal could be made to him, by which he might be induced to tell the truth, upon an assurance of safety from the consequences, I might be saved the bitter pang of betraying my own father, guilty though he may be.”

“You are right, Ada,” said Albert; “that is the best, the surest, and the most merciful course. My father will undertake to make such terms with Jacob Gray. He will be mild, yet firm.”

“That would be joy indeed,” said Ada.

“It shall be done. Dear Ada, a happier future is brightening before you. The past will seem like an envious dream that has only robbed you of a few hours of sunshine and joy.”

“Oh, would I could think so!” said Ada.

“It will—it must be so!” cried Albert, with a full face of animation. “Come with me now to my father, and we will concert all necessary measures.”

“I think,” said Ada, “that if this matter can be arranged with Gray, as we wish, he must be taken completely by surprise, or all will be lost. If he have time to hide the papers, or to concoct some deception, we shall gain nothing.”

“That is true, Ada, but how can we do as you wish:“

“Thus,” replied Ada. “I will show you the house, and expecting you and your father at a particular hour, I can direct you. Then there can be no time for Gray even to think of any but a straightforward course of action.”

“But—but,” said Albert, “that involves your return to—to—Gray—and—”

“Oh, heed not that, Albert. A few short hours, blessed as they will be by the conviction that they are the last, will seem nothing in that house, where for so long I have been immured secretly during the light of day, and with no companion to cheer, my solitude but a poor dumb creature, that could but look its kindness and gratitude.”

“And yet, Ada, my heart is very sad at the mere thought of your returning.”

“And so would mine be, Albert, were it not with the assurance of so soon bidding adieu to those gloomy walls for ever.”

“I suppose it must be so,” said Albert with a sigh. “I will only just see you so far as to enable you to point out the exact place to me, and then depend upon my father and I being with you in another hour.”

“But one hour?”

“But one, dear Ada.”

“That will be easily supported,” said Ada, with a grateful smile. “Oh, let us go at once.”

They rose from the Park seat, and the young lovers, arm-in-arm, walked down the Great Mall.

“Are you sure you know the way, Ada?” said Albert, anxiously.

“If I saw the bridge again, I could find it, I know, although I might not discover the most direct route, Albert.”

Thus affectionately, and dreaming of future happiness, which, alas! was still not close at hand, the young guileless beings pursued their course to the old house at Lambeth.

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Chapter XXX

Jacob’s Return Home.—An Unexpected Visitor.—The Lonely Watch.

When Gray left the public-house in which lay the body of the murdered waterman, he took a rapid route by the edge of the river to his own gloomy home, and very soon reached the cluster of condemned houses, in one of which he resided.

Looking very cautiously around him, as was his invariable custom before gliding into his abode, to see if any one was observing him, he took a key from his pocket, and, opening the frail door, quickly entered the passage.

Then applying his eye to the window, through which he had reconnoitred Britton and Learmont, he took a long look up and down the street to see if he could detect the form of Ada lurking in any of the doorways, awaiting his return.

“She is not here,” he muttered. “Well, she knows nothing—can guess nothing, or, what little she does know or guess, she dares not utter to human ears, for she will be tormented by the supposition that I may be her father. Let her die in the streets—let her rot, so she trouble not me; and yet I wonder she has not returned. She must have lost her way.”

Gray then opened the door again, and wiped off the words he had written, then, carefully closing it, he had ascended about half way up the creaking staircase, when his ears were suddenly saluted by a noise that made him tremble, and convulsively clutch the crazy banisters for support.

The noise was of quite a new character to Jacob Gray, and he could not divine how or in what manner it could possibly be produced. It was not a walking, it was not a fighting or a struggling—a dancing; but it was a singular and wonderful admixture of them all. Then there would be a shuffling scramble across the floor, then a hop, step, and a jump, apparently, which would be followed by a continued bumping that threatened the existence of the crazy house, and shook it to the very foundation.

The perspiration of intense fear broke out upon the aching forehead of Jacob Gray, and he sat down melancholy upon the stairs, to try to think what could be the cause of the singular uproar in his commonly so lonely dwelling.

Suddenly the noise approached the stair-head, and it assumed the form of the pattering of naked feet, accompanied by the heavy tread of some one in clumsy shoes.

Jacob Gray’s superstitious fears, and they were tolerably numerous, got the better of his prudence, and he raised a cry of terror at the idea of something of an unearthly character having taken up its abode in his solitary dwelling.

The moment he spoke, the sounds rapidly retreated from the stair-head, and for a few moments all was still as the grave.

Jacob Gray listened attentively for a long time before he would venture up the staircase, and when he did so, it was step by step, and with the utmost caution.

When he reached the top, he stood for a time, and listened attentively. Not a sound met his ears. Then he gathered courage, and advanced to the door of the room from whence the noises had seemed to proceed.

All was still, and Jacob Gray summoned his courage to turn the handle of the lock and peer into the apartment.

“There is no one here,” he muttered. “What could it have been? Imagination could not so deceive me!”

As he glanced round the room, to his surprise, he saw that several of the articles which it contained were displaced; and his apprehensions were still further increased by seeing on the floor several prints of feet, of a character he could not define, and was quite certain he had never seen before.

Scarcely had he time to think upon these strange and startling appearances, when a low growl met his ears, and immediately upon that a voice exclaimed.—

“There, now, you’ve done it! Oh, cuss you, Popsy.”

Gray gave a jump to the door, and he could scarcely believe his eyes when a man’s head appeared from beneath the sofa, and confronted him with a mixed expression of effrontery and apprehension.

“How—came—you—here?” gasped Gray.

“Popsy come out,” was the man’s only reply to his interrogatory; and, to Gray’s surprise, an immense shaggy bear made its appearance from the same place of concealment.

“Who are you?” cried Jacob Gray.

“Why don’t you answer the gentleman, you brute?” said the man, dealing the bear a heavy blow with his fist; “affectionate ways is lost upon you, that they is—”

“How dare you come here?” cried Gray.

“Don’t ye hear?” screamed the man, still addressing the bear. “How dare ye come here?—Eh?”

“Spy!—Villain!” cried Gray, drawing from his breast the same knife with which he would have stabbed Ada to the heart.

“Hilloah!—Hilloah!” cried the man. “Do you hear, my Popsy, what he calls ye?”

The bear commenced a low growling, and displayed a formidable row of blackened fangs at Jacob Gray.

“Who and what are you?” shrieked Gray to the man.

“Barbican Tibbs, the bear warden, but common people calls me Tipsy Tibbs, and nothink else.”

“What in the name of hell brought you here?” cried Gray.

“Oh! I’m confidential,” replied the man, “and I don’t mind telling you.”

“Quickly then, quickly.”

“Why, you see they say as there isn’t to be allowed more than three bear wardens in Westminster, and as I’ve only just come from Canterbury, I makes faces and a parsecutor.”

“Faces, and a what?”

“A parsecutor—that is, they parsecutes me, and I gives them a dodge through the streets, you see; and they, coming rather quick, I bolts down this here street, and the first thing I sees is ‘wait—J.G.’ on your door.”

“Well, what then?”

“Why, then Popsy and me, we gives the door a drive and we gets in, then we shuts it again, and we’ve waited here ever since.”

“And it was you who made the noise I heard just now, as I was ascending the stairs?”

“Very like; and it has quite alarmed poor Popsy, and shattered his nerves by squeaking out in the passage.”

“How long have you been here?”

“A matter of half an hour.”

“What have you stolen?”

“Stole! Stole!”

“Yes: tell me, for there are some things I value, and some I do not.”

“Popsy, does ye hear what a opinion he has of your morals?”

Gray walked across the room, and opening a door that led to an inner apartment, he entered it and remained absent some minutes. During that absence he took from a chest (the key of which he had about him) a large sum of money, being the bulk of what he had, from time to time, received of Learmont, and he stowed it carefully about his person; the greatest care, however, he bestowed upon a packet of papers that were at the bottom of the bag. These he placed carefully in his breast, and then returned to the room in which was the bear warden and his shaggy associate.

“Hark you, friend,” said Gray, “I am going to leave this house.”

“Good morning,” said the bear warden.

“You seem a—a deserving man.”

“Do I?”

“Yes: I will give you the furniture you see about here, if you will defend it against all comers; and should a young girl come here, will you detain her for me?”

“Well, that’s odd,” said Tibbs, “but I don’t know you, my master.”

“Nor will you, I will take my own time and opportunity of calling upon you.”

“Well” said the beat warden, “I don’t mind obliging you, particularly as I haven’t anything of my own. Is there anything worth having up stairs, old fellow?”

“There is,” said Gray—“and recollect one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Should a man come of burly frame and bloated aspect, be assured he comes to take from you, if he can, all that I have given to you—be assured of that.”

“The deuce he does!”

“You will know him. He is rough of speech, and coarse and bulky. Beware of him!”

“But what shall I do with him?”

“Kill him—slaughter him. Take his life how and when you will—or maim him—do him some deadly harm, for, on my soul, I do not believe he has written any confession. Stay, I had forgotten.”

Gray hurried to the cupboard, and took from it the remainder of the poison he had given to Ada’s dog; then turning to the astonished bear warden, he said,—

“Remember, we shall meet again.”

He rapidly then descended the staircase, and was out of the house before the man could answer him.

“Well, if ever I knew the like o’ that!” said the bear warden. “Popsy!”

The bear answered with a growl, “We’re dropped into a furnished house, and nothing to pay. The blessed world’s a beginning to find out our merits, it is!”

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XXXI. Ada’s Fate Again Against Her.—The Threat.—The New Home

Jacob Gray was not acting with his usual caution when he left such directions to the bear warden; but the attempt which had been made upon his life by Learmont and the smith had filled him with rage, and he would, in the height of his passion, willingly run some risk to be revenged upon them.

“There is an ancient uninhabited house;” he muttered, “nigh to Battersea-fields, that I have several times noted. Its walls are crumbling with age. The bat screams around its tottering chimneys, I have marked it well. There am I now to take up my abode until I have wrung from Learmont a sum sufficient to induce me to leave England for ever; and when I do—ay, when I am safe in another land, then will I bring destruction upon him and Britton. They shall find that Jacob Gray has yet a sting to reach their hearts.”

As he spoke, he cast an habitual glance of caution up and down the street, ere he emerged from the doorway of the house he was about to leave for ever.

Some distance from him, the flutter of a white garment caught his eye, and he retreated back into the shadow of the doorway, from where he peered forth, to note who it could be that was approaching that solitary and ill-omened district.

Suddenly he clutched the door-post for support, and a deadly paleness came over him. He saw Ada taking leave of Albert Seyton at the corner of the street. He saw her hands clasped in affectionate pressure. Then, with a lingering step. Albert Seyton turned away, looking, however, many times back again to smile another brief farewell to Ada.

The deadly feelings of hatred that Gray entertained towards Albert Seyton now all returned in their full force, and he muttered curses, deep and appalling, against both him and Ada.

“That boy again,” he growled between his clenched teeth. “How in the name of hell met she with him? In this large city what cursed fate has caused them to meet. I will have his life. Something tells me he will be a stumbling block in my way. I will take his life. Some means I will devise to safely put him in his grave. Yes—yes—smile on, young sir. You fancy now you have tracked Jacob Gray to his lair. You are mistaken. You have found a clue but to lose it again. Ha! She comes. Now, there is some deep-laid plot between them to surprise me; but I will foil it—I will foil it.”

Ada now rapidly approached the doorway, in the shadow of which Gray was concealed. There was a smile of joy upon her face—the pure light of happiness danced in her eyes—and her step was agile as a young fawn.

“Another hour,” she whispered to herself—“but another hour of misery, and life commences, as it were, anew for the poor forlorn Ada. My existence, as yet, presents me with nothing but dim shadows; the dear radiant sunshine of the life which Heaven has bestowed upon me, is now at hand. Gray must see his own interests and safety in making terms with Albert and his father. He will tell all—he will absolve me from the fancied ties of friendship, and I will forgive him for all he has made me suffer. If he be very guilty, in another land he may find security and repentance—nay, make his peace with Heaven.”

Such were the glowing thoughts of the young girl, who was hastening to separate herself from those who loved her, while in her guileless heart she fondly imagined she was taking the surest means of securing her happiness.

Jacob Gray saw her approaching. Eagerly he watched her steps, and when she paused at the door of the house, he shrunk back into the passage, and allowed her to enter its gloomy portal. Then stepping forward; he closed the door, and said in a low tone,—

“Ada, is there anything in this house you value?”

Ada started, and glanced at Gray with surprise, as she replied,—

“Why do you ask? You see I have returned.”

“Ay. You could not desert your father!” smiled Gray.

Ada shrunk back as he laid his hand upon her shoulder, and he could not but note the shudder of dislike that came over her.

“Listen to me,” he said. “I will give you your choice of one or two alternatives.”

“What mean you.”

“You recollect the young man, Albert Seyton?”

A deep blush came over Ada’s face, as she said,—“I do.”

“Well—he had a father—”

“He has a father still!” cried Ada.

“In—deed!” sneered Gray. “You know that.”

Ada looked confused.

“Nay,” continued Gray, “you need not blush. Think you, Albert Seyton loves you?”

“Loves me?” echoed Ada.

“Ay. You have read enough to tell you the meaning of the term.”

Ada was silent.

“Attend to my words,” continued Gray. “I have another home besides this.”

“Another home?”

“Yes, Ada; and in that other home there are domestics which would place you in so proud a station, that Albert Seyton would, in calling you his some few years hence, be acquiring a rank and fortune beyond his or your wildest dreams.”

Ada’s eyes sparkled as Gray spoke, and she involuntarily moved a step towards him. The thought of enriching, perhaps ennobling, the poor dependent Albert Seyton, was delightful to her heart.

“Oh!” she cried, “if you can do this, I will forget all the past.”

“At my house,” said Gray. “’Tis near at hand.”

“I will count the minutes till you return,” said Ada. “Oh, go at once.”

“Yes, but not alone. You go with me, or I go not at all. Come, Ada, quick. We shall be back very soon. You are equipped for walking. We will go together.”

“No—I—wish not to leave here,” said Ada.

“Not leave here? Has your love for this place suddenly grown so strong?”

“I am weary,” said Ada.

“Then we part for ever! Farewell! Ada. I go now to destroy—to burn those papers! Carry with you through life the doubts that now harass you!”

“Why force me to accompany you?” said Ada. “I am very weary.”

“Decide! The distance is but short. The next half hour fixes your fate for a life!”

“Half hour!” said Ada. “Will it consume but half an hour?”

“Scarcely so much. A boat will take us where we are going in half the time.”

“Jacob Gray,” said Ada, solemnly.

“Well—well,” replied Gray, avoiding her eyes.

“On your soul, are you speaking truly?”

“On, my soul!”

“You swear you are not deceiving me?”

“I swear!”

“We shall return here?”

“We shall, assuredly. Then my task shall be to find out this young man—this Albert Seyton.”

“I—I will go,” said Ada. “Let us hasten—but half an hour?”

“Nay, not so long a time.”

Still Ada hesitated.

“You will know all then,” remarked Gray; “who and what you are, you will know; but if you come not now, I leave you this instant for ever! You’ll never see me more! And in losing me, you lose all clue to the solution of mysteries that will torture you through life.”

“I will go—I will go,” said Ada. “Within the hour we shall return.”

“We shall. Come, Ada, come.”

“The papers that were above in the chest, where are they?”

“In my safe keeping,” cried Gray.

“I am weary. Will you not wait until sunset?”

“Not another moment.”

“Then I—will—go.”

Gray took her by the arm, and they left the house together.

A thousand conflicting thoughts rushed through Ada’s mind. The prominent one, however, was the pleasure it would give her to meet Albert Seyton, no longer the child of mystery, and perhaps of guilt, but the proud descendant of some pure and unsullied house. If she let Gray depart now, with him all chance of unravelling doubts and mysteries which, as he truly said, would torture her through life, would be lost. Albert and his father would come but to encumber themselves with a nameless, destitute girl. That she could not bear, and although she doubted, yet, she trusted Jacob Gray.

Ada, when she made up her mind that she would accompany Gray, quite astonished him by the nervous haste which she showed in urging him along, and his naturally suspicious mind at once surmised that there was some especial reason in the mind of the young girl which induced her desire to return to the house they were leaving within the hour.

“She has betrayed me to yon boy,” he thought. “’Tis more than likely that within the hour I should be a prisoner suing for mercy to him, and my confessions in his hands.”

They soon reached the river side, and Gray, addressing a waterman said,—

“Can you take us to Battersea, quickly?”

“Yes, master,” said the man; “the tide serves.”

Without another word Gray handed Ada into the boat, and they were soon gliding swiftly along the Thames, towards the marshy fields of Battersea.

As the time progressed, Ada’s uneasiness became more and more apparent, and when the waterman tended them at a craggy flight of wooden steps that merely led to the open fields, a tremor came over her, and she began to repent trusting Jacob Gray.

“I see no house,” she said. “Whither are you leading me?”

“There—to your left,” said Gray. “Yon low building is the place of our destination.”

“Let us be quick,” said Ada.

With a sneering smile Jacob Gray led the way by the side of the scanty hedges till they reached the gloomy, desolate mansion he had long fixed upon as his next place of concealment, should his lone dwelling at Lambeth be discovered.

Ada looked upon the damp crumbling walls and shattered windows with a feeling of dread she could not conceal. “What place is this?” she falteringly asked.

“’Tis an old deserted farm-house,” said Gray, “in which a murder, they say was committed.”

“A murder?”

“Yes; by a man named Forest. It is called now Forest House, and no one will willingly approach it.”

They stood now in the shadow of the deep overhanging porch, and Jacob Gray for a moment gazed around him upon the wide expanse of marshy ground. A smile of triumph lit up his face with a demoniac-expression.

“Ada,” he said, “you would have betrayed me—you may shriek now—no one will hear you; you may struggle—no one will aid you. This house is your prison—perhaps your tomb.”

Ada clasped her hands in terror and despair. “Betrayed—betrayed! Oh, Albert—” she cried, and sunk in a state of insensibility on the door step of Forest House.

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Chapter XXXII

Albert’s Disappointment.—Tibbs, the Bear Warden.—The Search.—A Consultation.

Within the hour he had named as being the extreme limit of his absence, Albert Seyton and his father arrived at Gray’s house at Lambeth. They knocked at first quietly, and finally loudly, for admittance. Here, as they had predetermined, they burst upon the frail door, and, calling upon Ada, Albert flew from room to room of the dismal house.

No voice responded to his, and he was about to give up the search in despair, when a low rumbling sound met his ears from a room he had already visited, and which was immediately followed by a heavy crash of some fallen body.

He and his father instantly rushed into the room, and there, amid the ruins, a table, several bottles, glasses, &c., lay Tibbs, the bear warden, who was evidently far gone in intoxication.

The bear was licking its paws on the spot which would have been under the table had that article of furniture preserved its perpendicularity; but it now lay on one side, and it is to be surmised that Tipsy Tibbs had hidden under it upon hearing the sound of footsteps, and then upset it in his clumsy efforts to emerge from his temporary concealment.

Mr. Seyton Albert looked with undisguised astonishment on the strange spectacle of a drunken man and a bear, where they expected to find a young girl and a cool designing villain.

“How are you?” said Tibbs. “So, so—you’re come back, have you? Hurrah—hurray—that’s my op—opinion.”

Albert stepped up to him, and shaking him roughly, cried in a loud voice:—

“Who are you?”

“Who—who—am—I? Why, everybody knows me—I’m—Tip—Tip—Tipsy Tibbs, the bear warder.”

“Tell me, have you seen a beautiful girl here? Speak at once.”

“A w—w—what?”

“A young girl, with black eyes; sparkling as diamonds—long dancing ringlets.”

“Whew!” whistled Tibbs. “Don’t I wish I had? Oh, the little charmer.”

“Wretch!” cried Albert, “have you seen her?”

“Do—do—you mean—Mrs. Tibbs?”

“Albert,” said Mr. Seyton, “we shall get no information from this man by angry questioning. Allow me to speak to him. Are you alone here, my friend?”

“No, I ain’t.”

“Who else inhabits this house?”

“Popsy. Hurrah—let’s have another bottle—never get drunk—don’t make a beast of yourself, old gentleman.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Two bottles!”

“How long a time, I say, have you been here?”

“Well, I say—two—two bottles.”

“The villain Gray has been more than a match for me, father;” said Albert. “My poor Ada is not here!”

He sunk upon a chair, and gave way to a violent burst of grief as he spoke, and Tibbs gazed upon him in speechless astonishment.

“Albert,” said his father, “this is childish of you. Let us thoroughly search this house. We may still find some clue to the object of our search.”

“True,” said Albert, rising, “I will not despair. We may, perchance, light upon the mysterious packet of papers which Jacob Gray thinks so much of, and which were addressed to Sir Francis Hartleton.”

“Take another bottle,” suggested Tibbs, making various ridiculous efforts to get on his feet, in all of which he signally failed.

“Sot,” said Albert, “I will force more intelligent answers from you yet before I leave this house.”

“Take another bottle,” said Tibbs. “My dear, here’s your health. You have a rare voice. Bless you, you want to stay because I’m here. Don’t let him persuade you; d—d—d—n his important papers.”

“What do you mean?” cried Albert.

“Why, she’s gone, to be sure. They didn’t know I was listening on the stairs. Ho! Ho! Ho!—They’re off, and the furniture’s all mine. Take another bottle.”

“From the ravings of this drunkard,” said Mr. Seyton, “we may gather what has happened, Albert. Jacob Gray, on some pretence, having his suspicions awakened, has induced Ada to leave this place with him.”

“I fear it is so, father,” said Albert; “but here I vow to Heaven that I will not know more rest than is needful to my health and strength till I have found where this bad man has hidden the fairest, best—”

“Control your feelings, Albert,” said his father. “God knows how willingly I would have taken this persecuted young girl to my home, and done a parent’s duty by her; but Heaven has decreed it otherwise.”

With a saddened and dejected air Albert again searched the house. He found no vestige of Ada, save her male attire and the dead dog. An open book was upon the table of her room. That he placed next his heart, with the fond thought that she might have owned and prized it.

“Let us leave this place,” said his father, “and the more quickly the better, I will employ someone to watch the house for some days in case Gray should return, and in the meantime, we will ourselves make every inquiry, and use our utmost endeavours to discover his retreat.”

With a heavy heart Albert left the house; he lingered long at the door and in the street, and it was only his father’s arguments that induced him at length to quit the spot.

“Father,” said Albert, “I will make an application to Sir Francis Hartleton!”

“You forget,” replied Mr. Seyton, “that Sir Francis Hartleton is a magistrate and has a public duty to perform, from which he is not the man to flinch. We wish to temporise with this man Gray, and not drive him to extremities. The more heartily Sir Francis might enter into this business, the more misery we might be laying up for the persecuted girl it is our wish to rescue. Recollect, Albert, there still lives the awful doubt that Jacob Gray may still be the father of Ada.”

“It is an awful doubt,” said Albert.

“We must not then embitter her existence, wicked as Gray may be, by executing upon him the full measure of justice until that doubt is solved. It would be coldly right to do so, I will grant; but we look more to Ada’s happiness, Albert, than the vengeance of the law upon a guilty man.”

Albert grasped his father’s hand as he replied, in a voice struggling with emotion,—

“Guide me, father—tell me what to do. Your words bring truth and conviction with them.”

“Then, Albert, if you succeed in getting the situation you have been endeavouring to obtain, as private secretary to this gentleman, who is reported to be so rich and liberal, there may arise some opportunity of interesting him in the matter, and, through his means and influence, much might be done to unravel the whole mystery without endangering Gray, should he turn out to be Ada’s father, of which, however, I have the strongest doubts.”

“Yes,” cried Albert, with renovated hope; “they tell me this gentleman, Squire Learmont, is rolling in wealth.”

“Ay, that is his name. He is comparatively unknown, I hear, in London; but if you become his secretary, he may take a pleasure, if he be a good man, in assisting you.”

“It shall be tried, father,” said Albert.

Learmont had been inquiring of several persons since his arrival in London for some young man as private secretary, and Albert Seyton, who never in his wildest dreams imagined that the rich Squire Learmont, whose wealth was the theme of every tongue, could possibly be in any way connected with the fortunes of the poor persecuted Ada, had applied for the situation, and met with a favourable although evasive answer.

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Chapter XXXIII

Learmont at Home.—Dark Reflections.—The Summons.—The Confederates.—Suspicions.

In the small room which he had fitted up specially for himself, sat the Squire Learmont, in an attitude of deep thought. His lips occasionally moved as if he were repeating to himself the subject of his meditations. The colour went and came upon his agitated face, according to the uneven tenor of his thoughts. For more than an hour he thus sat, and then suddenly rising as if with a violent determination to shake off completely “the thick coming fancies” that disturbed his brain, he went to the window and looked out upon the court yard of his mansion.

The uneasy thoughts of Learmont were not, however, to be thus laid aside. In a few moments he again threw himself into the chair from which he had risen, and commenced in a low, anxious, trembling tone, muttering half aloud, the subject of his gloomy thoughts:—

“Was ever a man,” he said, “so circumstanced as I? With all the will to act, yet so hemmed in by strange circumstances as to be powerless—completely powerless. In truth, the wily Jacob Gray has had a triumph. Can the smith have played me false, and warned him of his danger; yet, no—I cannot think so. Britton hates him, and would gladly take his life. He could not, with such consummate art, act the passion he exhibited at that lonely hovel, wherein I thought I had entrapped this Gray. There is yet another supposition. Does the boy live? Ay, is there a young heir to Learmont’s broad acres and princely revenues? That is a grave doubt; but let me doubt ever so strangely, I dare not act. Jacob Gray—Jacob Gray, the arch-fiend himself could not have woven a better web of protection around a human life than you have cast around yours! I dare not kill you. No! Jacob Gray, you are very safe.”

Learmont clenched his hands and ground his teeth together, in impotent rage, as he felt the full conviction upon his mind that he dared not, for his own life’s sake, interfere with Jacob Gray.

“There is no plan but one,” he said, after a long pause. “I must try to purchase from him, by some large and tempting offer, both the boy and the confession—then, should he be attracted by such a bait, he shall die for the disquiet he has given me. If I slaughter him here in my own house, he shall die. I shall know no peace till that man is a corpse.”

A small timepiece in the room now struck the hour of twelve.

“Twelve o’clock,” muttered Learmont. “’Tis the hour the smith said he would be here; but punctuality is not one of his virtues. He knows I must wait for him? Curses on him—curses!”

A servant slowly opened the door at this moment, and said, in a timid voice, for the household had had several specimens of Learmont’s wild passions and violence,—

“An it please your worship, here is Master Gray.”

“Show him here,” said Learmont, quickly, and the man was out of the room as expeditiously as if he had been pulled from behind with a sudden jerk.

“They will meet here,” muttered Learmont. “Well, be it so. Three persons so strangely knit together, as these two men and myself, were surely never heard of. Hating them with that hatred which requires to be glutted with blood to calm its fury; yet I am obliged to supply their wildest extravagancies and most insolent demands. Oh, if I, dared, if—oh, you are here, Jacob Gray?”

“As you perceive, most worshipful sir,” said Gray, as he closed the door behind him, and fixed his keen, ferret-looking eyes upon the Squire.

For a few minutes they regarded each other in silence. Learmont at length, uttered the word,—

“Well?”

“I am rejoiced to hear you are well,” sneered Gray. “The fog last night was very damp.”

“Jacob Gray,” said Learmont, “I sought your life.”

“Your worship was so kind,” said Gray, “and since my connexion with your worship has grown so dangerous, it shall bear a higher price.”

“What mean you?”

“I mean,” said Gray, striking the palm of his hand with his fist—“I mean that where I have had one guinea, Squire Learmont, I will have ten; where ten, a hundred. Thank yourself for raising my price. My nerves are weak, and yet I prize them. I like my blood to keep its even pace. If I am to be tortured—if I am to be threatened—broken in upon at midnight, and cold steel held to my throat, I will be well paid—extremely well paid. You understand me, Squire Learmont, I have raised my price.”

There was a strange mixture of cunning, rage, and ferocity in Jacob Gray’s tone and manner as he made this speech. Every other word that he spoke showed a disposition to shout with anger, but then it was as quickly subdued again by his habitual caution and timidity. When he had finished he glared at Learmont with a pale and distorted countenance awaiting his reply.

“Jacob Gray,” said Learmont, “I did seek your life, but it was not for your life’s sake I sought it.”

“Indeed!” sneered Gray.

“No,” continued Learmont. “What is your life to me? But the precautions that you have taken to protect yourself keep me in continual and imminent danger. What’s so uncertain as human life?”

“Ay—what?“ said Gray.

“Suppose your sudden death—by accident or illness—what though I had poured into your coffers half my income?—What though I had satisfied your wildest demands, still might I be exposed to danger most imminent, nay, to death without your meaning so to involve me.”

“Well I know,” said Jacob Gray, “that life is uncertain—too well I know if, Squire Learmont, you have coined for yourself the danger you describe. While you live, it will haunt you.”

“But wherefore should I?” said Learmont. “You talk of increasing your demands by tens and hundreds—why not name thousands at once as the price of—”

“Of what?”

“The boy, and your absence for ever from England.”

“I—I—had thought of that,” said Gray.

“And a wise thought too,” urged Learmont. “What is your life to me were it not that you have surrounded me with danger? Do I thirst for your blood for its own sake? Certainly not—have your own price—bring me the boy, and destroy your written confession.”

“And leave England for ever?” muttered Gray.

“Yes—seek safety and enjoyment somewhere else in another land, where the finger of suspicion can never be pointed at you, and where you will only appear as the wealthy stranger.”

“’Tis tempting,” said Gray; “but—”

“But what?—Why do you hesitate?”

“Would there be no danger even between the threshold of this house and the deck of the vessel which was to convey me and my fortunes from England for ever?”

“Danger?—a—What danger?”

“The assassin’s knife,” said Gray. “Hear me, Squire Learmont; if we could trust each other for so brief a space as half an hour, it might be done; but we cannot—you know we cannot!”

“You refuse upon danger,” said Learmont, trying to smile, and producing a ghastly distortion of visage. “You are over cautious, Master Gray.”

“I think not,” said Gray, “and yet I will think upon your offer, Squire Learmont. I will not deny that some scheme of the kind has already dawned upon my own mind. I will think upon your offer; and should some means occur to me by which safety can be so well assured as to be past a doubt, I will accept it, for I loathe the life I lead.”

“’Tis well,” said Learmont.

“And now I want a hundred pounds,” said Jacob Gray, in an affectedly submissive voice.

“A hundred pounds!” exclaimed Learmont.

“Yes, a hundred! And I will have them.”

“Jacob Gray,” said Learmont, “why have I plunged myself into crime, and leagued myself with such men as you and Britton, but for this gold which your and his insatiable demands would wring from me?”

“Agreed,” cried Gray. “But now ’tis done, and to keep the gibbet—”

“The gibbet!”

“Ay, the gibbet, Squire Learmont. To keep that without its victim, you must, and will pay the last farthing, if needs be, of that gold you talk of as your tempter. Why, it tempted me, and I will riot in it! A hundred pounds, good squire.”

“Ten thousand are yours, if you bring me the boy and your written confession.”

“Ten thousand! You may safely make it twenty, squire, or thirty.”

“What do you mean?”

“You call me cautious—cunning—wily as a fox, and am I all that; and because I am, I will not sell my life for five minutes at the utmost possession of any sum.”

“Sell your life!”

“Yes, my life. How many paces from this room would suffice to carry Jacob Gray to his grave, provided he gave up his two most rare securities—the boy and the confession?”

“You wrong me by your suspicions,” said Learmont, with difficulty suppressing the rage that was swelling in his bosom.

“A hundred pounds!” said Gray.

“Jacob Gray, hear me—”

“Hear me first. A hundred pounds!”

Learmont went to a cabinet in the apartment, and without another word counted out the sum.

“Have you moved Jacob Gray?” he said, in a calm voice.

“Nay,” replied Gray, “why need you ask?”

“A message from the Old Smithy,” announced a servant at this juncture.

“’Tis Britton,” whispered Learmont to Gray.

“What, cunning Master Britton!” answered Gray. “Ho! Ho! I shall be glad to see him.”

“Admit him,” said Learmont to the servant; then turning to Gray, he added,—

“Will you leave me, now?”

“No,” said Gray.

“Wherefore?”

“Because I do not want the smith again upon my track, like a blood hound!”

“Oh, Jacob Gray,” said Learmont, “if you could destroy Britton, securing at the same time the dangerous papers he has—bring me the boy—commit your own confession to the flames, and share my fortune!”

“Humph!“ said Gray. “If I could.”

“You might.”

“Well, that’ll do,” roared Britton, as the servant held the door open for him to enter the room. “Oh—oh—you here?”

“Yes, cunning Britton,” said Gray, “I am here.”

“Curse you, then!” said Britton, flinging himself into a chair.

“Bless you!” said Gray. “Ho, ho! Clever Britton.”

“Perhaps, gentlemen,” sneered Learmont, “you will condescend to carry your quarrels to some pot-house, when you have said what you wish to say to me?”

“Yes,” said Gray, “we shall anger his worship.”

“Damnation take—”

“Hold, Britton,” cried Learmont. “You come here for money. Name the sum, and go.”

“Oh, name the sum!” said Britton. “What’s to-day?”

“Friday, my dear Britton,” said Gray. “It’s generally considered an unlucky day, I pray you to take care of yourself, cunning Britton.”

Britton cast a savage scowl upon Gray, as he said,—

“I shall, and mind you be as careful. Friday, is it? Twenty pounds will last me till next Monday, squire.”

“Will they, indeed?” sneered Learmont. “Here they are, then. May I now be indulged with the privacy of my own house?”

“There now,” said Gray, “you hear his worship; why don’t you go, Britton?”

“Because I intend staying out, Jacob Gray,” cried Britton, fiercely.

“Well,” said Gray, rising, “be it so, but hearken to me, Squire Learmont. If I find this ruffian upon my track, I will be revenged with safety to myself—bitterly revenged—now beware!”

So saying, Jacob Gray left the room, with an expression of countenance perfectly demoniac.

Britton made a movement to follow him, but the squire laid his hand upon his arm, and said,—

“No—not now, Britton. We must devise some better means yet of destroying, with perfect safety, this Jacob Gray.”

“Curses on him!” growled Britton. “Did you hear how he taunted me?”

“I did.”

“Then, I say I must have his blood.”

“You shall.”

“I will—I have sworn it—I will take the hateful life of Jacob Gray.”

“Britton, we understand each other. This Gray is as great an enemy to you as he is to me.”

“I know he is,” growled Britton. “You need not tell me that. And who, think you, is in London, and raving through the streets to every one she meets, about the Old Smithy, and a murder?”

“She? Who mean you?”

“Mad Maud, who used to haunt the village, and ever vented her bitterest curses upon me.”

“Mad Maud! She must be secured. Even her clamour might arouse suspicion in some quarter, and many a prying knave would be glad to pick a hole in the reputation of the rich and proud Squire Learmont. When did you see her, Britton?”

“On Westminster-bridge, after you and I had parted last.”

“The—water—was—near.”

“It was, but the old beldame raised a clamour that brought help. When next we meet, she may not be so near assistance.”

“True. How true is the lesson taught by Jacob Gray, that safety is best doubly assured. You stay still at the Chequers?”

“Yes—you know I do. Why do you ask?”

“From no special motive.”

“Yes; I am still at the Chequers. Ho! Ho! Ho! Money flies there. Mine host is about to build a new front to his house and it’s all with your money, squire. By G—d, they sell good liquor at the Chequers, and there’s a merry company—a good song and a silver tankard on purpose for good Master Britton. Ho! Ho! Ho!”

“You sleep there?”

“Yes; but mind ye, squire; drunk or sober, at home or abroad, those papers are well secured. Don’t try to play any tricks with me, squire; you would rue the hour.”

“Pho! Pho!” interrupted Learmont. “We understand each other—our interests are mutual—but, as for this Jacob Gray—”

“Ah! Curse Jacob Gray!”

“To which I devoutly cry—Amen!” said Learmont. “And now, Britton, it is our policy to let matters sleep for a time, until Gray’s newly awakened caution is somewhat calmed. Go, now, good Britton, and—mind you, when you are inclined to set a price upon the papers you have, tell me and we will talk about it.”

“Oh, very well,” said Britton. “I shall be glad to see you at the Chequers any time. I will say this for you, Squire Learmont, that you pay very well, indeed. I lead the life of a gentleman now—nothing to do, and so many people to help me—drink—drink from morning till night. Damme, what could a king do more.”

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Chapter XXXIV

The Girl in Her Melancholy Home.—The Prison House.—A Dungeon’s Gloom.—Unavailing Sorrow.

When Jacob Gray pitched upon the lone house at Battersea as his place of abode, he could not have resolved upon a house less likely to be visited by the curious, although seen from the river at a considerable distance: it was always pointed out by the watermen to their customers, as “Forest’s haunted house.”

The fact was, that a most awful and cold-blooded murder had been committed in the house, since which it had been allowed to fall into decay, and the land around it, which had been at one time well drained, had subsided into its old character of a marsh. The fall of a stack of chimnies had impressed every one with a belief of the extreme danger of venturing within its crazy walls, lest they should fall and engulf the rash intruder in their ruins.

It was with great caution that Gray first visited this place, that he was long in discovering that the signs of decay were more superficial than otherwise, and, inquiring diligently and cautiously concerning it, he heard the character of the deserted house, which induced him mentally to resolve upon making it his next abode, should he be hunted out of his miserable residence in the ruined street at Lambeth.

The only risk he considered he ran of discovery was in conveying Ada there by daylight; but, after that, he resolved upon never leaving or approaching his gloomy abode except by night, or early in the morning, when he was quite sure no one was observing him, save upon special occasions, such as his recent visit to Learmont, whom he was anxious to see after the stormy meeting in his former residence.

When Ada recovered consciousness, she at first felt all that sensation of relief which comes over any one awakening from a horrible dream; but this feeling of satisfaction lingered but for a few fleeting moments in the breast of the persecuted, betrayed girl. The gloom that surrounded her—the damp air that imparted a chill to her very heart—the dim ray of light that proceeded from a candle, the wick of which showed that it had been some hours unattended, all convinced her that she was a prisoner.

With a cry of despair she started to her feet: she clasped her hands, and called on Heaven to protect her, as she hastily glanced round the gloomy place in which she found herself.

The dismal echo of her own voice only answered her wild and incoherent appeal.

“Oh! Heaven,” she cried, “I shall be murdered here. No one to hear my cries! No one to aid me! I am lost—lost! Oh!—Albert, Albert!”

She sank upon the ground, and wept long and bitterly as the thoughts of how foolishly she had allowed herself to be deceived by Gray crowded upon her oppressed mind.

“No hope!—No hope!—Now there is no hope!” she cried, bitterly. “Oh! Why was I preserved for this dreadful fate! I thought it hard to endure the cold air from the river, while crouching on the bridge. O God! O God! What would I not give now to be as free beneath the canopy of Heaven as I was then!”

After a time the native energy of Ada’s character overcame her first bursts of bitter grief; and raising her head she strove to pierce, with her tear-filled eyes, the dim obscurity by which she was surrounded.

“What can this place be?” she asked herself. “Let me recollect. He brought me across swampy fields to a ruined house, and there, at that point, recollection ceases—memory fades away in a confused whirl, none of which are sufficiently distinct for the mind to grasp and reason upon.”

She now approached the light, and, carefully trimming it, she held it as high as she could, and, turning slowly round, took a long and anxious survey of as much as she could see of her dungeon, for such she considered it.

The floor was of earth merely, and the walls seemed to be composed of the same material, mingled with stones and broken bricks, to give them some degree of solidity and strength. The place altogether appeared to be of considerable extent, and, by the various refuse matter that lay about, it would seem to have been a cellar for strong vegetables, wood, &c. during the winter season. A quantity of rough sacks and baskets lay in different corners mouldy and moist, with the accumulated damp of many years, and the air, too, was loaded with unwholesome moisture, and pernicious exhalations.

With a slow and cautious step Ada traversed the whole of this gloomy place, and what surprised her much was that she could see no means of ingress or egress from it.

“How have I been placed here?” she asked herself. “There is no food. Good Heaven! Am I doomed to starve in this wretched place? Alas! Is this the awful mode which the fears of Jacob Gray have suggested to him as the easiest and safest of compassing my death?”

So terrible did the dread of death in that damp, gloomy dungeon become to the imagination of Ada that she could scarcely hold the light for trembling, and she placed it on one of the mouldy baskets, while with clasped hands, and upon her knees, she breathed a prayer to Heaven for protection and safety in her extreme peril.

How calming and sweet is the soothing influence of prayer! As the trembling words, wrung from the pure heart of the gentle and beautiful Ada in her deep anguish, ascended to that Heaven which never permits the wicked to prosper, but always interposes to protect the innocent and virtuous, a holy balm seemed to fall upon her blighted spirit, and the benign influence of some air from the regions of eternal bliss seemed to fill the gloomy dungeon with a brightness and a beauty that deprived it of its horrors.

For many minutes now Ada remained silent, and her fancy strayed to the last kind words of Albert Seyton. Then she pictured him and his father seeking her in the house at Lambeth. In her mind’s eye she saw his despair when he found her not, and she thought then that her heart must break to think that she should never see him more.

“Albert—Albert!” she cried.—“Oh save me—save—seek for me! Oh, could your eyes but cast themselves upon this gloomy abode and know that I was here, how happy might I be—far happier than before, for now I feel convinced this dreadful man Gray is not my father. No—no, he could not thus before Heaven have betrayed his child! Albert—Albert!”

She dropped her head upon her breast, and again the tears blinded those beautiful eyes, and rolled gently down her cheeks, thence falling upon a neck of snowy whiteness, and losing their gem-like lustre in the meshes of her raven hair. Suddenly she ceased to weep. She ceased to call on Albert, and a chill came over her heart, as she heard Gray’s voice, cry,—

“Ada—Ada!”

She looked up, and from a square opening in the wall far above her reach, she saw a streaming light enter the dungeon.

“Ada!” again cried Gray, and she saw him peering into the gloom below, and shading his eyes from the glare of the light he carried. “Ada!” he cried, impatiently.

“I am here,” said Ada.

Gray immediately disappeared from the opening, and all was again darkness whence the light had issued.

“What can he mean?” thought Ada. “Did he suppose that already my spirit had yielded to this gloomy prison, and is he disappointed to find that I still live?”

While Ada was pursuing these reflections, Gray suddenly re-appeared, and placing a ladder from the opening into the dungeon, he said, in a voice intended to be conciliatory,—

“Ascend, Ada—ascend.”

“I can meet death here,” said Ada.

“There is no death to meet,” said Gray. “I mean you no harm.”

“Because you have done me as much, short of taking my life,” said Ada, “as lies in your power. By what right—by what flimsy shadow of justice am I immured here?”

“Ascend I say,” cried Gray. “There is warmth and comfort above here.”

“I may as well,” thought Ada, with a shudder, “meet my death from his hands above as by starvation in this place.”

She placed her foot upon the ladder, and slowly ascended. When she neared the top, Gray reached out his hand, and assisted her into the room in which he was.

“You tremble, girl!” he said.

“And so do you,” replied Ada, fixing her eyes upon Jacob Gray’s pale face.

“You—you think I mean you harm,” he said, in a hesitating tone, and avoiding Ada’s gaze as much as possible.

“Think!” repeated Ada,—“think, Jacob Gray!”

“Jacob Gray?” he cried. “You speak strangely. I thought you now knew me.”

“I do—too well,” said Ada.

“I have told you I am your father, girl.”

“You have told me.”

“And you believe—”

“No,” said Ada, with sudden energy; “on my soul, no—as I hope for heaven, no!”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, Jacob Gray, for the honour of all fathers—for the credit of humanity, I cannot—will not believe myself your daughter. No, no, Jacob Gray, I am no longer scared by that dreadful thought—thank God!”

“Girl, you know not what you say.”

“My words may be incoherent—not aptly chosen—but the sense is the same. Jacob Gray, you are neither father, uncle, kith, nor kin of mine. No, no!”

“Who—who—told you so?” gasped Gray.

“There—there!” cried Ada. “Your fears speak the truth; you have confessed the cheat. Jacob Gray, I could forgive you all, now that that dreadful weight is removed from my heart.”

“Know you where you are, since you know so much?” said Gray, after a pause.

“I do not, save that I have been deceived by you, and lured by false promises to this dismal place.”

“You are in my power. Still, likewise, I assert you are my daughter.”

“In your power I grant myself, as far as Heaven will permit you; but you are no kindred to me, Jacob Gray.”

“By hell, if you call me Jacob Gray again—”

“Jacob Gray,” shouted Ada, her face kindling with excitement, and her delicate form appearing to dilate as she pointed to the abashed and writhing countenance of the villain who trembled before her.

“Be it so,” said Gray; “we understand each other now. You defy me.”

“I ever defied you, Jacob Gray!”

“Be it so,” he repeated. “Follow me.”

“It is my heart that defies you, Jacob Gray,” said Ada. “You are a man, and I a weak girl. You are strong enough to enforce me to accompany you.”

“Come on!” cried Gray.

Ada slowly followed him from the room. Gray passed out at a large doorway into a smaller apartment, in which was a table, some baskets, similar to those Ada had seen in the cellar turned up for seats, and a small fire dimly burning on an ample hearth; before which a bullock might have been roasted, and perhaps had been in days gone by.

“Ada,” said Gray, “look around you.”

Ada did so, and Gray continued,—

“This is a place of discomfort; there is little to recommend it, but it is preferable to yon gloomy dungeon from whence you have but now emerged.”

“I grant it,” said Ada.

“Your secret existence here is necessary for me; nay, my very life depends upon it. It may be but for a very short time. You may imagine that I am not in love with this mode of life. I have gold—store of gold—but I want more, and each day shall add to the glittering mass. When it has reached the amount I wish, you shall be free.”

“Free?”

“Yes; free as air.”

“When you have the gold you wish?”

“Even so, Ada.”

“I have read that the love of gold is one of those passions that increase as they are fed.”

“Not with me; I have fixed in my imagination a sum which I must have. Then, Ada, I leave England for ever, and you are free!”

“But wherefore is my captivity essential?”

“Ask no questions,” interrupted Gray. “Circumstances make you valuable; but mark me, you are equally valuable, dead as alive. Nay, start not—I wish you to live, if possible. I do not want to take your life—because—because—”

“Because, what?”

“I can use you as such an implement of revenge that—that—but no matter, no matter, your fate is in your hands; you shall yourself decide your destiny.”

“Myself?”

“Yes; swear to me that without my permission you will not leave this place. Swear to me you will aid me in keeping you in silence and secrecy. Swear this, and you return no more to yon loathsome dungeon, and perhaps, in a short time, I may place you on a dazzling height of power, and wealth shall make all England ring with your name! You could be the admired of all; your beauty, your wit, your gold, would be the themes of every tongue, if you will but swear.”

“How can I believe you?” said Ada.

“If ever words of truth passed my lips,” said Gray, “these are such.”

“On what pretence was I lured hither?”

“Ada, by force or fraud I was compelled to bring you here. ’Twere better the latter than the former.”

“And now,” said Ada, “by force or fraud I am to be kept here. Jacob Gray, I will not swear faith to thee.”

“You will not?”

“I will not.”

“Girl, you are mad—you know not what you do. This is a device of mine to save your life—to place you above the reach of fortune’s malice.”

“Answer me one thing, and call on Heaven to witness your truth,” said Ada. “Are you father, uncle, or nothing else?”

“Will you swear as I bid you?”

“I cannot resign the dear hope of escape,” said Ada.

“Escape,” replied Gray, “is impossible. The dungeon from which I have even now brought you is inaccessible save by the means in my power. For my own safety, I must keep you a prisoner, or—or—”

“Or murder me, you would say. Jacob Gray, I think you dare not kill me.”

“Dare not?” said Gray, trembling.

“Yes; dare not were my words. Now, I will make to you a proposal. Trust me; tell me all, who and what I am. Tell me all, and I will forgive injuries, and perchance do your bidding.”

“No, no, I cannot tell you yet,” said Gray. “I wish you one day to know all—when I have my gold.”

“Am I to be the slave of your avarice?”

“Call it so, if you will.”

“Who am I?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Who were those men who sought your life? Was the name of one Andrew Britton.”

Gray absolutely shrieked as Ada pronounced the name of the smith, which it will be recollected she had heard from Mad Maud on Westminster-bridge.

“A—what is this—what do you mean? Who—what devil told you—speak—Ada—speak. Have the—the dead risen? Speak, or you will drive me mad!”

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XXV. Ada’s Appeal.—The Promise.—Ada’s Despair.—Gray’s Triumph

Ada had seen too often the nervous terrors of Jacob Gray to feel much alarm at his present emotion, and she merely replied,—

“The man I mention—Andrew Britton by name—was one of them who came to you at our late house. That he is in some manner connected with the mysterious circumstances which envelope me, I am convinced. Oh, Jacob Gray, bethink you now of the evil of wickedness; you cannot gain more, nay, not half so much by deceiving and persecuting me than you would gain by trusting me with every secret. Besides, there is one possession which would then be yours, which is beyond all price—that dear inheritance we all have from Heaven as its best, most costly gift, and which is too often bartered for a bauble. You would have peace of mind, Jacob Gray, which you have not now. He who tries may read pain and disquiet in your face. You are haunted by the fearful creations of your own over-hardened conscience. I—even I—can see that some hideous spectre of the past is ever rising, perhaps in bloody guise, before your appalled imagination. Oh, I am weak, young, and unknowing in the ways of life, but I can tell you, Jacob Gray, that guilt is misery. You are wretched—most wretched—you lead a life of apprehension. Your own fears will carry you to an early grave. Oh, do some solitary but great act of justice, and it will stand as a shield betwixt you and your trembling soul—will plead with Heaven for you, and by its brightness so dim the record of your guilt that you may cherish such dear hopes of mercy as shall in themselves be happiness. Release me—trust me. Tell me, Jacob Gray, who and what I am. Justice, though tardy, is justice still. I will invent causes for you up to this moment—I will pray for you, Jacob Gray. Oh, end at once this life of horror, suspicion and distress!”

Gray waved his hand several times while Ada was speaking, as if he would implore her to cease, but wanted power of speech to stop her in her appeal. When she had ceased speaking, she stood with clasped hands gazing in his face, and waiting with a deep and holy anxiety the words that would pass his lips in reply.

“Girl!” he gasped, “you know not what you ask! I wish you well, but dare not—dare not—dare not tell you a tale would drive you mad! Enough—enough—urge me no more! All this will have an end—it must—but not as you ask. Have patience, Ada, and I will do great things for you! Yes, great things, when I am far away in another land, and safe—safe from those who would take my life—who would spill my blood like water! Have patience, girl! Have patience, and all will be well.”

“I am your prisoner, then, Jacob Gray,” said Ada—“still your prisoner.”

“For a time—only for a time. Promise me, by the faith you have in Heaven—swear that you will abide here without an effort to escape, and such a freedom as you can safely have, you shall have.”

“If I refuse?”

“Then you must take the consequences. My safety—my life, I tell you, depends upon your security. I will not trifle with my own existence! Night and day yon cellar shall be your home!”

“But how can my being your unknown, solitary, and unseen prisoner avail you?”

“Ask me not,” cried Gray. “There is but one other alternative.”

“And that is—”

“Your death, Ada!”

“Ay—my death! Such was my thought.”

“But I—I do not want to kill you,” cried Gray, hurriedly. “On my soul, I do not! Understand me, girl; your existence is equally valuable to me as your death! Perhaps more so, although it has its risks. Promise me that you will not increase those risks, and on my oath, you shall live unharmed by me.”

Ada sank into a seat, and a feeling of despair came over her heart.

“Jacob Gray,” she said, “let me promise to go far away—I will be unseen—unknown.”

“Not yet,” cried Gray. “I tell you I have not gold enough for that yet. There will come a time when to proclaim who and what you are will be so sweet to me, that it is only my love for that gold which brings in its train the means of every enjoyment that can stifle pangs that spring from the past, that induces me now to put off the dear gratification of that deep revenge!”

“Still a bad and unworthy motive,” said Ada. “You will only do justice to me for the gratification of your own malignant passions.”

“Say what you will, girl,” cried Gray. “Call me what you will, I care not. You are to me now a mine of wealth! When my love of gold is glutted to the full, I can make you an instrument of such revenge that I shall wish for no greater gratification! You understand your position now—you may baulk me of my revenge by forcing me to kill you! Save yourself, Ada, by your solemn promise to remain here!”

Ada felt that all further appeal was useless, and she wept bitterly as the dreary future presented itself to her as a protracted imprisonment, or a speedy and cruel death.

Gray watched her keenly, and advancing close to her, he whispered in her ear,—

“Ada, life is sweet to the young! A world full of beauty and enjoyment is before you—if you promise what I ask—you shall have wealth—and wealth is power. You shall be able to raise the lowly—to crush the proud if you promise! Those whom you love you may do wonders for! He too—that youth who has wound himself around your girlish heart—he you can enrich! He will owe all to you! It will be Ada that will lift him from his low estate, and make him great—perhaps noble! But you must promise! How hard it is to die so young! Think of the last bitter pang! None to pity—none to love you! But I need not point such agony to you, you will promise?”

“Jacob Gray,” said Ada, dashing the tears from her eyes, “the allurements you hold out to me are not sufficient; but I will not cast away the life God has given me.”

“You promise?”

“On condition, I will. But hear me, Gray. I do not believe the tale you tell me, that you will take my life some time when I am sleeping, for awake you dare not—if I promise not, I do believe, for already have you attempted the deed.”

“You—you will promise?” cried Gray, impatiently.

“Not unconditionally,” replied Ada. “For one month from now I do promise.”

“To make no effort to leave here?”

“I will be passive merely. I will repel no one.”

“But you will remain?”

“Unsought by any one, I will not leave this place.”

“You swear?”

“No, Jacob Gray, I will not swear.”

“Well! I—I will take your word. You have made a wise decision.”

“Heaven knows I am helpless,” said Ada. “The decision is scarcely mine.”

She burst into tears, and wept bitterly. The name of Albert mingled with her sobs, for she felt now that she was separated from him for an indefinite period.

“Heaven help me,” she sobbed, “I am now desolate, indeed.”

“Hope,” cried Gray. “Hope, Ada. The time may come sooner than you think. The time for my revenge, but I must have more gold yet—much more gold; then, Ada, begins your triumph. You shall find yourself raised to a height you dream not of. Jacob Gray’s revenge shall be your fortune. You need not weep. You will cause tears of blood—yes, the blood of those who would have murdered me, but they dare not. Ha! Ha! They dared not; and Jacob Gray is still too cunning—far too cunning to fall their victim.”

Ada sat silent and spirit-broken in that lonely house. A weight seemed to hang upon her heart, and even hope, that one dear solace of the unfortunate, appeared to have flown from her breast.

Gray had brought food with him, which Ada partook of in silence, and when the night had come, and the short-lived winter’s sun had gone to rest, he took his hat and cloak, and prepared to go forth.

“Ada,” he said, “attend to nothing—heed nothing while I am gone. If danger—that is, I mean, if any one should venture here, extinguish your light, and seek some hiding-place, for be assured, your life is the object sought by those who would visit the dwelling of Jacob Gray. You understand me. Be cautious.”

Ada answered not, and Gray slouching his hat over his face, and drawing his cloak closely around him, left the lone house with a slow and stealthy step, taking his route towards the river’s bank, from where he took a boat to Westminster.

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Chapter XXVI

The Squire.—The Life of a Captive.—A Strange Fatality.—The Associates.

Vice, by the decrees of Providence, seems to have its allotted span. Truly may we say, “The wicked triumph for a season,” and by some strange combination of circumstances, notwithstanding the turbulence, the anxiety, and the danger of Learmont’s early days in the metropolis, matters so arranged themselves, or were arranged for wise purposes by the great Dispenser of all things, that from the day on which Ada made her promise to Jacob Gray, Learmont had prospered in his career of villany. His natural sagacity had told him, that now Jacob Gray was put upon his guard, any further open attempt against his life would be attended with great danger; and might possibly have the effect of driving him to some desperate measure of retaliation and revenge, which might involve both. From a deep and careful review, therefore, of the whole of circumstances by which he was surrounded, the criminal and unscrupulous squire decided upon a safer, although more expensive and protracted course of action, than he had hitherto pursued; that was, to continually tempt Gray by large offers to give up the supposed boy, together with his own confession, and go to some foreign land to spend the earnings of his criminality.

Jacob Gray, with the cunning which formed such an ingredient in his character, favoured this idea on the part of Learmont, by apparently always hesitating upon his offers, while at the same time he had thoroughly and entirely made up his mind not to accept them; feeling, as he did, that his life would not be worth a minute’s purchase after he had declared Ada’s sex, and given her up together with his written confession.

Learmont at the same time was not neglectful of the chance that continually presented itself of discovering Gray’s place of abode, and pouncing upon him some night unawares, and wresting from him both the boy and the confession, at the same time that he glutted his hatred by putting him to death.

Jacob Gray for once in his life had been injudicious when he told Ada that he only waited for a certain amount of gold before he gratified his revenge by declaring who and what she was. He really had decided upon such a course. The taunts and undisguised contempt of Learmont had awakened a revengeful spirit in his breast, while the attempt to murder him in the old house at Lambeth inflamed to perfect fury, and made, as it were, part of his very nature.

Learmont laboured under considerable difficulty in any attempts he might make to trace Jacob Gray to his abode, in consequence of the impossibility of trusting any one to do the office of spy upon him, except the smith or himself. To the smith, Britton, there were many weighty objections now. Intoxication was doing its work, and moreover Gray knew him so well. Learmont therefore felt that henceforward Britton could be no useful agent in any attempt to discover the retreat of Gray.

Then for him, Learmont himself, to dog the footsteps of the cautious villain from his own house, was an undertaking full of difficulty. The very haste with which he would have had to attire himself for the street had its objections; and were Gray to come some day by appointment, and find him ready equipped to follow him, would not his extremely suspicious mind at once conclude the object?

Thus the task of following Jacob Gray became one of no ordinary difficulty, and Learmont wasted many months in trying to dissuade himself from persevering in his present course, and take a large sum at once; expatriating himself immediately afterwards, which, by-the-by, Learmont never for one moment intended to permit him to do, for he would have slaughtered him upon his own marble steps rather than allow him to escape, the moment he could do so with no other danger than that to be encountered from the mere fact of taking a life, in justification of which he would easily have found some plausible excuse, if questioned concerning the act by the laws.

Not a week passed without a visit from Gray, and at each he always carried away as much as he could wring from Learmont’s policy or his fears.

But how truly did poor Ada say that the love of gold was a passion which grew if it was fed. Already had Gray received from Learmont a sum far exceeding that which he had first fixed in his mind as what would content him ere he sought his revenge. Still, however, he lingered, and as each visit to Squire Learmont’s mansion added something to his store, he could not bring his mind to stop in time. Day after day—week after week—month succeeding month—he still hoarded, saying over to himself,—

“Not yet—not yet! I will have more gold ere I have my revenge.”

The smith, too, was to Learmont ever a sight of terror. He still lived at the Chequers, close to Learmont’s mansion; and he, too, paid periodical visits to the proud squire, although his demands were insignificant in comparison with those of Jacob Gray.

While a few guineas sufficed for the coarse vices, the drunkenness, and the debaucheries of the smith, Jacob Gray was not satisfied unless he increased his hidden store by a large sum.

Thus, although the smith’s eternal “message from the Old Smithy“ grated upon his very soul, Learmont did not feel that intensity of hatred to Britton that he did to Jacob Gray.

Nevertheless he made frequent offers to Britton to quit the country, and give up to him certain papers which, on the night of the murder at the Old Smithy, had been by Britton taken from the corpse of him who met his death within that ill-named pile.

These papers were of as much importance to Learmont as any could well be; for if they did not prove his illegitimacy, they raised the point so strongly that had he stood alone as the last and only heir to the vast estates of Learmont, he could scarcely have established his claim.

Of this he was assured by Gray, who would himself have gloried in the possession of such a document, but he dared not take them from the body; hence they fell, knowingly by him, into the hands of Britton.

It was likewise constantly urged by Britton that he, too, had a confession written, and in pursuance of his word, had rolled it round the knife of Jacob Gray, which the latter had left behind him at the smithy in the body of his victim.

For a long time it had become an object with Learmont to discover from Britton where he kept such important documents, determining, should he find out, to make some desperate effort by fraud or violence to possess himself of them; but the smith constantly and pertinaciously eluded the most artful inquiries, and Learmont could obtain no clue to where they were concealed, although by Britton’s manner he felt satisfied they were not at the Chequers. Still he feared to do violence to Britton, lest he might have adopted some means of bringing them to light after his decease.

Never probably were three persons placed by a curious train of circumstances in such strange relation to each other.

Learmont hating the two accomplices of his guilt, and not deterred by the slightest compunctions of conscience from taking their lives if he dared, yet placed in so singular a position with regard to them, that he trembled at the idea of any accident or sudden illness depriving either of them of existence, as such an event might bring to light the documents by which they held themselves safe from assassination at his hands.

Jacob Gray received large sums of money which he dare not use, and trembled with apprehensions from day to day lest his miserable retreat in the marshes of Battersea should be discovered, yet with a species of insanity lingered on with an unquenchable thirst of adding to his store of gold before he began the enjoyment of a single guinea of it.

Britton, the reckless savage smith, was the only one of these three men who in his own brutal manner enjoyed the fruits of his crimes. He feasted, drank, and led a life of awful and reckless debauchery from day to day—defying the future and drowning the present in a sea of intoxication.

And now let us speak of Ada—the young, the beautiful, the persecuted Ada—who now for many weary months had endured the solitary and miserable life of a captive in the little house at Battersea.

From time to time Jacob Gray had enforced a renewal of the girl’s promise not to escape from her state of bondage; and who, under similar circumstances, would have refused the pledge when death was the only alternative? Life to all is dear and precious—it is the one possession to which mankind fondly clings under all privations—all sufferings. Rob life of all its joys—clothe it in misery—attack the frame in which lingers by disease and unceasing pain; still, while the brain retains its healthy action, there will be a clinging to life—to mere vitality, which is in human nature a feeling altogether independent of all that makes up the pains or joys of existence. But if life is thus clung to with a desperate reluctance to quit it by the aged, the diseased, and the hopeless, how much greater must be its charms to the young, healthful, ardent, and enthusiastic spirit that in its young existence seems almost immortal!

Ada was unhappy—miserable, but she had not yet done with hope; she could not say, take my life, Jacob Gray, for I will promise no more; that would have been a species of moral suicide from which she shrank aghast; and feeling, from Gray’s manner, a firm conviction that he did speak the truth when he declared that her death or life were alike indifferent to him, except so far as the former placed him in a less dangerous position, and the latter would eventually gratify some wild feelings of revenge against some one, she did go on from month to month promising that she would make no effort to escape, and still hoping that a day of deliverance was near, till the hue of health began to fade upon her cheeks, and she felt that dreadful sinking of the heart which ever waits on hope deferred.

We have now another person in our dramatis personæ to speak of, and that is the gallant, young, and enthusiastic Albert Seyton.

The sudden and mysterious disappearance of Ada had struck deeply upon his heart, and after about a fortnight’s hopeless search through London, during which he endured immense fatigue, and scarcely took any nourishment to sustain his exhausted frame, he was seized with an illness which brought him to the point of death, and from which he recovered but very slowly, although a good constitution and the affectionate solicitude of his father at length triumphed over the disease.

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Chapter XXVII

Learmont at Home.—The Baronetcy.—A Visitor.—The Rejected Offer.

A rich, glowing summer’s sun was shining through the stained glass in a large window of one of the principal rooms in the mansion of Learmont. The very air seemed filled with glorious tints, rivalling in hues of gorgeous beauty the brightest refulgence of the rainbow. The songs of birds from the gardens came sweetly to the ear: a dreamy stillness, such as is often to be observed towards the close of some delicious summer day, seemed to pervade all things. He, however, who sat in that richly-decked apartment, had no ear for the melodies of nature; for him the glorious sunlight had no romantic charms. His brow was knit with anxious care—deep furrows were on his cheeks, and a nervous irritation of manner betrayed the heart ill at ease.

It was Squire Learmont himself who thus sat at the close of that summer’s day, and the change in his appearance since we last presented him to the reader was so great that it might have been supposed many years had passed over his head instead of the comparatively short time that had actually elapsed. His lank black hair was thickly mingled with grey tints, and the sallow of his complexion had changed more and more to a sickly awful white, such as might be supposed to sit upon the countenance of one risen from the grave.

He sat for a long time silent, although his lips moved as if he were muttering to himself something that formed the principal subject of his meditation.

“Well,” he suddenly said, half aloud, “if I have made so great an inroad in my accumulated wealth as to reduce it by one-fourth of its whole amount, I have achieved something—ay, a great deal, for I have made the first step up the ladder of nobility. This baronetcy that is promised me is what I suggested to myself long since. Yes, that is the commencement of power, the limit of which who shall define—then a marriage—one of those marriages of convenience on one side and ambition on the other. My wealth will make me a most acceptable suitor to some branch of a noble family, whose peerage will look all the better for a new coat of gilding. Humph, what says the minister?”

He took from the table before him a note which lay open, and read it slowly and distinctly. It ran thus;—

There can be no doubt of his Majesty’s most gracious inclination to confer a baronetcy upon you, without the slightest reference to your patriotic and disinterested offer to purchase the means of occupying six seats in the lower house. The matter may be well concluded this present week.

“May it?” muttered Learmont. “It shall. I am not one who brooks delays. I have paid dearly for my baronetcy, and I will have it. Those six seats have cost me thrice their sums in thousands—ay, more than that. There can indeed be no doubt of the gracious intentions of his Majesty; that business is settled. I am to all intents and purposes even now a baronet—I have paid the price, and, thank the Fates, this is a country where all things have a price, nobility included; and now, how much longer am I to be tortured by these rascals, Gray and Britton? My bitterest curses on them both. Gray’s demands increase each time he comes here; his love of gold is insatiable, and he never relaxes in his caution. How on earth to cope with that man I know not. Must I ever be the victim of his avarice until some day he dies, leaving behind him that which might condemn me? No; this must, cannot last. Too long already have I groaned under the weight of this man’s hideous presence, and frequent visits. Some bold or hazardous scheme must rid me of him; and, too, he peremptorily refuses aught to do with the destruction of Britton. He thinks the job too dangerous, and taunts me with the sneer that he gets of me already what gold he chooses to demand. Jacob Gray, beware. Some accident may yet arise to place you at my mercy—my mercy? Ha! Ha! Oh, if I could invent some torture—some—Ha! What now?”

“Master Gray desires speech of your worship,” said a servant.

In a moment Gray entered the room. Anxiety of mind, and the necessity of constant caution, had had all their effect upon Jacob Gray. He stooped considerably, and moved along with a slow, silent, shuffling tread, as if he feared the very sound of his own footsteps would betray him. He peered into the face of Learmont from his half-closed eyes, and then gently sliding to a seat, he said, in a half whisper,—

“Well, squire, how fares it with you?”

“Indifferently well, Jacob Gray,” said Learmont. “You look pale and ill.”

“No, no!” said Gray, quickly, “I’m very well, quite well and strong. I shall have many years to live yet, I am quite well and strong.”

“Your looks belie you then; your hands tremble; you are weak, Jacob Gray.”

“And yet so strong,” said Gray, trembling, his small eyes fixed at Learmont, “that those who would destroy me dare not lay a finger on me in violence!”

“I understand your taunt,” said Learmont; “it has long been settled between us that I dare not take your life, Jacob Gray. But even now, will nothing tempt you to conclude a business which is slowly but sorely hurrying you to the grave?”

“Squire Learmont,” said Gray calmly, “it may be hurrying me to my grave, but I do not wish to avoid the hurry by being at once placed in it; I may be ill, but I am not yet disposed to take death as a remedy. You understand me, Squire Learmont?”

“’Twere needless to affect to be ignorant of your meaning; you think that I would be so foolish as to run the great risk of not letting you go in peace.”

“I know it.”

“You are wrong, Jacob Gray. There was a time, I admit, when I panted for your destruction—I longed to be revenged upon you for your hints and instructions to Britton, but that time is past—personal safety is now all I care for.”

“Humph!” said Gray, “revenge is such a long-lived passion, ’tis sometimes like a blazing fire craving fiercely for its prey, and then it moves to something desperate and dangerous; but at others ’tis like a smouldering combustion, scarcely telling of its existence, but still slowly and surely burning on till the end of time, as if it were by some mysterious means fed by its own ashes. Squire Learmont, I do not say absolutely nay to your offer. There may come a day when I shall wish for freedom of action in another land; then I will bring the boy perchance to you, reserving the confession until my foot is on the shore, or some other safe method which I have not yet matured: at present, however, we will wait; yes, we will have a little patience, Squire Learmont.”

Learmont bit his lips, and bent a scowl of such fierce hatred at Gray, that if he had for a moment doubted the flame of resentment still lived in Learmont’s breast or not, such doubt would have been at once dissipated, and he would have felt convinced that their relative positions had not altered one iota.

“Well, well,” said Gray, after a moment’s pause, “we will talk of other things. The boy improves exceedingly.”

Learmont bent on him a glance of peculiar meaning as he said—

“Gray, that boy would be to me a dainty sight in his coffin.”

“No doubt—no doubt,” said Gray. “The time may come when you may enjoy such a sight; but not yet—not yet.”

“I must needs wait your pleasure in this matter, Master Gray; but you are not serious in refusing to exert your skill in the destruction of the besotted knave, Britton? Ah! Jacob Gray, you stand in your own light most grievously.”

“Do I?” said Gray. “Hem! Squire Learmont, some time since I listened to your proposals for the death of Britton, the savage smith, I agreed with you that his love of drink should be the means used to lure him to destruction. The plan was thus to stultify his judgment and never very active caution by the strong stimulants he so dotes on, till I wound from him the secret of where he kept the papers, you know, and the confession, if indeed he had written one—a fact I always doubted; and then a subtle poison in his cup would remove him for ever. Two things prompted me to the deed, Squire Learmont.”

“What were they?”

“The one was my love of gold. Look ye, sir; had I obtained the papers which prove, as I well know, your illegitimacy, and bar you for ever from possessing the estates of Learmont, be assured I should have kept them.”

“Kept them, Gray?”

“Ay, kept them.”

“But you had—you have—sufficient hold on me already, in the person of that boy.”

“A hold I had, but scarcely sufficient, squire. I am as a careful mariner who in the calmest sea, would like two anchors to hold his bark. The boy is a great thing; a valuable property; but human life is uncertain, and the Squire of Learmont deep and bold.”

“What mean you?”

“I mean, that I have lived upon the rack!“ said Gray, his pale face quivering with emotion. “Was I not by you watched, hunted like a wild beast to my lair? You know I was; and the possession of these papers would have made me sleep more soundly at night, for it would scarcely have been prudent of you to hunt a man who possessed such certain means of disinheriting you, even although you had paved your path to wealth with oceans of blood. I tell you I would possess these papers.”

“And what benefit would the death of Britton have been to me, then?”

Gray smiled hideously as he replied,—

“It is always better to consolidate debts, Squire Learmont; you would have had one creditor then, instead of two. Then, likewise, I would have sold you the boy and left England forever.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes; with the papers.”

“And yet,” said Learmont, after a pause, “with all these advantages to you resulting from the deed, you refuse to prosecute the enterprise of removing Britton safely, which I am quite sure that you can do.”

“Hem!” said Gray, and his small eyes twinkled as he fixed them upon the countenance of the squire. “There is an old fable of two dogs fighting for a bone, while a third walks off unscathed with the object of contention. Squire Learmont, you are scarcely yet a match for Jacob Gray!”

Learmont was silent, and Gray laughed, and then started in alarm at the unwonted sound of his own mirth.

“You spoke of two reasons for the death of Britton,” said Learmont, after a pause of several minutes’ duration.

“Ay,” said Gray, “I did, and there I was indiscreet. My second reason was, revenge. I hated Britton. I still hate him. I—I loathe him; and my deep hatred, the direful spirit of my revenge, urged me to run some little risk to gratify it. I knew your policy—I saw it as clearly as the sun at noon-day. But I was a little blinded by my revenge, and I did make an attempt to get the savage smith in my toils.”

“You failed?”

“Yes, because you were too hasty in your wish to get rid of Jacob Gray. You recollect the Bishop’s-walk on a certain frosty morning some time since?”

“The Bishop’s-walk?”

“Yes. There was a man who would have assisted me in the destruction of Britton. You, Squire Learmont, left that man a mangled, bleeding corpse in the Bishop’s Walk.”

“I!” exclaimed Learmont.

“Yes you! I did not see you do the deed, but after some thought I could stake my life upon the fact that Sheldon, the Thames waterman, came by his death from your sword. Thus it was squire; that man was tempted by me to assist in the murder of Britton. Curiosity, or breach of faith, induced him to dog my footsteps to the lonely house in which you and I and Britton had the pleasant interview at midnight.”

Learmont made a gesture of impatience, and Gray proceeded.

“You note how candid and explanatory I am; it is not worth my while to lie or conceal aught from you. By some means then, which I own I know not, you met with this Sheldon. He told you my place of abode, and for the information you murdered him.”

Learmont bit his lips with passion.

“That circumstance awakened me,” added Gray. “Oh! It did me a world of good, I then saw on what slippery ground I stood. I let my revenge sleep, and had its proper time for awaking. You taught me a useful lesson, squire, a lesson on prudence.”

“Jacob Gray,” said Learmont, gravely. “You have great talent. Think over my offers. If you can, procure me Britton’s papers. Give me up the boy, and spend your life in any other land you choose. I will charge my lands with an annuity of five thousand pounds per annum.”

“But the smith?”

“I will, you having rendered him innoxious by depriving him of the papers, undertake to destroy him. He shall not live four-and-twenty hours after that event.”

“I—will—think,” said Gray, rising.

“You had better,” cried Learmont. “Here is more money now; but you had better take my offer. It is a large one.”

“Hem!” said Gray.

“And before you go, now,” added Learmont in a tone of excitement, “since you have been so candid with me, know that I am not altogether so much in your power as you, in your great cunning and admirable wisdom, may imagine.”

“I am all attention,” answered Gray.

“Then I tell you there is a point of endurance beyond which even I may be goaded: pass that by your demands, and I collect all my portable wealth and leave England forever, first handing you over to the tender mercy of the laws.”

“Indeed!” said Gray; “I have too much faith.”

“Faith in what?”

“In your love.”

“My love?”

“Ay—for yourself. I wish you a good evening, and pleasant dreams. Hem!”

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