The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 140: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE CHILD OF WATERLOO 187 threw himself with such force against the man, as caused him to fall, knocking down others in bis fall; like one of the skittles that has been forcibly struck, he upset many more. Henry Morton followed close upon Brolickbones,-and pre- vented any more violence being offered, and in a few minutes they reached the shop, which was a bird fancier’s, and thence into the street. ‘* We’ve missed him, Rafferty,” said Morton; ‘‘ he has escaped us this time.” ‘*'Yes, sir. We lost too much time among those rapscallions up-stuirs. J wish 1 had time to thrash them all singly.” ‘‘ Oh, they are all desperately well knocked about as itis; they didn’t get thrown down one over the other on the stairs with- out some mischief. But we must now seek some rest. Since I have been disappointed I feel the fatigue which I did not think of before.” ; ‘Nor I, sir. Jasus, it was all easy before, but now one’s ready to drop into the earth, and I’m wet all over with perspiration, to say nothing of the loss of my hat, which is gone I know not where. I can’t now recollect when it fell off, unless my hair lifted it off when I first saw yer honor go helter-skelter over the housetops.” ‘‘T dare say I did, Rafferty, but I didn’t think of what I was doing. I wonder how we got over so safely.” “‘T wonder, indeed, sir; I wonder, too, we haven’t both made a line or two in the newspaper, and then the news would have been an additional mischief at Morton Hall.” ‘*So it would, Rafferty, but, now we are safe, I never felt ex- ertion so much; you must have a new hat.” They entered a shop, where Brolickbones was accommodated with a new hat, and then they sought some place where they could sit down, rest, and have some refreshment, but their ex- ertion and disappointment had produced a great reaction, mental and physical; they were fatigued, silent, and melancholy. CHAPTER XXVIII. . THE time hung heavily on the hands of Mabel. She thought and grieved incessantly—indeed, she bac no other occupation, save that of recalling to her mind the past, and comparing it with the present, and for one in such a situation it had but a saddening effect. She lay on the miserable pallet which the mendicant had pro- vided for her, and in the still hours of the night she would listen, and the slightest noise, however distant, came with a surprising distinctness on her ear that was startling. ‘For some hours she had lain, not sleeping, but awake, and her mind was busy in picturing to herself the many scenesof beauty and pleasure she had been a participator in. But how was the scenechanged! It seemed a dream—friends and companions were all gone. The dear scenes of her youth- ful pléasures—where were they? Gone—vanished; and become mere matters for the imagination to speculate upon, comicbooks. com