The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 197: what you’re looking at

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

"148 | THE STEAM PACKET. “It’s wery possible, though!” returned Tom; “and your con- sciences must tell ye, gen’lemen, vether he’s come arter you or not.”’ Those selfsame consciences to which Mr. Gibbins alluded, make cowards, it is said, of us all: certain it is, that they did of Captain Pentonville and Mr. Buckram. The former still laboured under the impression he had ere now received, that the tailor had declared his imposture to Mr. Pifpaf; whilst Buckram himself was haunted with the idea that he must have betrayed the cheat connected with his nobility during his drunken moments of the preceding evening. Under these circumstances there was no alternative, save to fly. “Tom,” said the captain, hurriedly, “stay with the Luminaries— ‘watch them—hear all that passes—and I will contrive to communicate with you at Calais.” ** Wery good, sir,” cried Tom; “ and now off.” ‘“‘ But we can’t go down the stairs,” said the ne “‘we shall run against the gendarmes.”’ | “The room opposite looks upon the garden at the back of the house,”” observed Tom. “So it does,” ejaculated the captain ; “‘ pray God that it be empty !” He darted out of Buckram’s apartment, and found the door of the chamber on the other side of the passage open. It was the room in which the old dowager had slept ; and several articles of female attire were scattered upon the floor. Captain Pentonville rushed to the ‘window, threw it open, and leapt into the garden beneath. The soil was soft, and he received no injury; so, without looking around him, he hastened through the inclosure into the adjacent streets at the back, with the speed of lightning. ; In the mean time Mr. Buckram was in a strange dilemma. Tom Gibbins had taken his coat down stairs; and the tailor, together with the other gentlemen with whom he voyaged, had not ordered his port- manteau to be removed from the packet, as the original intention of the Luminaries was only to stay one night at so dull and uninteresting a little town as Gravelines. He therefore had no coat to wear—the livery one worn by Tom would not fit him, even if that functionary had been disposed to part with it; and there was no time for him to run down stairs and fetch the one taken below to be brushed. The emergency. was most serious and pressing. Already was the clatter of the gendarmes’ swords heard upon the stairs: Buckram was bewil- dered. ‘¢ Cut along—never mind the coat!” cried Tom; and the tailor bolted into the room facing his own, and through an ee the captain had already made his escape. Pausing for one moment in his flight, Gomichooks (E(0)