France -- History -- Louis XV, 1715-1774 -- Fiction; Jacobite Rebellion, 1745-1746 -- Fiction
All the time that he had been on his Cheshire property--which he had
found to be considerably neglected since his father's departure for
France--he had been expecting to receive, from one source or another,
the information of the arrest of those three enemies of his, about
whom he had given information sufficient to bring them to justice. Yet
none had come. Daily he had sent to the coach office at Chester for
the journals from London, but, when he had perused them, he still
failed to find that any of the three had been haled to justice. Nor
was there even a description in any of them of the scene at
Vauxhall--which, had he found such description, might have been
exceedingly pleasant reading. But, in truth, nothing was more unlikely
than that he should find it. A fracas at either Ranelagh or the Spring
Gardens was by no means likely to be chronicled in either the "London
Journal" or the "Craftsman," or any other news-sheet of the period,
since in those days the ubiquitous reporter was unknown, or, when he
existed, did not consider anything beneath a murder, a state trial, or
an execution worthy of his pen. Also the proprietors of Ranelagh and
Vauxhall, and similar places of entertainment, took very good care to
keep anything unpleasant that happened out of the papers. Nothing
short, therefore, of Mr. Jonathan Tyers sending an account of what had
occurred in his grounds to the papers of the day with the request that
it might be inserted--accompanied, perhaps, by a payment for such
insertion--would have led to the publication of the matter, and that
the worthy proprietor of the Spring Gardens would do such a thing as
this was not to be supposed.
Also, my lord had received no news from his wife, nor her father,
which astonished him considerably. For he had supposed that, in about
a week's time, the post would bring him a letter full of accusations,
reproaches, and injurious epithets from her ladyship, who, he felt
sure, would at once connect him with the arrest of the three men--yet,
no more from her than from the public prints did he gather one word.
So that at last he began to have the worst fears that, after all, the
Government had bungled in some way and that the victims had escaped.
It was, therefore, in a very ill humour that he again returned to
London, cursing inwardly and vehemently at any delay necessitated by
the changing of horses, by nights spent at inns on the road, and by
the heavy roads themselves; and at St. Albans, where he once more
slept, by receiving no visit at all from Captain Morris, to whom he
had written saying that he would be there on a certain evening and
would be pleased to see him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account