Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 333: what you’re looking at

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

316 REYNOLDS’ WORKS ‘Are you alone at Gainsborough? Have you parents, relatives, or friends there? ”’ ““No, I eame upon a little business of a private nature, which perhaps will not detain me beyond to-morrow. And now, sir, with your permission, I shall bid you farewell.’’ ‘And you will suffer me to do nothing for you,” asked Hawkshaw. “I see that you are a young gentleman in speech, in manners, in everything— But will you be offended if I ask you for your address in Gainsborough, that I may leave there some little token of my gratitude for the service you have rendered me? ’’ ‘“ Again and again do I express my gratitude,” responded Frank, “ coupled with the assurance that I require nothing. On some future occasion we shall perhaps meet again. And now farewell, sir.’ With these words Frank hurried away in the Seeded of Saxondale Castle, while Mr. Hawkshaw proceeded to mount his horse, aie to himself, ‘‘ He is a nice youth, — a very interesting youth,— but somehow or another I can’t make him out. I should like to know more of him,’’ and he was half-inclined to ride back and renew the conver- sation; but fearing that his good intentions might be inter- preted as mere inquisitiveness, or even construed into down- right impertinent curiosity, he galloped away toward Gainsborough. Meanwhile Francis Paton had hurried onward until the sounds of the retreating horse’s hoofs no longer reached his ears, and then slackening his pace somewhat, he thought to himself, ‘‘ This Mr. Hawkshaw is evidently a warm-hearted and excellent man. Had I wanted a friend, accident would ~ have sent me one in him.”’ But his thoughts were speedily diverted into another channel, for, as the reader may full well suppose, it was not to survey the fine old castle that Francis Paton had eome down into Lincolnshire, but to obtain an interview with the daughter of its mistress. Trusting to circumstances to furnish him with the desired opportunity, he approached nearer to the grounds, and skirting the park railing, plunged his looks into the enclosure of the spacious garden within. On reaching a gate, and finding it unlocked, he thought there would at least be no harm in entering the park; and once there, he naturally enough approached the garden all Gomicbooks (E(0) m