Reminiscences of a Raven Author:James Greenwood Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. Containing An Account Of Two Mubbebs, And A Plot Fob A Pbentice's Buin By Peg. " My scheme was a bold one; it encompassed the assassination of... more » my sister and the Portsmouth raven, and the latter bird's personation by myself at the ship-chandler's. " I assure you, my dear Rough, I underwent a very severe struggle with my better nature before I could bring myself to contemplate my sister's destruction with the coolness necessary to its neat consummation. But what other course was open to me ? I saw at once how deeply she was smitten by the town raven, and that she would never consent to his murder; nay, knowing her passionate temper, as I well did, I have no doubt, if I had been rash enoughPeg's Reflections. 43 to suggest it to her, that she would at once have revealed to him the conspiracy, and between them my doom would have been pretty certain. True, I might have slain her lover without her knowledge; but then she would certainly have found it out afterwards, and carried the news to my parents in London; or even supposing she would have hushed it up, I am quite sure her greedy nature would never have admitted of my unmolested enjoyment of the treasure beneath the tile, and she would probably have marred the neatest part of the whole plot—my personation of the defunct bird at the house of the chandler. " Even as it was, this latter business was surrounded by difficulties formidable enough to daunt a bird of only ordinary tact and pluck. As far as I had an opportunity of observing, the bold ' Yaak' and myself were pretty much of a size and shape; but then, you see, besides being familiar with the ways of the town, hecould talk man-language and I couldn't, and he might have marks about him which would speedily lead to the detection of the imposture; still,...« less