The Mysteries of London (Vol. 1-4). George W. M. Reynolds
upon all his words with such tender solicitude.
After dinner, the count, still pondering upon the scene in which a tender wife and affectionate daughter had administered to him such sweet consolation, and experiencing a delicious balm in the domestic felicity which he enjoyed, said to Isabella, "Read me from your Album, my dear girl, those lines which a poet is supposed to address to his wife, and which always possess new charms for me."
Isabella hastened to obey her father's wishes, and read, in a soft and silver tone, the following stanzas:—
THE POET TO HIS WIFE.
When far away, my memory keeps in view,
Unweariedly, the image of my wife;
This tribute of my gratitude is due
To her who seems the angel of my life—
The guiding star that leads me safely through
The eddies of this world's unceasing strife;—
Hope's beacon, cheering ever from afar,
How beautiful art thou, my guiding star!
Our children have thy countenance, that beams
With love for him who tells thy virtues now;—
Their eyes have caught the heavenly ray which gleams
From thine athwart the clouds that shade my brow,
Like sunshine on a night of hideous dreams!—
The first to wean me from despair art thou;
For all th' endearing sentiments of life
Are summed up in the words Children and Wife.
The mind, when in a desert state, renews
Its strength, if by Hope's purest manna fed;
As drooping flowers revive beneath the dews
Which April mornings bountifully shed.
Mohammed taught (let none the faith abuse)
That echoes were the voices of the dead
Repeating, in a far-off realm of bliss,
The words of those they loved and left in this.
My well-beloved, should'st thou pass hence away,
Into another and a happier sphere,
Ere death has also closed my little day,
And morn may wake no more on my career,
"I love thee," are the words that I shall say
From hour to hour, during my sojourn here.
That thou in other realms may'st still be found
Prepared to echo back the welcome sound.
Scarcely had Isabella finished these lines, when a servant entered the room, and announced a Mr. Johnson, "who had some pressing business to communicate, and who was very sure that he shouldn't be considered an intruder."
Mr. Johnson—a queer-looking, shabby-genteel, off-hand kind of a man—made his appearance close behind the servant, over whose shoulder he leered ominously.
"I b'lieve you're Count Alteroni, air you?" was Mr. Johnson's first question.
"I am. What is your business with me?"
"I'm come from Rolfe, the attorney, in Clements' Inn," was the reply: "he—"
"Oh! I suppose he has sent you to say that he will accord me the delay I require?" interrupted the count.
"Not quite that there neither," said the man; then, sinking his voice to a mysterious whisper, and glancing towards the ladies with an air of embarrassment, he added, "The fact is, I've got a execution agin your person—a ca-sa, you know, for eighteen hundred and costs."
"A writ—a warrant!" ejaculated the count aloud. "You do not mean to say that you are come to take me to prison?"
"Not exactly that either," replied Mr. Johnson. "You needn't go to quod, you know. You can come to our lock-up in the New-Cut, Lambeth, where you'll be as snug as if you was in your own house, barring liberty."
"I understand you," said the count; then, turning to his wife and daughter, he added, "My dears, the evil moment is arrived. This person is a bailiff come to arrest me; and I must go with him. I implore you not to take this misfortune to heart:—it was sure to happen; and it might just as well occur to-day as a week or a month hence."
"And whither will they take you?" asked the countess, bursting into tears. "Cannot we be allowed to accompany you?"
"You can come, ma'am, and see his lordship to-morrow," said the bailiff; "and you can stay with him from ten in the morning till nine in the evening—or may-be till half-arter ten as a wery partick'lar faviour—for which you'll on'y have to pay half a sufferin extray. But there's my man."
A sneaking kind of knock—something more than a single one, not so much as a double one, and by no means as bold as a postman's—had been heard the moment before the bailiff uttered these last words; and while he went in person to inform his acolyte that the caption was made, and that he might wait in the hall, the count endeavoured to soothe and console the two afflicted ladies who now clung to him in the most impassioned and distracted manner.
"To-morrow, my dear father—to-morrow, the moment the clock strikes ten, we will be with you," said Isabella. "Oh! how miserably will pass the hours until that period!"
"Will you not now permit me, my dearest husband, to see the Envoy of Castelcicala, and—"
"No," answered the count firmly. "Did we not agree ere now to support with resignation all that fortune might have in store for us?"
"Ah! pardon me—I forgot," said the countess. "I am overwhelmed with grief. Oh! what a blow—and for you!"
"Show yourselves worthy of your high rank and proud name," cried the nobleman; "and all will yet be well."
At this moment the bailiff returned to the room.
"I am now ready to accompany you," said the count.
"So much the better," cried Mr. Johnson. "Me and my man Tim Bunkins come down in a omnibus; I don't know which vay you'd like to go, but I've heerd say you keeps a wery tidy cabrioily."
"It would be a monstrous mockery for any one to proceed to a prison in his own luxurious vehicle," said the count sternly. "As you came, so may you return. I will accompany you in an omnibus."
The count embraced his wife and daughter tenderly, and with much difficulty tore himself away, in order to leave a comfortable home for a miserable sponging-house.
CHAPTER LXXXV.
A FRIEND IN NEED.
TEN days after the arrest of Count Alteroni, a young lady was proceeding, at about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, down the Blackfriars Road.
She was dressed plainly, but with that exquisite taste which denotes a polished mind, and is in itself an aristocracy of sentiment. She looked neither to the right nor to the left: her pace was somewhat rapid, as if she were anxious to arrive at her destination:—and though there was something timid in her manner as she threaded her way along the crowded thoroughfare, few who passed her could help turning round to obtain another glimpse of the sylph-like form of that unassuming girl.
From the opposite direction advanced a young man of tall and handsome appearance, neatly dressed, and with a shade of melancholy upon his countenance.
In a few moments he met the young lady, and was about to pass her, when his eyes happened to catch a glimpse of her lovely features.
He started