The Soldier's Wife — page 105: what you’re looking at

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

THE SOLDIER’S WIFE. Courtenay had “sold. ont” some eight or tenling, half-starved wretch, in thraad-bare ap: months after Frederick’s desertion. kad little doubt that the captain had been at length driven by his extravagance to this step. Snch were the particulars he had gleaned from time to time. In respect to Lucy’s father no information had been obtained; and it was not therefore known whether he was alive or dead. Our heroine often thought to herself that it would be a source of satisfaction to communi- cate with him: but this she dared not do. A letter, although posted trom any town distant from London, might, if her father were ran- evrously disposed towards her husband, lead to researches being made; and therefore she was compelled to remain perfectly quiet in this re- ppect. As for Bates the village-barber, and everybody else at Oakleigh with whom they were acquainted, or of whom they had any reason to think about, the Lonsdales were equally in the dark concerning them and their atfairs. One day, at the expiration of the three years during which our little family had now been settled in London, Frederick had some business to transact in Aldersgate Street with the father ef one of his pupils; and on returning from that house he passed through the hall of the General Post-Othce in St. Martin’s-le-Grand, which (for the benefit of country readers un- acquainted with London| we may as well ob- serve constitutes a thoroughfare tor those who ehoose to avail themselves of it. Being in the direction which Lonsdale had to pursue on his way homeward, he was passing through the General Post-Othice in the manner described, when an ejaculation of surprise uttered near him, caused him to turn quickly; and to his inexpressible horror and dismay he found him- self confrouted by the very man whom last of all on the face of the earth he would have chosen to encounter. This was Bates. If a hideous reptile had abruptly sprung up before him—if all in a moment he had beheld a tiger preparing to spring at him—or if a yawning gulf had suddenly opened beneath his feet, and he had felt the ground upon the brink giving way under him—the unhappy man could not have fallen back with a more dread recoil. Ruin appeared to look him in the face at that instant: frightful visions of imminent evil swept like a hurricane through his mind; the aspect of the world changed to his view more sud- denly than the shifting scene of a theatre. All in an instant had he stepped from the confi- dence of security to the edge of an abyss, into which he felt a remorseless hand was drag- ging him down. The images of Lucy and his ehtld rose up before him with despair pictured upon their countenances. In short, the rapid and varied agonies which he experienced at iat moment, and all the intensities of which ‘ore concentrated into the space of that mo- ment, were as frightful and as appalling as the thoughts which sweep through the brain of the drowning man, when in the last agony of the mortal strugvle his mental looks revert to that home which he shall never behold again! Mr. Bates was but very little altered in any respect: he was the same thin, miserable-look- 7 ee eee eee CC Vkmn—_ ae a 0 0 ee Ce -.C —v\mYWOSOCUw’""'C'-- OOOO CS eae eS —™ Our here)parel, that he had always been im Lonsdale’ recollection. Ile wore a seedy black coat, ve short in the sleeves, and leaving an interval o wrist between the cuff and the old well-worn black kid gloves, at the tips of which the fin- gers peeped out. His hat, of a very rusty ap- pearance, seemed as if it had been sat upon, and then squeezed out again into as shapely an appearance as it could be made to assume after the crushing process: his linen was very dirty —his black trousers, well worn at the knees and uncommonly dingy, were much too short for him, displaying dirty white stockings—and his shoes seemed perfectly innocent of blacking, Such was his aspect; and he stood gazing wit a sort of half-familiar half-astonished leer upon the unfortunate man who already felt that he was again doomed to be the wretch’s victim. But upon this occasion Bates seemed to feel that he could not possibly address Lonsdale in those terms of assumed friendliness which he had adopted when they met at Carlisle. That Frederick was again well-to-do in the world, was sutliciently indicated by his personal ap- pearance ; and that the barber intended to turn this circumstance to his own advantage, the reader has already guessed. But the villain felt that this time the extortion must be ac complished with undisguised etfrontery aud opeu ruffianism, and not by means of the as sumption of a friendly aspect. “| know—lI teel—that you desire to speak to me,” said Lonsdale, breaking silence as soon as he had recovered something like presence of mind: “ but we cannot speak here. Moreover, it may perhaps better suit your own purposes,” he added bitterly, “if you do not mention my name in this place.” “Lead on, then,” said Bates, half-flippantly, half-doggedly ; “and [ will follow.” — They passed out of the Post Office, and Frede rick stopped at the door of the nearest publie house. ‘“No—this won't do,” said Bates. “I meat to go home with you. So lead the way wher- ever you live.” “No,” replied Lonsdale firmly; “you shall not cverce me thus. Whatever may now pasé between us, can as well take place here as else where.” ° : “But I say it shan’t though,” rejoined Bates, in a tone and manner expressive of implacable resolve. “How do I know in what circum- stances you are? I mean to judge for myself, and shall then be able to decide what you can afford to make it worth my while to hold my tongue. So now lead on.” “But if | refuse?” asked Frederick: and then he bit his lip almost till the blood came, to kee down the fury of those feelings which were agt- tating within him, ‘There goes a policeman,” was Bates’s prompt answer: “and I can give you into charg@ us if “You need not name it,” interrupted Frede- rick bitterly. “But wherefore this terrible — persecution on your part? What harm have ever done to you? while, on the other hand have you not worked me miseries enough” Eomicbooks.com hd 4 » «ar ae,