“What now?”
“What have you got to give a strange gentleman to eat?” said Bill.
“Nothing,” replied the woman.
“Then go and get something. Here’s a guinea. Be off with you, and do you bring a bottle of our best claret for the gentleman. He prefers wine, because it shouldn’t get in his head. Do you hear?”
The old woman fixed her keen, twinkling eye upon Gray, and then, with a chuckle which quickly turned to a cough, she left the room on her errand.
“We’ll settle all business after supper,” remarked Gray’s entertainer. “Then I should advise you to lay by very snug for some days. You can’t stay here, though.”
“No—no,” said Gray, who had quite as much objection to remaining there as the thieves had to permitting him to do so. “I will find some place of refuge without doubt.”
“Do you know the man whose head you so handsomely settled in the court?”
“No,” said Gray. “It was in self-defence. He would have taken me.”
“Self-defence be d—d,” remarked Gray’s first acquaintance. “He’s a good riddance: his name was Vaughan, and a pest he was to all the family in London.”