Mrs. Horton mused, seemed anxious to speak, but struggling with some power that withheld her. One of her hands was in a pocket where the jingling of keys and pence made its presence known. Drawing forth this hand mechanically, Dunscomb saw that it contained several eagles. The woman cast her eyes on the gold, returned it hastily to her pocket, rubbed her forehead, and seemed the wary, prudent landlady once more.
“I hope you like your room, ’Squire,” she cried, in a thoroughly, inn-keeping spirit. “It’s the very best in this house; though I’m obliged to tell Mrs. McBrain the same story as to her apartment. But you have the best. You have a troublesome neighbour between you, I’m afraid; but he’ll not be there many days, and I do all I can to keep him quiet.”
“Is that man crazy?” asked the counsellor, rising, perceiving that he had no more to expect from the woman just then; “or is he only drunk? I hear him groan, and then I hear him swear; though I cannot understand what he says.”
“He’s sent here by his friends; and your wing is the only place we have to keep him in. When a body is well paid, ’Squire, I suppose you know that the fee must not be forgotten? Now, inn-keepers have fees, as well as you gentlemen of the bar. How wonderfully Timms is getting along, Mr. Dunscomb!”
“I believe his practice increases; and they tell me he stands next to Mr. Williams in Duke’s.”
“He does, indeed; and a ‘bright particular star,’ as the poet says, has he got to be!”
“If he be a star at all,” answered the counsellor, curling his lip, “it must be a very particular one, indeed. I am sorry to leave you, Mrs. Horton; but the intermission is nearly up.”
Dunscomb gave a little friendly nod, which the landlady returned; the former went his way with singular coolness of manner, when it is remembered that on him rested the responsibility of defending a fellow-creature from the gallows. What rendered this deliberation more remarkable, was the fact that he had no faith in the virtue of Mrs. Horton’s dream.[dream.]
