Meanwhile Captain Ravenshaw, after stumbling over the protruding feet of a figure that huddled drunkenlike in the next doorway, plunged rapidly on in search of Gregory; dogged at a safe distance by the drunkenlike figure, which, on rising from the doorway, proved to be that of Gregory himself, firm upon shadowing his enemy until the latter's meeting with Jerningham next day.
At last abandoning the quest, during which Millicent's whiplike words of dismissal lashed his heart all the while, Ravenshaw returned to a part of Friday Street where he could stand in solitude and see the light, and hear the sprightly music, that came from the goldsmith's windows.
"Though you loathe me and cast me off," he whispered, looking toward the room in which she might be, "yet, against your knowledge, and against your will to be served by me, I will keep my promise, and save you! You may fling me forth, but you cannot stop me from that! Hope be with you in these revels, sweet; and sleep lie soft upon your eyelids afterward. Good night!"
After a little time, he made up his mind what to do, and took himself off through Cheapside, the keen-eyed, silent-footed serving-man still upon his track.
"What shall I do? I can borrow no more of my credit: there's not any of my acquaintance, man or boy, but I have borrowed more or less of. I would I knew where to take a good purse."--_The London Prodigal._
Ravenshaw had not the slightest thought that he was being followed, or had been followed during the day. He had recognised Gregory as Jerningham's attendant, but he supposed Jerningham had sent the man, for want of a better instrument, to attempt what Ravenshaw himself had withdrawn from, or perchance to carry a letter; he thus accounted for the serving-man's unexpected presence in the garden.
He knew that the knave would not succeed, even if he tried it, in communicating with Mistress Millicent that night. But doubtless further efforts would be made soon, and, while he felt she was proof against any manifest overtures against her honour, he feared some cunning proposal which might have a false appearance of honesty, and to which, in her desperate desire to escape from Sir Peregrine, she might therefore give ear. Here was additional reason why he must work swiftly to place her out of all danger, either on Jerningham's side or on Sir Peregrine's, if sufficient reason did not already exist in the fact that he had to leave London at noon the next day. The arrangement for his serving Master Jerningham in the country could not be at all affected by his passage with Jerningham's man in the garden. Gregory's action there must have been on the inspiration of the moment, and formed no cause of quarrel with Jerningham; while Jerningham, on learning that Ravenshaw had again visited the goldsmith's daughter, would be the more desirous to get him out of London.