Agnes: A Tale of the Streets — page 224: what you’re looking at

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

AGNES; ON, BEAUTY AND PLBASURR. foul forgery! But, Ah! Mr. Timperley, you might suffer all the conscquences of your past mis- deeds, and the memories of my father-in-law and my wife might remain subject to any obloquy or suspicion which may at any time have been thrown upon them, were it not thet I possess a daughter who I now know to be the most virtuous, the most amiable, and the most generous of her sex! Yes —-[ have sufficiently watched her proceedings, and by other means have I sufliciently cspied her ac- tions! Ab, you start at that word espicd ? You doubtless think it strange that a father should place spies to watch his daughter! But I tell you again that I will believe in no human virtue until 1 shalt have tried it: I will have faith in nuthing which is not incontrovertibly proved unto me! Well, then, I repeat, 1 am now satisfied with my Agnes; and ere many hours shall have ekapsed will she be folded in my arms. I think, Mr. Tim- perloy,” added Lord Ormsby, rising from his seut, “that we can have now nothing more to say. Wo have sufficiently discussed the past ;—send as for the present, I have Only tu take possesaion of these deeds which you have looked out and sorted for me.” “ But ag to the future, my lord,” interjected the attorney, with an obsequious Low, “if you should need my professional services—-—~” “Test assured, Mr. Timperley,” said Ormsby, breaking im upun the lawyer’s speech with all the cynical bitternesg of a retort, “rest assured that if I require your services, 1 shall not hesitate to avail myself of them. And who can tell? 1 have seen the Red Indian in the Far West have recourse tu the serpent to borrow that serpent’s venom where- iu te dip the points of his arrows ere going forth to fight an enemy. Why, thea, sbould nut l——~” “ My lord, I pray you to remember,” said Mr. Tiwporloy, with a malignant gleaming of bis small reptile-like eyes, “that your illustration is one sumewhat calculated to give offence. Unless in- deed Ha! Ha!”—and Mr. Timperley suddealy deemed it expedient to change his look and tone ; “ your lordship is pleased tu be facetious !” “Ab! facetious?” was the ourt ejaculation that broke from Ormsby’s lips. “ Yes—doubtless one bas a bumour for facetiousness after being knocked about the world for some nineteen years as | have been! And think you not, Mr. Timperley, that i¢ is enough to make a man merry and put him into good humour with the entire human raco, to have seen what I have seen and to have known what I have known? Perhaps you will next ask mo to come and dance at sume ball or take my part in a merry-making? Louk at this bair! Yuu knuw what my age is—and you can tuvil therviore whethor a person in hia forty-fourth year ought in the natural course of thisgs to bo as groy as IT amP Qn!” he exclaimed, with the supremest scorn slike in bis tone aud in the ex- pressiun of his cuuntenance, “it was a lucky hit va your part, Mr. Timpurley, when you attributed facctiousness unto me /” There was 80 much withering irony in the lan- guape thus addressed by Lord Ormsby to the attorney, that the latter was almust overwhelmed by the puwer of his words. | beg your lordship's pardon,” he said, sbrink~ ing, quailing, and trembling: “ J am sure I did not mean to oflend—~—* 173 “Enough, Mr. Timperley | enough!” inter rupted the nubleman. Lord Ormsby now proceeded to secure about his person the various packages of papers which Mr, ‘Timperley had prepared for him; and when he had done this, ho turned towards the lawyer, on whom he fixed his brilliant black eyes with a look that might pierce into the very depths of the soul ; and he said, “ You are sure that every requisite paper is there P—that nothing is wanting ?” “T am sure of it, my lord,” answered Tim- perley. “ Your lordship must comprehend that if it suited me to give you any of tho papere, it was to my interest to put ¢hem all into your possas- sion.” ‘It was thus that I calculated,” remarked Ormeby : then pulling from his pocket-book a number of bank-notes, he went on to observe, “Tlere are five hundred pounds. On the day when you see the newspapers announcing that my claims have been recognised by the Government, and that nothing remains to be fulfilled but the formality of obtaining the recognition of my title by a Committee of Privileges of the House of Lorda, you may send one of your clerks to me, and I will remit you a similar amount.” Mr. Timperley bowed very low on beholding tho bank-notes; but it was almost to the vory floor that he bent when he received this additional proof of what ho conceived to be Ormaby’s munificence. The nobleman comprehended what was passing in his mind; and with one of those withering sneers which so often swept over his countenance, ho said, “Do not think, Mr. Timperley, that.you owe anything to mere abstract gonerosity on miy part. It ia not so! I love you not sufficiently to give you a crust to save you from starvation if IL be- held you plunged down in the deepest vortex of misery. But if I cannot be generous towards you as a fellow-creature, [ can at least be just while dealing with you as 8 professional man. You kept ‘hose papers as & matter of calculation, with tho hope that some day or another they would produce a recompense. Well then, you havo served me by so keeping them; because, although it is perfectly true that with the knowledge that I now possess of the whole chain of lineage, step by step and link by link, I might instruct any othor clever practitioner to get together the requisite docu- ments, it would novertheless be a work of time, trouble, and expense. All this you have saved me; and you are therefore deserving of your re- ward just in the same way that a labourer is worthy of his hire. Do not therefore for a single moment flatter yourself that it is through any friendly fecling towards you personally that I am thus acting: it is from a sense of duty and of jus- tice only.” “IT do not the less thank your lordship,” said Mr. Timperley, with an obsoquious bow. “ But 1, am grieved to find that there is still so much bit- erness lurking in your soul towards me.” , “* Bitterness towards you ?” exclaimed Ormaby. “ Bitterness P” he repeated: and then he stepped back @ pace or two, and slowly surveyed tho lawyor | from head to foot and frum fuuvt to head, wei ' tu assure himecif that the individual thus standing before him could possibly entertain any reasunable doubt as to the existence of such cause of bitter- “Think you, Mr. Timperley, they I bave, a Comicloo S CO