When the boatman neared the centre of the stream, Jacob Gray desired him to pause upon his oars for a few moments, ostensibly that he, Gray, might admire the bright sunshine on the frosted spires of the various churches, but really to see if any other boat was about leaving the point from which he had started. Nor was he disappointed; for scarcely had the wherry floated idly in the stream for a few brief seconds, when Jacob observed a boat push off, in which were two rowers, and a third muffled in a cloak, and seated very low in the stern of it.
The waterman was now upon the point of urging his boat forward again, when Gray said quietly:—
“Hold still a moment, my friend. Your time shall be paid for. Surely yon boat is making speed through the water.”
The waterman looked in the direction of the wherry with the two rowers, and exclaimed:—
“Some one is in haste. Yet, no—they are pulling but lazily suddenly.”
Gray’s small eyes twinkled as he replied:—
“I have altered my mind; row easily up the stream.”
The boat’s head was turned in the required direction, and the waterman, with regular and long sweeps of his oars, propelled the wherry towards Westminster Bridge, and presently glided beneath one of its gloomy arches. For a few moments the rowers in the boat in which Jacob Gray suspected was some one upon his track, appeared quite undecided what to do; then, in obedience to some order apparently from the cloaked figure, they gently followed in the wake of Gray’s wherry.
“So,” muttered Gray to himself between his clenched teeth; “I am followed;—and with what intent?—my safe destruction, of course. Waterman,” he said, in a louder tone, “we are going with the tide?”
“Scarcely,” replied the man; “it is just on the turn.”
“When it is fairly running down,” said Gray, “I will go back. Keep on, however, as you are for a short time.”
The waterman now shading his eyes with one hand from the sun, while the oar idly played in the rollocks, said:—
“It seems to me, master, that yon skiff is following us for some reason.”
“Indeed!” says Gray. “What have you been doing, that you should be followed on the Thames?”
“I doing!” cried the man.
“Ay.—You suspect you are followed.”
“Mayhap it’s yourself, master, they follow,” remarked the man, rather surlily.
Gray smiled as he replied:—
“Oh, no;—they suspect you of being one of the notorious pirates of the Thames we have heard so much of lately.”
“The tide has turned,” said the waterman, looking into the stream as it appeared, in preference to making any reply to this vague charge.
“Hark ye!” said Gray, as if a sudden thought had struck up in his brain. “If you are inclined sometimes to earn more money at once than a year’s plying as waterman on the river could produce you, it is possible I may throw a job in your way.”
The man glanced uneasily at Gray, as he replied in a low tone—
“Your lordship might trust me—if—”
“If what, my friend?”
“If I might trust your worship.”
“You may, or rather the trusting is all on my side. All I want of you is this; when I shall some day give you notice that I shall want a wherry at a particular hour and at the stairs I shall name, will you be there?”
“Certainly,” replied the man. “But that is not quite all?”
“You are right,” said Gray. “I shall bring one with me; we will take with us wherewithal to make us merry. I am abstemious, but my friend is not, and I have often told him that some of these days, when drinking in a wherry he will become so confused, that he will accidentally fall into the Thames, do you understand?”
“I—think—I—do.”
“I am sure you do,” added Gray.
The man nodded.
“Your reward shall be ample,” continued his tempter.
“I don’t see why I should turn away a job,” said the man; “if I wasn’t to take it, some one else would, of course.”
“A very true remark,” cried Jacob Gray. “You consent then to do this little service?”
“I do, master.”
“Give me your name and address then.”
“Sheldon is my name, and I am always at the stairs at which you hired me, unless away as might be now, when I return again as, soon as possible.”
“That will do,” said Gray. “Now turn your boat’s head and go back with the stream.”
The wherry, with the two rowers, had kept at a considerable distance in the rear; and now that Gray’s boat was suddenly turned and rapidly going down the stream, there seemed some little confusion on board the other wherry; but before the two boats could meet or pass each other, the pursuers had shot off on one side, as if with the intention of landing near Westminster.
“Follow them,” cried Gray; “and wherever they land, do you land me.”
The waterman was a powerful man, and he bent to the oars with such effect, that the wherry shot through the water with amazing speed.
It was curious to see the pursued become the pursuers, for such seemed to be the state of things, as no sooner did it become evident that Jacob Gray’s waterman was making fast for the boat with the two rowers, than in obedience to a violent gesture from the person in the cloak they pulled rigorously towards the shore.
“I must see that man in the cloak,” said Gray, “if it be possible.”
The waterman said nothing, but with his long sinewy arms, he took tremendous sweeps with the oars, and sent the boat forward at each pull with a force that astonished Gray.
The two wherries were not now above a quarter of the width of the river apart from each other, when the foremost one ran upon the muddy beach, and the man, in the cloak springing up, made an effort to jump on shore, in which he fell over the seats of the boat. In the next moment the other wherry was within two boats’ lengths of the shore.
With an oath, the cloaked-man scrambled to his feet, and without turning, rushed on shore, and was soon lost to sight among the mean habitations that crowded the banks of the river.
“It is the smith!” muttered Gray. “I see it all now, he has a commission for my destruction, as I have for his, and in either case, Squire Learmont betters his condition. Waterman, row me across now, as I originally asked you.”
Again the wherry shot into the stream, and with his eyes fixed upon the water, Jacob Gray appeared absorbed in deep thought.
The boat’s head grated against some stone steps that were on the opposite landing, and Gray sprung to his feet, and stepped on shore.
Handing the waterman then a liberal gratuity, and whispering in his ear the word “remember,” he walked at a rapid pace in the direction of the ancient suburb of Lambeth.
CHAPTER XVI.
The Lone House in Ancient Lambeth.—The Boy.—A Solitary Heart.
In a district of Lambeth, which is now the mart of trade, but which at the period of our narrative was scarcely