- end_line
- 2956
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.590Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2868
- text
- crossing of some wide stately street in London. Presently a breeze
sprang up, and ere long our adventurer disembarked at his destined
port, and directly posted on for Brentford.
The following afternoon, having gained unobserved admittance into the
house, according to preconcerted signals, he was sitting in Squire
Woodcock’s closet, pulling off his boots and delivering his dispatches.
Having looked over the compressed tissuey sheets, and read a line
particularly addressed to himself, the Squire, turning round upon
Israel, congratulated him upon his successful mission, placed some
refreshment before him, and apprised him that, owing to certain
suspicious symptoms in the neighborhood, he (Israel) must now remain
concealed in the house for a day or two, till an answer should be ready
for Paris.
It was a venerable mansion, as was somewhere previously stated, of a
wide and rambling disorderly spaciousness, built, for the most part, of
weather-stained old bricks, in the goodly style called Elizabethan. As
without, it was all dark russet bricks, so within, it was nothing but
tawny oak panels.
“Now, my good fellow,” said the Squire, “my wife has a number of
guests, who wander from room to room, having the freedom of the house.
So I shall have to put you very snugly away, to guard against any
chance of discovery.”
So saying, first locking the door, he touched a spring nigh the open
fire-place, whereupon one of the black sooty stone jambs of the chimney
started ajar, just like the marble gate of a tomb. Inserting one leg of
the heavy tongs in the crack, the Squire pried this cavernous gate wide
open.
“Why, Squire Woodcock, what is the matter with your chimney?” said
Israel.
“Quick, go in.”
“Am I to sweep the chimney?” demanded Israel; “I didn’t engage for
that.”
“Pooh, pooh, this is your hiding-place. Come, move in.”
“But where does it go to, Squire Woodcock? I don’t like the looks of
it.”
“Follow me. I’ll show you.”
Pushing his florid corpulence into the mysterious aperture, the elderly
Squire led the way up steep stairs of stone, hardly two feet in width,
till they reached a little closet, or rather cell, built into the
massive main wall of the mansion, and ventilated and dimly lit by two
little sloping slits, ingeniously concealed without, by their forming
the sculptured mouths of two griffins cut in a great stone tablet
decorating that external part of the dwelling. A mattress lay rolled up
in one corner, with a jug of water, a flask of wine, and a wooden
trencher containing cold roast beef and bread.
“And I am to be buried alive here?” said Israel, ruefully looking
round.
“But your resurrection will soon be at hand,” smiled the Squire; “two
days at the furthest.”
“Though to be sure I was a sort of prisoner in Paris, just as I seem
about to be made here,” said Israel, “yet Doctor Franklin put me in a
better jug than this, Squire Woodcock. It was set out with boquets and
a mirror, and other fine things. Besides, I could step out into the
entry whenever I wanted.”
“Ah, but, my hero, that was in France, and this is in England. There
you were in a friendly country: here you are in the enemy’s. If you
should be discovered in my house, and your connection with me became
known, do you know that it would go very hard with me; very hard
indeed?”
“Then, for your sake, I am willing to stay wherever you think best to
put me,” replied Israel.
“Well, then, you say you want boquets and a mirror. If those articles
will at all help to solace your seclusion, I will bring them to you.”
“They really would be company; the sight of my own face particularly.”
“Stay here, then. I will be back in ten minutes.”
In less than that time, the good old Squire returned, puffing and
panting, with a great bunch of flowers, and a small shaving-glass.
- title
- Chunk 3