Britton liked Bond principally because when he roared at him, he was replied to much in the same strain, and, if possible, an octave-higher, so he betrayed no indignation at the independence of the butcher, but taking up a ladle full of the brandy, which had now much cooled, he poured it down his throat, and then, followed it by another, after which he flung the ladle at the head of a quiet-looking man who was smoking a pipe and drinking a pint of small ale in a corner, and rising, he cried—
“I’ll go out now—order my sedan chair—I’ll be hanged but that’s the rummiest thing ever was invented; I like it. My chair, there. Halloo—halloo; I’ll have some fun to-night.”
“But you needn’t have thrown away the ladle, you beast,” remarked Bond, as he took the bowl in his hand and finished the contents at one draught, hot and strong as they were.
The landlords voice was now heard shouting—
“His majesty’s chair—quick—quick. His majesty’s chair, and right glad am I to get him out of the house awhile,” he added to himself; “and if it was not that he spends every week a matter of ten or twelve guineas at the Old Chequers, I’d never let the beast cross its threshold again.”
CHAPTER XCV.
The Walk in Search of Albert.—The Recognition at Charing Cross.
Was Ada happy in her pleasant home at Sir Francis Hartleton’s—was there no cloud yet upon her young heart? Alas, how purely comparative are all our joys and all our sorrows. The change from her weary confinement with Jacob Grey, and the dismal habitations it was his policy to live in, to the kind looks—kinder words and happy home of the warm-hearted magistrate, was like suddenly, to some adventurous voyager to the far north, breaking the misty horrors around him, and at a moment when he felt almost inclined to lie down and die before the rigour of the season, and transporting him to some fair region, where the bright sun shone upon the trailing vine—where the orange groves were musical with the songs of birds, and the very air as it gently fanned his cheeks was in itself a delicious luxury.
To Ada, for the first few days, it seemed as if she had stepped into a new existence; but when the novelty of the change was over—when, she had done assuring herself that she was free for ever from Jacob Gray, how her heart began to yearn for him she loved! What an instable curiosity arose in her mind, to know who and what she was—what name she should associate with the endearing one of father, and whether she should weep over another grave, or ever feel the fond embrace of a living parent.
It would have been strangely unnatural if these active sources of anxiety had not sprung up rapidly in such a heart as Ada’s, alive as it was to every noble feeling—every tender sympathy.