Learmont took the arm of the waterman, who was rapidly becoming sentimental again, and, passing it through his own, he led him away from Gray’s house at a quick pace.
The morning light was now each moment increasing, and Learmont did not fail to note every particular building he passed, in order that, when he came again, he should need no guide.
Suddenly, as they turned the corner of a street, they came in sight of the square tower of the Bishop’s Palace, at Lambeth, and as Learmont knew that well, he felt quite assured that he could from that, as a land-mark, walk with certainty to the house of Jacob Gray.
He now threw his whole thoughts into a consideration of what was to be done with his intoxicated companion. That he had been in some sort of communication with Jacob Gray he could not doubt, and moreover, he shrewdly suspected that the destruction of Britten was the object hinted at by Sheldon—that, however, was a far inferior object in Learmont’s mind to the destruction of Gray himself, and the possession of the boy he held in his power. Therefore was it that Learmont fell into a train of anxious and horrid thoughts as to whether Sheldon after he had left him might not, by his relation of having brought some one to his secret abode, alarm the cautious Jacob Gray into an immediate removal, and so baffle him, Learmont, again.
If there be any crime more awful than another, it is a cool and deliberate murder founded upon calculation; but Learmont was just the man to commit such an act, and while the thoughtless Sheldon was hanging upon his arm and murmuring disjointed snatches of songs in praise of good fellowship and glorious wine, Learmont half resolved upon his death.
“This drunken idiot can be of no use to me,” he reasoned with himself, “because I could never depend upon him; but he may, if I let him escape, warn Gray, and I lose the rare chance that kind Fortune has thrown so strangely in my way. He must die.”
They now passed the ancient entrance to the Bishop’s Palace; and entered upon the well-known walk along the banks of the Thames, which was then much more shadowed by lofty trees than it is at present; and although those trees, in consequence of the season of the year, were now leafless, yet their gigantic trunks cast broad and obscuring shadows between them and the wall of the Bishop’s garden.
A cold piercing air blew from the Thames, and Sheldon shuddered as he remarked,—
“I say—my—my good fellow, the—sooner we get to some place where we can have this same ale, and—and sack—and Rhenish—the better—on my faith it’s c—c—cold.”
“Come this way, close to the palace wall,” said Learmont, “and the old trees will save us from the cool air that blows across the river.”