He was instantly recognised, notwithstanding the hat and cloak, by the lynx-eyed officers, and quietly dogged to his new lodgings by one of them, while another went across the park to the magistrate to report proceedings, and take further orders.
CHAPTER LXXXV.
Learmont’s Treachery to Albert Seyton.—The Plot Against Gray.
The guilty career of Learmont is nearly run, and the fates are hurrying him to that awful precipice down which the souls of the wicked plunge never to return; and yet, how strange it is that in the designs and machinations of men of blood and deep iniquity, their danger is ever the greatest when they are hugging themselves in fancied security.
So was it in the strange circumstances of our story—circumstances which, with a labour we should again shrink from, we have collected from ancient resources, and time-worn family documents.
Learmont thought himself now in a far better position than he had ever been in, for although the child, whose existence in the hands of Jacob Gray had always been the bane of his existence, was now, he felt sure, in the house of the man whose energy and acuteness he had most to fear; he reasoned himself into a belief that had there been contingent upon such circumstances imminent danger to be apprehended from Sir Francis Hartleton, he would ere this have heard of it, for the magistrate was prompt in action.
“I have but now,” he thought, “to destroy Jacob Gray and his confession, whereas, before, by keeping his confession at one place, and the child at another, I dare not attack him with any degree of safety.”
Jacob Gray, too, as we have seen, fancied himself over his worst troubles, and hugged himself with the idea that he held as strong a hold as ever upon the fears of Learmont, and had but to exercise common caution to replace himself in as enviable a situation, as regards pecuniary resources, as he had been before.
Andrew Britton had plenty to drink, as he, too, felt in his way tolerably happy, only he would have given a great deal, or even consented to go without brandy for a whole day, for the sake of an opportunity of knocking Jacob Gray on the head.
Learmont’s only doubt now was whether to set the smith or Albert Seyton upon the footsteps of Jacob Gray, when he should make his next visit; for the same objection, namely, of personal recognition applied to both, only Jacob Gray would not be so apt to suppose Albert Seyton to be set on by Learmont.