The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 342: what you’re looking at

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

a en | THE MYSTERISS OF THE COURT. distracted husband had boldly plunged in to rescue frensied terror, he shouted for help. All of a sudden his foot slipped—and in he fell. Fortu- nately for him, however, his hand instantaneously encountered the root of a tree, spreading out beneath the water, from the bank; and he was enabled to scramble safely back to « sure footing the upon “Help, help! in mercy’s sake, help! Edmund villain — murderer-—M ing desperately. effort—like the last flutter of a dying bird; she sank to rise no more alive. Ere she went down, however, this third time, the murderer agonies of death upon is, than it had seemed before. Again did he recollect his mother’s words: he | crime had seen her go down a third time ;—and giving vent to cries and which indeed seemed full of frensied horror, he rushed in the direction of the castle. But not many yards had he thus sped, when he beheld a horseman hike the wind towards him; and in a few momente Squire Hawkshaw was upon the spot. “ Good heavens! what is the matter?” he ex- and dripping with water. “My wife! my wife! my beloved Adelaide! There! there!"—and with gestuses apparently frantic he pointed to the river. Then flinging himself upon the bank, he moaned and howled horribly: but it was not altogether acting—for his feelings were indeed worked up to @ fearful pitch ; and the remogse es well as the own li mot evident to the mind of the Squire that the his wife P “My lord, my lord,” he said, much moved on the young nobleman’s behalf, “for heaven's sake, compose yourself! I know the calamity is a dreadful one: but Jt must be endured with for- titude |” “Oh! but it is shocking—it is terrible!” cried Kdmund: and his accents, his looks, and his whole manner, indicated the wildness and the horror of the most genuine affliction. “It de shocking !” said the Squire, who indeed felt what he thus expressed. “Come, my lord—I will see you to the castle; and we must procure assistance to recover the——” He stopped short: he would not say “ corpse,” for fear of exciting fresh paroxyams of bitter woe on the part of him whom he took to be a miserably bereaved husband. And now the Squire, naturally generous-hearted, beheld not in young Saxondale a being who merited his contempt—beheld not in hin a member of the family which he had so much reason to detest—beheld not in him the husband of a woman who was all but a branded murderess, —but only a fellow-creature whom a dire mis- fortune had suddenly overtaken. Nor in the hurry and whirl of his own feelings, had Hawk- shaw leisure to reflect (believing the tragedy to be entirely the result of an accident in one sense) that it might be a providential retribution for the ame which Adelaide was but too deeply sus- pected of having perpetrated in respect to her first husband. “Come, my lord—let me help you to reach the castle,” he said: and sustaining the young noble- man with one arm, he held his horse’s bridle in the other,—in which manner they proceeded in “Oh, Adelaide! Adelaide!” murmured Edmund, thus forcing himself to continue his lamentations: ‘who could have foreseen this ?”’ “ How did it happen ?”’ asked the Squire, gently and hesitatingly, and displaying all that delicacy with which one fears to probe a deep wound just inflicted. “ Her foot slipped—she was walking a few paces in front of me—and in a moment the water hid her from my view. I plunged in——alas, it was vain !———I could not swim~—my own life was nearly lost-——— Would to heaven I had died with her |” ‘‘ My lord,” answered Hawkshaw gravely, “there are calamities which are sent to try us in this world, and which though deep and terrible, must nevertheless be borne.” Edmund stopped short—covered his face with his hands—and appeared to sob violently; so that the Squire had the utmost difficulty in per. suading him to resume his way to the castle :— or at least it seemed as if there were all this diffi- culty: and so far as Hawkshaw was concerned, it was precisely the same thing. At length—after several halts, and fresh outbursts of grief, more than half simulated, but still partially arising from remorse—the castellated mansion was reached; -] when horror and dismay were quickly diffused throughout the household on hearing what had happened. Hawkshaw told the tele; and thus here again, as with himself in the first instance, not the slightest suspicion of fowl play was enter- (COL (C DOO CS (COL