At last Mac Fane proposed that I should be put in the strait waistcoat the next morning, on pretence of walking me out in the garden; that perhaps it would be best to suffer me to walk there, but not to take off the strait waistcoat any more; that then the doors might be left unbolted, and even unlocked, my arms being confined; and the next night they might come and dispatch me!
The conversation continued long after this, and schemes of flight, either to Ireland or the continent, were concerted, and the riches and happiness they should enjoy insisted on, with great self-applause and pleasure. Poor, mistaken men!
They at last parted, with a determination to execute the scheme of the strait waistcoat. Mac Fane took possession of the keeper's bed; and he as I imagine went to that of his men.
And here I must remark that Mac Fane either forgot or did not imagine that my immediate murder would be an impediment to the payment of the ten thousand pound gaming debt, from Mr. Clifton; which fear afterward actuated him strongly. It could not do otherwise, the moment it was conceived.
According to agreement, in the morning the keeper came, with as much pretended kindness as he knew how to assume, to tell me I might have my walk in the garden again, if I pleased. I answered I did not wish to walk. He endeavoured to persuade me, but he soon found it was to no purpose. He then ordered the boy away, who had brought the strait waistcoat, and quitted his station at the door in great dudgeon.
I soon afterward heard, as I expected, Mac Fane and him in his own room. Mac Fane cursed the keeper bitterly, and supposed that, for want of cunning, he had in part betrayed himself, and rendered me suspicious. The keeper resented his behaviour and cursed again, till I imagined they had fairly quarrelled.
Mac Fane however began to cool, and to talk of another expedient of which he had been thinking. This was to poison me. In this the keeper immediately joined, and began to enquire about the means of procuring the poison. The boy was first mentioned, but that was thought too dangerous. At last Mac Fane determined himself to go to London and buy arsenic, on pretence of poisoning rats, and to set off immediately. On this they concluded, and presently left the room.
My whole attention was now employed in watching the opening of the keeper's door; but there was reason to apprehend they would converse somewhere else on their projects. I imagine however they thought this the safest and most inaccessible place, for a little before dark I again heard the voice of Mac Fane, and they presently came back to their former station.
Mac Fane related the difficulty he had found in getting the arsenic; that several shops had refused him; and that at last he had succeeded by ordering a quantity of drugs, for which he paid, leaving them to be sent to a fictitious address, and returning back pretending he wanted some poison for the rats, asking them which was the best. They recommended arsenic, which they directed him to make up in balls, and he ordered a quarter of a pound. They weighed it, he put it in his pocket, and they noticed the circumstance, telling him they would send it home with the other drugs; but he walked away pretending not to hear what they said.
Mac Fane, glorying in his own cunning, was impatient to administer his drug, and proposed it should be sent up in my tea. The keeper assented, and the boy very soon afterward brought me some tea in a pot ready made, contrary to custom, I having been used to make my own tea.