nt
him. As it was, my oldest and trustiest setter, Abraham Mendez, received
a blow on the head from one of the lads that will deprive me of his
services for a week to come,--if, indeed it does not disable him
altogether. However, if I've lost one servant, I've gained another,
that's one comfort. Jack Sheppard is now wholly in my hands."

"What is this to me, Sir?" said Trenchard, cutting him short.

"Nothing whatever," rejoined the thief-taker, coldly. "But it is much to
me. Jack Sheppard is to me what Thames Darrell is to you--an object of
hatred. I owed his father a grudge: that I settled long ago. I owe his
mother one, and will repay the debt, with interest, to her son. I could
make away with him at once, as you are about to make away with your
nephew, Sir Rowland,--but that wouldn't serve my turn. To be complete,
my vengeance must be tardy. Certain of my prey, I can afford to wait for
it. Besides, revenge is sweetened by delay; and I indulge too freely in
the passion to rob it of any of its zest. I've watched this lad--this
Sheppard--from infancy; and, though I have apparently concerned myself
little about him, I have never lost sight of my purpose. I have suffered
him to be brought up decently--honestly; because I would make his fall
the greater, and deepen the wound I meant to inflict upon his mother.
From this night I shall pursue a different course; from this night his
ruin may be dated. He is in the care of those who will not leave
the task assigned to them--the utter perversion of his
principles--half-finished. And when I have steeped him to the lips in
vice and depravity; when I have led him to the commission of every
crime; when there is neither retreat nor advance for him; when he has
plundered his benefactor, and broken the heart of his mother--then--but
not till then, I will consign him to the fate to which I consigned his
father. This I have sworn to do--this I will do."

"Not unless your skull's bullet-proof," cried a voice at his elbow; and,
as the words were uttered, a pistol was snapped at his head,
which,--fortunately or unfortunately, as the reader pleases,--only burnt
the priming. The blaze, however, was sufficient to reveal to the
thief-taker the features of his intended assassin. They were those of
the Irish watchman.

"Ah! Terry O'Flaherty!" vociferated Jonathan, in a tone that betrayed
hot the slightest discomposure. "Ah! Terry O'Flaherty!" he cried,
shouting after the Irishman, who took t