This is a world of change; but the time was when you could turn by Saint
Clement's Church, from the roar of the waves of life in the Strand, and
make your way between a baked-potato can--perspiring violently in its
efforts to supply the demands made upon it--and a tin of hot eels,
steaming in a pasty mud; then under a gateway, past old-clothes shops
and marine-store dealers; thread your way along between crooked
tumbledown houses in dismal fever-breeding lanes, which led you into the
far-famed region of Lincoln's-inn, where law stared you in the face at
every turn. It will doubtless behave in as barefaced a manner to you at
the present day; but you will have to approach it by a different route,
for the auctioneer's hammer has given those preliminary taps that herald
the knocking-down of a vast collection of the houses of old London; and
perhaps ere these sheets are in the press, first stones will be laid of
the buildings to occupy the site as law-courts. But take we the region
as it was, with its frowsy abodes and their tenants. They are clipped
away now; but in every direction, crowding in upon the great inns of
court, were dilapidated houses pressing upon it like miserable suitors
asking for their rights, or like rags of the great legal gown. But it
is a rare place is Lincoln's-inn--a place where the law is rampant, and
the names of its disciples are piled in monuments upon the door-posts--a
place where you may pick your legal adviser according to the length of
your purse. The doors stand open, and the halls are cold, cheerless,
and echoing, while the large carven keystone looks down at the entering
client with its stony eyes, which seem to wink and ogle as the sly,
sneering, tongue-thrusting image apparently chuckles at the folly of
man. The cold shivers are always out in Lincoln's-inn, and they attack
you the moment you enter the precincts; probably they are spirits of
past-and-gone suitors, in past-and-gone suits, wandering to avenge
themselves upon the legal fraternity by freezing the courage of
litigants and turning them back when about to perform that wholesale
shovelling of an estate into the legal dust-cart known as "throwing it
into Chancery." Cold stone posts stand at intervals along the sides of
the square, looking, in their grey, bleak misery, like to stripped and
bare clients waiting for redress at their legal advisers' doors. A
dreary place for an assignation, if your friend possesses not the virtue
of punctuality; for the eye wanders in vain for some pleasant oasis
where it may rest. You have not here in autumn those melancholy,
washed-out flowers--the chrysanthemums of the Temple, but you may gaze
through prison-like bars at soot-dusted grass--verdure apparently
splashed with ink from the surrounding offices; at the trees, adapted by
nature to the circumstances of their fate; for, as in the arctic zone
the thinly-clad animals grow furry as a protection from the cold, so
here, in this region of law costs and voluminous writing, the trees put
forth twigs and sprays of a sharp spiky nature, a compromise between
porcupine penholders and a _chevaux de frise_, to enable them to set
attack at defiance.
Enter one house here, and you would have found upon the ground-floor
your QC or Serjeant--Brother So-and-so as he is so affectionately called
by the judge; upon the first-floor, your substantial firms of family
solicitors, deep in title, lease, covenant, and tenancy in every form or
shape--men who set such store by their knowledge that they dole it out
to you at so much per dozen words--words adulterated with obsolete
expressions repeated _ad nauseam_; while upon the second-floor you would
probably find firms of sharp practitioners, ready for business in any
shape; and, as elsewhere through the house, the names of the occupants
were painted upon the doors--black letters upon a parchment ground.
But the house in question was not entirely legal in its occupants, for
if you had been ascending the stairs, before you had gone far, a loud
sniff would have made you raise your head sharply towards the skylight,
beneath which, sitting, or rather perched, upon the top balustrade,
would have been visible the doughy, big, baby-like face of Mrs Sims,
strongly resembling, with the white-muslin wings on either side, a
fat-cheeked cherub, freshly settled after some ethereal flight.
Mrs Sims was the lady who did for those gentlemen of the house who
wanted doing for, took in parcels, answered bells, and was also
well-known in the neighbourhood as a convenient party in times of
sickness, being willing to nurse a bachelor gentleman of the legal
profession, or one of the poor fraternity of the rags around. She had
stood at many a bedside had Mrs Sims, and seen the long sleep come to
many a weary, broken-hearted suitor, and she had sniffed and sobbed at
the recital of their miseries, offering the while such consolation as
she could from the depths of a very simple but very honest heart.
After another loud sniff, and a curtsey performed invisibly, except that
the cherubic head was seen to bob out of sight, and then apparently
re-perch itself upon the balustrade, Mrs Sims would say "At home," or
"Not at home," as the case might be. Then, as you left the staircase,
the head would disappear, and, summer or winter, Mrs Sims might be
heard refreshing herself with a blow at the fire by means of a very
creaky, asthmatic pair of bellows.
Mrs Sims was busy, and had made visible the whole of her person, as
standing at the door she pointed out into the square, calling the
attention of one of _her_ lodgers, as she termed them, to a passer-by.
"Here, you sir; fetch a cab--a four-wheeler," shouted the lodger. "No;
confound your bird--I don't want birds, I want a cab."
The person addressed was the inhabitant of Bennett's-rents--the big,
slouchy, large-jawed gentleman, in a fur cap and a sleeved-waistcoat,
already known to the reader. He carried a small birdcage, tied in a
cotton handkerchief, beneath his arm, while another spotted handkerchief
wrapped his bull-neck, where it was pinned with a silver-mounted
Stanhope lens, which was apparently regarded as a rare jewel. Upon
being first called, he commenced expatiating upon the qualities of the
bird, whose cage-envelope he began to unfasten, until so unceremoniously
checked by the gentleman who summoned him.
"You're a fine sort, you are," growled the man as he went off in search
of the cab; "and if I warn't as dry as sorduss, I'd see you furder afore
I'd fetch your gallus cab, so now, then. My name's Jarker, chrissen
William, that's about what my name is, stand or fall by it--come, now."
As nobody seemed disposed to "come, now," Mr Jarker hastened his steps,
and soon returned with the cab, placed his cage behind the hall-door,
and then, under the direction of Mrs Sims, fetched down portmanteau and
bags groaning and sighing beneath their weight, and raising up a smile
of contempt upon his employer's face as he watched the fellow's actions,
and scanned his powerful development and the idleness written so plainly
upon his countenance. But soon the task was ended, the cab-door banged,
Mrs Sims had turned on a little more of her laughing-gas to brighten
her features by way of valediction to the departing lodger, and then, as
she sniffed loudly, the cab drove off, leaving Mr Jarker spitting upon
that curiosity, an honestly-earned sixpence in his hand.
"How's the missus? why, she's okkard, and I don't s'pose you a-coming
would do her any good, and she's a-going to spend a shillin' in
ankerchers for someone as has a cold in her head, that's what she's
a-goin' to do," said Mr Jarker, with a grin at Mrs Sims, and then he
watched the affronted dame as she sniffed her way upstairs; but before
she had reached the second flight, Mr Jarker had grinned again, drawing
his lips back from his white teeth with a smile that more resembled a
snarl.
Mr William Jarker, birdcatcher, fancier of pigeons, and of anything
else which came to his net, stood listening to the sniffs and receding
footsteps of Mrs Sims, placed the sixpence he had earned in the pocket
of his tight corduroys, pulled off his large, flat, fur cap, and gave
his head a scratch, thereby displaying a crop of hair which it would
have been useless to attempt to brush or part, for it was decidedly
short, and the barber who had last operated had not been careful, but
left the said hair nicky and notchy in places. However, the style gave
due prominence to the peculiar phrenological development of Mr Jarker's
bumps, while his ears stood out largely, and with an air that suggested
cropping as an improvement to them as well, more especially since there
was a great deal of the bull-dog in his appearance.
Mr Jarker replaced his cap, took his little birdcage from behind the
door, and was just moving off, when a barrister came out of one of the
lower rooms in full legal costume, muttering loudly, and evidently
reciting a part of the performance he was about to go through.
Upon hearing the door open, Mr Jarker turned his head, and then gave an
involuntary shudder as he moved off, while the counsel followed closely
behind, wrapped in his brief, and at times talking loudly:
"Instead, m'lud, of the case being tried in this honourable court,
m'lud, devoted as it is to civil causes, the defendant should be
occupying the felon's dock at the Old Bailey, m'lud; for a more shameful
case of robbery--"
"I'm gallussed!" muttered Mr Jarker, quickening his steps, and
perspiring profusely, as he gave a furtive glance over his shoulder at
the barrister, still rehearsing; "I'm gallussed! It didn't oughter be
allowed out in the public streets."
Mr Jarker felt his nerves so disarranged in consequence of low diet,
that after making his way out of the Inn, across Carey-street, and into
the rags of the legal cloak, that is to say into Bennett's-rents, he
resolved to take advantage of there being a "public" at either end of
the rents, and regardless of the whooping children who dashed by him, he
went in and had "three-ha'porth" of the celebrated cream gin advertised
outside upon a blue board with golden legend. After which enricher of
his milk of human kindness, Mr Jarker wiped his mouth with the back of
his hand as he passed through the swinging doors, hugged his cage
against his ribs, muttered, "Didn't oughter be allowed in the public
streets," and then forcing a way through a noisy tribe of children, he
paused at Number 27 in the Rents--a dismal-looking old house, worse
perhaps by broad daylight than in the early dawn, when some of its
foulness had remained concealed. It had been a mansion once, in the
days of the Jameses probably, when fresh air was a more abundant
commodity in the City, and was not all used up long before it could
penetrate so narrow a thoroughfare.
Mr Jarker slowly tramped up flight after flight of stairs till he came
to the attic-floor, when, without removing his hands from his pockets,
he kicked open the badly-hung door, and entered the bare room.
"O, you're here agen, are yer?" he said sulkily to a dark, well-dressed
woman, in black silk and fashionable bonnet, strangely out of place in
the wretched room, whose other occupant was pale-faced, weary-looking
Mrs Jarker, whose crimply white hands betokened a very late
acquaintanceship with the washtub by the steamy window. "O, you're here
agen, are yer?" said Mr Jarker.
"Yes, Bill," said Mrs Jarker timidly, every word she spoke seeming to
flinch and dart out of reach of hearing almost before it was uttered.
"Yes, Bill, she's come again, and we've been talking it over--and--and--
and--if you wouldn't mind, Bill, I'd--"
"How much?" growled Mr Jarker.
"Five shillings," said his wife timidly; "five shillings a-week."
"'Tain't enough," said Mr Jarker; "it's worth six. Look at the
trouble."
Mrs Jarker looked from her husband to the stranger and back again, and
was about to speak, when her lord exclaimed roughly, "Shut Up!"
The visitor's eyes flashed for a moment, and then she glanced hastily
round the room, her gaze resting for a moment upon the ruffianly,
bull-dog face of Jarker, and she hesitated; but another glance at the
timid, gentle countenance of his wife seemed to reassure her, and she
said hoarsely, with her look fixed upon the flinching woman, "I'll give
you six."
"And if 'tain't paid up reg'lar, I'm blest if I sha'n't chuck it outer
winder, or somethin'; so look out," said Mr Jarker.
The visitor's lips quivered, but, still gazing fixedly upon the woman,
she said in the same hoarse voice: "I shall bring the money once
a-week."
"In advance, yer know," growled Mr Jarker.
"Yes, yes; only be kind to it," exclaimed the visitor with something
like a sob, but without removing her eyes.
"O, ah! in course we will. We're the right sort here, ain't we, Poll?"
growled Mr Jarker.
"Yes, Bill," said his wife in a husky whisper.
"And now," said Mr Bill Jarker, with what was meant for a pleasant
smile, but which consisted of the closing of his eyes, and the display
of his teeth,--"and now as we've made it all snug, you'll stand
somethin'; that's what you'll do, ain't it now?"
Still without removing her eyes from the pale-faced woman before her,
the visitor drew a shilling from a little bead-purse, and laid it upon
the table, her lips now moving as if trying to form words for Mrs
Jarker to understand.
"Go away now, Bill," whispered she to her husband.
"What for?" growled Bill, untying the knots of his handkerchief with his
teeth, to set his cage at liberty, and nearly frightening the soul out
of the tiny, fluttering, panting body contained therein. Then, by way
of reply to a whisper, he sullenly took the shilling from the table, bit
it, spat upon it, and spun it up, before depositing it in his pocket;
made his way to the back part of the attic, where birdcages and the
paraphernalia of his profession lay thick; ascended a ladder to a trap
in the ceiling, and then, only his legs visible as he stood upon one of
the top rounds, Mr Jarker, with half his body above the tiles, busied
himself amongst his pigeons, and started them for a flight over the
houses.
The next moment, after a hurried glance at the ceiling, where the light
streamed down past the ruffian's legs, the visitor's face was seen to
work, and, rising from her seat, she went down upon her knees before
poor Mrs Jarker, kissing her work-worn hands, and bathing them with the
tears that streamed from her eyes.
"God--God bless you!" she whispered passionately. "O, be kind to it!"
But Mrs Jarker could not answer for something swelling in her throat;
and the next minute she too was weeping, with her hand resting upon her
visitor's shoulder.
This paroxysm of tears seemed to have its effect upon the visitor, for,
forcing back her own emotion, she appeared more at ease within herself,
as, gazing once more into the pale, worn, common face of the
birdcatcher's wife, she kissed her in so loving and sisterly a way, that
the tears flowed faster from Mrs Jarker's eyes. And yet, knowing full
well who was her visitor, Mrs Jarker did not shudder, but rose from her
choir, glanced timorously at the open trap, and then drew the stranger
towards a box--a common deal-box, with the blue-stained paper that had
once covered it hanging here and there in rags. She went upon her knees
now, and raised the creaking lid, when an impatient movement of the feet
upon the ladder made her start up hastily, and close the lid again. But
a long, loud whistling from above showed her that Mr Jarker was still
busy with his birds; so once more raising the lid, the poor creature
thrust her hand down to a well-known spot beneath the few rags of
clothes the box contained, and brought out a pair of little, stained red
boots, which she pressed passionately to her lips, the tears gushing
from her eyes the while, and a broken hysterical wail burst from her
overladen breast. But it was checked instantly, for Jarker's feet
scraped on the ladder, and the boots were hidden beneath the woman's
apron; then the whistling was heard again, and the little boots were
brought forth once more.
A pair of tiny red boots, the only relic she had of something that was
not--something that she had once warmed within her breast--the breast
before now bruised and blackened by a ruffian hand, but beneath which
was the same warm, God-implanted love for her offspring that glows in
the bosom of the noblest of her sex.
For a moment or two the younger woman gazed in the other's eyes with a
soft, tender, pitying look--a look in this case of true sympathy; and
the hand of the lost rested lovingly upon Mrs Jarker's breast as she
whispered softly: "How old was it?"
"Only a twelvemonth," was the reply, followed by a moan. "But perhaps
it was best--perhaps it was best."
The visitor's hand still rested upon the other's breast, and she was
about to speak, when an impatient shuffle startled both, for it seemed
that Mr Jarker was about to descend; but he came not. And now a look
of ineffable sweetness and content came over the well-moulded features
of the visitor. She was satisfied now respecting the step she was about
to take; for Mrs Jarker's heart had been laid open to her. A true
chord of sympathy existed between them, and she could feel that her
little one would be taken to a motherly breast, and protected--
protected; but who, she asked herself, would injure one so tender and
frail?
But there was no time for further communion between these motherly
hearts, for a loud rasp on the ladder told that Mr Jarker was
descending, and the visitor prepared to leave.
"You've been a-pipin' again," growled Mr Jarker to his wife, who had
hastily concealed the boots--"pipin' about that 'ere kid as has gone;
and a good thing too. Wot's the good when here's another a-coming?" and
he looked menacingly at the shivering woman. "I say," he continued to
the visitor, who now stood at the door, "you'll pay up reg'lar, and in
advance!"
"Yes, yes!" she said hoarsely, almost fiercely, as she turned to him
with a steady contemptuous look, which made the great brute shuffle
about uneasily--"yes, yes, so long as I live;" and the next moment the
door closed upon her retreating form.
"Long as you live? Yes; I should just think you will, or else there'll
precious soon be a kid found at somebody's door, with the perlice, cuss
'em, taking the brat to the workus.--And don't you pipe no more," he
snarled to the trembling woman, who slowly retreated to the washtub. "A
taking of it to the workus, cuss 'em," muttered Mr Jarker again,
removing his fur cap and passing his hand over his cropped head, as if
the name of the police, and their probable future duty, had reminded him
of former injuries. "Now then, you!" he shouted, as if calling his dog,
and he threw the shilling upon the table--"d'yer hear?"
"Yes, Bill," said the woman meekly, and hastily passing her hands over
her dull red eyes before she turned to him the face from which all that
was attractive had long since fled.
"Tripe!" said Mr Jarker.
"Yes, Bill," said his wife.
"Pipe and screw," growled Mr Jarker.
"Yes, Bill," said the woman, hurriedly tying on a miserable bonnet.
"And here, you!"
"I wasn't going, Bill," said the woman meekly.
"Who said you was?" growled the ruffian; "don't you be so sharp, now,
then. Now, where's that money?"
"What money, Bill?"
The next moment the ruffian had seized her by the front of her dress and
dragged her to him, so that she went down upon her knees. "Don't you
try to put none of your games on me. What did she give you when I was
out of sight?" And he put his black face down close to hers, as, half
from fear, half from bitterness, her lower lip worked as she tried to
keep back the tears, and to answer; but no words would come.
"D'yer hear? What did she give yer?"
"Nothing, Bill," whispered the woman.
He looked at her fiercely; but though faded and lack-lustre, her eyes
blenched not, but gave him back the same true steady look that had
always shone for him since--young, ignorant, ill-taught, weak--she had
believed he cared for her, and she could be happy with him: not the
first of Eve's daughters that has made the same mistake.
"Get up!" snarled Jarker, loosing his hold; and his wife rose hastily
without a word.
"Pint of porter, with half-a-quartern of gin in it."
"Yes, Bill," she whispered, and drew on a washed-out shawl.
"And no fiddling, you know; put all the gin in."
"Yes, Bill," said the woman, hastily taking the shilling, and descending
the creaking stairs to procure her lord's refreshments; tripe stewed,
and gin and beer, being special weaknesses of his when in funds.
"Don't let her forget to bring some inguns, that's all," he muttered as
he listened to the retreating steps. He then crushed down the fire with
the heel of his heavy boot, and, putting his hand in his
waistcoat-pocket, his fingers came in contact with two or three scraps
of burnt match, which he took out, looked at thoughtfully, and then
burned. "She must have been arter the dawg," he muttered, and walking
to one of the lattice-windows, he opened it and framed himself as he
leaned out with his arms resting upon the rotten sill, a splinter of
which he picked off to chew. Then he gazed steadfastly across the court
at the opposite window, which was hung round with birdcages, whose
occupants twittered sweetly, while one, a lark, seemed to fill the court
with his joyous song.
This reminded Mr Jarker of his own birds, and, stepping back growling,
he looked to see if the little cages hung over his nets all contained
water, which they did.
"And a blessed good job for her as they do!" he muttered on finding that
his wife had performed this duty. Then walking again towards the front
he watched the opposite window, where he could see a pale, sallow face
eagerly looking at the birds, while from behind came the sharp sound as
of the lash of a whip striking the floor, followed by the shrill yelp of
a dog.
Mr Jarker stood thoughtfully watching and listening, as if in doubt
upon some particular subject; and as he watched he pulled out that ugly
clasp-knife of his that he had opened a short time before in the cellar,
and now opening and closing it again, his brow lowered--that is, a
trifle more than usual. But he seemed to grow easier in his mind, for
he shut the knife with a snap, and thrust it into his pocket; and now he
appeared to be moved by that spirit which prompts so many people who can
hardly keep themselves to have dumb animals about their homes, probably
for the reason that the dumb brutes are faithful, and friends are few--
who knows?
"I think I shall have a dawg," said Mr Jarker to himself, as a louder
yelp than usual rang across the court; when he shut the window, and went
and stood gazing into the fire once more, till he heard the returning
step of his wife, when he roused himself:
"Yes," said Mr Jarker half-aloud; "I'll have a bull-pup."
Volume One, Chapter VI.