The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 39: what you’re looking at

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

22 REYNOLDS’ WORKS and the male dependents of the household were despatched in every direction in search of the lost infant. Some mounted horses and galloped away to beat the country, others set off on foot, and everything was done that the circumstances suggested to recover the stolen heir and capture the daring thief. Having issued her orders to this effect with a wonder- ful degree of calmness and self-possession, Lady Saxondale turned her attention to her afflicted husband, and endeav- oured to console him by the representation that as these various measures had been adopted so soon-after the theft, it was next to impossible that they could fail in achieving the desired result. But in her heart Lady Saxondale was really tortured by the sorest misgivings, and she appre- hended the very worst. Both her own suspicions and those of her husband had at once very naturally fallen upon Ralph Farefield; but while the old lord could not bring himself to fancy anything so horrible as that his nephew would cause the child to be made away with, his wife, on the other hand, was unable to close her eyes to that dreadful eventuality. Slowly, and oh, how miserably passed the hours until night came, and then as one by one the servants returned without having obtained the slightest clue to the missing heir, Lord Saxondale began to yield to the same appalling terrors which his wife had already experienced. It was midnight ere all the messengers came back, and when the last made his appearance, with nothing better to report than the rest, the old lord again gave way to all the frantic bitter- ness of his grief. For awhile, too, even Lady Saxondale’s firmness of mind seemed to abandon her, and they mingled their tears, their sobs, and the outpourings of their hearts’ agony, that old man and his young wife. But Lady Saxondale was the first to regain her fortitude and her self-possession, and she exerted all her powers to impart some solace to her husband. She now declared that, all things considered, she was persuaded in her own mind that Ralph Farefield, who, no doubt, was at the bottom of the atrocity, would not dare commit so heinous a crime as murder, nor yet allow it to be done, but that he had most probably caused the child to be carried off, in order to bring his uncle to terms and wring from him immense pecuniary concessions. In this strain did her ladyship continue to CONNIE DOO KS (E(0)