The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 374: what you’re looking at

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

THE SMEDLEYS AGAIN 34d hour in the morning Jack Smedley went amongst two or three of his neighbours, with the intimation that he was going to Liverpool to see his mother-in-law, and he officiously undertook to execute whatsoever commissions they might choose to charge him with. He however received cold and distant responses, to which he had been lately accustomed, but his present purpose was answered, he had openly de- clared his intention of visiting Liverpool, and if there were really police spies in the neighbourhood, they could not think that he meditated a total flight altogether. To Liverpool Mr. Smedley repaired, and in the evening he arrived in that town. It was too late for him to see his mother-in-law, but on the following morning, at the earliest hour permitted by the prison regulations, he was introduced into her cell. He found the old woman still in bed, and when he made his appearance, she surveyed him with looks of mingled spite, mistrust, and aversion. “Well, mother-in-law,’ said Jack, when the turnkey had retired, ‘‘ as you didn’t write to us, Bab and I thought the best thing to be done was for me to run down and see you.” 4“T wish I had never seen you at all,” answered Mrs. Webber growlingly, — “‘ never in all my life. It was you who concocted this precious business that has got me into such trouble, and, oh, dear! oh, dear! to think how it will end, — to think how it will end!”’ The wretched woman sat up in bed, and rocked herself to and fro as she thus spoke. She was frightfully altered. Thin and emaciated, she was worn almost to a skeleton, not by remorse for the crimes she had committed, but with horror at the incessant contemplation of the penalty she would soon have to pay for them. There was something fearful in the expression of her countenance; she seemed like a starved tiger-cat that could have sprung at any one approaching, as if to avenge the doom that appeared certain to overtake herself. Jack Smedley was frightened by her look, while her words seemed to justify all the misgivings which her daughter Barbara had entertained concerning her. “Come, mother-in-law,” he said, plucking up his presence of mind as well as he was able, “ don’t be angry with me — I did all for the best.”’ COMMICOO© <S (CO)