The Child Wife

by Mayne Reid

To be beaten in a love intrigue, backed out in a duel, and finally flogged with a horsewhip, are three distinct humiliations any one of which is enough to make a man savage.

And Swinton was so, to the point of ferocity.

That Maynard had done to him the two first, he knew—about the last he was not so certain. But he conjectured it was he who had handled the horsewhip. This, despite the obscurity caused by the fog, and the crape masking the face of his chastiser.

The voice that had accosted him did not sound like Maynard’s, but it also may have been masked.

During the time he was detained indoors, he passed a portion of it in thinking of revenge, and studying how he was to obtain it.

Had his patron seen him, as he sat almost continually behind the Venetian, with his eyes upon Kossuth’s gate, he would have given him credit for an assiduous attention to his duties.

But he was not so honest as he seemed. Many visitors entered the opposite house—some of them strange-looking characters, whose very stride spoke of revolution—entered and took departure, without being dogged.

The spy, brooding over his own private resentment had no thoughts to spare for the service of the State. Among the visitors of Kossuth he was desirous of identifying Captain Maynard.

He had no definite idea as to what he would do to him; least of all that of giving him into custody. The publicity of the police court would have been fatal to him—as damaging to his employer and patron. It might cause exposure of the existence of that spy system, hitherto unsuspected in England. The man, who had got out of the hansom to horsewhip him, must have known that he was being followed, and wherefore. It would never do for the British public to know it Swinton had no intention of letting them know; nor yet Lord —, and his employer. To the latter, calling occasionally of evenings, he told the same story as that imparted to Sir Robert Cottrell—only with the addition that, the footpads had set upon him while in the exercise of his avocation as a servant of the State!

The generous nobleman was shocked at his mishap; sympathised with him, but thought it better to say nothing about it; hinted at an increase of pay; and advised him, since he could not show himself during daylight on the streets, to take the air after night—else his health might suffer by a too close confinement.