When Britton fled in sudden fright from the low wall by Millbank, he took his rout up Abingdon-street, and turning into the first house of entertainment he saw, he ordered a quantity of brandy that made the landlady stare again; but when he lifted the measure to his mouth, and then after a dead silence of about a minute, laid it down empty, the aforesaid landlady’s eyes became much larger than before, and she looked again and again in the measure, as if she imagined the brandy might still be only lurking in some corner, and would suddenly make its appearance again.
When Britton then struck his own head, which he did with his clenched fist, the landlady gave a great jump, and exclaimed,—
“Bless us, and save us!”
“I am a fool! An ass!” cried Britton. “To be scared by a shadow—curses! What’s to pay, woman? Don’t stand staring at me!”
“You—you’ve had a—pint, sir,” gasped the alarmed landlady.
“Take your money out of that, and be quick,” cried Britton, throwing down a guinea, the ring of which on a little bit of marble, which the landlady kept behind the bar door, being quite satisfactory, she turned round to hand her customer his change, but to her surprise he was gone.
Half maddened by rage and drink together, Britton now rushed back to where he had left Maud; but both she and Sir Frederick, from the pace at which they had immediately left the place, were out of sight and hearing; muttering, therefore, imprecations on his own head, the smith returned towards Westminster in a fit mood for anything.
“Fool that I am!” he roared, for the tremendous dose of brandy he had taken made him quite reckless of who might be within hearing. “Idiot! I who have made the clang of my hammer heard by midnight, when within a dozen paces of me was a—sight—sight that would—d—n the lights! They stand in my eyes—and the houses are toppling. Fool—fool to let her go. Would Jacob Gray have done as much? No, no, not he. It was the idiot Britton. Oh, if I could find them out—Gray and the boy—ay, the boy—I’d dash his brains out against Gray’s politic skull. Curses on them all. The—the very pavement is mocking me. The houses reel, and the lamps seem—dance—dancing—from earth to sky—as if they were all mad. It’s to annoy me—I know it is.”
He reeled on, the liquor he had drunk so recklessly each moment exerting greater effect upon him. The few chance passengers whom he met heard his wild ravings before he reached them, and some had the prudence to cross to the other side of the street, while others would stand in a doorway until the evidently furious man had gone past them.
One watchman, who had just awakened from a sound nap, and walked out of his box, eager to show his efficiency upon somebody, had the temerity to hold up his lantern in Britton’s face, and make the simple and innocent remark of—