The Young Apprentice; or, The Watch-Words of Old London — page 246: what you’re looking at

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

In a few minutes Nelly had prepared herself for the journey, and it was not long before they had started for Ferndale. The night was very dark. A heavy gloom was over the city. Along the dark and narrow streets it was dif- ficult to distinguish any one. N evertheless Harrok Dyser kept a good look- out. . His head was ever and anon protruded from the carriage window, and he started and looked eager, and upset every time that the form of some passer-by issued from some dark corner. ‘What ails you, father ?” asked Nelly, after a few moments. She was eager on two accounts. Max Bowden might be induced by her letter to follow. In this case he was running himself into danger from which she could by no possibility aid in extricating him, Harrok Dyser seeing any one following him would inevitably fire upon him without waiting to see who it was. Secondly, she had no desire that her father should be aware that she had informed her lover of their flight and the place to which they were making their way. After a time the houses grew less frequent, the buzz of life died away, and the open country lay before them. Then Harrok Dyscr closed the window and resumed his seat. Until now he had never answered his daugh- ter’s question. What ails me?” hesaid. “‘ Nothing, only that I am looking out for traitors,” ‘Whom do you suspect 2” “ Quelf, the dwarf.’ ‘ But he is a royalist.” ane is anything which suits his purpore ‘But why do you think he is following us? Have you reason to think that he is cognizant of our designs ?”’ “No reason; nor do I think now that he is. But I had my suspicions of it, and I always think it best to be on the safe side,” “You do not think now, then, that we are followed ?” ‘‘No; but some other design may be on the tapis, and I shall, therefore, take great care of all Ido and all I say. We are near our destination now and shall soon be beyond the power of our enemies.” He was wrong. @ His foes were on his track. hi All the way from London they had followed m. _ Gliding along by the side of the rond—pass- ing him at full gallop, and then again waiting in some obscure corner—then riding ovet the soft, velvety turf on the side of the road, they kept pace with him. Two only they were who pursued. Bat they were two much to be feared. The one, Peter Quelf, the dwarf, a fierce tn- compromising assassin. The other, Captain Lackland, a coward, 4 stabber in the dark |! THE WATCHWORDS OF OLD LONDON. CHAPTER AIL. THE DARK CHAMBER—THE SOUNDS OF NIGHT— THE MYSTERIOUS FIGURES—THE LETTER— MAIDEN LOVE—THE VOICE OF THE LOVED ONE — THE ASSIGNATION — WHAT NELLY DYSER SAW IN THE WOOD—THE ALARM— THE COMBAT—THE FLIGHT OF THE AS5- SASSINS—HEART TO HEART ONCE MORE— WHICH TO OBEY? THE room in which Nelly Dyser was placed at Ferndale was not a pleasant one. Ferndale itself was no pleasant spot. It was handsome and massive in the heaviest sense of the worda. Its walls were grey and blackened, and ivy- covered here and there, and bore evidences of fierce battle. . Its gables, here and there, were shattered with shot, andits whole aspect was that of a place of the olden time, without any attempt, either in itself or its grounds, to modernise or im- prove it. And when we speak of modernising, if must be remembered that we are speaking of it as it would be understood two hundred years ago ! The chamber in which Nelly Dyser was placed was a dark and gloomy one, panelled heavily with wood, and hung round, moreover, with pictures whose subjects were far from calculated to rousc pleasant or happy thoughts. True, some of them were portraits of pretty women, with bright eyes and delicate features, and exquisite breasts, shown off by the volup- tuous style of dress prevalent in those days. But these wcre few and far between. The rest were far different. Portraits of grim old knights, and pictures of wild battle scenes, and monks in their dreary cells, and nuns kneeling in solitary misery. The master of Ferndale, Maurice Holder, was a kind and pleasant man, so far as his habits would permit him to be. But he was not everything in the household. He was master, but not mistress. Mistress Holder was a dark-faced, strangely queer women, and her manner was such that her footstep struck a terror, as it were, to Nelly’s heart as she heard it. Outside in the daytime little could be seen but the waving trees, shutting out the far-off landscape ; while at night the whole building seemed surrounded by a wall of darkness. It was on the third night after the arrival at Ferndale that she was about to retire to rest, when a tapping was heard at the window. She hesitated a moment. But only a moment. The last tap at her easement had been that of Max Bowden when he had been se abruptly dis- missed from her father’s house. Throwing open the window, therefore, she leaned ont. Below was a figure watching, but in the dark- ness she could not distinguish who it was, “Who is there?" she cried. “Tt is J, Max,” replied the well-known voice. Then a little packet was flung up, and fell with a heavy sound to the floor, She opened it eagerly. ‘Dearest Nelly,” it ran, ‘I will be at the GOVE OO © CO