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Updated: June 28, 2025
The policy of this step was immediately apparent. Alarmed by the noise of the scuffle, Quilt and Sharples rushed to the assistance of their comrade. But they were too late. The entrance was barred against them; and they had the additional mortification of hearing Sheppard's loud laughter at their discomfiture. "I told you the prison wasn't built that could hold me," cried Jack.
In one angle of the room stood a disused fire-place, with a rusty grate and broken chimney-piece; in the other there was a sort of box, contrived between the wall and the boards, that looked like an apology for a cupboard. Towards this box Sharples directed his steps, and, unlocking a hatch in the door, disclosed a recess scarcely as large, and certainly not as clean, as a dog-kennel.
Jack, who had something of the Spartan in his composition, endured his martyrdom without flinching; and carried his stoical indifference so far, as even to make a mocking grimace in Sharples's face, while that amiable functionary thrust Thames into the recess beside him. "How go you like your quarters, sauce-box?" asked Sharples, in a jeering tone.
No sooner had they entered the room than Sharples, who waited to usher them in, hastily retreated, closed the door, and turning the key, laughed loudly at the success of his stratagem. Vexation at his folly in suffering himself to be thus entrapped kept Wood for a short time silent. When he could find words, he tried by the most urgent solicitations to prevail upon the constable to let him out.
His success in portrait-painting obtained for him a commission from the foreman of the shop to paint a family group, and Sharples executed it so well that the foreman not only paid him the agreed price of eighteen pounds, but thirty shillings to boot.
There was no mistake about Sharples; his false hair and beard had become disarranged in the scuffle, and other marks of identification were immediately observed. "Levi Sharples," said the sergeant, "you're our prisoner we've been looking out for you for a long time; you'll have to come with us.
"I don't wonder," began Foster, "that you should think it weak and strange in me; but you shall judge. Levi Sharples and myself used to be great friends or rather, perhaps, I ought to say frequent companions, for I don't think there was ever anything worth calling friendship between us. He used to profess a great respect for my opinion.
Go by the eight a.m. train on Friday morning, and I'll take the train that starts at dinner-time. No one'll ever suspect us of going to Cricketty Hall that way. I shall tell the police at Foxleigh my business, and they'll be glad enough to send some men with us when they know that Levi Sharples will be there, the man they've been wanting to catch.
They were soon making their way cautiously amongst the fallen blocks of stone towards a turret which rose to a considerable height at the end of the ruins farthest from the gateway. "Go forward, William," said Sharples, "while I light my lantern." So saying, he paused to strike a match, while his companion threaded his way towards the turret.
This was the place where the young shoemaker, belonging to the race of Shanks, had been scared so sadly that he lost his sweetheart, some two years and a half ago; and this was the tree that had been loved by painters, especially the conscientious Sharples, a pupil of Romney, who studied the nicks and the tricks of the bole, and the many fantastic frets of time, with all the loving care which ensured the truth of his simple and powerful portraits.
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