The Young Apprentice; or, The Watch-Words of Old London — page 191: what you’re looking at

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

ign 1.4 . { 4 . i ¢ @ 174 THE YOUNG APPRENTICE; OR, A fear came over him that the wretched mag They need not have said it. might cry for help, and that the person he had heard singing might hear him and come to his He sprang upon him, therefore, and tried to force him to release his hold, plish than he imagined. Not even the most savage blows would suffice, | and what he apprehended did take place. For, while he clung with desperate energy to the boat, Radstock found one more voice to speak, ‘Help! help!” he cried. “Down ! ;down!” cried Boyne, fiercely ; “ curse you, down !” He struck the hands of the wretched man | violently with the moveable seat of the boat. Crushed and bleeding, they still maintained a desperate hold. Then with the approach of danger there en- ° tered Boyne’s mind a stratagem ferocious as it was effective, | Taking a clasp knife from his pocket, he opened its largest blade, and commenced draw- ing it across the fingers of Radstock until, with a loud gurgling shriek, the unhappy stream, The perspiration stood upon the brow of the murderer, as he plied his oars with desperate energy, and rowed from the spot. The river was unusually dark, and the man was anything but well acquainted with it. Still he pressed on, eager to place as greats distance as possible between himself and t body of the murdered man. The chimes of some distant clock now came upon his ears, and he was astonished to find it wassolateaseleven. §§§ | . He turned his boat towards the Middlesex bank, as being the most convenient to him ; but in executing this manceavre he did not notice that very near him was a barge, which had just left her moorings, and was slowly emerging from a wharf into the middle of the stream. So mingled was its black hull with the dingy hue of the houses on the bank that he saw it not, | A voice called ont to him floudly, in a tone of warning— “ Boat there—ahoy'!” In another moment there was a loud crash. The oars were dashed from his hands, and he found himself struggling in the river. “Help ! help !” | It was now dis turn,;to cry aloud. “ Help! help !” Frantic were his accents as those of the poor wretch he had so recently harried to his doom. “ Help! help!” Presently something struck him on his arm, and he instinctively clutched the object. It was @‘rope, which had accidentally been left hanging from the stern of the barge. With desperate energy he clung to it; but in another moment his head struck against some- thing, and he lost all consciousness, The men in the barge, meanwhile, saw what he had done, and began vigorously to draw him in “ Hold on!” they cried. ~ } Pad ; wretch — released his hold, and fell backward into the | t It was a clutch as of death that held the rope so tightly. In a few minntes he had been hauled on deck | with jis cloak hanging heavy and wet around This, however, was more difficult to accome |; “ Ah !’’ cried one of the men, as they laid the saved man down upon the half deck, “ Ah! What is this? This man seems dressed poorly. 1 He is not; he is in disguise.” Throwing aside Richard Boyne’s cloak, he disclosed to his wondering comrades the glitter- ing dress of a cavalier of high station, while the hair, released from its bondage, and now flowing over his shoulders in dark curls, con- firmed the impression produced by the dress. Minus his wig, his cloak, and the colour which the river had washed off, Richard Boyne was —— the apprentice—the lover of Alicia ie. . ‘Bah !} he is a cavalier—an aristocrat !” cried an old boatman. “Let us throw him back again into the river.” CHAPTER XXXI. THE FALL FROM THE BRIDGE—THE LITTLE HOUSE — PILGRIM CORDER ONCE MORE — SAVED!— THE SECRET DISPATCH — THE DRUNKEN ALSATIAN—NEWS OF THE LOST ONE—LORD VILLIERS TO THE RESCUE. WHEN the fierce blow of the cowardly bully had flung Lord Clement Villiers from the para- pet of London Bridge, he had struck against the arches, and fallen headlong and bruised into the deep water, but the injury he had received was of so slight a nature, that he did not fo,a moment lose his senses. | The cold rush of the water, indeed, seemed to take away for the time the pain of the wound which Captain Lackland had inflicted with his treacherous knife, and when he rose to the sur- face he had sufficient strength left in him to strike ont for the shore. The rush of the current, however, through the long and narrow arches of Old London Bridge was more than he could well stem, and it was but a few minutes before he found himseelf losing his strength, and drifting away rapidly towards the Pool. Aid was close at hand, however. Pilgrim Corder looking out of the little win- dow of his curious habitation, had seen the whole circumstances of the murder, and had observed the body of Lord Clement Villiers as it knocked against the projections of the bridge, and fell head foremost into the stream, In an instant he had quited his “box,” and rushing down the stairs to the water side, entered his boat and pushed off. It was not long before he had reached the side of the struggling man, and drawn him into the boat. He recognised at once the one whom he had saved. “ What means this, Lord Villiers?” he asked. ‘Have you fallen into the hands of the bullies of Whitefriars?” “You have exactly hit it,” replied Lord Villiers, “It was that accursed villain Lack- land who attacked me, But I have little strength e “Ve (* ™ ; 8: bas ae’ AE GOVE IOO O16S