The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 250: what you’re looking at

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

Sage SS EN Ge EE = = = —_— THE MYSTERIES. 2389 a cca eae SSCS ilagacaaaaaaaaaaaaa asa saaaaaaaaaaaaaaacacaceaaaaaaasamaaae aaa maa | ecaffold: and he was therefore enabled to attire him- | room ;—and she is already something. more than self in a becoming manner. A natural sentiinent ef | contented with her companion—she is well pleased vanity prompted him to devote considerable attention | with him! to hia toilette; and the palenegs which lingered on! The dinner passed away ;—and, after Eleanor had his cheeks gave him an interesting expression of | withdrawn, the Earl and Ramsey sate cooversing countenance. . upon various topics. for a short time. But as the It was about five o'clock when his toilette was | latter dared not indulge in deep potations, his head thus compieted 3 and soon afterwards the Bari came | being still weak and his frame nervous,—and as the to conduct him to the drawing-room, where he was | nobleman was habitually temperate,—they eneedily introduced to Lady Desborough. rejoined the Countess in the drawing-room. There The Countess,.as credulous as her husband in re- | cofflee was servede and the discourse was continued spect to the tale witch Ranssey had so skilfully in- ; until a little after eleven, when Ramsey rose—~bade vented, received him with more courtesy—or rather, | his noble host and hostess good night—and withdrew in a more frank and friendly manner than she would | to his own chamber. have evinced towards an utter stranger under ordi- nary circumstances; and, believing that her guest — was totally unaccustomed to Europeas habits, she endeavuured to place him at hia ease, and divest him CHAPTER LXVIIL of all feelings of painful restraint. A well-bred | woman, when arniable likewise, can speedily accom- plish this: moreover, Ramsey's first semblance of | Ow the road from London to Portsmouth, and at no embarrassment. was thrown off with such artful | great distance from Petersfield, there is a deep valley gradiency, that E,leanor was enabled to flatter herself | or rather precipitate hollow, having no outlet between on having succeeded “in drawing him ont” and | any of the circumjacent heights: so that it might be making him feel himself at home. filled to the very brim with water. The country in In the story which he related to the Earl, he had | the immediate neighbou-hood was particularly wild fixed upon Jamaica as his birth-place and as the | ani dismal at the time ot which ws are writing; and scene of hie residence until within the last ten , it isa gloomy and sinister-looking spot even at the months, because he bad read much concerning that : present day island He had relatives there ; and from them had | The main road winds round a portion of the eit he been in the habit of reeeiving frequent letters, | oamference of the vast hollow; anda stone on that which, in amicable communiecativeness, were wont to | side of the route which is next to the valley, marke give long and detailed particulars of the manners, ‘the place where a Horrible murder was committed custome, amd modes of life that signalised the | many years ago upon the person of a sailor, whose planters. He was therefore enabled to converse with | corpse was thrown over the low embankment into readiness and finency on those subjects; and his ob- the abyss The assassins were discovered—con- servations were made with an appearanee of al! that | demned to ‘leath—and exeeuted on the theatre of martificial ease which denotes the eye-witness of the | their crime. There they hung in chains for a long things related. time—their blackened corpses searing the lonely tra- His veice was particularly agreeable—his language | veller, and the creaking of their irons sounding hor excellent; and there was a melancholy in his tone, | ribly in the ears of the passengers by chaise of his manner, and his countenance which rivetted the | coach. interest of those who alreedy compassionated the} From days immemorial the valley of which we misfortunes which they believed him te have expe- | are speaking has been known as the Devil's Punch- rienced. e Bowl. Besides, he was handseme—very handsome ;~—and | But we must give some more explicit idea of the Eleanor could net help thinking co as she conversed | place as it was in the year 1795, whereof oar tale at with him.. Indeed, she had not been two bours in | present treats. his society ere she caught herself reflecting that he| Ail around, the sides of this immense hellow were was one of the most agreeable men she had ever en- | escarped and preeipitate—the ruggedness of the sur- eountered in her life. face being concealed by thick furze, brambies, and Ohl had seme invisible spirit whispered in her eas | rank grass. The read was narrew—separaied only that those features had been convulsed in the | from the abysa by a small bank, scarcely two feet ia agonies of strangulation by the accursed halter of the | height; so that a tipsy man or a wayfarer ignorant gman—that fleree spasmodic writhings had passed | of the precise features of the locality, might easily through that slender, symmetrical, and elegant form, | fall over, on a dark night, into the yawning pre @2 it quivered between the black beam above and the | fundity. Over the other side of the road frowned a yawning drop benceth— and that the fascinating Gus- | portion of the hill out of winch the reute iteelf had tavus Wakefield was none other than Philip Raim- | been cut, and which rose in some places to a height sey, the resuscitated convict,—Oh! how speedily | of twenty or thirty feet. Not a human habitation would the améles have fled from her charming cheeks | was within a couple of miles of the Devil's Punch- —how loathingly she would have recoiled even | Bow! in those days; lonely, sombre, and ravine-like, though it were bat the hem of her garment touching |.even in the day-time its aspect inspired gloomy the clothes of the wretch—how fuli of anutterabie | thoughts in the breast of the most dazing traveller horror would her soul have been at the mere treugbt | and as the stage-cosches wound their way sbout the of having met hima face fo face ! seini-eireumference which the road oceupted—as if This shows, then, how strong is the force of imagi- | passing along the rim of a tremendous besin—the Dation—how powerful is the influence ef a prejudice. | voices of the passengers would be auddenly hushed ¥or now—behold Lady Desborough leaning upon | and they would look forth from the windows of the the arm of Kamsecy as he escorts her to the dining- | vehicles, with a kind of superstitious awe, inte the THE DEVIL'S PUNCH-BOWL. ——— = © a, COMIC OO© SS co