The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 284: what you’re looking at

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THE MYSTERIZS OF THE COURT. 271 about the gardens: but the Earl took good eare to |} keep them at a tolerable distance from the private door. posed to return into the house. But om passing |. in-doors, the old nobleman made some excuse | to leave them; and he hastened back into: the garden “Ab, wy young friend!” he said within him self, thus apostrophising Christian Ashton, “I | as shall find you canght in the trap as sure as a gun! ~—-but like a true lover of romance, you have too | much pluck to roar out end thus betray every thing. Or perhaps you have to extri- cate yourself,-in which ease the teeth will show whether they bit home. Bué 5 am more inclined to think I shall find you pinned fast there,—enjoy- } ing a miserable martyrdom.” Thus an hour passed; and then he pro-| CHAPTER LI. eonsi of mystery with the gene- j of the Harl’s bouschold. His lordship said, ina cuxsory manner, that he supposed one. of the gurdenet amet have eet it under the im- pression that there were noctuzmal intruders upon. :the grounds; and he forbade any inquiries te be -ingtisuted., . of course took very good care not to confess how far be kad been instru- imental in the ignoble catasteophe: aor did he think fit to mention the circumstance eve ito Lord Osmond. The ander-gardener likewise _ @Geor a few inches, asaured them that hie lordship In his haste to ascertain the resulf of an idea |i maintained tho secret, in pursuance of the instruc- which he conesived to be one of the wost brilliant |itions he had received from the Karl: but the mar that had ever entered his fertile brain, the Earl | could not for the life of him conceive how the trap of Lascelles did not pursue the tedious meander- | had become moved from its oviginal position. ings of the gravel-walk which led towasds the} When, at the expisation of a day or two, the private door: but he cut across the grase-plat-~ | nobleman was enabled to leave his room again, he reached the evergreens—and began working his tools an opportunity of questioning the under- way manfully amongst them But all of a sud- fi gardener: and though the fellow swors lustily he den a terrific yell rang through the grounds; for, had planted the trap againet the private door, the lo and behold! the unfortunate Harl of Lasoslles | Kazi could not help thinking the fellow had got was caught in his own trap. ‘drank and had ié amongst the shrubs. Nothing could exeeed the horrible evies. and the | However, he was content to leave the matter as it piteous lamentations which kept coming from the } |stood: for he had no inclination to make a disturb- lips of the wretehed old man. Lord Adolphus and |‘ance relative to an incident that was so painfully some of the men-servants washed forth. from the |: humiliating for himself. Yet bitter was hie lorde mansion: others followed with lights; and guided |iship’s vexation that Christian Ashton should have by the Karl's yells, they speedily veached the |}escaped him: for it was his intention, if the youth spot w he was pinned fast. Lord Adolphus |:had been caught in the trap, to summon the whole was most painfully afflicted on beholding his ‘household to witness him im that position. The father in a plight so unaceountable, bug which for |'tables had however been turned: it was the Earl any one except a son would have had something so |: himself who was caught—~tho Earl himeelf likewise execedingly ludicrous in it. Indeed, several of the | whom that household, with but three or four ex- servants turned aside to laugh outright; and ‘captions, had poured forth to see. eould scarcely keep his eountenanee. | The incident produced the most psinfal imprese The old lord was extricated from the trap and|'sion upon the minds of the Countess, Adolphus, borne into the house: but om arriving there, he ‘and Isabella. Without being at all enabled to would not suffer any one to attend him in his |\account for it, they were nevertheless deeply sad- dressing-room except Makepeace. The Countess i dened by the thought that the poor old nobleman aad. Isabella, having petired to their own apart- |i/had bean placed in that cruel predicament. Such ments te put off theis shawls, had not heard the |.a state of feclimg brings vividly up into people's cries; and when they were informed of whet bad |i minds.the weongs of which they have been guilty, happened, they sped te the door of the Hazl’s| or the dutice which they have violated, in respect suite of rooms te make inquiries and render any | to the individual who is the object: of their com- needful sssistance. But Makepeace, opening the § passion. The Countess, who had many generous was by no means seviously hurt—that ho desired | which an ixzesistible to be left alono—and that they were on 20 a0- eount to send for medical assistance. Lt was quite true that the old nobleman was not much injured—for the simple reason that the calf turpitude: while Lord Osmond, despite his un- abating infatuation for his young and beautiful mother-in-law, could no longer look in his father’s ‘qualities notwithstanding the deep depravity into | more than ever aroused to the blackness of her , | of his leg had been protected by a pretty consider- able piece of padding, which was artistically fixed inside his stoeking so as to give that appearance of modelled robustness which nature had denied to those spindle-shanks. And it waa likewise on ac- count of this succedaneous arrangement that the ' Keel would not suffer any one to enter his dreasing- | room exoeph Makepeace. face without feeling that his guilt towards that parent was of the darkest and deepest dye. As for Isabella,—she, with hep feelings far more keenly sensitive, and with her notzons. of: propriety still more exquisitely delicate, was led painfully to refleot that as her uncle stood in the light of a parent, she had proved grievously disobedient te his wishes in stealthily meeting Christian Ashton.. The result of all these remorseful feelings wae that the Countess of Lascelles penned a note to Adolphus, beseecbing and implcring that on some pretext he would withdraw from the mansion, and that by meane of a long separation they might “? (GO) an (C DOO Col