Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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When the audience consented to part with their favourite, the curtain rose for the representation of a transpontine melodrama of the most pronounced and formidable description.

It was a little incongruous, but had, nevertheless, all the elements to commend it to the appreciative audience, for whom it had been written by a veteran playwright who dealt in such hotly spiced commodities.

It would be expecting too much of us or any other man to describe the plot after the fashion of the newspaper critics, for to say the truth the incidents in the drama were too chaotic and heartrending to admit of their being placed before the reader in black and white.

The leading personages may, however, be briefly described.

In the first place, there was a wicked baronet, who persecuted the heroine of the piece. She was, as a matter of course, an innocent and artless seraphic creature, entitled the “Lily of Ludgate.”

The aforesaid baronet suborns a ruffian of the deepest die, called “Black Hugh.”

This personage has committed an endless number of crimes; he is cast into gaol, from which he contrives, after the approved fashion, to make his escape.