The String of Pearls; or, The Barber of Fleet Street — page 309: what you’re looking at

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

j } esate hime ps to get the pat re upproprial:t hae +o, Dain THE STRING OF PEARLS. ~ The Lord Mayor gave a very odd kind of cough, as he said— __ “What would the Lady Mayoress say ?” The air without had been cold, but what was that compared with the coldness way 1 within? At least, the street breeze had been dry, but in the church there was , Such a fearful dampness pervadirg the narrow passage in which the party found ; itself, that every one felt as though his very marrow was cold. , This passage,” said Mr. Villimay, ‘“ hasn’t been opened for many a long ay. ‘* Indeed !”’ said the secretary. “No, my lord, it has not: and it’s only a wonder that, after a good hunt in the vestry cupboard, I at all found the key of it.” “Fortunate that you did,” said Sir Richard Blunt, who was all this time making exertions to procure a light, which were as often defeated by the damp- ness of the air, At length he was successful in igniting a piece of wax candle, and he said— ‘Gentlemen, this will show us our way through the church to the vestry, where we can get lanthorns.”’ ‘‘Yes,’”’ said the Lord Mayor, who was getting so nervous that he thought himself called upon to make some reply to anything and anybody. ‘“* Yes, lan- thorns in the vestry.’ ‘‘Well,’’ said the secretary, “‘my Lord Mayor, your mayoralty wiil be dis- tinguished by this dreadful affair for all time to come.”’ “* Many thanks to your lordship, it will.’’ The secretary smiled as he whispered to his friena Donkin— ‘‘The city magistrate don’t seem happy, Donkin.” ‘*¢ Far from it.” At the end of the little narrow, damp, gloomy, cobwebby passage in which they were, was another little door, the upper half of which was of highly orna- mented iron fret work, the side of which next to the church interior being gilt. This door likewise yielded to a key whith Mr. Villimay produced, and then they found themselves at once in the western aisle of the church. ‘¢ The stench don’t seem so bad,’’ said Sir Richard. ‘©No, sir,’ said Villimay. ‘‘ We have got all the windows open far up above there, and there’s quite a current of air, too, right up the belfry.” Cases EIT CHAPTER LXVI. THE COOK’S VISITORS. Sir Ricuarp shaded with his hand the little light that he carried as he walked solemnly across the nave towards the chancel, where the vestry room was ‘situated. He was fo.lowed closely by the whole party, and the audible breath- ing of the Lord Mayor sufficiently proclaimed the uneasy state of his lordship’s nerves. ‘‘ How strange it is,”’ said the secretary, ‘‘that men will pile up stones and timber until they make something to enter, which then terrifies their weak na- tures, and they become the slaves of the very materials that they have made to enclose and roof in a certain space upon which otherwise they would stand unmoved.” “It is so,” said Donkin. “Why the fact is, | suppose,” said Sir Richard Blunt, “that it is what is called original sin that sticks to us, and so— ‘Conscience doth make cowards of us all ! whether we are personally or not obnoxious tothe pangs of the still small voice.” St re A CC A — “Sees. ae = « = 7 ee ee comicbooks.com