As they see his flashing eye.
And there’s not a pair of cherry lips,
Of high or low degree,
Would scorn a kiss from the knight of the road,
Who’s welcome as he’s free.”
As Mr. Elias, between the stanzas of his song, whistled an accompaniment, in which there were a great number of shakes, trills, and what musicians call variations which means something which is not at all connected with the tune, the whole affair took some considerable time in execution; and Jacob Gray stood upon the ladder in a perfect agony of annoyance until it was over.
“Bravo!” cried Elias, when he had completed the last few notes of his whistling accompaniment. “Bravo!—Encore! Bravo! Well, I do hate these long summer days, to be sure. Why, it will be half-past eight, if it’s a bit, before Stephy comes. There’s a infliction, I wish this cursed fellow, or the gal, or both of them, would just trot over the fields, and save me any further waiting. Let me see—a thin, pale covey, the governor said, with a nervous sort of look. Very good; I shall know him. Just let him show his physiognomy here, and I’ll pop the darbies on him before he can say Jack, to leave alone the Robinson. Well, I’ll take another walk through the old den. They say there’s been a murder here. I wonder if the fellow got much swag? I never heard o’ any gentleman being hung for a murder here, I ’spose as that affair never put forty pound into a runner’s pocket. Some fellows is such beasts when they does slap-up murders; they commits suicide, and so cheat somebody of the blood-money. Curse ’em!”
Having uttered this sentiment, Mr. Elias struck up an intense whistle, and walked from the room.
Jacob Gray could hear him descend the stairs, and the whistle gradually died away in the distance, until it sounded only faintly upon his ears, convincing him that the stranger had gone into some of the rooms on the ground floor.
Jacob Gray now slowly descended the ladder, and pronounced the name of Ada in a low, anxious tone.