The husband of that vile woman had remained unmoved in his seat, quietly smoking his pipe, while this horrible scene took place; and if he did not actually enjoy it, he was very far from disapproving of it.
“There,” said the woman, gasping for breath, “that’ll teach them to mind how they come home another time with less than eightpence in their pockets. One would actually think it was the people’s fault, and not the children’s: but it ain’t—for people grows more charitable every day. The more humbug, the more charity.”
“Right enough there,” growled the man. “A reg’lar knowing beggar can make his five bob a day. He can walk through a matter of sixty streets; and in each street he can get a penny. He’s sure o’ that. Well, there’s his five bob.”
“To be sure,” cried the woman: “and therefore such nice-looking little children as our’n couldn’t help getting eighteen-pence if they was to try, the lazy vagabonds! What would ha’ become of me all the time that you was in the Jug this last bout, if they hadn’t have worked better than they do now? As it is, every thing’s up the spout—all made away with——”
“Well, we’ll devilish soon have ’em all down again,” interrupted the man. “Dick will be here presently; and he and I shall soon settle some job or another. But hadn’t you better give them kids their supper, and make ’em leave off snivellin’ afore Dick comes?”
“So I will, Bill,” answered the woman; and throwing the children each a piece of bread, she added, in a cross tone, “And now tumble into bed, and make haste about it; and if you don’t hold that blubbering row I’ll take the poker to you this time.”
The little boy gave the larger piece of bread to his sister; and, having divested her of her rags, he made her as comfortable as he could on the filthy mattress, covering her over not only with her clothes but also with his own. He kissed her affectionately, but without making any noise with his lips, for fear that that should irritate his mother; and then lay down beside her.
Clasped in each other’s arms, those two children of poverty—the victims of horrible and daily cruelties—repulsed by a father whose neck they had longed to encircle with their little arms, and whose hand they had vainly sought to cover with kisses; trembling even at the looks of a mother whom they loved in spite of all her harshness towards them, and from whose lips one word—one single word of kindness would have gladdened their poor hearts;—under such circumstances, we say, did these persecuted but affectionate infants, still smarting with the pain of cruel blows, and with tears upon their cheeks, thus did they sink into slumber in each other’s arms!
Merciful God! it makes the blood boil to think that this is no over-drawn picture—that there is no exaggeration in these details; but that there really exist monsters in a human form—wearing often, too, the female shape—who make the infancy and early youth of their offspring one continued hell—one perpetual scene of blows, curses, and cruelties! Oh! for how many of our fellow-creatures have we to blush:—how many demons are there who have assumed our mortal appearance, who dwell amongst us, and who set us examples the most hideous—the most appalling!
As soon as the children were in bed, the woman went out, and returned in a few minutes with two pots of strong beer—purchased with the alms that day bestowed by the charitable upon her suffering offspring.
She and her husband then partook of some cold meat, of which there was a plentiful provision—enough to have allowed the boy and the girl each a good slice of bread.
And the bread which this man and this woman ate was new and good; but the morsels thrown to the children were stale and mouldy.
“I tell you what,” said the woman, whispering in a mysterious tone to her husband, “I have thought of an excellent plan to make Fanny useful.”
“Well, Polly, and what’s that?” demanded the man.
“Why,” resumed his wife, her countenance wearing an expression of demoniac cruelty and cunning, “I’ve been thinking that Harry will soon be of use to you in your line. He’ll be so handy to shove through a window, or to sneak down a area and hide himself all day in a cellar to open the door at night,—or a thousand things.”
“In course he will,” said Bill, with an approving nod.
“Well, but then there’s Fanny. What good can she do for us for years and years to come? She won’t beg—I know she won’t. It’s all that boy’s lies when he says she does: he is very fond of her, and only tells us that to screen her. Now I’ve a very great mind to do someot that will make her beg—aye, and be glad to beg—and beg too in spite of herself.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Why, doing that to her which will put her entirely at our mercy, and at the same time render her an object of such interest that the people must give her money. I’d wager that with my plan she’d get her five bob a day; and what a blessin’ that would be.”
“But how?” said Bill impatiently.
“And then,” continued the woman, without heeding this question, “she wouldn’t want Henry with her; and you might begin to make him useful some how or another. All we should have to do would be to take Fanny every day to some good thoroughfare, put her down there of a mornin’, and go and fetch her agen at night; and I’ll warrant she’d keep us in beer—aye, and in brandy too.”
“What the devil are you driving at?” demanded the man.
“Can’t you guess?”
“No—blow me if I can.”
“Do you fancy the scheme?”
“Am I a fool? Why, of course I do: but how the deuce is all this to be done? You never could learn Fanny to be so fly as that?”
“I don’t want to learn her anything at all. What I propose is to force it on her.”
“And how is that?” asked the man.
“By putting her eyes out,” returned the woman.
Her husband was a robber—yes, and a murderer: but he started when this proposal met his ear.
“There’s nothin’ like a blind child to excite compassion,” added the woman coolly. “I know it for a fact,” she continued, after a pause, seeing that her husband did not answer her. “There’s old Kate Betts, who got all her money by travelling about the country with two blind girls; and she made ’em blind herself too—she’s often told me how she did it; and that has put the idea into my head.”
“And how did she do it?” asked the man, lighting his pipe, but not glancing towards his wife; for although her words had made a deep impression upon him, he was yet struggling with the remnant of a parental feeling, which remained in his heart in spite of himself.
“She covered the eyes over with cockle shells, the eye-lids, recollect, being wide open; and in each shell there was a large black beetle. A bandage tied tight round the head, kept the shells in their place; and the shells kept the eyelids open. In a few days the eyes got quite blind, and the pupils had a dull white appearance.”
“And you’re serious, are you?” demanded the man.
“Quite,” returned the woman, boldly: “why not?”
“Why not indeed?” echoed Bill, who approved of the horrible scheme, but shuddered at the cruelty of it, villain as he was.
“Ah! why not?” pursued the female: “one must make one’s children useful somehow or another. So, if you don’t mind,—I’ll send Harry out alone to-morrow morning and keep Fanny at home. The moment the boy’s out of the way, I’ll try my hand at Kate Betts’s plan.”
The conversation was interrupted by a low knock at the attic-door.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE BOOZING-KEN.
“COME in,” exclaimed Bill: “I des say it’s Dick Flairer.”
“Well, Bill Bolter, old fellow—here you are at last,” cried the new comer. “I s’pose you knowed I should come here this evenin’. If you hadn’t sent me that message t’othe
r day by the young area-sneak[37] what got his discharge out o’ Coldbath Jug,[38] I should ha’ come all the same. I remembered very well that you was sentenced to six months on it; and I’d calkilated days and weeks right enough.”
“Sit down, Dick, and blow a cloud. Wot news since I see you last?”
“None. You know that Crankey Jem is nabbed. He and the Resurrection Man did a pannie[39] together somewhere up Soho way. They got off safe with the swag; and the Resurrection Man went on to the Mint.[40] Jem took to the Old House in Chick Lane,[41] and let me in for my reglars.[42] But after a week or ten days the Resurrection Man nosed[43] upon him, and will turn King’s Evidence[44] afore the beaks. So Jem was handed over to the dubsman;[45] and this time he’ll get lagged for life.”
“In course he will. He has been twice to the floating academy.[46] There ain’t no chance this time.”
“But as for business,” said Dick Flairer, after a pause, during which he lighted his pipe and paid his respects to the beer, “my gropus is as empty as a barrister’s bag the day after sessions. I have but one bob left in my cly[47] and that we’ll spend in brandy presently. My mawleys[48] is reg’larly itching for a job.”
“Someot must be done—and that soon too,” returned Bill Bolter. “By-the-bye, s’pose we try that crib which we meant to crack four year or so ago, when you got nabbed the very next mornin’ for faking a blowen’s flag from her nutty arm.”[49]
“What—you mean Markham’s up between Kentish Town and Lower Holloway?” said Dick.
“The same. Don’t you recollect—we settled it all the wery night as we threw that young fellow down the trap in Chick Lane? But, by goles—Dick—what the deuce is the matter with you?”
Dick Flairer had turned deadly pale at the mention of this circumstance: his knees shook; and he cast an uneasy and rapid glance around him.
“Come, Dick—don’t be a fool,” said the woman: “you don’t think there is any ghosts here, do you?”
“Ghosts!” he exclaimed, with a convulsive start; then, after a moment’s silence, during which his two companions surveyed him with curiosity and fear, he added in a low and subdued tone, “Bill, you know there wasn’t a man in all the neighbourhood bolder than me up to the time when you got into trouble: you know that I didn’t care for ghosts or churchyards, or dark rooms, or anything of that kind. Now it’s quite altered. If ever a man seed speret of a person, that man was me about two months ago!”
“What the devil does this mean?” cried Bolter, looking uneasily around him in his turn.
“Two months ago,” continued Dick Flairer, “I was up Hackney way, expecting to do a little business with Tom the Cracksman,[50] which didn’t come off; for Tom had been at the boozing-ken[51] all the night before, and had blowed his hand up in a lark with some davy’s-dust.[52] Well, I was coming home again, infernal sulky at the affair’s breaking down, when just as I got to Cambridge-Heath-gate I heerd the gallopin’ of horses. I looks round, nat’rally enough;—but who should I see upon a lovely chestnut mare——”
“Who?” said Bill anxiously.
“The speret of that wery same young feller as you and I threw down the trap at the old house in Chick Lane four year and some months ago!”
“Mightn’t it have been a mistake, Dick?” demanded Bill.
“Why, of course it was,” exclaimed the woman.
“No, it warn’t,” said Dick very seriously. “I never tell a lie to a pal,[53] Bill—and that you knows well enough. I seed that young man as plain as I can now see you, Bill—as plain as I see you, Polly Bolter. I thought I should have dropped: I fell right against a post in the foot path; but I took another good long look. There he was—the same face—the same hair—the same dress—everything the same! I couldn’t be mistaken: I’d swear to it.”
“And would you tell this story to the parish-prig,[54] if so be as you was going to Tuck-up Fair [55] to-morrow morning?” demanded Bill.
“I would, by G—d!” cried Dick solemnly, striking his hand upon the table at the same time.
There was a long pause. Even the woman, who was perhaps more hardened in vice and more inaccessible to anything in the shape of sentiment than her male companions, seemed impressed by the positive manner in which the man told his story.
“Well—come, this won’t do!” ejaculated Dick, after the lapse of some minutes. “Ghost or no ghost, we can’t afford to be honest.”
“No—we must be up to someot,” returned Bill;—“if we went and offered ourselves to the parish prig he wouldn’t take us as his clerk and sexton; so if he won’t give us a lift, who the devil will? But, about that Markham’s place?”
“The old fellow died a few months ago, I heard,” said Dick; “the eldest son run away; and that brought about the father’s death. As for the young ’un, he was grabbed this arternoon for smashing queer screens.”[56]
“The devil he was! Well, there ain’t no good to be done in that quarter, then? Do you know any other spekilation?”
“Tom the Cracksman and me was going to do a pannie in a neat little crib up by Clapton, that time when he blowed his hand nearly off, larking with his ben-culls.[57] I don’t see why it shouldn’t be done now. Tom told me about it. A young swell, fond of horses and dogs—lives exceeding quiet—never no company scarcely—but plenty of tin.”
“Servants?” said Bill, interrogatively.
“One man—an old groom; and two women—three in all,” replied Dick.
“That’ll do,” observed the woman, approvingly.
“Must we speak to the Cracksman first?” demanded Bill.
“Yes—fair play’s a jewel. I don’t believe the Resurrection Man would ever have chirped[58] if he had been treated properly. But if this thing is to be done, let it be done to-morrow night; and now let us go to the boozing-ken and speak to the Cracksman.”
“I’m your man,” said Bill; and the two thieves left the room together.
At the top of Union Court is Bleeding Hart Yard, leading to Kirby Street, at right angles to which is a narrow alley terminating on Great Saffron Hill. This was the road the burglars took.
It was now eleven o’clock, and a thick fog—so dense that it seemed as if it could be cut with a knife—prevailed. The men kept close together, for they could not see a yard before them. Here and there lights glimmered in the miserable casements; and the fog, thus faintly illuminated at intervals, appeared of a dingy copper colour.
The burglars proceeded along Saffron Hill.
The streets were nearly empty; but now and then the pale, squalid, and nameless forms of vice were heard at the door-ways of a few houses, endeavouring to lure the passers-by into their noisome abodes. A great portion of the unwholesome life of that district had sought relief from the pangs of misery and the remorse of crime, in sleep. Alas! the slumbers of the poor and of the guilty are haunted by the lean, lank, and gaunt visages of penury, and all the fearful escort of turpitude!
Through the broken shutters of several windows came the sounds of horrible revelry—ribald and revolting; and from others issued cries, shrieks, oaths and the sounds of heavy blows—a sad evidence of the brutality of drunken quarrels. Numerous Irish families are crowded together in the small back rooms of the houses on Saffron Hill; and the husbands and fathers gorge themselves, at the expense of broken-hearted wives and famishing children, with the horrible compound of spirit and vitriol, sold at the low gin-shops in the neighbourhood. Hosts of “Italian masters” also congregate in that locality; and the screams of the unfortunate boys, who writhe beneath the lash of their furious employers on their return home after an unsuccessful day with their organs, monkies, white mice, or chalk images, mingle with the other appalling or disgusting sounds, which make night in that district truly hideous.[59]
Even at the late hour at which the two burgla
rs were wending their way over Saffron Hill, boys of ages ranging from seven to fifteen, were lurking in the courts and alleys, watching for any decently dressed persons, who might happen to pass that way. Those boys had for the most part been seduced from the control of their parents by the receivers of stolen goods in Field Lane, or else had been sent into the streets to thieve by those vile parents themselves.
Thus, as the hulks, the convict-ships, the penitentiaries, and the gallows, relieve society of one generation of villains, another is springing up to occupy the vacancy.
And this will always be the case so long as laws tend only to punish—and aim not to reform.
Dick Flairer and Bill Bolter proceeded, without exchanging many words together, through the dense fog, until they reached a low public-house, which they entered.
Nothing could be more filthy nor revolting than the interior of this “boozing-ken.” Sweeps, costermongers, Jews, Irish bricklayers, and women of the town were crowding round the bar, drinking various malt and spirituous liquors fearfully adulterated. The beer, having been originally deluged with water to increase the quantity, had been strengthened by drugs of most deleterious qualities—such as tobacco-juice and cocculus-indicus. The former is a poison as subtle as that of a viper: the latter is a berry of such venomous properties, that if thrown into a pond, it will speedily send the fish up to the surface to gasp and die.[60] The gin was mixed with vitriol, as hinted above; and the whiskey, called “Paddy’s Eye-Water,” with spirits of turpentine. The pots and glasses in which the various beverages were served up, were all stood upon double trays, with a cavity between, and numerous holes in the upper surface. The overflowings and drainings were thus caught and saved; and the landlord dispensed the precious compound, which bore the name of “all sorts,” at a halfpenny a glass.
The Mysteries of London Volume 1 Page 16
