The Young Apprentice; or, The Watch-Words of Old London — page 354: what you’re looking at

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

THE WATCHWORDS OF OLD LONDON. 833 , He towered tall in the twilight as he passed er, _He was eo near that she might have touched Then a dull gleam, the last of the sunset, struck him from the west—struck it out into her sight—the haggard, struggling face of Ralph Lawson. She crouched down among the aspens, and let him go by—crouchedl there, murmuring to her bleeding heart, “I might have known it—I might have known it !’’ Ralph’s face—Ralph’s face—looking, God help her, as it had never looked at her! strug- gling, God pity him, as it bad never struggled for her, She shut her hands into each other, and sat still a little while to gather a little strength. Then she rose defiantly. “}'ll Know it,” she said, “I'll know it. make it certain as death.” Then she glided down to the spot where she had seen the lovers part, and where Mercy Marner still sat, “Why, where did you drop from, Mistress Rayner,” asked the girl, with a guilty start. “Along the road. Do you think I flew ?” ““No, no. Have you met any one ?"" “No; whom should you think I met? Have you been sending away some lover ?” Mercy tossed her head. ‘I don’t know about: his being my lover: I like him well enough; but, but he'll never be mine, not unless some one was dead.’’ ‘He loves another, then?” asked Lucy, eagerly. ‘‘No, no, he does not, Only he’s promised her,” prattled on the thoughtless girl, little dreaming what dagger she was planting in the heart of the one by her side, “and he won't break his engagement even for me. He's SOrry for me and allthat, And then he’s so handsome and I wantto be married. I hate my uncle's house, it’s so dull. Everything so much the same and I've no companions, I can’t bear work, and though I haven't to work very hard I'd rather have some one to love me, and it's so hard to think——”? She stopped, and two big tears fell upon her bosom. Lucy looked long’ and steadily at Mercy through the dusk; the pretty, shallow thing— the worthless, bewildering thing | A fierce contempt for her pink and white, and her tears and her neatly turned figure and her attitudes, crept into Lucy’s heart, then came a sudden sickening jealousy that turned her faint where she sat, ‘Bo there’s nothing to do about it,” said Mercy Marner, fidgetting nervously with the Jace which covered her breast, ‘“‘nothing to do about it unless somebody were to die, and I'm not wicked enough to think of that. Lucy, Lucy, what are you doing ?” Lucy had caught a tree branch and had swung herself out over the water, _“ Leave me,” she said, as she returned to the side of Mercy, “leave me, my head aches, and I'd rather be alone, Go.” Mercy muttered a weak protest against leaving Pil her alone, but at length she went, feeling very clouded and uncomfortable, Lucy sat still to listen for the last rustle of her dress, then folded her arms, and with her eyes upon the rapid river sat still. An hour and a half later a farmer driving home observed on the river’s edge, a shadow cut within a shadow, the outline of a woman’s figure sitting perfectly still with folded arma. He reined up and looked down, but it sat quite still. “‘ Hullo, there!” he called, “ you'll fall in if you don't look out.” For the wind was strong and it blew againat the figure; but it did not move nor make reply. These were superstitious days, so the farmer shuddered, whipped his horse and trotted off at full speed, while Lucy Rayner still sat in the cold and watched. | CHAPTER IL THE AGED WATCHER—THE NOISES OF THE NIGHT—THE STEP ON THE THRESHOLD— DARK FACES ~WHAT DOES IT MEAN?—THE RETURN OF THE WANDERER—THE OPENING. OF THE CASEMENT~—THE ASSASSIN ONCE MORE~—THE PLOT IN THE COURTYARD. OLD Simon Rayner sat in his work-room toiling hard, His man, Ralph Lawson, truly had gone out to meet the terrible sorrow we have described ; but the old man himeelf still laboured on. Besides his child, work was his own pleasure. It kept him from thinkiog generally ; but on thie occasion it did not. His mind was wandering away after his‘dar- ling child, and as he peered into the delicate machinery which fixes time to our eyes, he kept murmuring to himeelf, “ Where can Lucy be? What can ail her that she stops thus late? I like it not, I like it not,” He stopped at his work as he said this; and then, as he mattered “ 1 like it not,” he rapped harder on the metal. Every now and then a noise was heard in the streets, the sound of roysterers, the roll of wheels; but not the familiar voice. Again and again he was deceive! by a chance step. Bat presently a slow step helted on the threshold. Then it advanced up the passage, Old Simon Rayner sprang up. But he was again disappointed. It was not Lucy Rayner, it was the pale hag- gard, half distraught journeyman, Ralph Lawson. “ You are late, Ralph,” said Simon, examining a watch-wheel. ‘‘T am, master, and very ill, I wish to go to bed,” said Ralph, in a voice that was nearly choking. ** Go, then, Ralph,” said old Simon. “ Go and rest. I shall stop up. Lucy is still out.” A spasm of pain passed over the face of the young man ; but he merely said, “Thank you,” closed the door, and ascended the stairs. But though he had said that he was ill, and required rest, he did not take his clothes off, and did not even lie down to reat, EDOO SO," yg / y (c. ee”, A eS ~* , ‘ CO