THE BLACK JACK
Jenny finished her story, much as you have heard it, though some has
been forgotten.
'And now,' she said, 'I will take you to the very place where I was
born. You shall see for yourself the house, and my mother and my sister
and the company among whom I was brought up. Wait for a moment while I
change my dress. I cannot go like this. And I do not want all of them to
learn where I now live.'
She returned in a few minutes dressed in the garb of an orange girl of
Drury. Everybody knows how these girls are attired; a frock of the
commonest linsey-woolsey; a kerchief over her head tied under her chin:
another kerchief round her neck and bosom; her sleeves coming down to
her elbows; on her arm a round deep basket filled with oranges. But no
orange girl ever had so sweet a face; so fine a carriage; hands and arms
so white. Nor could any disguise deprive this lovely creature of her
beauty or rob her face of its pure and virginal expression. That such a
being should come out of the Black Jack! But then we find the white lily
growing beside a haystack or a pigsty and none the less white and
delicate and fragrant.
The tavern called the Black Jack stands over against the west front of
St. Giles's Church, at the corner of Denmark Street, with a double
entrance which has proved useful, I believe, on the appearance of
constables or Bow Street runners. The Church which is large and
handsome, worthy of better parishioners, stands in the midst of a
quarter famous for harbouring, producing and encouraging the most
audacious rogues and the most impudent drabs that can be found in the
whole of London. As for the Church, of course they never enter it: as
for religion, they have never learned any: as for morals, they know of
none; as for the laws, they defy them; as for hanging, whipping and
imprisonment, they heed them no more than other folk heed the necessity
of death or the chances of pain and suffering, before death releases
them.
Every man must die, they say. Few people among them live naturally more
than forty years or so. Fever, small-pox, ague, carry off most of their
class before forty. If, therefore, one takes part in the march to Tyburn
at five-and-thirty one does but lose two or three years of life. Then,
again, there is the punishment of the lash--that seems very terrible.
But every man, rich or poor, has to endure pain; very often pain worse
than that of the lash. Certainly, the agony of the whip is not worse
than that of rheumatism or gout: it is sooner over: it makes no man any
the older: it does not unfit him for his work: after a day or two, he is
none the worse for it. As for imprisonment; a prison, if your friends
look after you, may be made, with the help of a few companions, as
cheerful a place as the kitchen of the Black Jack with drinking and
singing and tobacco. This kind of talk is the religion of Roguedom, and
since it is so, we may cease to wonder why these people are not deterred
by the severity of their punishments. For no punishment can deter when
it is not feared: that is beyond question: and since after punishment,
the rogue is still regarded as a rogue, whom no one will employ,
punishment does not convert. Nor does the prison chaplain effect any
miracles in conversion, because no one listens to his exhortations.
Over against the church of St. Giles's, the tavern of the Black Jack
lifts its shameless head: the projecting upper windows bend threatening
brows against the west end of the Church with its pillars of white
stone: the house has villainy written large over all the front: it is
covered with yellow places breaking away in lumps and showing the black
timbers behind: the roof, of red tiles, is sunken in parts: many of the
windows are broken and stuffed with rags.
The ground floor consists of a long low room: at one end is a bar with a
counter, behind it casks of beer and rum and shelves with bottles
containing cordials: there is a door behind the bar opening to a cellar
staircase: and is said to communicate with a subterranean passage
leading one knows not whither. It is also rumoured that the cellar, into
which no one but the landlady of the Black Jack and her daughter has
ever penetrated, is a large stone vault with pillars and arches, the
remains of some Roman Catholic building. The kitchen, or public room, is
on the ground floor about twelve inches below the level of the street:
it is entered by two steps: the window is garnished with red curtains,
which on wintry evenings give the place a warm and cheerful look: the
bright colour promises a roaring fire and lights and drink. Both in the
summer and winter the place is always cheerful because it is always
filled with company.
Three or four candles in sconces light up the room, and, in addition, a
generous fire always burning every night, adds to the light of the
place. The fire is kept up partly for warmth: partly for the convenience
of those who bring their suppers with them and cook them on the fire.
Also, for their convenience, frying-pans and gridirons are lying ready
beside the fireplace: and for the convenience of the punch-drinkers a
huge kettle bubbles on the hob. Two tables stand for those who take
their supper here. As the food principally in favour consists of
bloaters, red herrings, sprats, mackerel, pig's fry, pork, fat bacon,
beefsteak and onions, liver and lights and other coarse but savoury
dishes, the mingled fragrance makes the air delightful and refreshing.
As the windows are never open the air is never free from this fragrance,
added to which is the reek, or stench of old beer, rum, gin, and rank
tobacco taken in the horrid manner of the lower classes, by means of a
clay pipe, not in the more courtly fashion of snuff. Nor must one forget
the--pah!--the company--the people themselves, the men and women, the
boys and girls who frequent this tavern nightly. Taking all into
account, I think it would be difficult, outside Newgate, to find a more
noisome den than the kitchen or bar-room of the Black Jack.
All round the room ran a bench: the company sat on the bench, every man
with a pipe of tobacco and a mug of drink: the walls were streaming: one
felt inclined to run away--out into the fresh air for breath. The space
in the middle was mostly kept open for a fight, perhaps: for a dance,
perhaps, if a fiddler could be found. Every evening, I believe, there
was a fight either between two men, or between two women: or between two
boys. What would an Englishman of the baser sort become if he were
forbidden to fight?
I describe what I saw after we entered. When Jenny pushed open the door
and the breath of that tavern ascended to my nostrils I trembled and
hesitated.
'Strong, at first, isn't it?' said Jenny. 'Cousin Will, to stand here
and breathe the air that comes up carries me back to my childhood. You
are ready to face it? After a little one grows accustomed. They like it,
the people inside.' She stood with the handle of the half opened door in
her hand. 'Now,' she said. 'You shall visit the Rogues' Delight: the
Thieves' Kitchen: the Black Jack: the favourite House of Call for the
gallows bird. You shall see what manner of woman is the old lady my
mother: and what sort of woman is the young lady my sister.'
'I am ready, Jenny,' I replied, with an effort. One would join a forlorn
hope almost as readily.
'Don't mind me. Take no notice whatever I say or do,' she whispered. 'I
must humour the wretches. It is more than twelve months since I have
been among them. They may resent my absence. However, you keep quiet,
and say nothing. Call for drink if you like, and pretend to be an old
hand in the place.'
Jenny threw up her head: opened her lips: laughed loudly and impudently:
looked round her with an impudent stare: became, in a word, once more,
one of the brazen young queans who sell oranges and exchange rude jokes
with the gentlemen in the Pit of Drury Lane Theatre. It was a wonderful
change. I saw a girl who would perhaps be beautiful if she had preserved
any rags or the least appearance of feminine modesty: as for Jenny's
sweet and attractive look of innocence, that had vanished. She had, in
fact, resumed her former self, and more than her former self. I saw her
as she had been. Was there ever before known such a thing that a girl
who had never been taught what was meant by feminine modesty should be
able to assume, at will, the look of one brought up in a convent--all
innocence and ignorance--and, at will, be able to put it off and go back
to her former self? No--it is impossible: the innocence of Jenny's face
proclaimed the innocence of Jenny's soul.
'Follow me,' she said. 'Keep close, or expect a pewter plate or a pot
hurled at your head. They love not strangers.'
She pushed open the door: she descended the steps: I followed. The room
was quite full, and the reek of it made me sick and faint for a moment.
But to the worst of stinks one quickly grows hardened.
'By----!' cried a voice from out of the smoke. 'It's Madame.'
'Lawks, Mother'--this was a girl's voice-''tis Jenny. Why, Jenny, we
all thought you was grown too proud for the Black Jack.'
'Good-evening all,' she cried with a loud coarse laugh; she added, as a
finishing stroke of art, a certain click or choking in the middle of the
laugh such as one may hear among the lowest sort of women as they walk
along the street. 'How are you, mother? You did not expect me to come in
to-night, did you? How's business? How are you, Doll? Adding up the
figures on the slate as usual? How are you, boys? I haven't seen any of
you at the Theatre for a spell. That's because I've been resting.
Actresses must rest sometimes. Where have I been? That's my business.
Who with? That's my business, too. Now'--she brandished her basket, and
walked about among them shaking her petticoats in the way of the
impudent orange girls--'choose a fine Chaney orange! Choose a fine
Chaney orange! One for your sweetheart, my curly boy? Here is a fine
one: pay me when I come again. Doll, chalk up to the gentleman an orange
for his girl. One for this pretty country girl? Take it, my beauty. I
will tell your fortune presently--a lover and a pile of gold and babies
as sweet as this orange.' So she got rid of her oranges, offering and
presenting them here and there with the impudence of the craft she
assumed, yet with something of her own inimitable grace which she could
not quite put off. Then she turned to me. 'Sit down here,' she ordered.
'Lads,' she said, 'I've brought you a friend of mine. He's a fiddler by
trade. If you like he will fiddle for you till he puts fire into your
toes and springs into your heels.'
'Who is he?' cried a voice. Through the smoke I now recognised the
Bishop, formerly of the King's Bench Prison. The reverend gentleman's
face was redder and his cheek fuller than when last I saw him. He
seemed, however, in better case: he had gotten a new cassock: his bands
and his cuffs were of whiter hue: his wig was better shaped and better
dressed: it came, I make no doubt, from some place where are deposited
the wigs snatched from the passengers in hackney coaches or even in the
streets. His looks, however, were certainly more prosperous than when I
had seen him last. He did not recognise me, which was as well. Beside
him sat the Captain, also more prosperous to all appearance. He wore a
purple coat and a fawn-coloured waistcoat: he had rings on his fingers,
and his hat was laced with gold: he wore gold buckles: buttons silver
gilt and white silk stockings. He looked what he was--a ruffian, a
robber, and a swashbuckler. He had a girl on his knee, and one arm round
her waist: she was a handsome, red-faced wench dressed up in all kinds
of finery, somewhat decayed and second hand. A pipe was between the
gallant Captain's lips and a glass of punch was in his right hand. 'Twas
a picture of Rogues' Paradise: warmth, light, fire, clothes, drink,
tobacco, good company, and a fine girl. What more can a man want?
'Who's your man?' repeated the Bishop. 'We are not going to have
strangers here spying on us for what we do. Who is he?'
'Who is he? What's that to you? I shall bring anybody I like to the
Black Jack. If you don't like your Company, Bishop, get up and go.' He
growled, but made no attempt to rise. 'If'--she appealed to the Company
generally--'I choose to bring my fancy man here, am I to ask the
Bishop's leave?' Then before there was time for a reply: 'Mother, bustle
about. Let every man call for what he wants. Score it to me. This
evening I pay for all.'
Her mother, a fat old woman of fifty, red faced, with the look of
callous indifference that belongs to such a woman, sat behind the Bar, a
piece of knitting in her hand. She got up grumbling.
'Oh! ay,' she said. 'When Jenny comes you must all get drunk at her
expense. She'd better give me the money to keep for her. Well--what
shall it be? Doll, stir about: stir about--you leave it all to me. Ask
the gentlemen what they will take. And the ladies too. Whatever they
like. Jenny pays to-night. Whatever they like--that's Jenny's
way--whatever they like so that it ruins my poor girl.'
Doll, the other daughter, made no response. She was continually occupied
with the slate, and I suppose she was slow at calculation for she kept
adding up over and over again, wiping out with her wet finger and adding
up again. The Black Jack refused credit as a rule: most of the company
had to pay for what they called for on the spot; but there were a few to
whom limited credit was granted, as a privilege.
The girl called Doll, I remarked, was not in the least like her sister.
She had black hair and a somewhat swarthy complexion and appeared to
belong, as indeed she did, to the people called gipsies. The mother had
also the same black hair and dark skin. Strange, that a girl of Jenny's
complexion with her fair hair, blue eyes, and peach-like skin, should
come of the same stock. I sought in vain for any likeness between Jenny
and this girl. I thought that she might present the same features with a
difference: debased: but I could find none. She wore a red kerchief tied
round her head, a red ribbon tied round her neck: a red scarf tied round
her waist. In her way she was a handsome girl: in her manners she showed
no inclination to oblige the company or to be civil to them. She paid no
heed when her mother bade her stir about. On the contrary, she went on
with her sums on the slate.
It was Jenny who ran round laughing and joking with the men, ordering
punch for one and gin for another. Most of the company regarded her with
bewilderment. It was long since she had been among them: they knew
something about her: she was the daughter of the house: she had been an
orange girl at Drury: she had been an actress at the same theatre: some
of them had seen her there: then she disappeared, and no one knew where
she was.
One young fellow there was who sat on the bench with hanging head. He
had apparently no friends among the company. 'Here,' cried Jenny, 'is a
lad half awake. What art doing here, friend?' The lad shook his head
mournfully. 'Hast any money?' He shook his head again. Jenny pulled out
a piece of silver. 'Go,' she said. 'Get food, and'--she whispered--'come
back here no more. Go--get thee home again.' And so, let me believe, she
saved one lad that night from the gallows. For he got up slowly and
walked out.
There was another lad also from the country whose fresh cheek and
country dress betokened the fact. He sat sheepishly, as a new comer.
Jenny stopped before him. 'And pray what do they call thee, Sirrah?
Jack? 'Twill serve. What lay is it, Jack? Oh! Shop-lifting?' He nodded.
'For Mr. Merridew?' she whispered. He nodded again. 'Drink punch, Jack,
and forget thyself awhile.'
Some of the men were dressed like the Captain, but not so fine: the
buttons had been cut off their coats and their shoes had lost the
buckles. There were boys among them: boys who had none of the innocence
of childhood; their faces betrayed a life of hunting and being hunted:
they were always on the prowl for prey or were running away and hiding.
They had all been whipped, held under the pump, thrown into ponds,
clapped in prison. They were all doomed to be hanged. In their habits of
drink as in their crimes, they were grown up. In truth there were no
faces in the whole room which looked more hopeless than those of the
boys.
The women, of whom there were nearly as many as there were men, were
either bedizened in tawdry finery or they were in rags: some wearing no
more than a frock stiffened by the accumulation of years, black leather
stays, and a kerchief for the neck with another for the head: their hair
hung about their shoulders loose; and undressed: it was not unbecoming
in the young, but in the older women it became what is called rats'
tails. With most of the men, their dress was simple and scanty. Shirts
were scarce: stockings without holes in them were rare: buttons had
mostly vanished.
Most of them, I observed further, had an anxious, hungry look: not the
look of a creature of prey which has always in it something that is
noble: but the look of one insufficiently fed. I believe that the
ordinary lot of the rogue is, even on this earth, miserable beyond
expression: uncertain as to food: cruelly hard in cold weather in the
matter of raiment.
In a little while they were all happy: happier, I am sure, than they had
been for a long time. While they drank and while they talked, I observed
among them a veritable brotherhood. The most successful rogue--he in
gold lace--was hail fellow with the most ragged. And although the
successful rogue stood the nearest to the gallows, and he knew it and
the other rogue knew it, yet the beginner envied the success of his
brother as a soldier envies the successful general. They drank and
laughed: they drank more and they laughed more. Then the Captain called
silence for a song.
'Now, you fiddler!' he cried with a curse. 'Sit up, man, and show us how
you can play.'
The tune, the Captain told me, was 'The Warbling of the Lark.' I struck
up that air which every frequenter of Vauxhall, or even the Dog and
Duck, knows very well, and the Captain began his song.
Now in such a company I expected a song in praise of Roguery and
Robbery; or at least something of the kind introduced in Gay's Opera. On
the contrary, the song which the Captain gave us was a sentimental
ditty which you may hear at any Pleasure Garden on a summer evening: it
was all about the flames of love which could only be extinguished by
Chloe: and a broken heart: and darts and groves, and, in fact, a song
such as would be sung in a concert before a party of ladies. The fellow
had a good voice, and rolled out his lovesick strains to the admiration
of the women, some of whom even shed tears. This is the kind of song
they like: not the song in praise of a Highwayman's life, because in
matters of imagination these women are but poorly provided, and they
always see the reality beyond the words, and if they love the man his
certain end makes them unhappy. But hearts, and flames and love! That,
if you please, which is unreal, seems real.
When he finished, Jenny sprang to her feet. I will dance for you, lads.'
She turned to me. 'Play up--the Hey.'
She ran into the middle of the room, bowed to the people as if she had
been on the stage, and danced with such grace and freedom and simplicity
that it ravished my heart. Her sister, I observed, went on adding up
figures on the slate without paying the least attention to the
performance.
'Ah!' said her mother growing confidential. 'Thus would she dance when
she was quite a little thing on the stones in front of the church, when
the fiddler played in the house. A clever girl, she was, even then, a
clever girl! You are her friend. I hope, Sir, that you are going to
behave handsome by my girl. You look like one of the right sort. Make
over, while there is time. I will keep the swag for you--you may trust
the poor girl's mother. Many a brave fellow she might have had: many a
brave fellow: they come and go----I wish you a long rope young man, if
so be you're kind to my girl. Life is short--what odds, so long as 'tis
merry? Where do you work, if I may ask?'
'Jenny will tell you, perhaps,' I replied.
'I don't know, I don't know. Since she left off the orange line, Jenny
hasn't been the same to her old mother: not to tell her things, I mean,
and to take her advice. I should have made her rich by this time if she
had taken my advice.'
'Many people like to have their own way, don't they?'
'They do, Sir--they do--to their loss.' She took another pull at the
punch and began to get maudlin and to shed tears--while she enlarged
upon what she would have done had Jenny only listened to her. I gathered
from her discourse that the old gipsy woman, like the whole of her
tribe, was without a gleam or a spark of virtue or goodness. Her nature
was sordid and depraved through and through. With such a mother--poor
Jenny!
Suddenly the old woman stopped short and sat upright with a look of
terror.
'Good Lord!' she murmured. 'It's Mr. Merridew!'
At sight of the new-comer standing on the steps a dead silence fell upon
the whole Company. All knew him by name: those who knew his face
whispered to each other: all quailed before him; down to the meanest
little pickpocket, they knew him and feared him. Every face became
white; even the faces of the women who shook with terror on account of
the men. I observed the girl on the Captain's knee catch him by the hand
and place herself in front of him, as if to save him. Then his arm left
her waist and she slipped down and sat humbly on the bench beside her
man. Thus there was some human affection among these poor things. But
the Captain's face blanched with terror and the glass that he was
lifting to his lips remained halfway on its journey. The Bishop's face
could not turn white, in any extremity of fear, but it became
yellow--while his eyes rolled about and he grasped the table beside him
in his agitation. Doll, I observed, after a glance to learn the cause of
the sudden silence went on sucking her fingers, rubbing out the figures
on the slate and adding them up again.
'Who is it?' I whispered to Jenny.
'Hush! It's the thief-taker: they are all afraid that their time has
come. If he wants one of them he will have to get up and go.'
'Won't they fight, then? Do they sit still to be taken?'
'Fight Mr. Merridew? As well walk straight to Tyburn.'
The man was a large and heavy creature, having something of the look of
a prosperous farmer. His face, however, was coarse and brutal. And he
looked round the terrified room as if he was selecting a pig from a
herd, with as much pity and no more! This was the man whose perjuries
had added a new detainer to my imprisonment. I could have fallen upon
him with the first weapon handy, but refrained.
He came into the room. 'Your place stinks, Mother,' he said, 'and it's
so thick with tobacco and the steam of the punch that a body can't see
across.'
'To be sure, Mr. Merridew,' the old woman apologised. 'If we'd known you
were coming----'
'There would have been a large company, would there not?'
'Well, Sir, you see us here, as we are, as orderly and peaceful a house
as your Worship would desire.'
The fellow grinned. 'Orderly, truly, mother. It is a quiet and a
well-conducted company, isn't it? These are quiet and well-conducted
girls are they not?' He chucked one of the girls under the chin.
'As much as you like--there,' said the girl, impudently, 'so long as you
keep your fingers off my neck.'
At this playful allusion to his profession, that of sending people to
the gallows, Mr. Merridew laughed and patted the girl on the cheek. 'My
dear,' he said, 'if you were on my list you should get rich and you
should have the longest rope of any one.'
* * * * *
'The man,' Jenny told me afterwards, 'is the greatest villain in the
whole world. He is a thief-taker by profession.'
'You mean, he informs and takes the reward.'
'Yes: but he makes the thing which he sells. He lays traps for
pickpockets and such small fry and while he has them in his power he
encourages them to become bigger rogues who will be worth more to him.
Do you understand? A highwayman is worth about eighty pounds' reward to
him: a man returned from transportation before his time is worth no more
than forty. He does not therefore give up the returned convict until he
has returned to his highway robberies. All those fellows you saw last
night are in his power. The Captain is a returned convict whose time
must before long be up, for Merridew only allows a certain amount of
rope. He says he cannot afford more. As for the Bishop, he will go on
longer: he is useful in many other ways: he can write letters and forge
things and invent villainies: he persuades the young fellows to take to
the road. I think he will be suffered to go on as long as his powers
last.'
'Why was your mother so terrified?'
Jenny hesitated. 'Because--I told you, but you do not
understand--because she, too, is in his power for receiving stolen
goods. My mother is what they call a fence. Oh!' she shook herself
impatiently: 'they are all rogues together. I wonder I can ever hold up
my head. To think of the Black Jack and the Company there!'
* * * * *
The Captain sprang to his feet with an effort at ease and politeness.
'What will your Honour think of us?' he cried. 'Gentlemen, Mr. Merridew
is thirsty and no one offers him a drink. Call for it, sir--call for the
best this house affords.'
'Punch, mother,' the great man replied. 'Thank you, Captain.'
Then the Bishop, not to be outdone, got up too. 'Gentlemen,' he said,
'let us all drink to the health of Mr. Merridew. He is our truest
friend. Now, gentlemen. Together. After me.' He held up his hand. They
watched the sign and all together drank and shouted--hollow shouts they
were--to the health of the man who was going to sell them all to the
hangman. I wondered that they had not run upon him with their knives and
despatched him as he stood before them, unarmed. But this they dared not
do.
Mr. Merridew acknowledged the compliment. 'Boys and gallant riders,' he
said, 'I thank you. There was a friend of ours whom I expected to find
here, but I do not see him.' He looked round the room curiously. I think
he enjoyed the general terror. 'No matter, I shall find him at the
Spotted Dog.'
Every one breathed relief. No one, then, of that company was wanted. The
Captain sat down and drank off a whole glass of punch: the rest of the
men looked at each other as sailors might look whose ship has just
scraped the rock.
'I like to look in, friendly, as it might be,' Mr. Merridew went on,
'especially when I don't want anybody--just to see you enjoying
yourselves, happy and comfortable together, as you should be. There's no
profession more happy and comfortable, is there? That's what I always
say, even to the ungrateful. Plenty to eat: no work to do: no masters
over you: girls, and drink, and music, and dancing, every night. Find me
another trade half so prosperous. Mother, I'll take a second glass of
punch. I drink your healths--all of you--Bless you!' The fellow looked
so brutal, and so cunning that I longed to kill him as one would kill a
noxious beast.
'A long rope and a merry life,' he went on. 'It is not my fault,
gentlemen, that the rope is not longer. The expenses are great and the
profits are small. Meantime, go on and prosper. You are all safe under
my care. Without me, who knows what would happen to all this goodly
company? A long rope, I say, and a merry life.'
He tossed off his glass and went out.
When he was gone, the talk began again, but it was flat. The mirth had
gone out of the party. It was as if the Angel of Death himself had
passed through the room.
I played to them, but only the boys would dance: Jenny asked them to
sing, but only the girls would sing, and, truth to say, the poor
creatures' efforts were not musical. They drank, but moodily. The
Captain took glass after glass, but his arm had left the girl's waist:
she now sat neglected on the bench beside him. The Bishop, sobered by
the fright, said nothing, but sat with his eyes fixed upon the sanded
floor, shuddering. He thought his time had come, and the shock made him
for the moment reflect. Yet what was the good of reflecting? They were
in the hands of a relentless monster: he would sell them when it was
worth his while to put younger men in their place. They tried to forget
this, but from time to time, his presence, or the absence of one of
their Company, reminded them and then they were subdued for a time. It
filled me with pity: it made me think a little better of them that they
should be capable of being thus affected.
Jenny touched my arm. 'Come,' she said. 'Let us be gone.' So without any
farewells she led the way out. The old woman, by this time, was sound
asleep beside her half finished glass: and Doll was still adding up the
figures on her slate, putting her finger in her mouth, rubbing out and
adding up again.
Outside, the tall white spire of St. Giles's looked down upon us. In the
churchyard the white tombs stood in peace, and overhead the moon sailed
in splendour.
Jenny drew a long breath: she caught one of the rails of the churchyard
and looked in curiously.
'Will,' she said shuddering, 'I am ashamed of myself because the manners
and the talk come back to me so easily. Once I am with them, I become
one of them again. I tremble when the man Merridew appears. It is as if
he will do me, too, a mischief some day. I cannot forget the old times
and the old talk. Yet I know how dreadful it is. Look at the graves,
Will. Under them they sleep so quiet; they never move: they don't hear
anything: and beside them every night collects this company of
gaol-birds and Tyburn birds. Why, they don't shiver and shake when Mr.
Merridew looks in.'
'Let us get back, Jenny.' I shuddered, like all the rest.
'Will, I have seen that man--that monster--that wretch--for whom no
punishment is enough--three times. Each time I have felt that, like the
rest of those poor rogues, my own life was in his hands. Do you think he
can do me a mischief? Why do I ask? I know that he will. I am never
wrong.'
'What mischief, Jenny, could he do?'
'I don't know. It is a prophetic feeling. But who knows what such a
villain may be concocting? Good-night, you happy people in the graves.
Good-night.'
I drew her away, and walked with her to her own door in the Square.
'Will?' she asked, 'what do you think of me now?'
'Whatever I think, Jenny, I am all wonder and admiration that you
are--what you are--when I see--what you might have been.'
She burst into tears. She flung her empty basket out into the road.
'Oh,' she cried, 'if I could escape from them! If I could only escape
from them for ever! I should think nothing too terrible if only I could
escape from them!'
A month or two later I remembered those words. Nothing too terrible if
only she could escape from them!