have him, as sure as there's heat in hell."
"Well, maybe we will," rejoined Chancey.
"Does he say he can't pay them on the day?" asked Blarden, exultingly.
"No; he says maybe he can't," replied the jackal.
"That's all one," cried Blarden. "What do you think? Do you think he can?"
"I think maybe he can, if we squeeze him," replied Chancey.
"Then don't squeeze him—he must not get out of our books on any terms—we'll lose him if he does," said Nicholas.
"We'll not renew the notes, but hold them over," said Chancey. "He must not feel them till he can't pay them. We'll make them sit light on him till then—give him plenty of line for a while—rope enough and a little patience—and the devil himself can't keep him out of the noose."
"You're right—you are, Gordy, boy," rejoined Blarden. "Let him get through the ready money first—eh?—and then into the stone jug with him—we'll just choose our own time for striking."
"I tell you what it is, if you are just said and led by me, you'll have a quare hold on him before three months are past and gone," said Chancey, lazily—"mind I tell you, you will."
"Well, Gordy, boy, fill again—fill again—here's success to you."
Chancey filled, and quaffed his bumper, with, a matter-of-fact, business-like air.
"And do you mind me, boy," continued Blarden, "spare nothing in this business—bring Ashwoode entirely under my knuckle—and, by ——, I'll make it a great job for you."
"Indeed—indeed but I will, Mr. Blarden, if I can," rejoined Chancey; "and I think I can—I think I know a way, so I do, to get a halter round his neck—do you mind?—and leave the rope's end in your hand, to hang him or not, as you like."
"To hang him!" echoed Blarden, like one who hears something too good to be true.
"Yes, to hang him by the neck till he's dead—dead—dead," repeated Chancey, imperturbably.
"How the blazes will you do it?" demanded the wretch, anxiously. "Pish, it's all prate and vapour."
Gordon Chancey stole a suspicious glance round the room from the corner of his eye, and then suffering his gaze to rest sleepily upon the fire once more, he stretched out one of his lank arms, and after a little uncertain groping, succeeding in grasping the collar of his companion's coat, and drawing his head down toward him. Blarden knew Mr. Chancey's way, and without a word, lowered his ear to that gentleman's mouth, who forthwith whispered something into it which produced a marked effect upon Mr. Blarden.
"If you do that," replied he with ferocious exultation, "by ——, I'll make your fortune for you at a slap."
And so saving, he struck his hand with heavy emphasis upon the barrister's shoulder, like a man who clenches a bargain.
"Well, Mr. Blarden," replied Chancey, in the same drowsy tone, "as I said before, I declare it's my opinion I can, so it is—I think I can."
"And so do I think you can—by ——, I'm sure of it," exclaimed Blarden triumphantly; "but take some more—more wine, won't you? take some more, and stay a bit, can't you?"
Chancey had made his way to the door with his usual drowsy gait; and, passing out without deigning any answer or word of farewell, stumbled lazily downstairs. There was nothing odd, however, in this leave-taking; it was Chancey's way.
"We'll do it, and easily too," muttered Blarden with a grin of exultation. "I never knew him fail—that fellow is worth a mine. Ho! ho! Sir Henry, beware—beware. Egad, you had better keep a bright look-out. It's rather late for green goslings to look to their necks, when the fox claps his nose in the poultry-yard."
Chapter XXXIII.
Showing How Sir Henry Ashwoode Played and Plotted—And of the Sudden Summons of Gordon Chancey
Henry Ashwoode was but too anxious to avail himself of the indulgence offered by Gordon Chancey. With the immediate urgency of distress, any thoughts of prudence or retrenchment which may have crossed his mind vanished, and along with the command of new resources came new wants and still more extravagant prodigality. His passion for gaming was now indulged without restraint, and almost without the interruption of a day. For a time his fortune rallied, and sums, whose amount would startle credulity, flowed into his hands, only to be lost and squandered again in dissipation and extravagance, which grew but the wilder and more reckless, in proportion as the sources which supplied them were temporarily increased. At length, after some coquetting, the giddy goddess again deserted him. Night after night brought new and heavier disasters; and with this reverse of fortune came its invariable accompaniment—a wilder and more daring recklessness, and a more unmeasured prodigality in hazarding larger and larger sums; as if the victims of ill luck sought, by this frantic defiance, to bully and browbeat their capricious persecutor into subjection. There was scarcely an available security of any kind which he had not already turned into money, and now he began to feel, in downright earnest, the iron gripe of ruin closing upon him.
He was changed—in spirit and in aspect changed. The unwearied fire of a secret fever preyed upon his heart and brain; an untold horror robbed him of his rest, and haunted him night and day.
"Brother," said Mary Ashwoode, throwing one hand fondly round his neck, and with the other pressing his, as he sate moodily, with compressed lips and haggard face, and eyes fixed upon the floor, in the old parlour of Morley Court—"dear brother, you are greatly changed; you are ill; some great trouble weighs upon your mind. Why will you keep all your cares and griefs from me? I would try to comfort you, whatever your sorrows may be. Then let me know it all, dear brother; why should your griefs be hidden from me? Are there not now but the two of us in the wide world to care for each other?" and as she said this her eyes filled with tears.
"You would know what grieves me?" said Ashwoode, after a short silence, and gazing fixedly in her face, with stern, dilated eyes, and pale features. He remained again silent for a time, and then uttered the emphatic word—"Ruin."
"How, dear brother, what has befallen you?" asked the poor girl, pressing her brother's hand more kindly.
"I say, we are ruined—both of us. I've lost everything. We are little better than beggars," replied he. "There's nothing I can call my own," he resumed, abruptly, after a pause, "but that old place, Incharden. It's worth next to nothing—bog, rocks, brushwood, old stables, and all—absolutely nothing. We are ruined—beggared—that's all."
"Oh! brother, I am glad we have still that dear old place. Oh, let us go down and live there together, among the quiet glens, and the old green woods; for amongst its pleasant shades I have known happier times than shall ever come again for me. I would like to ramble there again in the pleasant summer time, and hear the birds sing, and the sound of the rustling leaves, and the clear winding brook, as I used to hear them long ago. There I could think over many things, that it breaks my heart to think of here; and you and I, brother, would be always together, and we would soon be as happy as either of us can be in this sorrowful world."
She threw her arms around her brother's neck, and while the tears flowed fast and silently, she kissed his pale and wasted cheeks again and again.
"In the meantime," said Ashwoode, starting up abruptly, and looking at his watch, "I must go into town, and see some of these harpies—usurers—that have gotten their fangs in me. It is as well to keep out of jail as long as one can," and, with a very joyless laugh, he strode from the room.
As he rode into town, his thoughts again and again recurred to his old scheme respecting Lady Stukely.
"It is after all my only chance," said he. "I have made my mind up fifty times to it, but somehow or other, d——n me, if I could ever bring myself to