The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

THE MYSTERIES OF THE OOURT. » by tho strangeness of the whole procoeding—had | which he had briefly alladed when they wero cross lost no time in resuming his apparel; and he had | ing the field together, and respecting which she was scarcely dressed himself when she re-appeared with | anxious to obtain the fullest and completest ex- a light in her hand. He immediately fixed his Madge Somers therefore felt that she eyes upon her to see whether she came with any | had a difficult game to play with the formidable hostile intent; and though there was certainly little Chiffin, and that it would require all her arts of to glean of an encouraging character from a coun- | diplomacy to effect the double object of satisfying tenance ainister and repulsive, yet at the | him in respect to her own conduct, and at the same same time he beheld naught in her looks to belie | time gleaning what she wanted to know from his the assurances of safety she had ere now given him. | lips. She nevertheless gazed upon him with a singular; “ You.are enjoying yourself,” she said, flinging earnestness, that had however nothing threatening | off her,old cloak and sitting down near the table. in it: and yet her regards were of a nature which; “Well, I think it wants something to put one in he could not comprehend. a good humour after this disappointment,” growled ‘You doubtless wish for. explanations why you the Cannibal. “ But it wam’t for agiass of brandy- must depart so abruptly and in the middle of the | and-water that I came up here to-night, I can tell night,” sho said, at length breaking silence, and | you,” he added. “Who's to pay me the hundred speaking in that curt, blunt, and imperious manner | pounds I have just lost by your silly nonsense in which seemed habitual to her: “but you will re- | letting that young fellow goP For I hav’n’t forgot ecive none from my lips. It suits me to act in this that you said just now my share would come to that way. But there is one point on which I may as | amount.” well enlighten you at once—which is, that all I} “Now, Chiffin,” answered Madge Somers, “you told you about my having seen or spoken to tho hive known me some years, and I have never de- lady’s-maid at Evergroen Villa is pure invention on | Ceived you in business matters—have I ?” my part. I never took any trouble at all in the| ‘“ No—I can’t say that you have,” responded the matter, and know nothing more of the young lady | Cannibal sullenly. ‘We have done a few things or her concerns than what I told you yesterday | together, and you have always been fair and straight- when you first came to the cottage. And now sorward onoveh— there's no denying that: and now, t next ?” “But this is most singular—most unaccount-} “You will believe me, then, if I make you a cer- able!” exclaimed Saxondale, his courage reviving in | tain promise?” said Madge interrogatively. proportion as he saw that there was actually no| “Yes—I think I may,” replied Chiffin: “for we ground for alarm. all know you are a strange kind of a creature, and e “ Depart, I say!” eried Madge Somers, stamping | there’s some of the folks down at Sol Patch’s really her foot impatiently. “If you stayed here for an fancies you are awitch. I don’t mean no offence, hour, you would not drag from my lips a single word more than I choose to tell you.” “Witches need not have recourse to the means I Lord Saxondale, perceiving that it was utterly | adopt for a living,” rejoined the woman abruptly. useless to stand arguing the point witn this singular “ But about this promise of mine. If I tell you that woman, no longer hesitated to obey her command; | to-morrow evening at nine o'clock I will bring you a and he accordingly followed her from the room. | handred pounds to the Billy Goat, or any where She descended the stairs with tho candle in her | else you choose to appoint, will you be satisfied for hand, and held open the cottage-door, her entire | the loes of your booty this night? And I think manner evincing an unaccountable impatience for | you ought to be,” she added ere he had time to him to begone. He accordingly went forth without | answer ; “for it will be a hundred pounds earned by another word; and speeding across the fields, en- | you without risk, whereas if this work had been tered the Seven Sisters Road. done to-night there would have been risk, although Meanwhile Madge Somers closed the front door | € verything was so nicely arranged to make all traces and returned to her companion Chiffin, whom she disappear.” found seated near the tablo and drinking large “Well, if I was sure of having’ the blunt te- draughts of brandy-and-water, to which he had | morrow night,” said Chiffin, slowly suffering himself managed to help himself by aid of the glimmering | to be pacified, “I shouldn’t care much about that light that peeped in through the window. young fellow being allowed to walk clean off under my very nose, as one may say.” — “Then you shall have the hundred pounds to- morrow night, Chiffin,” said Madge Somers, with CHAPTER XIII. the confidence of one who knows that the promise will be fulfilled. A GLANCE AT THE PAST®. | “And now you will tell me,” asked the Cannibal, | “ what the deuce all this means—why you dropped WHATEVER intention Madge Somers might have ; the candlo and called out—why you pushed me from had a few minutes back, of entering into full par- | the room and banged the door as a signal that I ticulars with Chiffin the ‘Cannibal as to the cause of | wasn’t wanted—and why you let the young chap her singular behaviour towards Lord Saxondale, she ; escape at all.” had come to a very opposite resolution by the time; “‘ Did you not see that he opened his eyes all in a she returned to him. In short, for reasons best , moment, just as we were bending over the bed?” known to herself,. she had entirely changed her asked Madge. mind, and determined to keep her own counsel At; ‘“No—that I didn’t!” replied Chiffin gruffly; the same time there wéro certain particulars to , “andif he did open his eyes like that, then all I COMuicooOolkxs.conrn