“Don’t look like that, sir; don’t, please! You wanted me to tell you. It was my dooty, sir; and now, sir, you know the worst, do take a bit of advice, sir. Even if you don’t undress, go and lie down, and have a good sleep till morning. There, sir, I must, too. I’ll bring you a cup of tea about six, sir. Good-night, sir.”
“Good-night,” said Richard, quietly.
“Ah, that’s better,” said Jerry to himself. “Now he knows the worst, he’s easier like. What’s o’clock?”
He drew a big-faced watch from his pocket by its steel chain.
“Harpus one; not much time for my snooze. I’ll just go and make up cook’s fire, put the kettle over, and have a nap there. It’s no use to go to bed now.”
Jerry did as he had promised to himself, and finally sank back in a kind of Windsor chair, dropping off to sleep the next instant, and, by force of habit, waking just at the time he had arranged in his mind.
“Ten minutes to six,” he muttered, smiling. “I’ve got a head like a ’larum. Just upon the boil, too,” he added, addressing the kettle, as he changed it from the trivet on to the glowing coals.
The clocks were striking six as he went softly upstairs with a little tray, and, turning the handle, entered Richard Frayne’s room, where one of the windows was open; and all looked bright and cheery in the early morning sunshine as he set the tray down upon the table beside the larger one, which showed that some bread had been broken off, but the rest of the contents were untouched.
“It’s a shame to wake him,” thought Jerry; “cup o’ tea’s a fine thing when you’re tired out, but a good long sleep’s a deal better. Poor chap, I won’t disturb him, but I’ll take the tea in and put it on a chair by his bedside. He shall see as I didn’t forget him in trouble. On’y to think him a real gent with a handle to his name and lots of money to come in for when he’s one-and-twenty. Right as a trivet yes’day morning and now in such a hobble as this, just like any common chap as goes and kills his mate. They can’t hang him, but I s’pose they’ll give it to him pretty hot, poor chap! Juries is such beasts, they’d take ’n give it to him hard because he’s a real gent, and make as though keeping up the glorious constitootion and freedom and liberty of the subject to everybody alike. Well, I s’pose it’s right, but I’d let him off in a minute if I was the judge.—Come on!”
This was to the tea, whose fragrance he sniffed as he neared the waiter, and went softly to the archway where the curtain shut off the bedroom.