"He has got it, sir, safe," replied Halliday; "but he would not give it up, for he was coming on to you himself."
"He should have given it, as he was directed," said Langford. "Tell him to wait; I will see him when I am dressed."
"But he says, sir, that he must see you directly; that his business is of the greatest importance; that there is not a moment to lose."
"Oh, then, send him up," said Langford, "if the matter be so pressing as that."
Halliday instantly disappeared, as if he thought that too much time had been wasted already; and while Langford proceeded to rise, good Gregory Myrtle was heard creaking and panting up the stairs, as fast as his vast rotundity would let him. His face, too, was pale, if pale it ever could be called; and he was evidently in a great state of agitation, though the jolly habitual laugh still remained, and was heard before he was well within the door of Langford's room.
"Haw, haw, haw!" he cried, as he laid down the expected packet before Langford. "Lord a' mercy, Master Harry, this is a terrible business," he continued. "Well, I never did think--however, it's all nonsense, I know," and he again burst into a loud laugh, ending abruptly in the midst, and staring in Langford's face, as if for a reply.
"Well, good Gregory," replied Langford, who, in the meantime, had broken open the seals of the packet, and seen that various bills of exchange which it contained, together with other equivalents for money, were all right--"well, good Master Myrtle, what is it that is very terrible? What is it you did never think? What is it that is all nonsense? I am in the dark, Master Myrtle."
"Gad's my life, sir, they won't let you be in the dark long," cried the landlord of the Talbot; "and I came down to enlighten you first, that you might not be taken by surprise."
"As to what?" said Langford, somewhat impatiently.
"Lord, sir! I thought that Halliday must have told you something, at least," replied Gregory Myrtle, "or that his face must if not his tongue, for it's all black and white, like the broadside of the 'Hue and Cry.' But the matter is this," he added, after pausing a moment to laugh at his own joke: "it seems that poor Lord Harold, who was a good youth in his way, though he was somewhat sharp upon poachers and deer-stealers, and the like, was murdered last night upon the moor."