“He is not within.”
“Not within,”
“No, sir. We do not expect him home to-night; he has gone to a party at the Earl of Harrowdon’s, in the Palace-yard.”
Gray stood for a moment leaning for support against the door-post—then by a strong effort he spoke—
“Thank you—I—I will call to-morrow,” and he descended the steps stupified and bewildered by the cross accidents that seemed to conspire against him.
He heard the door closed behind him, and he walked on mechanically for about a hundred yards, when he sat down upon the step of a door, and leaning his face upon his hands, he nearly gave himself up to despair.
“What could he do?—What resource was open to him?—Where could he go for food and shelter? A starving fugitive!—With a price set upon his capture. Could there be yet a degree of horror, and misery beyond what he now endured?”
“Yes—yes,” he suddenly said, “I—I can beg. Till to-morrow I can beg a few pence to save me from absolute starvation; but, yet that is a fearful risk, for by so doing I shall challenge the attention of the passers by, instead of evading it. I cannot starve; though I must beg—if it be but a few pence to keep me alive until the morning.”
Jacob Gray’s appearance was certainly very much in favour of any tale of distress he might relate for the purpose of moving the charitable to pity and benevolence. A more miserable and woebegone wretch could scarcely have been found within the bills of mortality.
The first person upon whom Jacob Gray made an attempt in the begging way was a man who was slowly sauntering past, enveloped in a rich and handsome coat, but the moment he heard Gray say,—