taught to resist temptation in whatever guise it may present itself; and if the principles I have endeavoured to implant within her breast had found lodgment there, she would have resisted it. I am deeply grieved to find this is not the case, and that she must trust to others for protection, when she ought to be able to defend herself."
The subject was not further discussed, and the grocer and his wife shortly afterwards retired to rest.
On the following morning, Bloundel remarked to the apprentice as they stood together in the shop, "Leonard, you are aware I am about to shut up my house. Before doing so, I must make certain needful arrangements. I will not disguise from you that I should prefer your remaining with me, but at the same time I beg you distinctly to understand that I will not detain you against your will. Your articles are within two months of expiring; and, if you desire it, I will deliver them to you to-morrow, and release you from the rest of your time."
"I do not desire it, sir," replied Leonard; "I will remain as long as I can be serviceable to you."
"Take time for reflection," rejoined his master, kindly. "In all probability, it will be a long confinement, and you may repent, when too late, having subjected yourself to it."
"Last month's experience has taught me what I have to expect," remarked Leonard, with a smile. "My mind is made up, I will stay with you."
"I am glad of it," returned Bloundel, "and now I have something further to say to you. My wife has acquainted me with the daring attempt of the Earl of Rochester to carry off Amabel."
"Has my mistress, also, told you of my attachment to your daughter?" demanded Leonard, trembling, in spite of his efforts to maintain a show of calmness.
Bloundel nodded an affirmative.
"And of Amabel's promise to bestow her hand upon me, if I claimed it at the month's end?" continued the apprentice.
"No!" replied the grocer, a good deal surprised—"I heard of no such promise. Nor was I aware the matter had gone so far. But have you claimed it?"
"I have," replied Leonard; "but she declined giving an answer till to-day."
"We will have it, then, at once," cried Bloundel "Come with me to her."
So saying, he led the way to the inner room, where they found Amabel and her mother. At the sight of Leonard, the former instantly cast down her eyes.
"Amabel," said her father, in a tone of greater severity than he had ever before used towards her, "all that has passed is known to me. I shall take another and more fitting opportunity to speak to you on your ill-advised conduct. I am come for a different purpose. You have given Leonard Holt a promise (I need not tell you of what nature), and he claims its fulfilment."
"If he insists upon my compliance," replied Amabel, in a tremulous voice, "I must obey. But it will make me wretched."
"Then I at once release you," replied Leonard. "I value your happiness far more than my own."
"You deserve better treatment, Leonard," said Bloundel; "and I am sorry my daughter cannot discern what is for her good. Let us hope that time will work a change in your favour."
"No," replied the apprentice, bitterly; "I will no longer delude myself with any such vain expectation."
"Amabel," observed the grocer, "as your father—as your wellwisher—I should desire to see you wedded to Leonard. But I have told your mother, and now tell you, that I will not control your inclinations, and will only attempt to direct you so far as I think likely to be conducive to your happiness. On another point, I must assume a very different tone. You can no longer plead ignorance of the designs of the depraved person who besets you. You may not be able to forget him—but you can avoid him. If you see him alone again—if but for a moment—I cast you off for ever. Yes, for ever," he repeated, with stern emphasis.
"I will never voluntarily see him again," replied Amabel, tremblingly.
"You have heard my determination," rejoined her father. "Do you still adhere to your resolution of remaining with me, Leonard?" he added, turning to the apprentice. "If what has just passed makes any alteration in your wishes, state so, frankly."
"I will stay," replied Leonard.
"There will be one advantage, which I did not foresee, in closing my house," remarked the grocer aside to the apprentice. "It will effectually keep away this libertine earl."
"Perhaps so," replied the other. "But I have more faith in my own vigilance than in bolts and bars."
Bloundel and Leonard then returned to the shop, where the former immediately began to make preparations for storing his house; and in the prosecution of his scheme he was greatly aided by the apprentice.
The grocer's dwelling, as has been stated, was large and commodious. It was three stories high; and beneath the ground-floor there were kitchens and extensive cellars. Many of the rooms were spacious, and had curiously carved fireplaces, walls pannelled with fine brown oak, large presses, and cupboards.
In the yard, at the back of the house, there was a pump, from which excellent water was obtained. There were likewise three large cisterns, supplied from the New River. Not satisfied with this, and anxious to obtain water in which no infected body could have lain, or clothes have been washed, Bloundel had a large tank placed within the cellar, and connecting it by pipes with the pump, he contrived an ingenious machine, by which he could work the latter from within the house—thus making sure of a constant supply of water direct from the spring.
He next addressed himself to the front of the house, where he fixed a pulley, with a rope and hook attached to it, to the beam above one of the smaller bay windows on the second story. By this means, he could let down a basket or any other article into the street, or draw up whatever he desired; and as he proposed using this outlet as the sole means of communication with the external world when his house was closed, he had a wooden shutter made in the form of a trap-door, which he could open and shut at pleasure.
Here it was his intention to station himself at certain hours of the day, and whenever he held any communication below, to flash off a pistol, so that the smoke of the powder might drive back the air, and purify any vapour that found entrance of its noxious particles.
He laid down to himself a number of regulations, which will be more easily shown and more clearly understood, on arriving at the period when his plans came to be in full operation. To give an instance, however—if a letter should be conveyed to him by means of the pulley, he proposed to steep it in a solution of vinegar and sulphur; and when dried and otherwise fumigated, to read it at a distance by the help of strong glasses.
In regard to provisions, after a careful calculation, he bought upwards of three thousand pounds' weight of hard sea-biscuits, similar to those now termed captain's biscuits, and had them stowed away in hogsheads. He next ordered twenty huge casks of the finest flour, which he had packed up with the greatest care, as if for a voyage to Barbadoes or Jamaica. As these were brought in through the yard an accident had well-nigh occurred which might have proved fatal to him. While superintending the labours of Leonard and Blaize, who were rolling the casks into the house—having stowed away as many as he conveniently could in the upper part of the premises—he descended to the cellar, and, opening a door at the foot of a flight of steps leading from the yard, called to them to lower the remaining barrels with ropes below. In the hurry, Blaize rolled a cask towards the open door, and in another instant it would have fallen upon the grocer, and perhaps
