The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 50: what you’re looking at

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

THE CHIED OF WATERLOO. 47 what I have to encounter. There is no doubt about my effect- ing an entrance to the house. I wonder if that rascal, Jem, the hostier, lives at the inn, and sleeps in 1t. He have I most to fear. I don’t seem to care for any one else, but I do for him.” He came now upon some outbuildings belonging to the inn, and he felt that more caution even than before was necessary. ‘‘I wonder,” he muttered, ‘‘that the place is left so much exposed.” carcely had he spoken these words when he heard the low growl of a dog, and he was immediately as still asarock. A short, sharp bark now proclaimed that the suspicions of a dog were thoroughly awakened, and it likewise enabled the mendi- cant to find in what quarter his danger lay. ‘‘This hinderance,” he muttered, ‘‘must be put a stop to at once, even if I run some risk in so doing.” Instead, then, of, as might naturally have been supposed, taking some other, and, perhaps, more circuitous route, to escape the dog, he turned toward the quarter from whence the sounds came. Upon looking over a low wooden fence he saw a mastiff dog chained up, but regarding him with hostile looks. The mo- ment the dog saw him, it flew to the greatest length of his chain, and began a furious barking, which would soon have had the effect of rousing everybody in the inn, bad it not been very suddenly and completely put an end to by the boldness of the mendicant. He did what ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have scrupled very much to do; that is, he sprung over the fence in a moment, and, with a knife ix his hand, he closed with the dog, which, of course, laid hold of him in an instant. His right hand, in which he had the knife, was, however, at liberty, and he plunged it as fast as he could do so, and with- drew it again, reeking with blood, into the side of the animal. So very unequal a contest could not last very long; and, after a few moments, the dog relaxed his hold, and sunk on to his side, exhausted through loss of blood. ; ‘*So much for you, and be d——d to you,” said the beggar, as he cut the poor animal’s throat from ear to ear. Then he rose, and commenced sucking the blood from the only bite he had himself received. Hecontinued this operation for some minutes, spitting the blood he extracted from the wound repeatedly out of his mouth: and then, with an oath at the delay which the occurrence had occasioned him, be once again turned toward the inn with stealthy steps. Scarcely had he left the place where he had had such a contest, so brief, and yet so sanguinary, with the mastiff, than a human form rose up into a sitting posture, and some one, whom our readers will not fail at once to recognize, ejaculated: ‘What a trouble! That was that beggar fellow. I know him. I—I wonder what he’s up to. What a trouble it is to wonder!” Down Jay “ Troubled Tom” a;zain upon a truss of straw, on which he-had been now for about six hours, fast asleep, and still muttering faintly: | ‘‘ Everything's a trouble,” he again fell fast asleep. It was well, no doubt, for Troubled Tom that he did consider comicbooks. com