The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 262: what you’re looking at

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

THE VILLA . 245 treachery was being plotted, but likewise for the capture of its perpetrators. It was now close upon four o’clock, and Deveril prepared to leave the house, as if he were on the point of proceeding to Edenbridge according to the intimation he had given to the old gardener. Angela learned trom one of the maids — who accidentally mentioned the circumstance — that the gardener was seated in the kitchen, to warm himself, as he said, after a hard and cold day’s work. Angela lost no time in reporting this to her brother, who remarked, “‘ Yes, everything confirms my belief that he is a spy; and the circumstance of his remaining in the house is a mere pretext to enable him to watch whether I really take my departure or not. I will, however, do something that shall lull him still more deeply into such a belief.” Thereupon our hero descended to the kitchen premises, on some pretence or another; and when the old gardener saw him, he said, with that air of good-humoured familiarity which for some time past he had adopted, and which a person of his years might assume, “ You will be late for the dinner, sir, at Edenbridge Park.”’ ‘““Not so,’ responded William. “It is now only four; a cab will take me to the station in an hour, the train starts at five, and I shall reach my destination at half-past six. His lordship’s dinner hour is seven.” Deveril then ascended to the hall, whispered a few hasty words to his sister, bidding her be of good. cheer, and issued forth from the house, having a brace of pistols secured about his person. We must now pass over a few hours, and suppose it to be about ten o’clock at night. In an up-stairs room, in a low public-house, situated in one of the worst streets in the worst part of Camden Town, four persons were assembled. These were Chiffin the Cannibal, Mat the Cadger, Spider Bill, and the old gardener. Of the first-mentioned of these worthies it is by no means necessary to give the reader the slightest description, but of the second something may be said, inas- much as he was a peculiar-looking person in his way. He was accustomed to dress in a sort of sporting style, but always in such shabby, greasy, sordid garments, that he might have been taken for a broken-down horse-chanter. Some- times he wore top-boots, sometimes gaiters, but always CONNIE DOOKS (C(O)