The Young Apprentice; or, The Watch-Words of Old London — page 339: what you’re looking at

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

"] x * ' ‘ : 7 s- r, c Pa y ‘ x o a: ~ _ Ft e period before the evening of which we are now speaking. She had been given by Ben Firebrace into the charge of Sir Marcus Forester, a gentleman who stood high in Cromwell’s favour. Ben had so many expeditions to lead, so many services yet to render his country, that he had no time to devote to Lizzie, who, left in the charge of the kind and hospitable people, soon became a favourite and a friend. She was the companion, and the beloved com- panion of Lucy Forester, the daughter of Sir Marcus ; and he often remarked that, except when he had to yield her up to the arms of her husband, he should feel as heartbroken at parting with her as if ahe were his own child, It was one dark night when we return to Lizzie—a night after Sir Marcus Forester, Lizzie and his daughter had been to a ball. A dreary place is this we gaze on, The large, flat district of land now known as Regent’s Park, was, two hundred years ago, a rather villanous-looking collection of swampy, rugged fields, with anything but an aristocratic aspect. The great tide of fashionable civilization had not thought of sweeping in that direction, and although there were several tolerable carriage roads cut throngh the large extent of waste ground, the whole locality was rather shunned than otherwise. Those roads that we have mentioned were but little used, and although one of them, by a con- siderably nearer route than the old high road, led to that part of the Hampstead Road, known as Pancras Vale, it was but seldom used. A few acts of violence that had been com- mitted on the solitary route had given it an ill name, and those ladies and gentlemen who live at home at ease did not feel inclined to spare their cattle a half mile trot at the expense of a possible encounter with some of those daring adventurers of the road who had by no means disappeared at the date of our tale, There were some families, however, more valorous than wise, who always made a habit of taking that suspicious way to and from London. Sir Marcus Forester, whose active intellect and military education gave him a liking for mathematically short cuts to his destination, always ordered his coachman to take the route across the field path to the Hampstead Road to the west end of London. To be sure, one would hardly suppose that a carriage, drawn by a pair of strong horses, driven by an experienced man, attended by a vouple of stout-looking footmen, and occupied by & man in the prime of life, who did not know the sensation of fear, could come to much harm from the knights of the road, And so it turned out, for never had the slightest let or hindrance been offered to the vehicle of Sir Marcus, No wonder, then, upon this night, eventful one as 1t was, the coachman took the old road with perfect confidence, and plunged into the pro- found darkness without a thought of danger. One hour, however, before the carriage even so much as forced its way up to the door of the ambassador's house, a lumbering, wheezing, odd-looking hackney coach, drawn by a couple of horses that looked coal black in the intense THE YOUNG APPRENTICE; OR, darkneas of the road, which not even pretended to be lighted, halted in the deep shadow of a group of willow trees, that waved their long tranches almost to the other side of the way. This group of trees constituted the eastern screen to a garden that, over alight paling, once white, but now of a nondescript black colour, was immediately behind them. The garden led to an old villa that was to let, and had been to let as long as any one knew anything of it. It was in a most marvellous state of decay, and had the reputation of being haunted, What tale of crime or of suffering hovered round the memory of that old house to make it a thing to be shunned, it is not our purpose tO - inquire, Suffice it that there it was in all its decrepi- tude, and that under the shadows of the trees, with their long, wiry and melancholy arms, that marked the position of its garden on the road side, the ancient coach stopped. The man who was driving rubbed his hands together as though he were chilled by the night air, and he laughed a strange laugh, which had in it not one particle of mirth. ; “Silence,” said a rough voice, from the in- terior of the vehicle, “ silence,” ‘Oh dear, yes, sir. Silence it is, and silent I am,’ said the man. ‘‘I—that is—Oh, thank you, humbly, sir.” ‘“‘ Jasper,” cried the man who was in the coach, At this, a strange bundle, that looked as if it had been strapped to the back of the vehicle, unrolled itself, and another man appeared, “ Jasper.” ‘ Well, what now ?” said the man from behind the coach. ‘¢ Where's the box ?” “On the roof; didn’t you say it was to go on the roof ?” “I did. Let me not have any of your in- solence.” Jasper made a grunting noise, that might mean defiance, and opening the coach door, he let down the steps for the man who was in the vehicle, to alight. By the very faint night light, we can see that this man is about six feet in height, and that he is very thin. Some kind of wrapper, or cloak, is about the whole or upper part of his person, and a hat is pulled down right over his brows, For a8 moment or two he looked up at the clouds, which were coursing at a great rate along the sky, and then he muttered—“* The moon will be up in an hour or two, if the clouds don’t thicken,” ‘‘Yes, sir,’ said the one whom he Bad ad- dressed as Jasper. “Oh dear, yes, sir, if you please —very humbly, if you please, sir. Thank you,” “* Silence,”? Poor Jasper, upon this imperious order, seemed to shrink within himself; but the other made a gesture behind the tall man in the wrapper, which looked very much like defiance. Time will show whether it was such, or merely ill-conditioned of the man—a sort of assertion of independence, without even the wish for reality, a shadow of a virtue without @ substance. book