The Young Apprentice; or, The Watch-Words of Old London — page 353: what you’re looking at

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

THE YOUNG APPRENTICE; OB, BOOK V. THE BATTLE FOE THE RESTORATION. eens CHAPTER IL THE PURITAN’S DAUGHTER—THE LOVERS— THE FIRST JEALOUSY—THE OLD JEWELLER —THE MEETING BY TRE BIVER—A BREAK: ING HEART—THE BLESSING OF WORK. In Long Street, in the Ward of Chepe, lived Simon Rayner, a jeweller, . He was an old man, not very well to-do in the world, for business had declined of late, and since his wife had died he had reduced his establishment to his daughter, a journeyman, and a servant. Simon was a queer old man, a thin, parch- menty, wrinkled, weatherbeaten specimen of humanity ; but he had things, perhaps, to make him so, and his heart was still in the right place. You could see that when in the middle of his work, his eyes would fall upon the lovely face and features of hia daughter Lucy, whose short, quiet, Puritan dress did not detract from the brightness of her eyes, the soft, creamy texture of her skin, the rourdness of her limbs, and the merry tones of her gentle voice. Lucy Rayner was the pet of the |neighbour- hood, the delight of ber father, and, for a long time, the sole companion and sole thought of Ralph Lawson, the journeyman. Ralph was a fine fellow—a handsome, dashing fellow —just one to make g bold and successful rush into life, or to suffer a terrible fall. There was no medium in him, either in dreas or in ambition. He was either the plainly-attired journeyman toiling industriously in Simon Rayner’s sbop, or he was the proudly-dressed walker in fashionable streets, winning the envy of many, and the smiles of fair women who little drcamed of him as a jeweller’s journeyman, just out of his ap- prenticesbip. Ralph's ambition was the same. There was no point which he thonght himself too high to attain. Had you said to him “ Whatdo you wish?” he would have answered, * To be Lord Protector of England !” Then when he said this to Lucy, she would amile archly, and say, « And nothing else f”’ “ Yes, and your husband.” So it went on until old Caleb Burnett, the tanner, had his niece to come and live with him him—Mercy Marner, a bright-eyed, dashing, ambitious, jesting beauty, who attracted at once the notice of every one. Often Lucy, who well knew her own sim- plicity to be nothing outwardly in comparison with Mercy’s dash and naivete, would sigh as she caught her lover's eye wandering towards the pretty form of the. tanner’s niece, standing in the doorway of the old house. Her heart acbed when she heard him bid her “Good evening,” and it ached terribly on this evening, because that day he had seemed to slight her. On this evening—the evening of the day fol- lowing the strange meeting on Blackheath— Lucy Rayner, with the purpose of avoiding Ralph, and of finding a spot where she might think undisturbed, wandered away until she reached a spot near the river's £ide, It was a woody place. The bank sloped steeply. | A fringe of stunted aspens and willows sprung from the frozen earth. It was a sickening, airless place in summer ; it was damp and desolate now. ~ There was the rushing water below ; behind, a dreary waste. Shadows were beginning to skulk around everything. The silent houses staré@ up and down the river with a blank, unvarying stare. An orifiamme of scarlet burned in the weat, and flickered dully in the dirty water, which seemed now like thick, curdling blood. She sat down on a grey stone, wrapped in her shaw], curtained by the aspens from the eyes of all passers, She had a fancy for the place when things went ill with her. She had always borne her troubles alonc, but she must be alone to bear them. She started from her unpleasant dreaming, however, just as the sunset was ch‘: ging to grey, for she was suddenly conscious that she was not alone. Below her, quite on the brink of the water, a girl was sitting—a girl, with her head bent so that. ker dark hair fell upon a profile cut in pink and white. ‘ Mercy Marner is too pretty to be here alone so late,” thought Lucy, smiling tenderly. She rose to speak to her. But a second glance detained her. Mercy was sitting upon an old log that jutted into the stream, dabbling in the water with her hands, Some one—it was too dark to see distinctly— stood beside her, his cyes upon her face, Attitades are enouh., Lucy could hear nothing, but she knew how the ‘yeung’s mans cyes were drinking in the picture, and what words he was saying. The hum of their voices ceased while she stood there with her eyrs upon them. } Mercy turned away her head with a sudden movement, and the young man left her, appa- rently without bow or farewell, sprang up the bank at a bound, and crushed the undergrowth with quick ..seasy strides. Lucy, with some vague idea that it would not be honourable to see his face, poor fellow ! shrunk back into the aspens and the shadow. GOES O16S =f CO lin