Page:Ainsworth's Magazine - Volume 1.djvu/24

8 "But I must, and will see him," rejoined Raiululph in a peremptory tone. "I have a packet to deliver to him—to his own hands—an important packet. Tell him that."

"A Jacobite, I'll be sworn," cried Peter to himself; "I must watch him narrowly. I should feel gratified in being the means of hanging that young man."

"Well, I'll take your message to my master," growled Jacob, after a short pause. "But I must scrutinize you a little before I admit you. You seem to me, so far as I can make out, to have a good deal of the cut of a highwayman about you."

"He, he, he! good, Jacob, good!" tittered Peter.

Some minutes elapsed before Jacob, who had disappeared, returned. A heavy tread was heard along the passage leading to the door, succeeded by the rattling of a chain, the clanking of bars, and the shooting back of a couple of ponderous bolts. The door was then thrown open, and exhibited the great gaunt figure of Jacob, holding a lantern in one hand, the light of which he threw full upon the face of the young man, while he kept the other hand, which grasped the redoubted crabstick, out of view. Satisfied, at length, with the investigation, he growled forth, "It'll do. Master'll see you. You may come in."

"That for your trouble, friend," said Randulph, slipping a crown into Jacob's hand, as he tied his horse's bridle to a ring in the door-post.

"I wonder what this is given for?" muttered Jacob, as he pocketed the coin. "It's the only suspicious thing I've noticed about him. I must keep an eye upon him. But I dare say he only wants to see my young mistress, and she's worth more than twenty crowns to look at." Thus rumininating, he admitted Randulph into the passage, locked and bolted the door, took the light out of the lantern and placed it in a copper candlestick, and led the way towards a back room. While the door was being fastened, Peter Pokerich darted across the way, shouting to Randulph, "I'll take care of your horse, sir." No attention, however, being paid to the offer, he hurried back for a light, and began carefully to examine the saddle, peering into the holsters, and trying to open the saddle-bags, to see whether he could obtain any clue to the supposed Jacobite principles of the owner.

Meanwhile, as Randulph Crew followed his conductor along the passage, the boards of which, being totally destitute of carpet or cloth, sounded hollowly beneath their feet; as he glanced at the bare walls, the dusty and cobweb-festooned ceiling, and the staircase, as devoid of covering as the passage, he could not but admit that the account given him by the barber of Mr. Scarve's miserly habits was not exaggerated. Little time, however, was allowed him for reflection. Jacob marched quickly in, and pushing open a door on the right, ushered him into his master's presence. Mr. Scarve was an old man, and looked much older than he really was,—being only sixty-five, whereas he appeared like eighty. His frame was pinched, as if by self-denial, and preternaturally withered and shrivelled; and there was a thin, haggard, and almost hungry, look about his face, extremely painful to contemplate. His features were strongly marked, and sharp, and his eye gray, keen, and piercing. He was dressed in a threadbare cloth robe, trimmed with sable, and wore a velvet nightcap, lined with cotton, on his head. The rest of his habiliments were darned and patched in an unseemly manner. He was seated near a small table, on which was laid a ragged and dirty cloth, covered with the remains of his scanty meal,V which Randulph's arrival had interrupted. Part of a stale loaf, a slice of cheese, and a little salt, constituted the sum total of the repast. Everything in the room bespoke the character of its