The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 189: what you’re looking at

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

172 REYNOLDS’ WORKS ‘What are your circumstances?’”’ asked her ladyship, quickly. ‘‘ Desperate, 1 presume. I thought you were going to America, — that you had gone indeed — ”’ ‘“ Well, I told Lord Harold I should go, and I told his uncle, too, — that’s the Marquis of Eagledean, —I should 0, but meaning to go and going is two very different things. - Don’t you see, when I make up my mind one way, Fate orders another. Lord bless you! adventures crowd upon me as thick as bees did upon the bear when he upset the hive, and that’s the long and short of it. You see, my lady, it’s no easy matter for a genelman of such a high and mighty reputation as I am to get out of the country. The folks won’t part with me; they watch the seaports to prevent me getting away from them.” ‘“T suppose that you have been committing fresh deeds of horror,’ said Lady Saxondale, who only thus prolonged the discourse to gain the requisite leisure for reflection upon the idea which was now uppermost in her mind. ‘Well, ma’am, I have done a little more work in that way,’ answered Chiffin, quite coolly and unconcernedly. “There was a feller, you see, which had played me some tricks, so I took the liberty of pitching him down a well, and such a lazy vagabond he was, he wouldn’t come out again. That was a matter of three or four weeks ago. The conse- quence was a row took place in the house, and I had to cut and run. I have been wandering and hiding, hiding and wandering, till | was nearly worn out; ‘and then to crown it all, I fell in with a parcel of scamps at a little wayside public-house, and, getting drunk, was ass enough to show what money I had about me, upon which, when I fell asleep, they robbed me of every sktarick. Then thought I to myself, there is nothing left for it but to go to the castle in the hope that her ladyship may be there. I learned from a labouring . man just now that sure enough your ladyship was there; and so I came and crept under the bridge here, to lay quiet till night-time, when I meant to get to my old quarters. Now, that’s the blessed truth, my lady. If you have got anything I can do for you, tell me what it is, and it shall be done: but if you have not, lend me a hundred or so — and when I am arich man and got a large estate in North Amer- ica, I will send you over a remittance.”’ Lady Saxondale would not have suffered the Cannibal to ECOMICLIOOKS (E(@)