Authors: George W. M. Reynolds,James Malcolm Rymer
all stumped up, and can't hold out no longer. We won't put this
thing off - it shall be done to-morrow night. Eleven's the hour. I will go
Dalston way - you two can arrange about the roads you'll take, so long as you
don't go together; and we'll all three meet at the gate of Ben Price's field at
eleven o'clock."
"So far, so good," said
Dick Flairer. "I've got a darkey but we want the kifers
and tools."
"And a sack," added Bill.
"We must get all these things of old Moses Hart, the
fence; and give him a share of the swag," exclaimed the Cracksman.
"Don't bother yourselves about
that;
I'll make it all right."
"Well, now that's
settled," said Dick. "I've got a bob in my pocket, and we'll have a
rinse of the bingo."
The burglar went out to the bar, and returned with some
brandy, which he and his companions drank pure.
"So Crankey Jem's in quad?" observed the
Cracksman, after a pause.
"Yes - and the Resurrection Man too: but he has
chirped, and will be let out after sessions."
"You have heard of his freak over in the Borough I
s'pose," said the Cracksman.
"No I haven't," answered Bill. "What was
it?"
"Oh! a capital joke. The story's rather long; but it
will bear telling. There's a young fellow of the name of Sam Chisney; and his
father died about two year ago leaving two thousand pounds in the funds. The
widder was to enjoy the interest during
her
life; and then it was to come, principal and interest both, to
Sam. Well, the old woman gets into debt, and is arrested. She goes over to the
Bench, takes the Rules, and hires a nice lodging on the ground floor in
Belvidere Place. The young feller wants his money very bad, and ,doesn't seem
at all disposed to wait for the old lady's death, particklar as she might
live another ten years. Well, he comes across the Resurrection Man, and tells
him just how he's sitivated. The Resurrection Man thinks over the matter; and,
being a bit of a scholar, understands the business. Off they goes and consults
a lawyer named Mac Chizzle, who lives up in the New Road, somewhere near the
Servants' Arms
there."
"I know that crib well," observed Bill. "It's
a were tidy and respectable one."
"So Mac Chizzle, Sam Chisney, and the Resurrection Man
lay their heads together, and settle the whole business. The young chap then
goes over to the old woman, and tells her what is to be done. She consents: and
all's right. Well, that very day the old lady is taken so bad - so very bad,
she thinks she's a goin' to die. She won't have no doctor; but she sends for a
nurse as she knows - an old creatur' up'ards of seventy and nearly in her
dotage. Then Sam comes; and he's so sorry to see his poor dear mother so ill;
and she begins to talk very pious, and to bless him, and tell him as how she
feels that she can't live four-and-twenty hours. Sam cries dreadful, and swears
he won't leave his poor dear mother - no, not for all the world. He sits up
with her all night, and is so exceedin' kind; and he goes out and gets a bottle
of medicine - which arter all worn't nothink but gin and peppermint. The old
nurse is quite pleased to think that the old woman has got such a attentive
son; and he sends out to get a little rum; and the old nurse goes to bed blind
drunk.
"What the devil was all that for ?" demanded Dick.
"You'll see in a moment," resumed the Cracksman.
"Next night at about ten o'clock the young fellow says to the nurse-
'Nurse, my poor dear mother is wasting away: she can't last out the night. I do
feel so miserable; and I fancy a drop of the rum that they sell at a partickler
public, close up by Westminster Bridge.' 'Well, my dear,' says the nurse, 'I'll
go and get a bottle there; for I feel that we shall both want someot to cheer
us through this blessed night.' So the old nurse toddles off to get the rum at
the place Sam told her. He had sent her away to a good long distance on
purpose. The moment she was gone, Mrs. Chisney gets up, dresses herself as
quick as she can, and is all ready just as a hackney-coach drives up to the
door. Sam runs down: all was as right as the mail. There was the Resurrection
Man in the coach, with the dead body of a old woman that had only been buried
the day before, and that he'd had up again during the night. So Sam and the
Resurrection Man they gets the stiff 'un up stairs, and Mrs. Chisney she jumps
into the coach and drives away to a comfortable lodging which Mac Chizzle had
got for her up in Somers Town.
"Now I begin to twig," exclaimed Dick Flairer.
"Presently the old nurse comes back; and Sam meets her
on the stairs, whimpering as hard as he could; and says, 'Oh! nurse-your poor
dear missus is gone: your poor dear missus is gone!' So she was; no mistake
about that. Well, the nurse begins to cry; but Sam gets her up stairs, and
plies her so heartily with the rum that she got blind drunk once more, without
ever thinking of laying the body out; so she didn't find out it was quite cold.
Next day she washed it, and laid it out properly; and an she was nearly blind,
she didn't notice that the features wasn't altogether the same. The body, too,
was a remarkable fresh 'un; and so everything went on as well as could be
wished. Sam then stepped over to the Marshal of the Bench, and give him notice
of his mother's death; and as she died in the Rules, there must be an inquest.
So a jury of prisoners was called: and the old nurse was examined; and she said
how exceedin' attentive the young man had been, and all that; and then Sam
himself was called. Of course he told a good tale; and then the Coroner says,
'Well, gentlemen, I s'pose you'll like to look at the body.' So over they
all goes to Belvidere Place, and the foreman of the Jury just pokes his nose in
at the door of the room where the corpse was lying; and no one else even went
more than half up the staircase. After this, the jury is quite satisfied, and
return a verdict of '
Died from Natural Causes, accelerated by confinement in
the Rules of the King's Bench Prison;
'
and to this - as they were prisoners themselves - they added some
very severe remarks upon '
the deceased's unfeeling and remorseless
creditors.
'
Then comes the funeral, which was
very respectable; and Sam Chisney was chief mourner; and he cried a good deal.
All the people who saw it said they never saw a young man so dreadful cut up.
In this way they killed the old woman: the son proved her death, got the money,
and sold it out every farden; and he and his mother is keeping a public-house
together somewhere up Spitalfields way. The Resurrection Man and Man Chizzle
each got a hundred for their share in the business; and the thing passed off as
comfortable as possible."
"Well, I'm blowed if that isn't the best lark I ever heard,"
ejaculated Dick, when the Cracksman had brought his tale to an end.
"So it is," added Bill.
The parlour of the "boozing-ken" now received some
additional guests - all belonging to the profession of roguery, though not all
following precisely the same line. Thus there were Cracksmen, Magsmen,
Area-sneaks, Public Patterers, Buzgloaks,
Dummy-Hunters, Compter-Prigs, Smashers, Flimsy-Kiddies, Macers, Coiners,
Begging-Letter Impostors,
&c. &c.
The orgies of that motley crew
soon became uproarious and revolting. Those who had money lavished it with the
most reckless profusion; and thus those who had none were far from being in
want of liquor.
The Cracksman was evidently a great man amongst this
horrible fraternity: his stories and songs invariably commanded attention.
It is not our purpose to detain the reader much longer in
the parlour of the "boozing-ken," we have doubtless narrated enough
in this and the preceding chapter to give him a faint idea of some or the
horrors of London. We cannot, however, allow the morning scene to pass
unnoticed.
THE orgie lasted throughout the night in the boozing-ken. There
were plenty of kind guests who, being flush of money, treated those that had
none; and thus Tom the Cracksman, Dick Flairer, and Bill Bolter, were enabled
to indulge, to their heart's content, in the adulterated liquors sold at the
establishment.
The cold raw November morning was ushered in with a fine
mizzling rain. The gas-lights were extinguished in the parlour; and the dawn of
day fell upon countenances inflamed with debauchery, and rendered hideous by
dirt and dark bristling beards.
That was a busy hour for the landlord and landlady of the
"boozing-ken." The neighbours who "used the house," came
in, one after another - male and female, to take their "morning."
This signified their first dram.
Then was it that the "all sorts" was in great demand.
Old clothesmen, sweeps, dustmen, knackers, crimps, and women of the town,
crowded round the bar, imbibing the strange but potent compound. Even young
boys and girls of tender age seemed as a matter of course to require the
morning stimulant ere they commenced the avocations or business of the day.
Matted hair, blear-eyes, grimy faces, pestiferous breaths, and hollow cheeks,
combined with rags and tatters, were the characteristics of the wretches that
thronged about the bar of that lowest of low drinking-dens.
Nothing is more revolting to the eye than the unwashed
aspect of dissipation by the dingy light of the early dawn. The women had
evidently jumped from their beds and huddled on their miserable attire without
the slightest regard to decency, in order to lose no time in obtaining their
morning dram. The men appeared as if they had slept in their clothes all night;
and the pieces of straw in the coarse matted hair of many of them, plainly
denoted of what materials their beds were made.
They all entered shivering, cold, depressed, and sullen. The
dram instantly produced an extraordinary change in each. Artificial gaiety - a
gaiety which developed itself in ribald jokes, profane oaths, and obscene talk
- was diffused around. Those who could afford it indulged in a second and a
third glass; and some tossed for pots of beer. The men lighted their pipes; and
the place was impregnated with the narcotic fumes of the strongest and worst
tobacco - that bastard opium of the poor.
Presently the policeman "upon that beat" lounged
in, and was complimented by the landlady with a glass of her " best
cordial gin." He seemed well acquainted with many of the individuals
there, and laughed heartily at the jokes uttered in his presence. When he was
gone, the inmates of the "boozing-ken" all declared, with one accord,
"that he was the most niblike*
[*Gentlemanly - agreeable]
blue-bottle in the entire
force."
In the parlour there were several men occupied in warming
beer, toasting herrings, and frying sausages. The tables were smeared over with
a rag as black as a hat, by a dirty slip-shod drab of a girl; and with the same
cloth she dusted the frame of wire-work which protected the dingy face of the
huge Dutch clock. Totally regardless of her presence, the men continued their
obscene and filthy discourse; and she proceeded with her work as coolly as if
nothing offensive met her ears.
There are, thank God! thousands of British women who
constitute the glory of their sex - chaste, virtuous, delicate-minded, and pure
in thought and action, - beings who are but one remove from angels now, but who
will be angels hereafter when they succeed to their inheritance of immortality.
It must be to such as these that the eyes of the poet are turned when he
eulogises, in glowing and impassioned language, the entire sex comprehended
under the bewitching name of WOMAN! For, oh! how would his mind be shocked,
were he to wander for a few hours amidst those haunts of vice and sinks of
depravity which we have just described;- his spirit, towering on eagle-wing up
into the sunny skies of poesy, would flutter back again to the earth, at the aspect
of those foul and loathsome wretches, who, in the female shape, are found in
the dwelling-places of poverty and crime!
But to continue.
Bill Bolter took leave of his companions at about eight
o'clock in the morning, after a night of boisterous revelry; and rapidly
retraced his steps homewards.
Field Lane was now swarming with life. The miserable little
shops were all open; and their proprietors were busy in displaying their
commodities to the best advantage. Here Jewesses were occupied in suspending
innumerable silk handkerchiefs to wires and poles over their doors: there the
"translators" of old shoes were employed in spreading their stock
upon the shelves that filled the place where the windows ought to have been. In
one or two low dark shops women were engaged in arranging herrings, stock fish,
and dried haddocks: in another, coals, vegetables, and oysters were exposed for
sale; and not a few were hung with "old clothes as good as new." To
this, we may add that in the centre of the great metropolis of the mightiest
empire in the world - in a city possessing a police which annually costs the
nation thousands of pounds - and in a country whose laws are vaunted as being
adapted to reach and baffle all degrees of crime - numbers of receivers of
stolen goods were boldly, safely, and tranquilly exposing or sale the articles
which their agents had "picked up" during the preceding night.
There was, however, nothing in the aspect of Field Lane at
all new to the eyes of Bill Bolter. Indeed he merely went down that Jew's
bazaar, in his way homewards, because he was anxious to purchase certain
luxuries in the shape of red-herrings for his breakfast, he having borrowed a
trifle of a friend at the "boozing-ken" to supply his immediate
necessities.
When he arrived at his lodgings in Lower Union Court, he was
assailed with a storm of reproaches, menaces, and curses, on the part of his
wife, for having stayed all night at the "boozing ken." At first that
cruel and remorseless man trembled - actually turned pale and trembled in the
presence of the virago who thus attacked him. But at length his passion was
aroused by her taunts and threats; and, after bandying some horrible abuse and
foul epithets with the infuriate woman, he was provoked to blows. With one
stroke of his enormous fist, he felled her to the ground, and then brutally
kicked her as she lay almost senseless at his feet.
He then coolly sate down by the fire to cook his own
breakfast, without paying the least attention to the two poor children, who
were crying bitterly in that corner of the room where they had slept.
In a few minutes the woman rose painfully from
the floor. Her features were
distorted and her lips were livid with rage. She dared not, however, attempt to
irritate her furious husband any farther: still her passion required a vent.
She looked round, and seemed to reflect for a moment.
Then, in the next instant, all her concentrated rage burst
upon the heads of her unhappy offspring.
With a horrible curse at their squalling, the woman leapt,
like a tiger-cat, upon the poor little boy and girl. Harry, as usual, covered
his sister with his own thin and emaciated form as well as he could; and a
torrent of blows rained down upon his naked flesh. The punishment which that maddened
wretch thus inflicted upon him, was horrible in the extreme.
A thousand times before that day had Polly Bolter treated
her children with demoniac cruelty; and her husband had not attempted to
interfere. On the present occasion, however, he took it into his head to meddle
in the matter - for the simple reason that, having quarrelled with his wife, he
hated her at the moment, and greedily availed himself of any opportunity to
thwart or oppose her.
Starting from his chair, he exclaimed, "Come, now - I
say, leave those children alone. They haven't done nothing to you."
"You mind your own business," returned the woman,
desisting for an instant from her attack upon the boy, and casting a look of
mingled defiance and contempt at her husband.
That woman's countenance, naturally ugly and revolting, was
now absolutely frightful.
"I say, leave them children alone," cried Bill.
"If you touch 'em again, I'll drop down on you."
"Oh, you coward! to hit a woman! I wish I was a man,
I'd pay you off for this: and if I was, you wouldn't dare strike me."
"Mind what you say, Poll; I'm in no humour to he teased
this morning. Keep your mawleys*
[*Hands]
off the kids, or I'm blessed if I
don't do for you."
"Ugh - coward! This is the way I dare you;" and
she dealt a tremendous blow upon her boy's shoulder.
The poor lad screamed piteously: the hand of his mother had
fallen with the weight of a sledge hammer upon his naked flesh.
But that ferocious blow was echoed by another, at scarcely a
moment's interval. The latter was dealt by the fist of Bill Bolter, and fell
upon the back part of the ruthless mother's head with stunning force.
The woman fell forward, and struck her face violently
against the corner of the deal table.
Her left eye came in contact with the angle of the board,
and was literally crushed in its socket - an awful retribution upon her who
only a few hours before was planning how to plunge her innocent and helpless
daughter into the eternal night of blindness.
She fell upon the floor, and a low moan escaped our lips.
She endeavoured to carry her right hand to her now sightless eye; but her
strength failed her, and her arm fell lifeless by her side. She was dying.
The man was now alarmed, and hastened to raise her up. The
children were struck dumb with unknown fears, and clasped each other in their
little arms.
The woman recovered sufficient consciousness, during the two
or three seconds which preceded the exhalation of her last breath, to glance
with her remaining eye up into her husband's face. She could not, however,
utter an articulate sound - not even another moan.
But no pen could depict, and no words describe, the deadly -
the malignant - the fiendish hatred which animated her countenance as she thus
met her husband's gaze.
The tigress, enveloped in the folds of the boa-constrictor,
never darted such a glance of impotent but profound and concentrated rage upon
the serpent that held it powerless in its fatal clasp.
She expired with her features still distorted by that
horrible expression of vindictive spite.
A few moments elapsed before the man was aware that his wife
was dead - that he had murdered her!
He supported her mechanically, as it were; for he was
dismayed and appalled by the savage aspect which her countenance had assumed
-that countenance which was rendered the more hideous by the bleeding eye-ball
crushed in its socket.
At length he perceived that she was no more; and, with a
terrible oath, he let her head drop upon the floor.
For a minute he stood and contemplated the corpse:- a
whirlwind was in his brain.
The voices of his children aroused him from his reverie.
"Father, what's the matter with mother?" asked the
boy, in a timid and subdued tone.
"Mother's hurt herself," said Fanny: "poor
mother!"
"Look at mother's eye, father," added the boy:
"do look at it! I'm sure something dreadful is the matter."
"Damnation!" ejaculated the murderer: and, after
another minute's hesitation, he hurried to the door.
"O, father, father, don't leave us - don't go away from
us!" cried the little boy, bursting into an agony of tears: "pray
don't go away, father! I think mother's dead," added he with a glance of
horror and apprehension towards the corpse: "so don't leave us, father -
and I and Fanny will go out and beg, and do anything you like; only pray don't
leave us; don't, don't, leave us!"
With profound anguish in his heart, the little fellow clung
to his father's knees, and proffered his prayer in a manner the most ingenuous
- the most touching.
The man paused, as if he knew not what to do.
His hesitation lasted but a moment. Disengaging himself from
the arms of his child, he said in as kind a tone as he could assume - and that
tone was kinder than any he had ever used before - "Don't be foolish, boy;
I shall be back directly. I'm only going to fetch a doctor - I shan't be a
minute."
"Oh, pray don't be long, father!" returned the
boy, clasping his little hands imploringly together.
In another moment the two children were alone with the
corpse of their mother; while the murderer was rapidly descending the stairs to
escape from the contemplation of that scene of horror.