The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

26 REYNOLDS’ WORKS and to recruit herself after the dreadful shock she had received.” Ralph Farefield was both astonished and an- noyed that the body was not discovered; and seeking out Chiffin, he questioned him very closely all over again relative to the whole affair. The Cannibal at first swore furiously at being suspected; but when reduced to calmness by means of gold, he vowed and protested that the version he had originally given Ralph Farefield was the correct one. “The Lincolnshire papers proved that the child was stolen,’ he added, ‘‘ and that 1t was me who carried him off has been sufficiently shown to you by the production of the clothes, and by the mention of the mark on the little thing’s shoulder. There are plenty of ways to account for why no fuss was made about the discovery of the body. ~The people of the cottage at whose door | left it might have been fright- ened, and buried it secretly; or it might even have been put underground in the usual manner, no one suspecting that it could possibly be Lord Saxondale’s lost child, because the few clothes I left on 1t might have had no name or marks to show who the infant was. Or a resurrection-man may have picked it up, and taken it to a doctor’s. There’s plenty of ways to account for why no noise was made about the corpse. At all events, it was by your instructions that the body was left exposed in some public place, and I am not answerable if the thing has failed.” Ralph was compelled to be satisfied by this reasoning, which, indeed, was feasible enough. That the child had actually been made away with, he entertained no doubt; and though he could have wished that the discovery of the body should have established the fact, yet he argued that when his uncle died the title and estates must of necessity devolve to him who, in default of the appearance of any other claimant, should come forward and assert his own | rights. Altogether unaware of Lady Saxondale’s secret presence in London, he neither foresaw nor apprehended anything that could possibly arise to defeat his plans. ‘Thus did a month elapse from the date of the child’s disappearance; and now, as Ralph was one morning examining the newly arrived Lincolnshire papers, he was struck by observing a paragraph to the effect that ‘‘ the venerable Lord Saxondale was lying in a most dangerous condition at the castle, and not expected to survive many days.”’ CORNICELOO)<S,5 (Eo)