Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 171: what you’re looking at

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

154 REYNOLDS’ WORKS brief intermediate space between the two dwellings that they were stopped and plundered. Stopped too by one of their own sex. It was in the deep shade of some over- hanging trees, so that my countenance could not possibly be discerned, that I confronted them and bade them deliver up their money, telling them that there were two men lurking on the opposite side of the way. The ladies, dread- fully frightened, gave me their purses, beseeching me not to let them be harmed. I assured them they should not sustain any injury if they forbore from crying out. Then I fled precipitately, took a circuitous route through some fields, and reéntered London. ‘“ Tt was the middle of the night and the shops were closed. I could not purchase any food, I could not obtain a lodging at that hour, for I shrank from the idea of entering a public- house. I wandered about till morning, so bewildered and confused, so excited and agitated with the deed I had done, that methought it was all a dream. I could scarcely believe in my own identity; I could not persuade myself that it was really I who had committed that crime. I dared not feel in my pocket to clutch the purses, and thus convince myself that it was not a delusion. I did not therefore examine them till long after dawn. Then, stepping aside into a secluded street, I looked to discover the amount of my ul-gotten funds. ‘There were altogether seven guineas in the two purses. I took a lodging, I procured food, I redeemed some of my apparel from the pawnbroker’s, and I remained indoors for several days afterward, fearing to go out lest I should be taken into custody. Nevertheless, in my calmer moments, when reasoning with myself, I knew full well that I could not possibly have been seen by the two ladies in a manner clear enough to enable them to identify me. I lived frugally and sparingly, not daring to think of the future, although by this very economy post- poning to the utmost of my power the necessity for a re- currence to the same desperate means. But that time came again. In another part of the outskirts of London I com- mitted a similar deed, and on this occasion likewise the sufferers were two ladies hastening home from-a party. The produce was double as much as on the former occasion, and upon this I lived for many weeks. ‘“ One day, about noon, I was passing along a retired street Gomicbooks. co