"No!" exclaimed Langford. "Certainly not by stealth, John."
"Then it is you that are mad," replied his companion; "and they have mistaken me for you. I will go and make affidavit of it."
"I should not hold myself justified in taking them stealthily," replied Langford. "Perhaps ere I quit this house I may claim them boldly; and some time or another I must make you tell me how you know so much of matters I thought secret; but time is wanting now, and we may be interrupted. I have some reason to think that, if you will, you can find out for me a person called Franklin Gray."
"Can I find him out?" said the madman. "Ay, that I can; in two hours I can be with him."
"Will you bear a message from me to him?" demanded Langford, "without forgetting a word of it, and without telling a word to any one else?"
"That I will joyfully," replied the other; "I never forget--I wish I could--it is that turns me mad--I remember too well; and I will tell nothing though they should put me to the torture. I always tell truth if I tell anything; but I can hold my tongue."
"Well then," said Langford, "tell Franklin Gray for me, that I am kept a prisoner here on a charge of shooting poor Lord Harold. If he be shot, I entertain but few doubts in regard to who it was that did it: and I ask Franklin Gray, in honour and in memory of our old companionship, to give me the means of clearing and delivering myself."
"Franklin Gray shot him not," replied the madman; "that I know full well. Franklin and I are friends; don't you know that, Master Harry? For a fox, he is the best of foxes! But I'll do as you tell me, however."
"I know he did not shoot him," answered Langford: "I am as sure of that as you are. Nevertheless, carry him my message. But hold," he said, seeing the man turning abruptly to depart, "I will write a few lines to good Sir Walter Herbert, which I shall be glad if you will give into his hands, or into the hands of his daughter."
The half-witted man signified his willingness to do anything that Langford told him; and sitting down at the table, that gentleman wrote a few lines to Sir Walter Herbert, briefly explaining to him his situation, and begging him, in case of his being detained beyond the close of the subsequent day, to take measures to ensure that justice was done him. This epistle he had no means of sealing, and merely folding it up in the form of a letter, he put it into the hands of his hair-brained messenger, and suffered him to depart.