“Yes, yes—oh, yes.”
“Thank you, sir—thanks; he meant no wrong. Good-bye, dear Harry. Your uncle will say no more about it now.”
Harry Gray raised his head from the edge of the box, and his eyes were filled with tears. He took Albert’s hand and pressed it to his lips.
CHAPTER X.
The Disappearance.—Mrs. Bridget Strangeways and the Old Oaken Chest.—Albert’s Grief and Despair.
There were cries of pain and deep sobs heard proceeding from the room occupied by Jacob Gray long after Albert Seyton had left them. None of the inhabitants of the house thought it necessary to interfere, although it was shrewdly suspected that Master Gray was not very kind to his poor, delicate little nephew.
It’s a true adage that what is everybody’s business turns out to be nobody’s. Surely it was everybody’s business to interfere and prevent ill-usage in any shape, and yet no one did interfere; and Albert Seyton had left home in search of his father, so that poor Harry Gray had no friend.
The night set in cold and dreary, and before the evening had far advanced, Jacob Gray left the house, locking Harry in while he was gone, and presently returned with several bottles of wine under his arm. The neighbours then heard him alternately cursing, laughing, shouting, and singing till past midnight; then all became suddenly still, and those who had been kept awake by his voice went comfortably to sleep, while Mrs. Bridget Strangeways made a mental determination and a strong vow that the next morning she would give Mr. Jacob Gray notice to quit forthwith and at the same time take the opportunity of telling him “a piece of her mind,” that she would.
Now Mrs. Strangeways enjoyed nothing better than telling people “pieces of her mind,” and, by some strange fatality, such mental extracts were never of a complimentary character, and whatever charms the mind of Mrs. Strangeways might possess as a whole, it was quite well known that, given forth in “pieces” each piece was enough to set a city by the ears, and would have most surely come under the cognizance of that clause in the New Police Act, so Mrs. Strangeways made up her mind very composedly and comfortably to give Mr. Jacob Gray such a “hearing” as he never had in his life, and never would have again, except he provoked Mrs. Strangeways on some future occasion to an equal pitch of wrath.
The morning came, and Mrs. Bridget Strangeways having communicated her intentions with respect to Mr. Jacob Gray to a select few of her lodgers and neighbours, fortified herself with a tolerable dose of “cordial,” and setting her arms a-kimbo, she walked majestically up to the room of her troublesome lodger. She knocked and knocked, and knocked again; but Jacob Gray was obstinate, and would not say “come in;” so at length Mrs. Strangeways opened the door with a rush, and entered the room, exclaiming,—