The dank fog that hung upon the Thames was now slowly clearing from before the face of heaven, and by the time Ada had reached Westminster Bridge, she could see through several breaks in the sky, glimpses of the starry host looking down upon the rapidly departing night.
The excitement the young girl had gone through had hitherto supported her against the intense coldness of the raw air, but now she trembled in every limb, and as she stood upon the silent bridge, trying to pierce with her dark, lustrous eyes, the heavy fog, and to catch a glimpse of the rushing stream below, she felt the cold to her very heart, and all the miseries of her homeless, friendless situation, rushing at once like a full tide upon her mind, she shrank into one of the little alcoves of the bridge, and sinking upon the rude wooden seat, she burst into tears, and sobbed aloud in the deep anguish of her heart.
Suddenly then she started to her feet, as she heard a heavy footstep approaching. Her first impulse was to leave her place of refuge, and walk quickly onwards, but a second thought caused her to shrink back, with the hope that the stranger would pass on, and she should escape his observation.
Nearer and nearer she heard the heavy measured tread approaching, and an undefinable sensation of fear crept over her as the sounds echoed from one side of the old bridge to the other.
Now and then the person, whoever it was, would pause in his walk, and indistinct mutterings, as if he were communing with himself, reached the ears of Ada.
As he came near she could detect the words he used, and her ears were shocked by oaths of the most awful character, coupled with invectives and horrible imprecations against some one. Involuntarily Ada shrank still closer within the alcove, and now the stranger paused nearly opposite to where she was concealed, and she could hear his words distinctly.
“Curses on him,” he muttered; “I swear, I, Andrew Britton, swear by all the furies of hell that I will have that man’s blood! He shall bitterly rue his taunts, most bitterly. By Heaven, I would like to tear his heart out. I—I could set his blood flowing like a torrent. I could exult in any agony inflicted upon him. Cunning Britton am I? Taunt on—taunt on; every dog will have his day.”
There was now a dead silence for some moments, and Ada strove to recollect where and when she had heard that voice before.
“Can this be one of those from whose visits my—my—no, no, not my father—my uncle shrank from in so much terror? It surely is—or else I have heard his voice in some dream. Ha! He comes—he comes!”
Britton, for it was he, advanced a pace or two and leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, still muttering deep and awful curses. He was so close to Ada that she could have touched him with her small white hand, had she chosen, but she stilled the very beating of her heart as much as possible, in instinctive terror of that man.
“It’s all to do over again now,” he said: “all over again—with the additional difficulty that he is upon his guard. Oh, could I but light on that boy; I—I’d wring his neck—and then—then Jacob Gray, I would invent some method of burning you to death painfully; some method that would take long in doing this—I should see you writhe in your agony. By the fiends there’s comfort in the thought. Oh, that I had him here—here clinging to the parapet of this bridge while I—I, Andrew Britton, was slowly—yes, very slowly, sawing his fingers till he loosed his hold and fell. Then he would strike against yon projection. Ha! Ha! That would be one pang—I should hear him shriek—what music! Then down—down he would go into the water, mingling his blood with it! I should see him rise again, and his heart would break in another shriek. Ha! Ha! Ha!—I am better with the very thought. He—a step—I will to the Chequers, and drown care in a flagon!”
A strange wild voice was now heard singing in a kind of rude chaunt. The tones were feeble and broken, but Ada, with a feeling of pleasure, recognised in them those of a woman. Her attention, however, was in a moment again turned to Britton, who all at once exclaimed, “What voice is that? I—I know that voice, although I have not heard it for some time now.”
The voice became more distinct as the singer approached, and there was a wild earnestness in the manner in which the following words were spoken, which touched Ada to the heart:—
“The winter’s wind is cold,
But colder is my heart,
I pray for death full oft,
Yet may not now depart,
I have a work to do,
The gentle child to save,
Alas! That its poor father
Should want a shroud and grave.”
“Now I know her—now I know her!” cried Britton. “Damnation, it’s—it’s Mad Maud! Shall I fly from her—or—or kill her?”
Before he could decide upon a course of action, the poor creature was close to him. She laid her hand upon his arm—
“Found—found,” she shrieked. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Found at last. Andrew Britton I have travelled many miles to find thee out.”
“Away, cursed hag!” cried Britton,
“I have sought you,” continued the poor woman, “oh, how I have sought you and Learmont too. You see I am mad, and so I know more than ordinary people. The day is coming—the day of vengeance, and I have come to London to see it. I have asked often—often for you, Andrew Britton, and now you are found.”
“Devil!” cried Britton, “why do you haunt me?”
“Haunt you! Yes, that is the word, I do haunt you! I will haunt you to the last.”
“Indeed! Perhaps you may meet with some accident.”
“No, no; I will tell you who I asked for you. You will not be surprised.”
“Who?—Who dared you ask for me?”
“There was a man hung last Monday—”
“Well, w—what is that to me? If there were fifty men hung? What is it to me, I say?”
“Nothing—oh, nothing, Andrew Britton; but I asked if he knew your hiding-place.”
“Why ask him?”
“Because the good and just cannot know you; you belong not to them; I asked the man who stood beneath the gibbet if he had been tempted to crime by Andrew Britton, the savage smith of Learmont; I asked the hangman if he knew you, and when he said he did not, I described you to him, that he might recognise you, when his cold clammy hands, are about your neck!”
“Prating idiot!” said Britton, “if you tempt me to the deed, I’ll cast you over the bridge!”
“You dare not, Andrew Britton! You dare not,” cried Maud. “Savage as you are, you dare not do that! Strange, too, as you boast yourself, you could not!”
“Indeed!“ answered Britton. “Now, by Heaven—”
“Hold—hold! Whatever you do, swear not by Heaven;—that Heaven you will never see! What have you to do with Heaven, that you should record your blustering oaths in its pure annals? Swear not by Heaven, Andrew Britton, or you may provoke a vengeance that may be terrible even to you.”
“Tell me,” said Britton, in an evidently assumed tone of mildness, “what brought you to London?”
“A holier errand, Britton, than that