“If ever,” muttered Gray, “I come across you, and I shall know your confounded cracked voice again, I’ll wring your neck.”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when a good-sized stone came down upon him with a very disagreeable plump. It had been thrown by the boy with that accuracy that boys acquire in throwing stones from the abundance of practice that they have in that polite accomplishment.
“Well, my covey, did it hit you?” cried the boy then in a very insulting tone.
Gray looked up from among the mud, and he saw that the attic window was open. It was very low, and he thought he might crawl in without being seen; at all events it was better than being pelted with stones in a gutter,—and having satisfied himself that the attic was empty, he partially rose from the gutter, and had the satisfaction, such as it was, of gliding over the window-sill without being seen.
This was one object gained at all events, and he stood the picture of misery and wretchedness, gazing around him upon the scantily furnished room, in which there was nothing but a small bed made upon a board laid across trussels, and one rickety chair.
Exhausted, dispirited, and weak, Jacob Gray sat down upon the chair, but it seemed as if in small matters as well as great, the fates would never have done persecuting him, for he had not noticed that his chair was minus a leg, and the consequence was that Jacob Gray came down on the floor with a great noise, which was more than sufficient to alarm anybody in the house.
He in an agony of apprehension rose instantly, and flew to the window, but then the risk of traversing house tops in broad daylight, which it now very nearly was, came across him, and he recoiled from the window, feeling that in all probability, his least danger lay in remaining where he was, and endeavouring to excite by some spurious tale the compassion of the persons of the house.
His heart, however, felt sick and faint as he waited in trembling expectation of some one coming; and as minute after minute rolled onwards, leaving him still alone, he felt it would be a relief to his mind if they would come at once, and not leave him on the rack of apprehension.
His senses became powerfully acute to the least noise, and once or twice he fancied he heard a creaking noise upon the staircase, as if some one was coming cautiously up to capture him. This feeling grew each moment until it became awfully intolerable, and he trembled so excessively that he could not, as he wished open the door to see if any one was upon the stairs.
A dreadful apprehension came across his mind that whoever was coming might be armed with, perhaps, a blunderbuss, which might, on the moment of his appearance, be discharged in his, Jacob Gray’s, face, and so finish his career at once by a death of agony. The moment this apprehension began to haunt him he looked around him for some place of temporary concealment, and observing a cupboard at one end of the room, he glided cautiously towards it, resolving to take refuge within it until he should hear, by the voices of those who might be coming, what might probably be their station in life and their intentions.