University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

The early twilight was gently drawing its veil
of gauze over the city on the day before mentioned,
as Edward De Lyle might be seen stealthily entering
the same obscure Café within whose precincts
this history found a commencement. The improvements
which had swept like an avalanche over other
portions of the metropolis, had passed by this disreputable
quarter without a touch; and the only visible
transformation was wrought by the hand of time,
delapidating those erections which were before bordering
on decay, and tinging the more modern
dwellings with the rust of years.

Within the front apartment, still dedicated to the
uses of a tap room, the same individual did not meet

the view of De Lyle who had so many years previously
ministered to the appetites of Glenthorne and
Maddox—for dissipation and remorse had long since
consigned his earthly tenement to the place appointed
for all living. Another and no less unprepossessing
specimen of humanity, was officiating in the like
capacity, of whom De Lyle inquired if Thomas
Burchard was within.

Raising his crimsoned-fringed eyelids he appeared
to recognize the person of the querist, whom he
directed to the apartment in the rear, where he informed
him was the person he sought.

“Burchard,” said De Lyle, as he entered the sitting
room, “I have a small job for you, and if your
conscience was as tender as a chicken's wing, we
might fail to come to an understanding. But as,
like old soldiers, we have seen some little service
together, and you have had no reason to complain
of my generosity—why there can be little difficulty
in arranging this matter, more particularly as
I've had a windfall to-day and feel as rich as Crœsus—and
you shall be the first object of my
bounty.”

Thus saying, he placed his arm on the shoulder
of Burchard, with that easy familiarity which a long
community of vicious interests had engendered between
these two worthies.

The individual addressed as Burchard had risen
from his seat at De Lyle's entrance; and in the premature
look of age, the sallow and wrinkled brow,

and the body drawn to the left side by a wound in
the breast, the reader would fail to recognize the
slender youth who sat at the deal table in the tap
room of the same building, when Maddox and Glenthorne
entered it together; and who was afterwards
consigned to the brink of the grave by the pistol ball
of the latter. It was indeed the unfortunate offspring
of Glenthorne, whose moral sensibilities—
never the most acute—had by the associations which
surrounded him, become hardened against the impulses
of honour, integrity and sympathy.

De Lyle then proceeded to inform him that Clifton—whom
he described as a heartless villain, who
had by means of fraud fleeced him of large sums at
the gaming table, and who was bent on his ruin
that he might step in his situation as partner in the
firm of which his father was the head, was engaged
with several of his vicious associates, to plunder
some innocent countrymen, who would on that evening
be inveighed into a gaming house in —
street, and that to prevent such unprincipled robbery,
and at the same time to execute justice on a miscreant
who desired his overthrow, he enjoined Burchard
to give information to the police magistrates,
who would detach a strong posse of the watch and
marshals to secure the delinquents in the exercise of
their vallainous calling.

The hour of ten was suggested, as the proper
time to arrest the offenders, and after so describing
Clifton's person that Burchard would certainly recognize

him, and enjoining the most perfect secrecy,
(as to his, De Lyle's,) agency in the matter, he appeared
satisfied with his scheme, and gave his accomplice
a hundred dollar bill, informing him that it
was but an earnest of his future bounty, if the plan
succeeded to his wishes.

At the first mention of Clifton's name the dull eye
of Burchard momentarily lighted up as if some glimmering
recollection that the name was familiar to his
ear, crossed his mind, but the impression soon appeared
to be dissipated, and he continued to listen with
his usual stolidity and nonchalance, while the details
of the villany he was to commit, were repeated
by his artful instructor. And here it may be proper
to pause in our narrative, while we give a passing
glance at that mysterious inconsistency in the human
mind, which shrinks from exposing the depths
of its own depravity even to the most reckless and
guilty of its associates—but which never fails to frame
an excuse for its delinquencies, either in the assumed
necessity of the case, or by the employment of
some cunningly devised fable.

Thus while De Lyle from long experience, and
perfectly aware of the avidity with which Burchard
would obey his behests, whatever might be the criminality
involved in their accomplishment, if the
compensation was liberal and the risk to his person
not formidable, he still could not introduce the subject
without attempting to palliate this nefarious conspiracy,
to destroy the character of his victim, by imputing

to him those crimes which were daily perpetrated
by himself and his accomplices.

As may be supposed, Burchard professed his willingness
to undertake the task assigned to him, and
De Lyle retired from the tavern.