The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 163: what you’re looking at

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

146 REYNOLDS’ WORKS ° in the neighbourhood to ascertain whose child was lost, or else that they had left it to its fate in the grove. Or again, 1t likewise occurred to me that they might not have seen it at all. However, certain sure it was that the child continued missing, as I learned from Ralph Farefield, who came to question me more particularly about the business. It was a little more than a month after the adventure, when I one day saw in a newspaper that old Lord Saxondale was lying at the point of death down at the castle in Lincoln- shire, so I went off to Mr. Farefield’s lodgings to let him know, but I found he had gone down into Lincolnshire the day before. Then it struck me that if the old lord should not happen to die of that bout, it might answer Ralph Farefield’s purposes if me and my pals were to get into the eastle and knock hi$ venerable lordship on the head in the middle of the night. Away we went, therefore, into Lin- colnshire, to offer our services to Ralph in that respect; but on arriving in the neighbourhood we heard that the old lord was dead, that Lady Saxondale had recovered her child, and that Ralph Farefield had gone away suddenly in the middle of the very same night of his arrival. Well, I was not overmuch surprised at hearing that her ladyship had got back the child, knowing what I did about its original loss. I was, however, terribly put out to think that it was all up with Mr. Ralph; so me and my pals consulted what we should do rather than go back empty-handed to London. In short, we determined upon a crack in the castle, and accordingly broke in at night. An alarm was raised, we found our way to some vaults underneath the chapel, and there what do you think we discovered? You would never ceuess. The dead body of Ralph Farefield, floating about in the water that had flooded the vaults! ” ‘“ Had he been murdered, then?,’ asked Madge Somers, who listened with a deep interest to the narrative. ‘“ There was no appearance of it,’ responded Chiffin, “ond indeed from what a surgeon afterward said, there was every reason to believe the contrary, — I mean to say, * that it was an accident by which he was drowned. But i how he came into the vault, Heaven only knows. Me and my pals took from about his person all he had in money and jewelry, and left the body lying on the steps leading down into the vault. We then got out of the castle as best CONNIE No KS (E(0)