The words “pay liberally” acted like magic on the woman, for she immediately unrolled her sleeves which were tucked up to the elbow, and at once, by that process covering up all the dirt on her arms she said,—
“Oh dear yes, certainly—his honour could have whatever he liked; should she take his honour’s hat and cloak? Would his honour walk up stairs?”
“Yes—up stairs,” said Gray, conceiving himself much more safe from casual observation there than below.
The woman escorted him to a dismal-looking room on the first floor, and promising to be quick in procuring what he required, she left him to his meditations.
“This seems a likely place in which to conceal myself,” thought Gray, “until I have rung from the fears of Learmont a sufficient sum to enable me to put my now firm design into execution of leaving England, I will ask this woman if she has a room she can spare me for a permanency—no one would think of looking for me here; and in the darkness of the evenings I can glide out to visit Learmont, and for exercise.”
When the woman returned and laid before Jacob Gray some really good and tempting meat, tolerably cooked, and had received his orders to get him a bottle of wine, he turned his small, cunning eyes upon her, and said,—
“I have but newly come from abroad, and am in London concerning some property that is left me: while I remain, can you accommodate me here?”
“Oh, certainly,” said the woman; “your honour can have any room in the house.”
“I should prefer the quietest,” said Gray. “An attic will suit me as well as any.”
“Well, your honour,” said the woman, “if you don’t mind an attic, we do certainly have the best attic, though I say it, in London. Why, ’atween two ‘chimbleys,’ when there ain’t a fog, and the brewhouse isn’t at work, you may see a little bit of the river from our attic.”