“Sorra one of us knows who they were; but if you searched London through, you would’nt pick out an uglier couple. One was a spider-built divil without a back, and the other a black-muzzled thief of a Jew, with whiskers you could hang your hat on. They’re off—had luck pursue them!—and among these twists and turnings, ye might as well look for a rat in a rabbit warren, as ferret them out, the ruffins of the world!”
I rose with slight assistance, but staggered like a drunken man, and, preceded by the watchmen to give us light, walked slowly on, leaning on the arms of my deliverers. We reached a public-house at no great distance; and having committed me to the care of the landlord and Shemus Rhua—guided by a Charlie, Mark Antony set out to find a surgeon, perfectly unconscious who the stranger was, whom timely assistance had so miraculously preserved from murder.
He returned; the discovery was made; and need I describe what a meeting between persons attached by the tie of fosterage, under such circumstances, would be? I heard the detail of my deliverance. The surgeon dressed my wounds, and pronounced them merely flesh ones; for the knife had only razed the skin, and, in the dark, the blow intended as a coup de grace, had missed the head, struck against the kerb-stone, and fallen on the shoulder lightly. That I had been marked out for deliberate assassination, the gipsy’s warning, the adventure in Mr. Spicer’s house, and the discovery of a clasp-knife and jemmy dropped on the field of battle, sufficiently established. We received those trophies from the venerable conservator of the city’s peace, paid him a fitting remuneration for the services of his lantern, and parted nearly at the same spot from which a woman’s wiles had so recently seduced me—to wit, St. Paul’s; I to return to my own inn by a hackney coach, and the ratcatcher and my foster brother to repair to the place from whence they came, with an arrangement to meet next morning—
“That we would all our pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels we had something heard,
But not intentively.”
I drove to Mr. Hartley’s residence. He was at home; and as Dominique had signified that I was anxious to speak with him before he retired for the night, he was waiting my return in the drawing-room. I found him leaning against the mantel-piece, buried in deep thought. His back was turned from me; and as I unclosed the door softly, for a few moments he was unconscious of my presence.
“Might he be trusted yet?” he muttered to himself. “I think so—for he loves her. Would it not be premature?” He raised his eyes—“Ha, Hector! returned! What means that patch across your forehead?”
“An attempt,” I answered, “has been made upon my life, and failed.”
“Indeed! Where—and by whom?” he asked eagerly.