In point of fact, the landlord had been listening to the dialogue between Britton and his friend, the butcher, and then had scampered into his own bar, and with an excess of cunning for which there was no sort of occasion, had stooped down behind his own bar, where he might have showed himself boldly, with far less suspicion attached to him.
Britton had taken his measures well, for in less than a minute the top of the landlord’s head appeared, but before his eyes got to the level of the bar, the smith dealt what there was of his head such a terrible thwack with the poker, that he fell down in the bar with a deep groan.
Britton’s delight at this achievement knew no bounds, and without caring in the least whether the landlord’s skull was fractured or not, he sat down on the stairs and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.
“Here,” he then cried to the butcher, “take this back,” throwing the poker to him, which Bond caught very dexterously in one of his immense hands. “I haven’t been so amused for a long time; keep watch, and I’ll send the fellow down stairs in a minute.”
“That Britton is certainly a clever man in some things,” remarked the butcher, quite confidently to himself, as he lit his pipe calmly by the lamp.
Britton was in a remarkably good humour as he ascended the staircase to liberate Jacob Gray, who, he had not the least idea, had made his escape in the manner we have related. He had had plenty of drink, Jacob Gray, as he imagined, was in his power, and he had been just most amazingly amused by the little affair of the poker.
“Who says Andrew Britton is a fool and a thick-headed brute?” he muttered as he ascended the stairs; “I will be one too many for cunning clever Jacob Gray yet. I have him now safe—I have him. He cannot escape me—though what the devil brought him here, I can’t guess. That’s all a lie about coming here to warn me of anything; he must have been set on to watch me by Learmont, and yet would he venture? I must make him tell me before he goes.”
Britton paused a moment and took a clasped knife from his pocket. Then he added, coolly,—
“I’ll cut off one of his ears if he don’t tell exactly what brought him here. Besides that, it will be a good plan, for he’ll then be identified wherever he goes.”
Britton stopped at the door of the attic to laugh before he unlocked it.