Detective Bob Bridger — page 37: what you’re looking at

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

30 - DETECTIVE BOB BRIDGER. was on hand, made up as a vagrant. He set forth toward Chelsea at a rapid gait, and thence struck a country road. I followed him carefully, and a fine pedestrian experience he gave me. Late in the afternoon he turned suddenly from the highway into a by-lane. At its side, among the fields, stood a two-story stone cottage and several hundred yards to its rear was a large stone mansion, which seemed untenanted. A quarter of a mile beyond this was a stone stable, and adjoining it a fenced practice track. I took the place to be the estate of some sporting gentleman own- ing a stable of race-horses. ‘A hundred fields belonging to the estate, and dotted here and there with the cottages of sub- farmers, - were under cultivation in garden truck “At the two-story cottage ‘Silly’ Billy paused, icnorksd: upon the door, and entered. A few minutes later I tapped upon the same door. It opened, and I beheld before me in the door-way a beautiful girl of eighteen, whose features were identical with those of the miniature and dream. “As our eyes met I started in astonishment, and so did she. The entire appearance of the fair creature, the deep blush which suffused her delicately chiseled face, and the gentle grace of her movements attested her innocence and intelligence. And yet there was something in the startled look of her beautiful blue eyes, which plainly said that she not only knew that I was a detective, but had expected my coming. “ *T am traveling and thirsty,’ said I. ‘Would you kindly give me a glass of water?’ ‘Ere she might respond a rough man, in the garb of a farmer, stepped forward, and rudely pushed her aside within the room. The man was some sixty years old, but strongly built and well-preserved. He wore a _ short- cropped, gray beard, and his features were uninviting and surly. Glaring furiously toward me, he pointed back toward the highway, and banged the door shut in my face. ‘He had, however, not deprived me of a hasty glance within, and I perceived that the family were at their even- ing meal. <A dark-eyed and not uncomely Irishwoman of forty, whom I supposed the farmer’s wife, sat at the table. Opposite her, as if he had been one of. the family, ‘Silly’ Billy had been assigned a plate. He had fallen to with © such a vengeance, and was so wholly absorbed in the viands before him, that he did not notice me. “ Obedient to the farmer’s inhospitable gesture, I tumed toward the highway. When I had passed a hundred yards o comicbooks ¥ rs ‘ oF ag dh S. re <3 wT ~—