CHAPTER 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.