The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 380: what you’re looking at

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

THE SUBTERRANEAN 349 possession of her, neither could she shake it off. She applied herself with additional vigour to the spirits and water; potations appeared to do her no good,—on the contrary, they seemed to render her all the more nervous. Contemptu- ously as she had been wont to look upon her husband, she wished he was at home now for companionship’s sake. All of a sudden she fancied she heard a noise in the back part of the house, and for the first time in her life Bab Smedley was seized with such a.terror that she could not rise from her chair to ascertain what the sound was. Then as slowly recovering courage she looked around, she started on beholding the great black cat lying on a chair and gazing at her with its large green glassy eyes. She remembered the ominous instinct with which her husband’s terrified imagina- tion had endowed the animal on the night of Preston’s murder, and she recoiled from the glare of those eyes. The sound was renewed; this time she became aware that it was a knocking at the back door, and snatching up the candle, she proceeded from the room to answer the summons. ‘“It must be one of those Scotts, or else the Burker him- self,’ she thought as she threaded the passage; “ unless it is Jack come home and got himself into some scrape, for nobody else but one of these would come to the back door at this time of the evening.”’ She opened the door, and the light flashed upon the hang- dog countenance of Barney the Burker. Bab Smedley exhibited no surprise, for, as the reader has seen, she was more or less prepared for such a visit. . She hastily closed the door, and led the way into the parlour before a single word was spoken between them. The shutter was already fastened outside the window, over which the curtains inside were drawn, and thus there was no fear of the man’s presence in that room being perceived from with- out. Filling Bab’s tumbler completely up to the brim with the alcoholic liquor, the Burker drained the contents at a draught, and beyond a slight brief winking of the eyes, no sign on his part indicated the strength or depth of the potation. He threw himself upon a seat, saying, “‘ So here I am at last, Bab, once more in London; though I can’t say as how I’m wery sound in limb, or that I’m oversure of being safe in respect to that personal liberty which is the right of every free-born indiwidual.”’ COMMICLOO© cS (CO)