The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

98 -... REYNOLDS’. WORKS. there should be a-general crash, which might involve her- self in the ruins. And then, too, there was this Isaac Shad- bolt, who wielded .a sort of power over her, and who she saw but too plainly was resolved to use her purse as his own, who came to the house at all hours, insulted her serv- ants, disgraced her with his intemperance, and feasted at her expense, — there was this man, we say, whom she could not shake off, and whose presence she loathed. Thus, altogether, the ex-milliner found, as we have before stated, that on abandoning her business and retiring to her beauti- ful suburban villa, she had not alighted on a bed of roses. She felt the want of fresh air, and therefore had she wan- dered forth into her grounds. She strolled through the garden, at the back of the house, and passed into a little paddock which lay beyond. It was a beautifully clear evening, and there was a bracing vigour in the air. Still it scarcely refreshed the heated cheeks and throbbing brows of the Frenchwoman, for presentiments of evil were in her mind. As she was walking through the paddock, her ear caught the sounds of some equipage in the adjoin- ing lane, but the trees prevented her from immediately distinguishing what it was, and she moreover bestowed but little thought upon the circumstance. Indeed, so much absorbed was she in her own reflections, she failed to notice that the equipage had stopped at a little distance. Presently a break in the trees revealed the equipage to her view, and she saw that it was a post-chaise. At the same instant she heard footsteps advancing toward her from behind, and turning around, she beheld two coarsely dressed men approaching. They were attired as labourers, each carrying a stick in his hand. Madame Angelique was frightened, for she recollected that her men servants were out on some business connected with the stable, and the situation of the villa was sufficiently lonely to justify her apprehension. A scream was about to peal from her lips, when one of the men said to her, in a resolute voice, ‘We want you, and you must come along with us. _ Ald disturbance will be useless.”’ Whereupon the speaker seized her by the arm, while his companion caught her by the waist, both alike forbidding her at her peril from crying out. The ex-milliner however screamed, and: then a hand was instaneously placed over EOmMmicdooks (E(0)