William Ainsworth - Rookwood

"But what?" interrupted Lady Rookwood, impatiently.

"I could not help it, my lady—he would have me come; he said he was resolved to see your ladyship, whether you would or not."

"Would see me, ha! is it so? I guess his errand, and its object—he has some suspicion. No, that cannot be; he would not dare to tamper with these seals. Agnes, I will not see him."

"But he swears, my lady, that he will not leave the house without seeing you—he would have forced his way into your presence, if I had not consented to announce him."

"Insolent!" exclaimed Lady Rookwood, with a glance of indignation; "force his way! I promise you he shall not display an equal anxiety to repeat the visit. Tell Mr. Coates I will see him."

"Mr. Coates! Mercy on us, my lady, it's not he. He'd never have intruded upon you unasked. No such thing. He knows his place too well. No, no; it's not Mr. Coates–"

"If not he, who is it?"

"Luke Bradley; your ladyship knows whom I mean."

"He here—now?–"

"Yes, my lady; and looking so fierce and strange, I was quite frightened to see him. He looked so like his—his–"

"His father, you would say. Speak out."

"No, my lady, his grandfather—old Sir Reginald. He's the very image of him. But had not your ladyship better ring the alarm-bell? and when he comes in, I'll run and fetch the servants—he's dangerous, I'm sure."

"I have no fears of him. He will see me, you say–"

"Ay, will !" exclaimed Luke, as he threw open the door, and shut it forcibly after him, striding towards Lady Rookwood, "nor abide longer delay."

It was an instant or two ere Lady Rookwood, thus taken by surprise, could command speech. She fixed her eyes with a look of keen and angry inquiry upon the bold intruder, who, nothing daunted, confronted her glances with a gaze as stern and steadfast as her own.

"Who are you, and what seek you?" exclaimed Lady Rookwood, after a brief pause, and, in spite of herself, her voice sounded tremulously. "What would you have, that you venture to appear before me at this season and in this fashion?"

"I might have chosen a fitter opportunity," returned Luke, "were it needed. My business will not brook delay—you must be pleased to overlook this intrusion on your privacy, at a season of sorrow like the present. As to the fashion of my visit, you must be content to excuse it. I cannot help myself. I may amend hereafter. Who I am, you are able, I doubt not, to divine. What I seek, you shall hear, when this old woman has left the room, unless you would have a witness to a declaration that concerns you as nearly as myself."

An indefinite feeling of apprehension had, from the first instant of Luke's entrance crossed Lady Rookwood's mind. She, however, answered, with some calmness:

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See the celebrated recipe for the Hand of Glory in " Les Secrets du Petit Albert ."

The seven planets, so called by Mercurius Trismegistus.

Payne Knight, the scourge of Repton and his school, speaking of the license indulged in by the modern landscape-gardeners, thus vents his indignation:

Mason's English Garden.

Cowley.

Query, Damocles?— Printer's Devil.

James Hind—the "Prince of Prigs"—a royalist captain of some distinction, was hanged, drawn, and quartered, in 1652. Some good stories are told of him. He had the credit of robbing Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Peters. His discourse to Peters is particularly edifying.

See Du-Val's life by Doctor Pope, or Leigh Hunt's brilliant sketch of him in The Indicator .

We cannot say much in favor of this worthy, whose name was Thomas Simpson. The reason of his sobriquet does not appear. He was not particularly scrupulous as to his mode of appropriation. One of his sayings is, however, on record. He told a widow whom he robbed, "that the end of a woman's husband begins in tears, but the end of her tears is another husband." "Upon which," says his chronicler, "the gentlewoman gave him about fifty guineas."

Tom was a sprightly fellow, and carried his sprightliness to the gallows; for just before he was turned off he kicked Mr. Smith, the ordinary, and the hangman out of the cart—a piece of pleasantry which created, as may be supposed, no small sensation.

Many agreeable stories are related of Holloway. His career, however, closed with a murder. He contrived to break out of Newgate but returned to witness the trial of one of his associates; when, upon the attempt of a turnkey, one Richard Spurling, to seize him, Will knocked him on the head in the presence of the whole court. For this offence he suffered the extreme penalty of the law in 1712.

Wicks's adventures with Madame Toly are highly diverting. It was this hero—not Turpin, as has been erroneously stated—who stopped the celebrated Lord Mohun. Of Gettings and Grey, and "the five or six," the less said the better.

One of Jack's recorded mots . When a Bible was pressed upon his acceptance by Mr. Wagstaff, the chaplain, Jack refused it, saying, "that in his situation one file would be worth all the Bibles in the world." A gentleman who visited Newgate asked him to dinner; Sheppard replied, "that he would take an early opportunity of waiting upon him." And we believe he kept his word.

The word Tory, as here applied, must not be confounded with the term of party distinction now in general use in the political world. It simply means a thief on a grand scale, something more than "a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles," or petty-larceny rascal. We have classical authority for this:—Tory: "An advocate for absolute monarchy; also, an Irish vagabond, robber, or rapparee ."—Grose's Dictionary .

A trio of famous High-Tobygloaks. Swiftneck was a captain of Irish dragoons, by-the-bye.

Redmond O'Hanlon was the Rob Roy of Ireland, and his adventures, many of which are exceedingly curious, would furnish as rich materials for the novelist, as they have already done for the ballad-mongers: some of them are, however, sufficiently well narrated in a pleasant little tome, published at Belfast, entitled The History of the Rapparees . We are also in possession of a funeral discourse, preached at the obsequies of the "noble and renowned" Henry St. John, Esq., who was unfortunately killed by the Tories —the Destructives of those days—in the induction to which we find some allusion to Redmond. After describing the thriving condition of the north of Ireland, about 1680, the Rev. Lawrence Power, the author of the sermon, says, "One mischief there was, which indeed in a great measure destroyed all, and that was a pack of insolent bloody outlaws, whom they here call Tories . These had so riveted themselves in these parts, that by the interest they had among the natives, and some English, too, to their shame be it spoken , they exercise a kind of separate sovereignty in three or four counties in the north of Ireland. Redmond O'Hanlon is their chief, and has been these many years; a cunning, dangerous fellow, who, though proclaimed an outlaw with the rest of his crew, and sums of money set upon their heads, yet he reigns still, and keeps all in subjection, so far that 'tis credibly reported he raises more in a year by contributions à-la-mode de France than the king's land taxes and chimney-money come to, and thereby is enabled to bribe clerks and officers , if not their masters, (!) and makes all too much truckle to him ." Agitation, it seems, was not confined to our own days—but the "finest country in the world" has been, and ever will be, the same. The old game is played under a new color—the only difference being, that had Redmond lived in our time, he would, in all probability, not only have pillaged a county, but represented it in parliament. The spirit of the Rapparee is still abroad—though we fear there is little of the Tory left about it. We recommend this note to the serious consideration of the declaimers against the sufferings of the "six millions."