Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/79

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PAUL CLIFFORD.
71

of serious desire; the police was no longer to be bribed: nay, they were now eager to bribe;—Mac Grawler had watched his time—sold his chief, and was now on the road to Reading, to meet and to guide to the cavern Mr. Nabbem, of Bow-street, and four of his attendants.

Having thus, as rapidly as we were able, traced the causes which brought so startlingly before your notice the most incomparable of critics, we now, reader, return to our robbers.

"Hist, Lovett!" said Tomlinson, half asleep, "methought I heard something in the outer cave."

"It is the Scot, I suppose," answered Clifford: "you saw of course to the door."

"To be sure!" muttered Tomlinson, and in two minutes more he was asleep.

Not so Clifford: many and anxious thoughts kept him waking. At one while, when he anticipated the opening to a new career, somewhat of the stirring and high spirit which still moved amidst the guilty and confused habits of his mind, made his pulse feverish, and his limbs restless: at another time, an agonizing remembrance—the