The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 331: what you’re looking at

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

SP re icf ju Sn sp PS SS , $28 THR MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. ‘ wee did nut imagine: but having once brought herself to look the idea of this new crime fixedly in the face, she resolved that it should be perpetrated by sume means or another. Therefore she did not renounce her intention of making one more des- perate effort to consolidate her own power, and pursue the career from which for a moment the incident of the masquerading-drees had threatened to divert her altogether. If she had suddenly pur- posed to fly from Englan taken captive, she would have abandoned him to his fate, desperately reckless of whatsoever he might choose to say of her: but as she had made up her mind to remain, and prosecute her schemes to the end, it was absolutely necessary to bear 8 friendly part towards that man, and aid him to eacape, so that he should not be led into any dis- agreeable revelations with regard to antecedent circumstances. Lady Saxondale therefore decided that Chiffia the Cannibal should be enabled to effect his escape : but how was this to be done? The windows of the chapel and the cloister were all protected by massive iron bars,as her lsdyship had intimated whon directing the constable’s aitention to the fact; and the constable himself was keeping watch outaide the chapel-door, which was barred, bolted, and locked. Nevertheless, Lady Ssxondale could afford to smile at these circumstances,—inasmuch as there was a secret connected with the cloister known to no living soul except herself. Many long years back her husband had communicated it to her; and as it was a sort of hereditary mystery preserved in the family, she had never rovealed it to other cars. She sat in her chamber till midnight: and then, having ascertained by listening that the castle was all quiet, and that the servants had at length se- parated to their respective chambers, she prepared for the enterprise which she had in hand. First she touk from her writing-desk a sum of money, amounting to a couple of hundred pounds in notes and gold: and this she wrapped up in a mnall parcel. Then, with the lamp in her hand, shoe descended to the librayy; and opening a small cupboard underneath one of the bookcases, ahe took from that recess a moderate-sised key. This, through long disuse, had become encrusted with rust: Lady Saxondele accordingly returned to her own chamber, and herself with a small bottle of hair-oil from her toilet-table. She like- the court on which the buildings looked. The night was dark as pitch: there was consequently no danger of her being observed by any one who might not as yet have retired to rest. But as she glanced up at the windows on every side, she saw that one light was alone burning ; and this was at the casement of the passage where the Bead-constabls of Gainsborough was keeping wate Lady Saxondale crossed the quadrangle, and stopped at a small low door in the north-western angle. She tried the key: but, as she had anti- - Cipated, it was too rusty to turn in the lock. She oiled it; and another essay proved sucoessful—the ‘door opened—and she crossed the threshold. When | i d, now that Chiffin was | i of the lucifer-matches with whi vided, re-lighted her lamp. She the entrance of a narrow stone passage, forward into utter darkness, and where struck like myriads of ice-shafts penetrating through her brain and to her very heart's core. She shuddered—her teeth chattered—and she was E E advancing cautiously lest any of the masonry should have fallen in, and thus create a stumbling block in her way. But such was not the case: the mass of stonowork forming the walls on either side, and the arching cojling, wes as solid and compact as if this corridor had been hollowed out of a granite rock itself: for the old castle appeared not to belong to time, but 3 E the cloister above. For this vault—if such it could be termed, which was not was precisely beneath the cloister itself, exactly corresponding with it in dimensions. loop-holes on the western side~ namely, the one overlooking the river—admitted the currents of fresh air. Awful was the silonce and deadly the chill which prevailed in this place,—a silence fitted for the place of tombs——a chill such as that which sweeps from the sounding sea-lashed shores Labrador. Lady Saxondale sh : t it was more with the cold FE rt ! (COL (C DOO CS (COL