The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 51: what you’re looking at

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

48 THE CHILD OF WATERZOO. it too much trouble to follow the mendicant, or, in the furious frame of mind that individual was, it is more than likely the poor fellow’s troubles would have been all ended with the same knife that had taken the life of the mastiff dog. So deep, how- ever, had been the sleep of Tom, that he only awakened at the end of the fray, and he went to sleep again without knowing that the dog was dead. The mendicant, when now he reached without further in- terruption, the back door of the inn, found no difficulty in undoing the fastenings, and in a moment was fairly in the house. He closed the door, but took care to leave it so that he should himself be able to open it at any moment he pleased, and then listened for a length of time sufficient tg be quite convinced that no one was stirring in the inn. He now slipped off his shoes, and commenced his progress into the interior of the building. The Morton Arms was one of those straggling-built places; a sight of which at once convinces any one that it was not an object how much ground was occupied by it. It had in it a number of passages, and no less than three staircases, so that a stranger might be considerably puzzled in finding out all the ins and outs of such a building. By, however, an accurate investigation, conducted as carefully as he could in the dark, of which way he went, the mendicant made sure he should be able, if any sudden movement were necessary, to find his way back again, and so he went up the principal staircase toward the floor on which the best beds were situated. Suddenly, when he least of all expected it, a light flashed across his eyes, and he had just time enough to throw himself down flat on the floor, when he heard a footstep coming up an- other staircase, which Jed to the floor on which he then was. Slowly came he who was approaching, and, to the surprise of the mendicant, he saw that 1t was Jem, the hostler, who was yawning, and carrying a candle all one side as he went. ‘‘The deuce!” muttered the hostler: ‘‘ how stupid of me to fall asleep in one of the stalls. I—I amas cold as an icicle, and I don’t see why now IJ shouldn’t turn into one of the spare beds; old Toggs will be none the wiser. I don’t want any sheets, and I can easily put it up all straight and smooth in the morning. I'H—T’ll—ah! how sleep—-y Iam, to he sure. Il turn into No. 6. That's a nice enough room, is No. 6. Hilloa! what a goosel was, to be sure, to fall asleep in the stable. I haven’t the least idea of what o'clock it is.” At this moment the village clock struck one. ‘“‘One!” exclaimed Jem. ‘‘ The deuce! and I got to be up at five. Here goes for a snooze in No. 6.” So saying, and tumbling about from very sleepiness, he opened the door of a chamber and went in, closing it after him. In a few moments the mendicant rose, and with the expres- sion of a perfect fiend upon his face, he shook his clinched fist in the direction the unconscious hostler had taken, as he muttered, in a low growling tone: ‘You are a doomed man; but not by my hands shall you fall. Tneed not take that trouble. It will be done for me. It shall comicbooks. com