The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 255: what you’re looking at

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| ee + 240 depth or far across the yawning abyss into which the steeds, if they took fright, might plunge the whole equipage. Yes—with supefstitious awe, we say: because many, and often fearful, were the tales which were told of deeds of violence committed in that place,— robberies and murders—rapes upon poor benighted female wanderers—and infanticides perpetrated by unmarried mothers who would travel thither from distances even of many miles in order to dispose of the living evidences of their shame. There were histories of terrible accidents told, too, concerning the Devil’s Punch-Bowl,—how coaches had been precipitated into the abyss—how poor pedlars, ig- norant of the gulf that lay beyond the low em- bankment, had stepped over it in the depth of night, with the idea of snatching a few hours’ repose in a iresh green field, and had thus fallen into the eternal sleep of death—and how horses had stumbled and gone down with their riders to the bottom of the in- fernal pit! Many, and varied, and horrible, therefore, were the legends belonging to the Devil’s Punch-Bowl;—and superstition had not failed to lend its aid in order to enhance the terrors of the place. In the deep mid- night, it was said, strange and spectral forms were seen hovering on the brink of the abyss, or moving «bout in its yast depths,—shapes so grim and hideous - that they would exist ever after in the memories of those who beheld them, as vividly as if impressed with red-hot searing iron on the brain,—terrible ap- paritions, to gaze on which only for a single instant were to unnerve the bravest man until the last mo- ment of his existence. Nor was this all. For the same superstition which propagated those tales, like- _ wise declared that once in every year—on a certain _day—or rather, at deep midnight—the Enemy of _ Mankind himself and al] his crew held their infernal Orgies at that place. Then—while the moon veiled herself with the murky clouds and the stars sank _shudderingly behind the sable pall of darkness— | while the wind moaned, and the owl hooted, and the furze rustled ominously—and while the wings of the | bat whirred through the intense darkness,—then, in the midst of one of the long, long nights of winter, | would Satan and his fiends assemble round the hol- _Jow to enjoy their hellish revel. _ that, when the Arch-Demon waved his mighty wand, And it was said a spring of pitchy blackness would issue forth from the bottom of the ravine; and higher—and higher— and higher would swell the sable tide, till it reached the brim,—so that the denizens of Satan’s Kingdom, thus gathered there in awful congress, might quaff deep draughts of the infernal nectar, whose taste was of human blood! Nay, more—so minutely had superstition elaborated all the grim @etails of the tremendous orgie, that it forgot not to declare how the cups whence the fiends drank were made of dead men’s skulls—how the revellers danced franticly round and round their vast punch-bowl, uttering hideous cries and shouts of maniac laughter—and _ how the whole terrible phantasmagoria disappeared suddenly, melting into thin air, the moment the cock crew at the first glimmering of dawn. But taking all these tales and legends for what they are worth, the huge hollow which we have at- tempted to describe was in sooth a sinister-looking, inurderous, cut-throat place. it was on the fourth evening after the incidents related in the previous chapter, that the Magsman ee ee ee) a THE MYSTERIES. muifled up in his great rough coat, and grasping his club, began to clamber down the steep sides of the Devil’s Punch-Bowl. The clock of the nearest village had struck nine as he passed it some twenty minutes previously : the sky was heavy with dark clouds, which were however broken sufficiently to allow the moon to send her beams faintly forth;—and the wind was rustling amidst the furze to which the Magsman clung as he lowered himself into the yawning abyss. Soon afterwards another individual, who had ap- proached the hollow from a different direction, began to descend into it: then, in less than ten minutes, a third—a fourth—a fifth—and a sixth,—all coming from separate quarters and at short intervals,— hurried downward to the same point. At last the whole six met at the bottom of the abyss; and six greater villains had assuredly never assembied before in so appropriate a spot, or in any place with so suitable a name. The first, as already stated, was Joe the Mags- man: then there were Miles the Buzgloak, Dick the Tramper, and the Kinchin-Grand ;—and the party was made up by two other men of an equally desperate character. “Well, here we are punctual, according to the appointment made the night before last in Lon- don,” said Warren, throwing himself upon the cround, the others following his example. “ To tell you the truth, I’m rather tired—after my days walk. Twenty-five miles l’ve done since breakfast this morning.” “But you ain’t too tired to act, though,” observed Dick the Tramper. “ T should rather think not indeed,” returnea the Magsman. “There’s something ’m about to pour down my throat that would enable me to face and fight the devil himself.” “Ah! that’s brandy you mean,” exclaimed the Kinchin-Grand. “So much the better. lve got my flask filled to. Does anybody want some ?” ‘Tt appeared that each individual was equally well furnished ; and so the offer was declined. “Now do you know exactly, old feller,” de- manded Miles the Buzgloak of the Magsman, “at what o’clock we may expect the jarvey to pass along the road ?” “ Why, at about twelve, I should say—certainly not sooner,” was the reply. “Yes—but how do you judge?” demanded the Kinchin-Grand. “Because we know nothink at all about it.” “ You've just the same means of judging, as I have,” returned the Magsman savagely. * And how’s that ?” “* Why—by knowing at what o’ciock the jarvey was to leave London this morning, to be sure. Take that time first of all—next you know how many miles the Punch-Bowl is from town — and then you may reckon that the rattle-trap jogs on at about six miles an hour: well—that shows you that we may expect it between twelve and one.” “Quite right, Mr. Warren,” said the Kinchin- Grand. “And so we have time to smoke our pipes and rest ourselves a bit. Well—that’s a comfort: for we've all walked pretty decently yesterday and to-day—'speciaily each one taking a different direc- tion, though all coming at last to the same point. “ Ah! the Government little thinks what kind o¢ ——— — ree ————— SE COMIC HSOOKS. EO)