“Ay, you—you’re right,” said the waterman. “Come on—come on. We’ll have a cup together?”
“Now didn’t I tell you,” said Sheldon, with drunken gravity, marking off each word on his fingers, and making the most ludicrous efforts to speak very clear and distinct, “didn’t—I tell—you—to—keep—those laughs—to yourself?”
“You did,” said Learmont; “but I forget. Come on, we will have brimming cups.”
“Hurrah for everybody!” cried Sheldon. “We—we are jolly—fellows. Hurrah!”
“By, heavens, a brave ditty,” said Learmont, “and well sung. You are an Apollo, Sheldon, with a little mixture of Bacchus.”
“D—d—don’t insult me,” cried Sheldon. “I—I won’t bear it, Master G—Gray.”
“Mean? Why—I—I—heard an uncommon odd voice say, ‘N—n—not for worlds.’”
“’Twas some echo, my good friend. Is this the turning?”
“Oh! Ah!” laughed the waterman. “Now that is good. Is—is—is this the turning—and—you going—have—Ho! Ho! You know it’s the turning—perhaps you want to in—in—sinuate that I’m drunk?”
“Certainly not,” replied Learmont. “I was only surprised at your amazing knowledge of the road. I only meant to try you, good Master Sheldon.”
“Try me? Try me? I—I know every inch of the road—I—follow me, and I’ll take you to your own door.”
“I will,” cried Learmont, his dark eyes flashing with unholy fire, as he thought how gigantic a step towards the accomplishment of Gray’s destruction would be the knowledge, unknown to him, of his secret abode.
Cautiously he followed the devious track of the drunken man, who, with mock gravity, marched onwards to show the way. “Now, Jacob Gray,” he thought, “you are in my grasp; you shall die—die—some death of horror which in its bitter pangs will give you some taste of the heart-sickness you have given me.”
Sheldon continued singing snatches of rude songs, and staggering onwards, while Learmont followed closely upon his heels, and judiciously kept up a conversation with him that prevented him from giving any further thought on the object of his present undertaking.
It was strictly true what Sheldon had stated. After landing Jacob Gray, he had left his boat in charge of one of the idlers who are always plying on the banks of the river, and cautiously dogged his customer home. This was a circumstance which it had never for one moment entered into even Gray’s over-suspicious imagination to conceive. He had, as he felt well assured, scared Britton from pursuing him for that time at least; and he fancied himself, therefore, quite free. Hence was it that the waterman, who wished to know something more of the man who had made to him a proposal amounting to murder, succeeded in so successfully following Jacob Gray.