Time wore on—months passed away—still Doctor Robertson responded, with gloomy uncertainty, to the inquiries with which he was assailed from all sides; and the general impression began to be, that poor Miss Chadleigh’s recovery was becoming at least a very doubtful contingency. Such was the posture of affairs, when your humble servant, who pens these pages, was himself involved in an adventure which it is necessary here to detail.
I had left a pleasant party, somewhere about one o’clock at night, and, without having positively transgressed the limits of sobriety, I had taken just wine enough to predispose me to embark in any exciting enterprise which might turn up. I was quite alone; and, as the reader is probably aware, the streets of Dublin were by no means so safe at nighttime in the period of which I speak, as they now are; but relying upon the sword, which the fashion of those days made a necessary appendage, and in whose use I was a tolerably accomplished proficient, I rather courted than avoided such adventures as chance might possibly present. And in this spirit, instead of pursuing the open streets, I threaded the narrow alleys and back lanes with a careless sort of swagger, and a pugnacious disposition, the very remembrance of which, even at this time of day, makes me blush for the reckless folly of my youth. The perversity of fortune was, however, in this instance, as in many others, apparent—silence and solitude encountered my advance. I was now just entering, in my devious ramble, a dingy stable-lane, whose entire length was enlivened by but three twinkling oil-lamps, whose dusky radiance scarcely extended a yard around the wooden posts that supported them. This dismal and silent alley ran immediately behind the west-side of St. Stephen’s-green; and I observed the figure of a man walking up and down, as it seemed to me, with cautious and suspicious tread. I could perceive nothing of him, however, in the dusky light, except that, as he passed and repassed immediately under one of the lamps, its faint rays fell upon a broad-brimmed hat, and a greatcoat, in which the figure was enveloped. My vague suspicions were confirmed, by observing that this man withdrew himself, with cautious haste, as I advanced, and was soon lost to my sight. I was standing, still looking in the direction in which the figure had disappeared, when a little wicket, in one of the gates opening upon the lane, was drawn back close to where I stood, and a suppressed female voice inquired—
“Are you there?”
“Yes,” answered I, promptly; now, for the first time, beginning to feel that an adventure was coming, and inclined to bear my part in it to the close, end how it might.
“Where?” repeated the voice.
“Here,” I answered, approaching the aperture.
A female, muffled in a cloak and bonnet, was passing through the wicket, and making me a sign to draw nearer, she said, hurriedly,
“Here—take it—and then wait for us where you are.”
At the same time she placed a small bundle in my hands, which I received, nothing doubting that I was innocently made a partner in some night robbery, whose true accomplice was the man whom I had seen walking to-and-fro, as I described, and for whom, doubtless, the woman had mistaken me. With a secret satisfaction at the surprise I was about to give the party, I held the parcel fast, and took a few turns, up and down, before the spot where I had received it, awaiting the further progress of the affair.
While thus engaged, I was nearly met, face to face, by the man whom I had at first seen, and who, hearing some noise, doubtless, at the appointed place of rendezvous, had hurried back. On descrying me, however, he instantly retired as before; and I, fearing to interrupt the current of the adventure, forbore in anywise to obstruct his escape. I had walked thus back and forward, bundle in hand, for eight or ten minutes, when the wicket was opened once more, and the woman I had spoken to already, stepped out into the lane, and said—
“Stand back a little bit, an’ follow us, and don’t for the life of you drop that.”
Almost at the same time two other figures came forth, muffled as carefully as the first, and I heard a female voice from within the wicket, pouring forth, as it seemed to me, prayers and blessings, interrupted with sobs, The door was cautiously closed from the inside, and I heard the key slowly and carefully turned in the rusty lock; and as these sounds were audible, the little party began to move forward, while I, in obedience to orders, brought up the rear, carrying the parcel carefully in my arms.
The person in the centre of the three appeared to be feeble, and to advance with pain, and as she did so, leaned heavily upon the others.
Thus we proceeded, until we reached the end of this lane, and turned into another as solitary and ill-lighted. As the party before me passed under the lamp at the corner, one of the women upon whom she in the middle was leaning, exclaimed—
“Give me them, my jewel; they are better off where we are going.”
And thus saying, she drew off two or three rings that glittered upon the fingers that pressed her arm, and slipped them into her pocket. This done, they relapsed into total silence, and, full of curiosity for the issue, I followed close upon their steps.
We had now walked, though very slowly, for nearly ten minutes, when, in a dark spot, close under a broad gateway, they stopped.
“Thank God, we are so far,” said one of the women; “sit down on that, my darling, for a minute;” and so saying, she laid a shawl, which she folded up in the fashion of a cushion, upon the top of one of the short upright stones which
