AN OUTCAST IN LONDON――THE GIPSY’S TRIALS AND TROUBLES.
The London career of Charles Peace was the most remarkable and daring
one it is well possible to conceive. Indeed, we have nothing on record
equal to it in the life of any criminal of ancient or modern times. We
shall have occasion to shadow this forth in the succeeding chapters of
our work.
We have followed the footsteps of our hero up to the time of his
becoming a resident in Evelina-road, Peckham. For the present we shall
have to leave him, that we may turn back to an earlier period and
chronicle the doings of some of the other personages who have figured
on the stage of our drama.
Mr. William Rawton, the gipsy, better known to the reader as
“Bandy-legged Bill,” left Sheffield after Peace’s last conviction. To
use his own phrase, he saw “the game was up,” and that his quondam
companion had a “pretty good dose.” The gipsy, therefore, turned his
thoughts in another direction, and sought out his patron, as he was
pleased to term him.
The gentleman in question was distantly related to the Ethalwoods, but
he was the black sheep of the flock――a restless, careless,
ne’er-do-well, who ran through his patrimony by betting largely. In
addition to this, he had other vices, which are too numerous to
mention. To do him justice, however, he had been kind to the gipsy on
several occasions. He advanced him money when very hard pushed, and
put many jobs in his way.
It was, therefore, a sad blow to Rawton when he was informed of his
patron’s demise. He felt that he had lost a good friend, and deeply
deplored the loss.
In addition to this misfortune, another befel him.
The groom in Park-lane, who had been so staunch and true to him in
times of great necessity, mistook his master’s property for his own,
and had to decamp to save himself from a worse fate. So the ill-fated
gipsy was left without a friend in the metropolis.
He went from bad to worse, and finally became so reduced that he was
on the verge of starvation.
“He deserved no better fate!” the reader may exclaim. Possibly so, but
it is hard for a fellow-creature to be in the most opulent city in the
world without being able to obtain the common necessaries of life.
Nevertheless, this is of almost daily occurrence.
The reports of similar cases in our public newspapers furnish us with
proofs of this.
We have no desire to enlist anybody’s sympathy for wretches like
Charles Peace, or Bill Rawton, or others who figure in this work; but
starvation in a land of plenty is a melancholy fact which every
right-minded person must of necessity deplore.
Starving, homeless, friendless, despised, and desperate, Bandy-legged
Bill wandered through the streets of the metropolis.
It was a cold winter’s night, and the gipsy’s teeth chattered, and his
limbs trembled.
“Nothing remains for me but death,” he ejaculated, “for most assuredly
my life must soon come to an end if things go on in this way. The
crimes and injustice of others have brought me to this, not my own.”
This is the specious way scoundrels of this type invariably delude
themselves by false reasoning.
“It aint been my fault,” he repeated. “I always acted on the square
with all my pals. Curse it!――but it’s hard lines to be in this sorry
plight. I’ll cast all conscience scruples in one scale hereafter, and
will be an outlaw as well as an outcast. A man gets no thanks for
being honest in this world. I am at war with the world, even as
mankind are at war with me.”
Bill crawled towards a street lamp as if he could derive warmth from
its flickering flame.
“I aint a bit like myself,” he exclaimed. “Am as weak as a rat, and as
down-hearted as a man just sentenced to a ‘lagging.’ Peace is better
off than I am; he has food and shelter, such as it is, at the expense
of Government. I should like to be in his place just now, and the
chances are I shall be before long.”
The hour was late――approaching towards midnight, and the street in
which he was stationed was pretty nigh deserted. Presently he heard
the measured tread of a policeman, and the gipsy not being desirous of
an official interview with the arm of the law, skulked away and hid
himself in a dark alley until the constable had passed on.
“I must find some place to crawl to, but where?” exclaimed Bill.
“That’s easier asked than answered. Mercy on me! how my teeth do
chatter! I wish the night was over; but, lor’, what’s the use of
wishing that? Morning will bring me no relief.”
Presently he heard footsteps. He guessed shrewdly enough that they
were not those of a policeman. He grasped a thick cudgel he had in his
hand and said, “Now for it!”
A well-dressed gentlemanly-looking person was advancing towards him
with stately tread. He was a handsome man, in the prime of life, and
was evidently a favourite of fortune; yet the expression of his face
was evil.
The gipsy sprang forward, and grasped him by the collar of his coat.
“Quick! haul over your cash!” he exclaimed, “or I will knock you
senseless. Do you hear? I’m driven to desperation, and money I must
have.”
“Well,” exclaimed the gentleman, “you are either a madman or else one
of the most audacious fellows I ever met with.”
“I am no madman. If you refuse or attempt to utter a single cry for
assistance I’ll brain you.”
“You are a most extraordinary man.”
“Your money!――I am starving. Do not drive me to desperation. I am not
to be trifled with. Do not drive me to commit murder.”
“Upon my word you really amuse me,” said the gentleman. “I thought the
time was past for footpads or highway robbers, but we live and learn,
it would appear. Unhand me.”
“Not until you have given me what I demand.”
“If I summon a policeman and hand you over to justice, which, to say
the truth is my duty, you will be severely punished, but as you are
starving, according to your own account――”
“I am dying with hunger, and don’t care about being sent to prison.
It’s preferable to dying like a dog in the streets.”
“I will take compassion on you. This is something like an adventure.
Again, I say take your hand from my coat. I will assist you. There,
will that satisfy you?”
“It will,” observed the gipsy, in a softened tone; “for once I have
met with one who has compassion on a fellow-creature.”
“You would not be very scrupulous, I suppose, in rendering services
for kindness received――eh?” inquired the gentleman.
“Scrupulous!――well no, not very.”
“I should imagine not.”
“A starving man is not likely to be over particular,” said the gipsy,
laughing bitterly, and looking attentively at the face of his
questioner.
“Well, then, you must understand that this is not the place for a
conference. I rather think you will suit my purpose. So, if you will
accompany me, I will take you where you can enjoy both warmth and
food. Then we can talk over this business. Follow me.”
Bandy-legged Bill strode onward.
He and his companion threaded their way through a number of streets,
through which the winter’s blast howled dismally.
Nothing can be more desolate than the deserted streets of a great city
at midnight.
The busy thoroughfares are as silent as the grave, and every house
seems a tomb enclosing some tremendous secret.
What if, in the silent hours of the night, the walls of the dwellings
should suddenly become transparent, revealing all that might be
passing inside?
What astounding disclosures would be made!
Imagination shrinks from the picture, appalled.
“Here we are,” said the gipsy’s companion, pausing before a house of
handsome exterior, and leading the way down into the basement.
Over one of the windows of this basement was a gilded sign, bearing
the name “Doctor Bourne.”
The doctor unlocked a door, entered a room, and turned up the gas.
The gipsy now found himself in a very comfortable apartment fitted up
like a surgery. There was a book-case, surmounted by the usual
skull――there was the inevitable skeleton grinning in a corner――there
were anatomical pictures, a case of surgical instruments, shelves of
bottles and phials, nice sofas, a crimson carpet, and a highly-polished
stove, in which a cheerful fire blazed.
“Sit down, my man,” said the doctor, with an air of superiority and
condescension.
The gipsy thanked his host, and seated himself.
“Now in the first place I must get you something to eat and drink,”
said the doctor. “By my faith, but you look like a starved cat, and
yet now I glance at your face it seems familiar to me.”
“Does it? We have never met before, not to my knowledge.”
“No, no, of course not――I know that. Our spheres of life are widely
different, I hope; but what the devil ever brought you so low as to
set you prowling about the streets at night, dressed in rags, and
threatening to brain people with a bludgeon?”
“The story of my life is hardly worth the telling,” returned Bill.
“Well, I should suppose not, but I suppose your downfall is partly
owing to drink.”
“Partly,” observed the gipsy.
“Ah, so I thought.”
The doctor unlocked a cupboard, and took from it about two thirds of a
cold boiled ham, a loaf of bread and sundry other articles, which he
placed before Bill, inviting him to fall to and help himself.
The starving man needed no second invitation; he ate most ravenously.
Meanwhile the doctor, rummaging in the cupboard, brought forth more
eatables, which he placed before his guest.
After the gipsy had satisfied his hunger a glass of warm grog was
mixed by his benefactor, which the gipsy was nothing loth to partake
of.
He was, however, greatly puzzled at the reception he met with――it was
altogether so much out of the common order of things, and he was
curious to ascertain in what way his services were required, for he
was acute enough to divine that all these attentions were not shown
him without some ulterior object.
“Ahem――you spoke of some service, something you required me to do. May
I ask its nature?” observed the gipsy carelessly.
“Oh, we won’t enter on the business just now,” said Bourne. “It is not
of any immediate importance, but I suppose you will pass your word to
do me a good turn when I require you to do so?”
“It is only my duty, sir. Anything I can do shall be done, provided it
be such as a man can consistently perform.”
“Yes, precisely. Well, we will discuss this question when we are
better acquainted with one another.”
“He’s jolly artful,” murmured the gipsy to himself, “and don’t let
every fool see his cards. Well, he’s not to blame for that.”
“By the way,” said Bourne, “you have not told me your name?”
“My name?”
“Yes; don’t be afraid. I am not likely to hand you over to justice,”
and at this the doctor laughed.
“I don’t expect you are. Well, I am not ashamed of my name. It is
William Rawton――Bandy-legged Bill my pals call me, because, you see,
my legs were a little warped in the drying process.”
The doctor gave an involuntary start. “Rawton, eh!”
“Yes, Bill Rawton. Have you heard the name before?”
“Well I rather think some of my patients have mentioned that name. To
all appearance you are a gipsy?”
“Yes, I was born a gipsy, but our camp broke up years and years ago.”
[Sidenote: No. 49.]
[Illustration: DR. BOURNE QUESTIONING BILL RAWTON, THE GIPSY.]
“Have you been a jockey at anytime of your life?”
“I should rather think I had. I might say that I was, in a manner of
speaking, brought up on the back of a horse.”
“Oh, that accounts for it. I have heard your name mentioned by some of
my sporting and aristocratic patients.”
“And who might they be?” inquired Bill.
“I cannot at the present moment call to mind. You are a single man,
eh?”
“I am single now, but I have been married.”
“Ah, I see. Wife dead, I suppose?”
“I haven’t seen her for years, but she may be alive for what I know.”
Then suddenly looking hard at his questioner, he said, in an altered
tone――
“What makes you ask that question?”
“Faith, I don’t know why I made the inquiry. I was thinking if you had
any one to share your troubles.”
“No, I have not, and what’s more, I dont want anyone to share my
misery. It’s hard lines for one; it would be doubly hard if there were
two doomed to the misery I have had to endure.”
“You are quite right, my friend, it would.”
The gipsy regarded the speaker with another furtive glance.
“By the way, you are not getting on. Let me mix you another glass――the
night is cold, and drinking in moderation is beneficial. I am not an
advocate for total abstinence.”
“Nor am I,” observed Rawton, with a laugh, “but of late I have been
compelled to be a total abstainer.”
“Another glass and a cigar?”
“You are very kind, sir, I’m sure. I won’t refuse, since you are so
pressing.”
The grog was mixed, and the gipsy lighted a cigar of the first
quality.
“Take it altogether this is a strange night’s adventure,” observed
Bourne. “Most remarkable. It pleases me, and for this reason: I am
fond of searching into the character of man, and I feel convinced your
history must be strange one.”
“I’ve seen something of life. Have had my ups and downs, more of the
latter than the former, and as I feel just now――or rather as I did
when we first met――I don’t think there is much worth living for in
this world――not as far as I am concerned at any rate.”
“You mustn’t give way to despondency and look at the dark side of the
picture. Brighter days may be in store for you――who knows?”
The gipsy shook his head.
“I doubt it,” he observed, sententiously.
There was a pause, after which the doctor said, carelessly――
“And so you have been married, have lost your wife, and don’t know
where she is?”
“Haven’t the slightest notion, and don’t care to inquire. Ah, she left
me of her own accord. It must be――well, let’s see――ah, it must be
getting on for twenty years ago.”
“Dear me, how very remarkable! Did she”――then pausing suddenly, as if
to check himself, the doctor added, “But then I don’t know that I have
any right to inquire into your private affairs, which, after all,
cannot be of any great interest to me.”
“Oh! I don’t mind telling you the whole history if you think it worth
listening to. You see, in my early youth I was a very different sort
of chap to what I am now――I was what you might call a smart young
fellow, who got on pretty well with the girls.”
“Oh! I dare say. No doubt.”
“But since those days I’ve had a rough time of it, and had fallen into
evil ways. At one time I associated with the upper classes――not quite
as a companion, I don’t mean that, but I was in the secrets of a few
of the big guns――but, zounds! that is all past now. I’ve come down
right on my haunches, and the chances are I shall never get up again.
This is a beautiful flavoured cigar.”
“Yes, I’ve got a very choice brand; the best I’ve had for many a day.”
The doctor lighted one for himself. “Very good flavour indeed. Well,
as you were saying――go on with your history.”
“Oh, I was merely observing that I was at one time thought a goodish
bit of by some heavy swells.”
“Yes. Proceed. And your wife――was she with you at this time?”
“We didn’t live many months together.”
“Not many months! Your nuptial bliss was, indeed, of but a short
duration.”
“No, not many months. You see she was too good for me. The fact is,
she was but a chit of a girl when I married her, who didn’t know her
own mind. It was a runaway match. I was passionately fond of her at
the time, but I found out afterwards that I had made a mistake. She
was a delicate sensitive thing, had been well brought up, and I was
not the sort of man she ought to have chosen for a husband. She soon
found that out. She got sick and weary of me, and――――”
“And what?”
“Well, we parted. She said she wished to leave me, and I knew she
would do so in any case, whether I liked it or not; so I thought it
best to consent to a separation. ’Cause, you see, she had an admirer.”
“An admirer, eh?”
“Yes.”
“A gentleman――a man of property, I suppose.”
“Oh, yes, a baronight. She went to live with him. He took her over to
India, and I have never seen her from that day to this. If she’s
alive, which I don’t feel at all certain about, I hope she’s happy,
for she was a right down good sort.”
“And pray, my complacent friend, is it a fair question to inquire the
name of the baronet?”
“I don’t mind telling you. Sir Digby M‘Bride was his name.”
“And he went to India, you say?”
“So I was told.”
“Sir William has been dead for the last fifteen years,” said the
doctor. “He fell on the field of battle, like a brave soldier as he
was.”
“Did he though? I never heard that bit of news before.”
“It is a fact, I assure you.”
“Did you know him then?”
“No, not personally, but I was acquainted with those who did know him.
What was your wife’s maiden name?”
“Hester Teige. Upon my word you seem greatly interested about her,”
cried Rawton, with sudden warmth.
His companion coloured slightly. “No, oh dear no――not at all. You are
mistaken,” he ejaculated, endeavouring to assume an air of
indifference. “I know not why I asked the question, but I suppose she
passed as Lady M‘Bride.”
“I dare say she did. She might have done for aught I know. She may
have had a good many names in her time. She went on the stage, so I
was told, and played under another name.”
“Oh, indeed, then possibly she’s had some strange alternations of
fortune.”
Rawton shook his head.
“I know nothing about her. She’s passed away, and is nothing to me
now――has not been anything to me for years.”
“You are evidently a character in your way. You’ve endeavoured to play
the part of a highwayman――not very successfully, it is true――but
you’ve made the attempt, and doubtless you have played many other
parts in the drama of life. I must learn something more of you. Take
my advice for the future――abstain from the committal of any lawless
act. I have a wish to befriend you; for the present I will give you
some temporary assistance――something to help you over your immediate
difficulties――and for the rest you have my permission to visit mo
again, when I will see what can be done for you.”
The doctor gave Rawton a sovereign, which the latter took, and at the
same time overwhelmed his benefactor with thanks.
“That will suffice,” said Bourne. “I am glad to be of service to you,
and will see what more can be done. Possibly I may be instrumental in
procuring you a situation, but you must first of all be furnished with
better garments than those you have on at present. Well, we will see
what can be done.”
“You are very kind, I’m sure, and I ought to be grateful. Indeed I am,
much more than I can express.”
The gipsy rose to take his departure, being under the impression that
his company was not wanted any longer.
“You can give me a look in to-morrow, or next day, if you like. The
most convenient hour to see me is after seven o’clock in the evening.
As a rule my professional duties are over by that time, except in
urgent cases, which happily don’t occur every day.”
“I’ll make bold to call again if you will permit it.”
“Certainly I desire you to do so,” returned Bourne, as he accompanied
his visitor to the door.
Rawton was about to pass out of the house when the doctor beckoned him
back.
“What might you want?” he inquired.
“Oh, just this,” returned Bourne. “It is a matter of no very great
moment, and which I cannot exactly explain at present, but could you
procure your marriage certificate and bring it with you when you call
again?”
The gipsy was dumfounded, and hardly knew what reply to make.
“Can you do so?” again repeated his companion.
“Why what on earth do you want a worthless bit of paper like that
for?” ejaculated the gipsy. “It aint of no use to mortal man.”
“Well, that’s a matter it is hardly worth while discussing, but I take
it for granted that you wish to oblige me.”
“Most certainly I do.”
“Then you will greatly oblige me by doing this little favour.”
“But what for?”
“As a matter of good faith――as a proof that you have not been
deceiving me.”
“Deceive you in what way?”
“It will give me assurance that you have spoken the truth.”
“Oh, that’s it. You don’t believe a word I have been saying, then?”
“I believe all you have said, but I tell you again, I should be much
more satisfied if you would bring with you the marriage certificate
when you next call. Now do you understand?”
“Of course I understand, as far as it goes. Well, I’m blest if this
aint a new start.”
“Well, never mind. Let it be for the present. I will explain more
fully when we next meet. Now go, for I am perishing with cold.”
The gipsy bade his companion good night, and left the house without
further ado.