The Young Apprentice; or, The Watch-Words of Old London — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

~ Serr THE YOUNG APPRENTICE; OR, BOOK I. quen=qeewe THE MAN WITHOUT A NAME. CHAPTER I HAROLD, THE RIVER BOY, “ HELP, MURDER, HELP !” Feebly, yet shrilly, the words rang out along the narrow passage named Strand Lane, and over the broad, dark river, that plashed and eddied against the muddy bank. It was twelve o’clock on the night of the 25th August, 1645, and old London had, as a general rule, retizgd to rest. Heavy with the plague which had stricken down its tens of thousands, the atmosphere of the city was so atill and mazy, that every sound could be heard that night, no matter how faint or fecble. There waa no light in Strand Lane save one. A flickering lamp, high up in the chamber of crime, whence the cry for help came; a cham- ber in an old house that tottered over the river, with quaint gables, and odd fizures and faces on ita doorways and casements, the latter bulg- ing out perilously over the jagged and broken pavement. " Help !—murder!—help |” The neighbours lying coiled up in their beds, came lazily to their windows at last, and threw up the sashes, and peered out in their night- caps, But none came down to see more. Murder was so frequent in London in those days, that people were little excited by its They heard it called, pitied the victim, and cursed the murderer, and kept out of the way for their own sakes, The most chivalric of the neighbours in the street went so far as to remain at his window and listen until the sound came : but when he found that it proceeded from the old house, he slammed down the sash agaip, and went shivering back into his bed. For the house had had a bad for years, People, who in those days believed in ;:boeta and evil spirits, and such like apparitions, de- clared that the place was haunted, and that strange sights might be seen, and strange noises heard proceeding from it in the amall hours of tee morning, it had been untenanted for many years, Jt had belonged once to a cavalier, who bad espouse: the cause of Charles L, and had fallen at Naseby. Afterwards the house was abandoned by the family, and the roof fell partially in, and the lass of the windows was blown out, and the gures on its front lost arms and legs, and the huge griffia over the doorway had its win broken, and the birds of night lodged in untenanted rooms, Yet it was anid that at twelve o'clock each night the eound of horses hoofs was heard com- | ing up the street ; that the horse, unseen, stopped at the door, and that then the spurred boots of a heavy man went tramp—tramp ; clink—clink up to the portal, which was opened and slammed to again violently. Then voices, now raised in anger, now melt- ing into tenderness, were distinguished by the trembling liateners, and after a time the invi- sible cavalier would come tramp, tramp, elink, clink, once more down the staircase and across the pavement, and the phantom horse would bear him away like a whirlwind. “ HELP !—murder !—help |" This time the cry aroused some one, for, rising as it seemed at first out of the ooze and slime en the river’s bank, there came a figure—a smull figure—which was distinguishable after a mo- ment as that of a boy. He was clad in rags and tatters, without shoes, stockings, or hat, and he rubbed his eyes as he raised himself to the level of the street, as if just awakened from a sound sleep, hen, glancing up at the old house, and seeing the lamp burning, and hearing strange murmur- inge such as he had never beard before, he hesi- tated no longer, but running up to the old mansion, he clambered up the waterepout and entered by one of the broken windows, as if he had often done so before. Falling down almost in his hurry to enter quickly, he sent the bats and sparrows fluttering and flying about the room, ing such a whir- ring, whizzing noise, that nothing of the sounds of crime was beard. Presently, however, when he bad crept to the door and stood for a moment in the shadow of the heavy stairoase, he heard above him the voioe of a man ing. “ Ah | shout and scream as you will,” he said, “no one will come to you. Tellme your name, and the place where the will is hidden, or you die this night !" “Never !” gurgled a voleg, “Kill me, but I will not tell you, ” The cry was not repeated this time. he was stopped by a brutal ‘dutch of the throat. “Tell me,” crled the first speaker, savagely, his tones tremulogs, evidently because he was shaking to and fro his unfortanate viotim ; “tell me, or you die now |” “ Never !’’ cried the voice again. Then there was a loud ourse, and a crashin noise, as if a man's head had been driven agal the floor. The boy waited to hear no more, With a loud sbout, he sprang up the broad staircase, and arrived at the door of the chamber just ee the assassin was withdrawing a knife from the chest of an old man, whose long white bair was dabbied in blood. There wes no light but the dazzling, sroertain .—— GOVE OO © ©)