Authors: George W. M. Reynolds,James Malcolm Rymer
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 tomorrow 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.
"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'other day by the young
area-sneak what got his discharge out o' Coldbath Jug, 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
together somewhere up Soho way.
They got off safe with the swag; and the Resurrection Man went on to the Mint.
Jem took to the Old House in Chick Lane, and let me in for my reglars But after
a weak or ten days the Resurrection Man nosed upon him, and will turn King's
Evidence afore the beaks. So Jem was handed over to the dubsman; and this time
he'll get lagged for life."
"In course he will. He has
been twice to the floating academy. 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 and that we'll spend in brandy presently. My mawleys
is reg'larly itching for a job.
"Someot must be done - and that soon too, returned Bill
Bolter. "By-the-by, 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."
"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 et 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 even 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,
which didn't come off; for Tom
had been at the boozing-ken
all the night before, and had
blowed his hand up in a lark with some davy's dust.
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!"
"Might n'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
sever tell a lie to a pal
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 footpath; 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
so be as you was going to Tuck-up
Fair
tomorrow 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."
"The devil he was! Well,
there ain't no good to be done in that quarter, then? Do you know any cither
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. 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 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
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 some 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.
Even at the late hour at which the two burglars 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 woman 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. 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 two burglars nodded familiarly to the landlord and his
wife, as they passed the bar, and entered a little, low, smoky room,
denominated "the parlour." A tremendous fire burnt in the grate, at
which a short, thin, dark man, with a most forbidding countenance, was sitting,
agreeably occupied in toasting a sausage. The right hand of this man had lost
the two middle fingers, the stumps of which were still covered with plaster, as
if the injury had been recent. He was dressed in a complete suit of corduroy:
the sleeves of his jacket, the lower part of his waistcoat, and the front of
his trousers, were covered with grease. On the table near him stood a huge
piece of bread and a pot of beer.
This individual was Tom the Cracksman - the most adroit and
noted burglar in the metropolis. He kept a complete list of all the gentlemen's
houses in the environs of London, with the numbers of servants and male
inhabitants in each. He never attempted any dwelling within a circuit of three
miles of the General Post Office; his avocation was invariably exercised in the
suburbs of London, where the interference of the police was less probable.
At the moment when we introduce him to our readers, he was
somewhat "down in his luck," as he himself expressed it, the accident
which had happened to his hand, through playing with gunpowder, having
completely disabled him for the preceding two months, and the landlord of the
"boozing-ken" having made it an invariable rule never to give credit.
Thus, though the Cracksman had spent hundreds of pounds in that house, he could
not obtain so much as a glass of "all sorts without the money.
The Cracksman was alone in the parlour when Dick Flairer and
Bill Bolter entered. Having toasted his sausage, the renowned burglar placed it
upon tin bread, and began eating his supper by means of, formidable
clasp-knife, without deigning to cast a glance around.
At length Bill Bolter burst out into a loud laugh, and
exclaimed, "Why, Tom, you're getting proud all on a sudden: you won't
speak to your friends."
"Halloo, Bill, is that you?" ejaculated the
burglar. "When did they turn you out of the jug?"
"This mornin' at twelve; and with never a brown in my
pocket. Luckily the old woman had turned the children to some use during the
time I was at the stepper, or else I don't know what would have become on
us."
"And I'm as completely stitched up as a man could be if
he'd just come out o' the workus," said Tom. "I just now spent my
last tanner
for this here grub. Ah! it's a d—d hard thing for a man like me to
be brought down to cag-mag," - he added, glancing sulkily at the sausage,
which he was eating half raw.
"We all sees ups and downs," observed Dick
Flairer. "My opinion is that we are too free when we have the blunt."
"And there's them as is too close when we haven't
it," returned the Cracksman bitterly. "There's the landlord of this
crib, won't give a gen'leman like me tick not for one blessed farden. But
things can't go on so: I'm blowed If I won't do a crack that shall be worth
while; and then I'll open a ken in opposition to this. You'd see whether I'd
refuse a pal tick in the hour of need."
"Well, you don't suppose that we are here just to amuse
ourselves," said Dick: "we come to see you."
"Is anythink to be done?" demanded the Cracksman.
"First answer me this," cried Dick: "has that
crib at Upper Clapton been cracked yet?"
"What, where there's a young swell —"
"I don't know nothing more about it than wot you told
me," interrupted Dick. "Me and you was to have done it; and then you
went larking with the davy's-dust —"
"I know the crib you mean," said the Cracksmam
hastily: "that job is yet to be done. Are you the chaps to have a hand in
it."
"That's the very business that we're come for,"
answered Bill.
"Well," resumed the Cracksman, "it seems
we're