Despard, the Spy: Or, The Fall of Montreal — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

THR TWO FRIENDS 27 CHAPTER IIT. WILTON. “Tae plot thickens,” suid Despard, closing and barring thie door and droppitig upon a stool near tlie fire. “ That villain will-complicate all from this hour, My curse upon him! Why should he enter the fight befvre his time?” “ Andrew,” said the deformed’ one, who had crouched at the side of the fire, close to the feet of the other, “the work is before us; shall we not do it? All the devotion of my life is yours. If by doing it I could be of service to you, how gladly would I lay down this wasted being. But, I believe’ tliat even I, cramped and deformed though I am, can still be a sad sort of comfort to’ you.” “In more ways than one, my poor Conrad. You stir me up to the work I have to do; and if sometimes I grow weary on the road, and stop to look at household hearthe on which the fires are glowing, such a hearth as was to be mine, a look at your face quickly makes’ me forget all but vengeance.” “True heart and bold! Bear up and be strong, even for her sake, who has‘ pasted into the valley’ of the’ arvnmporniel said Conrad. “For her sake! Ah, now you have named her, I am aman again, ready to do a man’s wock in the cause I havé under- taken. I need not fear this man. \ He is’ a villain; and an acute one. We shall be miore than his match, my Conrad.” “He shall see.” “ How the knaves stared, when you laid ‘their lives’ open before them! They little know Andrew Despard: No.wonder they were appalled, for how could: you, of all’ men, get this knowledge by fair means? It is a good plan: to ‘keep up the idea of sorcery: on your part: It will be'a protection to: you.” “It has» been; before now. There are few men’ hardy enough to’ lay the: weight of a finger on me in anger. a * ha, ha! They think my curses will come hone . . wut day of another. “T believe vit too, ' Wiis: ofvall: inde Eomicbooks