“Your worshipful squireship,” said Gray, “will always please to recollect that my little packet, that is at home, would be an exceedingly awkward revelation, should anything happen to me.”
“Hear me, both of you!” cried Learmont, turning with flashing eyes upon the two men who so mocked him with their power. “I know;—I admit that you both possess secrets that would prove my destruction; aye, my death. We do understand one another, and we may as well speak openly. What you would say is this, Jacob Gray, that I dare not for my own safety take your vile life; and you the same, Britton; you have me in your toils, I grant it; there needs no insinuations. We have waded through too much blood to feel any delicacy of speech towards each other. You have power, but beware how you use it, or you will rouse a devil that you cannot quell again. Be moderate and faithful, and it will not be worth my while to seek for safe means for your destruction. Drive me too far, and you perish, though I call on hell to aid me!”
So saying, without waiting for an answer, he strode from the smithy with his face distorted by passion, leaving the two confederates, who had not expected such a burst of fury, abashed, even in spite of their deep villanies and abounding craft.
“Gray!” said the smith, after a few moments’ silence.
Jacob Gray started and cried, “What shall we do now? Squire Learmont is a man of wild passion.”
“What is his wild passion to us?” said Britton; “we have the means of stripping him of his wealth, and leading him to a scaffold.”
“But you forget, Master Britton, that upon that same scaffold you and I would be accommodated with prominent situations.”
“Pshaw!” cried the smith. “That is a thought that does not haunt me. We are as adventurous miners, Gray, who have suddenly hit upon a vein of wealth, which it requires but ordinary skill to work to our mutual profit.”
“True,” said Gray, “and we will work it, always my friend, Britton, remembering that we are so situated that we stand or fall together.”
“Agreed,” cried the smith. “If I fall I care not who stands; only thus much I will take pains to do—drag all I can within the sphere of my own ruin.”