The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 212: what you’re looking at

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

THE HEAD CONSTABLE 195 the prisoner was not there. Consternation and dismay appeared upon the countenances oi the head constable and his subordinates, but one of the footmen suggested that there could be no doubt the object of their search would be found in the vestiary. The door was thrown open, but still no Chifin. That he could have descended into the vaults was not possible, inasmuch as the huge bolt of the door leading thither from the vestiary was firm in its socket. Every nook and corner was searched, but still no Chiffin. The constables and the footmen surveyed each other in downright dismay, mingled with bewilderment. How could he have escaped? Not even the handkerchiefs with which he had been bound were to be seen. ‘The windows were examined; not a pane of glass was broken, not an iron bar was wrenched out. Well indeed might those present at this fruitless search be confounded. That a man whose limbs were so firmly fastened should have thus disappeared without leaving behind the slightest trace of the mode and manner of his flizht, seemed to be invested with a preternatural mystery. Had he evaporated into thin air or had Satan come to claim his due, thereby anticipating the hangman’s work? Not for a moment was it suspected that the head constable had connived at his escape, for his subordinates knew him too well to entertain such an idea; and, moreover, they, as well as the footmen, at once perceived that if he had done so he would have been literally flinging away the reward offered for the fellow’s apprehension, as it could not be for an instant supposed that Chiffin had, concealed about his person, a larger sum than the amount thus offered, so as to have been en- abled to tempt the head constable with such a superior bribe. The mystery was, indeed, as Lady Saxondale had foreseen, perfectly beyond the most extravagant and the wildest of conjecture. The news spread through the castle, and the utmost excitement prevailed. Her ladyship, as a matter of course, affected the supremest astonishment, and she accompanied the constables in a fresh search throughout the chapel and the cloister. But all was in vain, as she very well knew it would be, and the discomfited myrmidons of justice took their way back to Gainsborough, not without the idea that the Evil One must indeed have had a hand in so mysterious a business. CONNIE DOOKS (FO)