Captain Joe; or, The Days of the Mint — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

52 THE HALFPENNY STANDARD. moment is a turning-point for good or evil. Ob! by all your love for me—by your hopes of happiness and safety, do not go!” “Come,” said Gideon Hasper, moving ccey the door, “ we lose a fortune by this delay.’ Ae this instant—at the word “ fortune” —there rushed into his mind the fatal memory of ‘the letter which “ the mysteri- ous lady,” the daughter of Sir John Flem- ing, had given him at the fair. This turned the balance. ** Mother,” he said, raising her up again, and speaking almost impatiently ; ‘‘ mother, I must go. I can remain no longer— another time I may listen to your entreaties’ but now——” She waited to hear no more, but strode towards Gideon Hasper. “Ourse you!” she cried, while her burn- ing eyes and dilated form told the intensity cf her passion; “curse you, villain— coward! . I never, in my wildest visions, preamed that I should live to say those words, but now, from my heart, I call down Heaven’s vengeance upon you. Oh! may the lightning’s flash—” She spoke no more. Her face assumed a deadly pallor, her eyes became stony, and then, as she fell prone upon the floor before either could aid her, the red blood bubbled from her lips. ; “Oh! Heaven,” exclaimed Dick, “ what have we dore ?” He knelt down beside her, and tenderly raised her head. ‘*Mother,” he whispered hoarsely, with dread, ‘‘I will stay with you—lovk up and speak.” She moved not; and in the ashen pallor of her features Dick read her doom, Té he had not the terrible change which had come over Gideon Hasper would hsve told him. The fierce, hard, stern look which had heen so evident in him when he was speak- ing to Mrs. Marlow had vanished as if hy magic, and a softening influence, like the glow of some former day’s love, seemed suddenly to crush out all the semblance of the brute within him. He knelt down, too,and took her face between his hands, and looked into it earnestly. ‘‘ Heavens! she is dead!” he cried, and then he kissed her forehead and Jaid her down gently, just as a thundering knock came to the door below. ; At this sound all the robber’s instinet within him eprang to life at once. “ Ah!” he said, “raise her up, Dick, and place her on the couch. So she is dead; Dick, and that words of mine should haye hurried her on the fatal pathway is terribly true. But that knocking tells me that there are no friends below, so cover her faee over; do not give way, it would be madness now. You cannot grieve more than I do, Jad—come, come. You lose your mother, but with her goes out for me, Vick, the lagt glimmer of the lamp that lit me in iy youth.” Ashe spoke, and dragged Dick to the door with all his force, a young girl came roshing in. “Oh! Mrs. Marlow! Mrs. Marlow sie cried; “here are & lot of constables sown below, and they swear that-—-—” “Hush!” exclaimed Gideon Hasper, extching her round the waist, and abso- lntely lifting her into the passage; “hugh ! Mrs. Marlow is very ill, and it would not do for her to hear such things, We will go down and see whnt thease fellows want.” ad “Oh! they say they want Mrs, Marlow’s son, Dick Marlow, and Red Ned, the leader df a band of thieves,” exclaimed the garrulous girl, “and they won’ go without them !” “In that case they had better search the house,’’ said Gideon Hasper, quite coolly; “go. at once and let them enter.” The girl at once hurried down. “What mean you? ” cried Dick, gazing at his companion in wonder. “Follow me, and don’t ask questions,” cried Gideon, and dashed through an open doorway. OHAPTER XVI. “Quick! OR THEY'LL BE AFTER YoU.” Tax captain of, the highwaymen turned and securely bolted the door behind him and his fellow fugitive before he ventured to look where they were. They found themselves in a small room without any other outlet but the window, which overlooked a yard and a series of out- houses which extended far along the rear of the dwellings to a neighbouring street. There was no time to lose, and both eagerly glanced from right to left in the gloom to descry some means of escape. __ They could hear the officers tramp up the stairs, they could even hear them enter the adjoining room, and exclaim as they found the dead body of Mrs. Marlow. “We're caged,” cried Dick; “ better have taken poor mother’s advice and remained.” “Bah!” exclaimed Gjdeon, “don’t be faint-hearted. If you had remained you would by this time have been a prisoner.” “For whatP Only flying from my apprenticeship.” “You forget what Jack o’ the Mint heard before he escaped.” “No; but he could prove no robbery against me,” replied Dick; “at least he could ouly say that I was an associste of robbers. Curse the whole affair, cay I!” “Curse your foolish talkativeness when we are in trouble!” cried Gideon. “ Ah! here is a water-pipe—I’m off.” And, so saying, he swung himself from the casement, and had begun his descent before Dick Marlow had well seen what he was doing. At this moment, however, there was a loud clamour without, and the officers began to hammer at the door. “Open—open in the king’s name!” shoute@ a constable; and then came the unmistakable dash of a heavy shoulder against it, the timber cracking ominously. Dick drew a pistol from his belt and fired through the panel. There was a shriek of agony, a hustling and rushing back of feet, and then the young highwayman, springing out of the casement, followed Gideon Hasper with the rapidity of lightning. ‘*Who fired P” cried the latter, as Dick slid to his side on the roof of an outhouse. “I did; they were bursting the door open, and so I fred through it.” ‘Ib was scarcely prudent,” returned Hasper, “it may arouse the neighbourhood, bat it cannot be helped now. We must crawl over these housetops and make for the psssage where you see a light yonder. Come, I know the place better than you do. Follow me.” Crawling on his hands and knees, Gideon Hasper glided over the first wall, and had senated the second outhouse when half-a- dogen heads were thrust out of the window of the room they had just left, and a loud voice roared out like a trumpet— “Thieves! Thieves ! Murder!” —~ “That's old Grog’s voice to a dead certainty,” said Hasper, as he hid in the shadow of a chimney-stick, “and if I get him alone I'll scalp him for that!” The constables were not satisfied with their shouting out, for when they had all exhausted their lungs in uproarious yellings and shoutings one of them fired a pistol out of the window, The result was that the casements at the back of all the houses were threwn open, and dozens of heads, male and female, in white cotton nightcaps, were protruded. “This would be comic if we were only spectators,’ whispered Hasper to Dick, “but as itis it strikes me we shall be caught like rats ina trap. Oh! if it were only on the highway, and I were bestriding my bonny mare, Bessie, I would not care a rush for them all; but here—here! Ah! see there. Who is at that window?” ‘A young girl alone,” said Dick. It was at acasement near them. “Let us enter there, then,” cried Hasper; “‘we shall be able to frighten her into showing us some place of concealment.” ‘* Yes; but how are we to enterP” said Dick. “We must climb up as we descended elsewhere,” cried Hasper, “by the water- pipe. Follow me, creep carefully slong beneath this wall, in the shadow.” So saying Gideon crouched down by the brickwork, and, unperceived by the young girl, reached the wall of the house. Then he began to ascend. The young girl was looking at the house where the Bow Street runners were geati- culating and firing like madmen in the dark, and she did not observe the two high- waymen as they approached the place. She was not alone, however. In the bed there was an old man, sitting up, with a red nightcap on his head, and a blunderbuss in his hanas. He was very pale, with the exception of the nose inthe middle of his round face, and that was fiery red. His goggle eyes were fixed in fear and wondering eagerness at the window, where his young wite, in her night-dress and a petticoat, was watching the proceedings outside, and giving in her reports. “ What now?” exclaimed the old fellow, as his wife leaned out furtber than before, and then darted back from the casement. “Eh! eh! what the devil’s the matter P”’ "Oh! oh!” she cried, clasping her hands, but never thinking of closing the casement. “Here are two men ascending by the waterpipe.” “Shut the window, then—fool—idiot!” shouted the old fellow, losing in his abject fear all respect for the young partner of his home. ‘‘Oh, oh! Back, villains.” The last words were occasioned by the sight of Gideon Hasper and Dick appear- ing at the window. ‘ e gave a short yell, raised his blunder- buss, fired so that the contents of it lodged in the ceiling, and then, covering his head with the bedclothes, began to how! dismally. Gideon Hasper closed the casement, caught the young girl round the waist, and in a stern and determined voice said— ‘Tell us quickly—have you any place of concealment here, or can we easily quit the house P” ) “T’ll show yon the way,” said the young gir], trembling as she felt the strong arm of the Rigas oe round her, end saw the little twinkling eyes of her husband peering out at her from beneath the bed- clothes, “Quik, or they will be after [email protected]