“Thank you,” said Gray, “I will speak to them;” and he moved towards the door.
The little shoemaker, however, was not to be so easily cajoled, but gulping down his glass of hot liquor, with a speed that nearly choked him, and brought the tears into his eyes, he moved to the door at the same time as Gray, resolved to stick to him now as long as there was no actual bodily peril.
Gray paused at the door, and gave the man a look which caused him to recoil a step or two within the house. Then he walked out into the street; but the shoemaker, although daunted for a moment, was not quite got rid of, and with a hurried whisper to himself of,—
“It would be the making of me to take him single-handed, and get all the reward,” he bustled after Gray, with the intention of watching him.
In this, however, the amateur officer was disappointed; for Gray, after proceeding half-a-dozen paces, turned sharp round, and caught the shoemaker just coming out of the door of the public-house.
Gray was trembling with fear, but he had sense enough to feel that a bold face very frequently hides a shrinking heart, and he endeavoured to throw as much boldness as possible into his voice and manner as he said,—
“Do you want anything with me, sir?”
“Oh no, no, nothing,” said the shoemaker, “only I thought you might be curious in old houses, as you had popped into this one. It’s a most ancient house, and I was going to tell you that twenty-three years ago, to-day, my father apprehended the famous Jack Sheppard at the bar of this very house. Now that’s curious—what I call very curious.”
“Indeed,” said Gray, walking on and inwardly cursing his tormentor.
“Yes,” continued the shoemaker, keeping up with him, “if my father took him; one of his ladies was with him, and she got my father’s finger between her teeth, and wouldn’t leave go till she had bit it to the bone. Well, sir, my father took Jack to the watch-house in Great George-street, and what do you think happened there?”