We must leave the reader to imagine the joy that prevailed at Markham Place, when the Prince returned thither, the bearer of those happy tidings which proved the legitimacy of Katherine and the innocence of her departed but not unlamented mother.
CHAPTER CCXXVII.
COLDBATH FIELD'S PRISON.
Return we now to the Resurrection Man,—that incarnate fiend whose crimes were so numerous, and all of so black a dye.
Firmly bound, and guarded by three officers, who kept their bludgeons in their hands, the miscreant saw that all resistance was vain: he accordingly threw himself back in the cab that was bearing him to prison, and gave way to his saturnine reflections.
"If I had only thought that Richard Markham would have accompanied that young girl Katharine,"—it was thus he mused,—"a very different song would have been sung. But I knew that he was married only a week ago, and never dreamt that he would leave his pretty wife to poke his nose into Banks's crib. What an infernal oversight on my part! And now—here I am, regularly lumbered; and all the swag arising from Kate Wilmot's business is in the hands of that canting sneak Banks! Damnation to Richard Markham! I shall swing for this if I don't take precious good care. He'll swear to two different attempts on his life—one at the old house near Bird-cage Walk, and t'other at Twig Folly. What a cursed—ten times cursed fool I was to let myself tumble into a snare in this way! Some one else will find the gold that I have saved up; and when I shall be cold and stiff under the pavement of Newgate, others will riot on my treasure! But, no—it can't happen in that way: it's impossible that my time is come yet—impossible! I shall escape somehow or another;—I must escape—I will escape! But how? That question is the devil of the difficulty. Never mind—escape I will;—so I mustn't be down-hearted!"
These and numberless other reflections, in which despondency and hope alternately asserted a predominant influence, occupied the mind of Anthony Tidkins as the cab proceeded rapidly through Bethnal-Green and Shoreditch,—then along Old Street—up the Goswell Road—through Northampton Square—and lastly along Exmouth Street, in its way to Coldbath Fields' Prison.
At length the cab turned into the short road which forms the approach, within the wooden railings in front of the governor's dwelling, to the great gates of the gaol,—those gates over which may be read in large letters, "Middlesex House of Correction."
A shudder crept over even the iron frame of Anthony Tidkins, as those huge portals, towering high above the cab which now drew up close to them, seemed to frown upon him like a colossal genius of evil amidst the obscurity of night.
Benstead leapt from the cab, and knocked loudly at the gate.
The iron din was responded to by gloomy echoes from the courts inside.