“Well,” he muttered, “there’s an air and a grace, I never knew he was so hasty before. I—I think I’ll have a hunt for the fellow myself, and—yet he might master me, and I think I won’t. It’s all very well to take a prisoner, but when the prisoner takes you, it ain’t near so pleasant.” Having come to this sage conclusion, the bill-sticker rapidly walked away, glancing every now and then around him in terror, lest Gray should make a sudden dart at him from behind some tree or hedge. “Here! Here,” moaned Jacob Gray, as he smeared the blood from his face with his hand, “here I must remain in hunger and pain till night, and then my only hope now is to crawl to Learmont’s!” CHAPTER LXIV. The Chequers.—Britton’s Corner.—An Alarm.—The Mysterious Stranger.—A Quarrel.—A Fight and a Little Anatomy. While all these important circumstances are taking place, intoxication was doing its fell work upon even the iron frame of Andrew Britton, and each day saw him more coarse, bloated, and wayward in his various fancies. He was but as an infant in the interval between his fits of drunkenness, and it was never until he had taken enough ardent spirits to kill any ordinary person that he felt his energies increase and his blood course through his veins with its accustomed activity. The fearful excitement of drink was deluding him with its present support, at the same time it was sapping the very springs of his life, and weakening the foundations of his strength. He had already expended a small fortune at the Chequers, and yet his gold, to the surprise of the landlord and the frequenters of the house, appeared to be inexhaustible. Endless were the conjectures of who and what he was; and one person had actually called upon Sir Francis Hartleton to mention his strong suspicions that all was not right as regarded Britton; but we know that the magistrate had ample and judicious reasons for not alarming Learmont by a useless interference with Andrew Britton; and although he received the communication with politeness, he replied that he saw no reason at present to take any steps as regarded the drunken smith, who held his nightly orgies at the Chequers; so that the party left his office rather discouraged than otherwise, and Britton pursued his career unchecked. On the very night which had witnessed the denunciation of Jacob Gray by Ada at Whitehall, and the various harrowing incidents, directly and, indirectly arising therefrom, Britton had been holding high revel in the parlour of the Chequers. He had that morning visited Learmont, and was now freely lavishing around him the gold pieces, which appeared to have no limit, but to be produced by him as freely as if he had discovered the much coveted secret of the transmutation of metals.