The Mysteries of London, v. 1/4

Another New Year's Day—commemorated with feasting by those who had no reason to repine, but marked as the opening of another weary epoch of care and sorrow by those who had nothing for which to be grateful, either to heaven or to man!

The first day of January, 1840, was inclement and severe. The air was piercing cold, and the rain fell in torrents. The streets of the great metropolis were swept by a wintery wind that chased the poor houseless wanderers beneath the coverings of arches and doorways, and sent the shivering mendicants to implore an asylum at the workhouse.

It was evening; and the lamps diffused but an uncertain light in the great thoroughfares. The courts and alleys of the poor neighbourhoods were enveloped in almost total darkness; for every shutter was closed, and where there were no shutters, blinds were drawn down, or rags were stretched across the windows, to expel the bitter cold.

We must now request our readers to accompany us to a district of London, which is most probably altogether unknown to the aristocrat, even by name, and with which many of that class whose occupations lead them into an intimate acquaintance with the metropolis, are by no means familiar.

Situate to the east of Bethnal Green,—bounded on the north by Bonner's Fields, on the south by the Mile End Road, and on the east by the Regent's Canal,—and intersected by the line of the Eastern Counties Railway, is an assemblage of narrow streets and filthy lanes, bearing the denomination of Globe Town.

When compared with even the worst districts of the metropolis,—when placed in contrast with Saint Giles's or Saffron Hill,—Globe Town still appears a sink of human misery which civilisation, in its progress, has forgotten to visit.

The majority of the streets are unpaved, rugged, and broken. The individual who traverses them in the summer is blinded by the dust, or disgusted by heaps of putrescent offal, the rotting remains of vegetables, and filth of every description, which meet the eye at short intervals; and, in winter, he wallows, knee-deep, in black mud and stagnant water. But even in the summer itself, and in the very midst of the dog-days, there are swamps of mire in many of the streets of Globe Town, which exhale a nauseating and sickly odour, like that of decomposing dead bodies.

In the winter time Globe Town is a complete marsh. Lying low, in the vicinity of the canal, and on a naturally swampy soil, the district is unhealthy in the extreme. Nor do its inhabitants endeavour, by any efforts of their own, to mitigate the consequences of these local disadvantages. They seem, for the most part, to cling with a sort of natural tenacity, to their rags and filth. Perhaps it is the bitterness of their poverty which makes them thus neglectful of the first duties of cleanliness: perhaps their pinching indigence reduces them to a state of despair that allows them no spirit and no heart to do any thing that may conduce to their comfort. Whatever be the cause, it is nevertheless a fact that, with the exception of one or two streets, Globe Town is a district which necessity alone could compel a person of cleanly habits and domestic propriety to reside in.

And yet Globe Town contains streets delighting in aristocratic names. There is Grosvenor Place in which a carriage and pair would have some trouble to turn; there is Parade Street, where a corporal's guard could not find space to manœuvre; there is Park Street, whose most gorgeous embellishment is the sign of a mangle; there is Chester Place, formed by two rows of miserable shops; and there are Essex Street and Digby Street, where single men may obtain lodgings at the rate of threepence a night.

How strange is this affection for fine names to distinguish horrible neighbourhoods! In the lowest parts of Whitechapel we find Pleasant Row, Queen Street, Flower Street, Duke Street, and Rose Lane. In Bethnal Green, a place inhabited by the poorest of the poor is denominated Silver Street; and, in the same district, a filthy thoroughfare is christened Pleasant Street.

Globe Town and its immediate vicinity abound in cemeteries. To the north there is the Eastern London Cemetery; and to the south there are two Jews' burial grounds, and two other places of sepulture. With the exception of the first-mentioned one, which has only been recently opened, and is a large airy space neatly planted with shrubs, those cemeteries are so crowded with the remains of mortality, that it is impossible to drive a spade into the ground without striking against human bones.

When you once merge from the Cambridge Road, pass the new church in Bethnal Green, and plunge into Globe Town, it seems as if you had left London altogether,—as if you were no longer within the limits of the metropolis, but had suddenly dropped from the clouds into a strange village strangely peopled. You encounter but few persons in the streets; and those whom you do meet are, for the most part, squalid, emaciated, pale, and drooping. The only sounds of mirth which meet your ear, emanate from the casements of the public-houses, or from the urchins that play half-naked in the mud. With these exceptions, Globe Town is silent, gloomy, and sombre.

The shop-windows are indicative of the poverty of the inhabitants. The butcher's shed displays but a few slices of liver stretched upon a board, sheep's heads of no very inviting appearance, and hearts, lungs, and lights, all hanging together, like a Dutch clock with its weights against a wall. The poor make stews of this offal. The fish-stalls present "for public competition," as George Robins would say, nothing but the most coarse and the cheapest articles—such as huge Dutch plaice, haddocks, &c. In the season the itinerant venders of fresh-herrings and sprats drive a good trade in Globe Town. In a word, every thing in that district denotes poverty—poverty—nothing but pinching poverty.

The inhabitants of Globe Town are of two kinds; being weavers, and persons who earn their livelihood by working at the docks or on the canal, on the one hand; and thieves, prostitutes, and vagrants, on the other. When a burglar or a pickpocket finds St. Giles's, Clerkenwell, the Mint, or Bethnal Green too hot to hold him, he betakes himself to Globe Town, where he buries himself in some obscure garret until the storms that menaced him be blown over. Globe Town has thus acquired amongst the fraternity of rogues of all classes, the expressive denomination of the "Happy Valley."

The rooms on the upper floor were furnished in a tolerably comfortable manner; but every article was wretchedly begrimed with dirt. The front apartment served as a sitting-room for the inmates of this strangely-built house; and the back chamber was fitted up as a bed-room.

It was evening, as we before said; and thick curtains were drawn over the two windows of the front room to which we have alluded. A candle with a long flaring wick, stood upon the table. On a good fire a kettle was just beginning to boil. The table was set out with glasses, bottles, sugar, lemons, pipes, and tobacco. The inmates of that room were evidently preparing for a carouse, while the rain beat in torrents against the windows, and the wind swept down the street like a hurricane.

But who were the inmates of that room?

We will proceed to inform our readers.

Lolling in an arm-chair, the covering of which was torn in many places, and spotted all over with grease, was a female, who in reality had scarcely numbered five-and-twenty years, but to whom the ravages of dissipation and evil passions gave the appearance of five-and-thirty. She had once been good-looking; and her features still retained the traces of beauty: but there was a deep blue tint beneath the eyes, which joined the dark thick brows, and thus seemed to inclose the orbs themselves in a dingy circle. The faded cheeks were coloured with rouge; but the dye had been so clumsily plastered on, that the effect could not deceive the most ignorant in such matters. This woman wore a faded light silk gown, cut very low in front, and disclosing a considerable portion of a thin and shrivelled neck. In a word, she had the air of being what she really was—a faded courtesan of a low order. Her proper name was Margaret Flathers; but her acquaintance, for brevity's sake, called her Meg; and, in addition to these appellations, the name of The Rattlesnake had been conferred upon her, from the circumstance that she was fond of dressing in silks or satins, which she had a habit of rustling as much as possible when she walked.

On the other side of the fire-place was seated a man of cadaverous countenance, which was overshadowed by a quantity of tangled black hair, and whose expression was vile and sinister to a degree.

"Half-past eight," said the woman, glancing towards a huge silver-watch which hung by a faded blue riband to a nail over the mantel.

"Yes—they can't be long now," returned her companion, who was no other than the Resurrection Man. "But because they're late, Meg, it's no reason why we shouldn't have a drop of blue ruin. The night's precious cold; and the kettle's just on the boil. Pour out the daffy, Meg."

The woman drew two tumblers towards her, and half filled each with gin. She then added sugar and lemon; and in a few moments the Resurrection Man poured the boiling element upon the liquor.

"Good, isn't it, Tony?" said the Rattlesnake.

"Capital, Meg. You're an excellent girl to judge of the proportions in a glass of lush."

"And I think, Tony," said the woman coaxingly, "that you have had no reason to complain of me in other respects. Twelve months all but a few days that we've been together, and I have done all I could to make you comfortable."

"And so you ought," answered the Resurrection Man. "Didn't I take you out of the street and make an independent lady of you? Ain't you the mistress of this crib of mine? and don't you live upon the fat of the land?"

"Very true, Tony," said the Rattlesnake. "But what would you have done without me? When that business took place down by the Bird-cage Walk, and you was obliged to come and hide yourself in the Happy Valley, you wanted some one you could rely upon to go out and buy your things, take care of the place, and get information whether the blue-bottles had fallen on any scent."

"All right, my girl," cried the Resurrection Man. "I did want such a person, and the moment after I escaped that night when I blew the old crib up, I went to you and told you just what I required. You agreed to come and live with me and I agreed to treat you well. We have both kept our bargain; and I am satisfied if you are."

"Oh! you know I am, Tony dear," exclaimed the Rattlesnake. "But sometimes you have been so cross and quarrelsome, that I didn't know what to make of it."

"And was there no excuse, Meg?" cried the Resurrection Man. "Did I not see my old mother and the Cracksman perish before my very eyes—and by my own hand too? But I do not accuse myself of having wilfully caused their death. There was no help for it. We should have all three been taken to Newgate, and never have come out of the jug again but twice—once to be tried, and the second time to be hung."

"Could they have proved any thing against you?" demanded the Rattlesnake.

"Yes, Meg," answered the Resurrection Man; "there was a stiff'un in the front room at the very moment when the police broke into the house. We had burked him on the preceding evening; and he was still hanging head downwards to the ceiling."

"It was much better, then, to blow the place up, as you did," observed the Rattlesnake.

"Capital contrivance!" exclaimed the Rattlesnake. "Had you put up that pipe long before the police broke into the house?"

"Oh! yes—some months," answered the Resurrection Man; "and very lucky it was, too, that the pipe was water-tight, so that the rain had never moistened the powder in the least. Well, when the blue-bottles broke in, I rushed into the back-room, locked the door, leapt through the window, flew to the end of the pipe, tore out the plug, applied the match, and in a moment all was over."

"And for a long time even your old pals at the Boozing-ken on Saffron Hill, fancied you had been blown up with the rest," said the Rattlesnake.

"Of course they did, because the newspapers, which you always used to go and fetch me to read, said there was no doubt that every one of the gang in the house at the time had perished."

"And they also spoke of the way in which the police had followed you and the Cracksman to the house," said the Rattlesnake.

"Yes—and that was how I came to learn that the man who had hunted me almost to death, was Richard Markham," exclaimed the Resurrection Man, his countenance suddenly wearing an expression of such concentrated—vile—malignant rage, as to render him perfectly hideous.

"Now don't begin to brood over that," cried the Rattlesnake hastily; "for I am almost afraid of you when you get into one of those humours, dear Tony."

"No—I shan't give way now," said the villain: "I have prepared the means for revenge; and then I shall be happy. Ah! Meg, you cannot conceive how I gloated over the wretch the other night when I denounced him in the theatre! That man has been the means of making me stay in this infernal prison—for it has been nothing better—for weeks and months; he was the cause of the loss of my best friend, the Cracksman, and of my old mother, who was very useful in her way: and he prevented me from getting that young fellow into my power, who went and explored the Palace. When I think of all that I have suffered through this infernal Richard Markham, I am ready to go mad;—and I should have gone mad, too, if it hadn't been that I always thought the day of vengeance would come!"

"And my little attentions helped to console you Tony," said the Rattlesnake, in a wheedling manner that seemed peculiar to her.

"Oh! as for that, Meg, a man like me can be consoled by nothing short of revenge in such a case. I have told you the history of my life over and over again; and I think you must have learnt from it, that I am not a person to put up with an injury. I have often thought of doing to Markham as I did to the justice of the peace and the baronet—setting his house on fire; but then he might not learn who was the incendiary, or he might even think that it was an accident. My object is for him to know who strikes him, that he may writhe the more."

"And do you think that the Buffer and Moll are to be depended upon?" asked Margaret Flathers.

"To the back-bone," replied the Resurrection Man. "How could the Buffer possibly betray me, when he was one of the gang, as the newspapers called it? Besides, wasn't he laid by the heels in Clerkenwell Gaol for making away with the bantling to cheat the Burying Society? and didn't he escape? How could he go and place himself in contact with the police by giving information against me? And what good would it be to him to deceive me? He knows that I have got plenty of tin, and can pay him well. Indeed, how has he lived in the Happy Valley for the last eleven months and more, since he escaped out of Clerkenwell? Haven't I been as good as a brother to him, and lent him money over and over again?"

"Very true," said the Rattlesnake. "I only spoke on your account."

"I shall be able to let the Buffer in for several good things, now that I am determined to commence an active life again," continued the Resurrection Man. "I have been idle quite long enough; and I am not going to remain so any more. Why, Greenwood alone ought to be as good as an annuity to me. He can always find employment for a skilful and daring fellow like me."

"And he pays like a prince, doesn't he?" demanded the Rattlesnake.

"Like a prince," repeated the Resurrection Man. "Five guineas the other night for just attending the carrying off of the young actress. That is the way to make money, Meg."

"And you have got plenty, Tony, I know?" said the woman, in a tone more than half interrogatively, and only partially expressing a conviction.

"What's that to you?" cried the Resurrection Man, brutally; at the same time eyeing his mistress in a somewhat suspicious manner.

"Oh! only because you needn't have any secrets from me, Tony," returned the Rattlesnake, affecting a tone of indifference. "You have been out every night lately—and only for a short time—"

"Now I tell you what it is, Meg," exclaimed Tidkins, striking his fist upon the table, "you have asked me about my money a great many times lately; and I tell you very candidly, I don't like it. It looks suspicious; but, by heavens! if you attempt to play me false—"

"Why should you say that, Tony? Have I not given you every proof of fidelity?"

"Yes—you have; or else I should have known what to do in a very few moments. But why do you bother yourself about the money that I have got? It is very little, I can tell you; but where it is, it's safe enough; and if I ever catch you attempting to follow me or spy upon me when I go into the rooms down stairs, I'll make you repent it."

"Now, Tony dear, don't put yourself into a passion," said the Rattlesnake, turning pale, and assuming her usual wheedling tone: "I didn't mean to annoy you. All that I wanted to know was whether there was a chance of running short or not."

"Don't frighten yourself, Meg," returned the Resurrection Man. "Whenever I run low, I know how to get more. And now, that we mayn't have to talk upon this subject again, recollect once for all that I won't have you prying into any thing that I choose to keep to myself. You know that I am not a man to be trifled with; and if any one was to betray me—I don't mean to say that you ever had such an idea—I only mean you to understand that if anybody did—"

"Well—what?" said the Rattlesnake in a tone of alarm.

"I would not be taken alive," added the Resurrection Man; "and those who came to take me at all, would probably travel the same road that the police, the Cracksman, and the Mummy have gone already."

"I don't mean to say any thing at all about it, one way or another," interrupted the Resurrection Man coolly. "All I want you to do is to remain quiet—attend to my wishes—keep a close tongue in your head—and have no eyes for any thing that I don't tell you to look at,—and then we shall go on as pleasant as before. Otherwise—"

At this moment a knock at the street door was heard.

The Rattlesnake hastened to answer the summons, and returned accompanied by the Buffer and his wife.

THE Buffer was one of the most unmitigated villains that ever disgraced the name of man. There was no species of crime with which he was not familiar; and he had a suitable helpmate in his wife, who was the sister of Dick Flairer—a character that disappeared from the stage of life in the early part of this history.

In person, the Buffer was slight, short, and rather well-made,—extremely active, and endowed with great physical power. His countenance was by no means an index to his mind; for it was inexpressive, stolid, and vacant.

His wife was a woman of about five-and-twenty, being probably ten years younger than her husband. She was not precisely ugly; but her countenance—the very reverse of that of the Buffer—was so indicative of every evil passion that can possibly disgrace womanhood, as to be almost repulsive.

The two new-comers seated themselves near the fire, for their clothes were dripping with the rain, which continued to pour in torrents. The warmth of the apartment and a couple of glasses of smoking grog soon, however, put them into good humour and made them comfortable; and the Resurrection Man then proposed that they should "proceed to business."

"In the first place, Jack," said the Resurrection Man, addressing himself to the Buffer, "what news about Markham?"

"He will attend to the appointment," was the answer.

"He will?" exclaimed the Resurrection Man, as if the news were almost too good to be true: "you are sure?"

"As sure as I am that I've got this here glass in my mawley," said the Buffer.

"To-morrow night?"

"To-morrow night he'll meet his brother at Twig Folly," answered the Buffer, with a laugh.

"Tell me all that took place," cried the Resurrection Man; "and then I shall be able to judge for myself."

"As you told me," began the Buffer, "I made myself particklerly clean and tidy, and went up to Holloway this morning at about eleven o'clock. I knocked at the door of the swell's crib; and an old butler-like looking feller, with a port-wine face, and a white napkin under his arm, come and opened it. He asked me what my business was. I said I wanted to speak to Mr. Markham in private. He asked me to walk in; and he showed me into a library kind of a place, where I see a good-looking young feller sitting reading. He was very pale, and seemed as if he'd been ill."

"Fretting about that business at the theatre, no doubt," observed the Resurrection Man.

"What business?" cried the Buffer.

"No matter—go on."

"Well—so I went into this library and see Mr. Markham. The old servant left us alone together. 'What do you want with me, my good man?' says Markham in a very pleasant tone of voice.—'I have summut exceeding partickler to say to you, sir,' says I.—'Well, what is it?' he asks—'Have you heerd from your brother lately, sir?' says I, throwing out the feeler you put me up to. If so be he had said he had, and I saw that he really knew where he was, and every thing about him, I should have invented some excuse, and walked myself off; but there was no need of that; for the moment I mentioned his brother, he was quite astonished.—'My brother!' he says in a wery excited tone: 'many years has elapsed since I heerd from him. Do you know what has becomed on him?'—'Perhaps I knows a trifle about him, sir,' says I; 'and that is wery trifling indeed. In a word,' I says, 'he wants to see you.'—'He wants to see me!' cries my gentleman: 'then why doesn't he come to me? But where is he? tell me, that I may fly to him.'—So then I says, 'The fact of the matter is this, sir; your brother has got his-self into a bit of a scrape, and don't dare show. He's living down quite in the east of London, close by the Regent's Canal; and he has sent me to say that if so be you'll meet him to-morrow night at ten o'clock in Twig Folly, he'll be there.'—Then Mr. Markham cries out, 'But why can I not go to him now? If he is in distress or difficulty, the sooner he sees me the better.'—'Softly, sir,' says I. 'All I know of the matter is this, that I'm a honest man as airns his livelihood by running on messages and doing odd jobs. A gentleman meets me on the bank of the canal, close by Twig Folly, very early this morning and says, 'Do you want to airn five shillings?' Of course I says 'Yes.'—'Then,' says the gentleman, 'go up to Markham Place without delay, and ask to see Mr. Markham. He lives at Holloway. Tell him that you come from his brother, who is in trouble, and can't go to him; but that his brother will meet him to-morrow night at ten o'clock on the banks of the canal, near Twig Folly. And,' says the gentleman, 'if he should ask you for a token that you're tellin' the truth, say that this appointment must be kept instead of the one on the top of the hill where two ash trees stand planted.'—Well, the moment I tells Mr. Markham all this, he begins to blubber, and then to laugh, and to dance about the room, crying, 'Oh! my dear—dear brother, shall I then embrace you so soon again?' and such-like nonsense. Then he gives me half a sovereign his-self, and sends me into the kitchen, where the cook makes me eat and drink till I was well-nigh ready to bust. The old butler was rung for; and I've no doubt that his master told him the good news, for when he come back into the kitchen, he treated me with the greatest civility, but asked me a lot of questions about Master Eugene, as he called him. I satisfied him in all ways; and at last I rises, takes my leave of the servants, and comes off."

"Well done!" cried the Resurrection Man, whose cadaverous countenance wore an expression of superlative satisfaction. "And you do not think he entertained the least suspicion?"

"Not a atom," returned the Buffer.

"Nor the old butler?" asked the Resurrection Man.

"Have I not before told you that this Richard Markham was a fellow-prisoner with me in Newgate some four years and more ago? Well, I often overheard him talking about his affairs to another man that was also there, and whose name was Armstrong. Markham and this Armstrong were very thick together; and Markham spoke quite openly to him about his family matters, his brother, and one thing or another. That's the way I came to hear of the strange appointment made between the two brothers."

"Well, there's no doubt that the fish has bit and can be hooked to-morrow night," said the Buffer.

"Yes—he is within my reach—and now I shall be revenged," exclaimed the Resurrection Man, grinding his teeth together. "I will tell you my plans in this respect presently," he added. "Let us now talk about the old man that your wife nurses."

"Or did nurse, rather," cried Moll, with a coarse laugh.

Both the Resurrection Man and Margaret Flathers turned a glance of inquiry and surprise upon the Buffer's wife.

"The old fellow's dead," she added, after a moment's pause.

"Dead already!" exclaimed Tidkins.

"Just as I tell you," answered Moll. "He seemed very sinking and low this morning; and so I was more attentive to him than ever."

"But the money?" said the Resurrection Man.

"All a dream on her part," cried the Buffer, sulkily, pointing towards his wife.

"Now don't you go for to throw all the blame on me, Jack," retorted the woman; "for you know as well as I do that you was as sanguine as me. And who wouldn't have taken him for an old miser? Here you and me," she continued, addressing herself to her husband, "go to hire a lodging in a home in Smart Street, about three months ago, and we find out that there's an old chap living overhead, on the first floor, who had been there three months before that time, and had always lived in the same regular, quiet way—never going out except after dusk, doing nothing to earn his bread, paying his way, and owing nobody a penny. Then he was dressed in clothes that wasn't worth sixpence, and yet he had gold to buy others if he chose, because he used to change a sovereign every week, when he paid his rent. Well, all these things put together, made me think he was a miser, and had a store somewhere or another; and when I said to you——"

"I know what you said, fast enough," interrupted the Buffer, sulkily: "what's the use of telling us all this over again?

"Just to show that if I was deceived, you was too. But it's always the way with you: when any thing turns out wrong, you throw the blame on me. Didn't you say to me, when the old fellow was took ill a month ago: 'Moll,' says you, 'go and offer your services to nurse the old gentleman; and may be if he dies he'll leave you something; or at all events you may worm out of him the secret of where he keeps his money, and we can get hold of it all the same.' That's what you said—and so I did go and nurse the old man; and he seemed very grateful, for at last he began to like me almost as much as he did his snuff-box—and that's saying a great deal, considering the quantity of snuff he used to take, and the good it seemed to do him when he was low and melancholy."

"Well—what's the use of you and the Buffer wrangling?" cried the Resurrection Man. "Tell us all about the old fellow's death."

"As I was saying just now," continued Moll, "the old gentleman was took wery bad this morning soon after Jack left to go up to Holloway; and the landlady, Mrs. Smith, insisted on sending for a doctor. The old gentleman shook his head, when he heard Mrs. Smith say so, and seemed wery, much annoyed at the idea of having a medical visit. But Mrs. Smith was positive, for she said that she had lost her husband and been left a lone widder through not having a doctor in time to him when he was ill. Well, a doctor was sent for, and he said that the old gentleman was very bad indeed. He asked me and Mrs. Smith what his name was, and whether he'd any relations, as they ought to be sent for; but Mrs. Smith said that she never knowed his name at all, and as for relations no one never come to see him and he never went to see no one his-self. The doctors orders him to have mustard poultices put to his feet; but it wasn't of no use, for the old fellow gives a last gasp and dies at twenty minutes past two this blessed afternoon."

"Well," said the Resurrection Man; "and then, I suppose, you had a rummage in his boxes?"

"Boxes, indeed!" cried Moll, with an indignant toss of her head. "Why, when he first come to the house, Mrs. Smith says that all he had was a bundle tied up in a blue cotton pocket handkercher—a couple of shirts, and a few pair of stockings, or so. She didn't like to take him in, she says; but he offered to pay a month's rent in advance; and so she was satisfied."

"Then you found nothing at all?" exclaimed the Rattlesnake.

"Not much," returned Moll. "The moment we saw he was dead, we began to search all over the room, to see what he had left behind him. For a long time we could find nothing but a dirty shirt, two pair of stockings, and a jar of snuff; and yet Mrs. Smith said she knew there must be money, for she had heard him counting his gold one day before he was took ill. Besides, during his illness, whenever money was wanted to get any thing for him, he never gave it at first, but sent me or Mrs. Smith out of the room with some excuse; and when we went back, he always had the money in his hand. Well, me and Mrs. Smith searched and searched away; and at last Mrs. Smith bethinks herself of looking behind the bed. We moved the bed away from the wall as well as we could, for the dead body lying upon it made it precious heavy; and then we saw that a hole had been made down in the comer of the room. Mrs. Smith puts in her finger, and draws out an old greasy silk purse. I heard the gold chink; but I saw that the purse was not over heavy. 'Well,' says Mrs. Smith, 'I'm glad I've got a witness of what the poor gentleman left behind him, or else I might get into trouble some day or another, if any inquiries should be made.' So she pours out the gold into her hand, and counts thirty-nine sovereigns."

"And that was all?" cried the Resurrection Man.

"And what did she say to that?" demanded the Rattlesnake.

"She began a long ditty about her being an honest woman, though a poor one, and that dead man's gold would only bring ill-luck into her house."

"The old fool!" cried the Resurrection Man.

"And then she said she should ask the parson, when she had buried the old man, what she ought to do with the thirty-one pounds."

"Why didn't you propose to split it between you, and hold your tongues?" asked the Resurrection Man.

"So I did," answered Moll; "and what do you think the old fool said? She up and told me that she always thought that me and my husband was not the most respectablest of characters, and she now felt convinced of it."

"Well, we must have those thirty-one yellow boys, old fellow," said the Resurrection Man to the Buffer.

"Yea—if we can get them," answered the latter; "and I know of no way to do it but to cut the old woman's throat."

"No—that won't do," ejaculated the Resurrection Man. "If the old woman disappeared suddenly, suspicion would be sure to fall on you; and the whole Happy Valley would be up in arms. Then the blue-bottles might find a trace to this crib here; and we should all get into trouble."

"But if you mean to put the kyebosh upon young Markham to-morrow night," said the Buffer, "won't that raise a devil of a dust in the neighbourhood?"

"Markham disappears from Holloway, which is a long way from the Happy Valley," replied the Resurrection Man.

"And the old butler, who is certain to know that the appointment was made for Twig Folly," persisted the Buffer, "won't he give information that will raise the whole Valley in arms, as you call it?"

"No such thing," said the Resurrection Man. "Markham falls into the canal accidentally, and is drowned. There's no mark of violence on his body, and his watch and money are safe about his person. Now do you understand me?"

"I understand that if you mean me to jump into the canal and help to hold him in it till he's drowned, you're deucedly out in your reckoning, for I ain't going to risk drowning myself, 'cause I can't swim better than a stone."

"You need not set foot in the water," said the Resurrection Man, somewhat impatiently. "But I suppose you could hold him by the heels fast enough upon the bank?"

"Oh! yes—I don't mind that," replied the Buffer: "but how shall we get the thirty-one couters from this old fool of a landlady, unless we use violence?"

The Resurrection Man leant his head upon his hand, his elbow being supported by the table, and reflected profoundly for some moments.

So high an opinion did the other villain and the two women entertain of the ingenuity, craft, and cunning of the Resurrection Man, that they observed a solemn silence while he was thus occupied in meditation,—as if they were afraid of interrupting a current of ideas which, they hoped, would lead to some scheme beneficial to them all.

Suddenly the Resurrection Man raised his head, and, turning towards the Buffer's wife, said, "Do you know whether the old woman has spoken to any one yet about the funeral?"

"She said she should let it be till to-morrow morning, because the weather was so awful bad this afternoon."

"Excellent!" ejaculated the Resurrection Man. "Now, Moll, do you put on your bonnet, take the large cotton umbrella there, and go and do what I tell you without delay."

The woman rose to put on her bonnet and cloak, which she had laid aside upon first entering the room; and the Resurrection Man wrote a hurried note. Having folded, wafered, and addressed it, he handed it to the Buffer's wife, saying, "Go down as fast as your legs will carry you to Banks, the undertaker, in Globe Lane, and ask to see him. Give him this; but mind and deliver it into his hand only. If he is not at home, wait till he comes in."

The woman took the note, and departed on the mysterious mission entrusted to her.

"What's in the wind now?" demanded the Buffer, as soon as the door had closed behind his wife.

"You shall see," replied the Resurrection Man. "Now let us fill our glasses, and blow a cloud till Moll comes back."

The Rattlesnake mixed fresh supplies of grog; and the two men lighted their pipes.

"How the rain does beat down," observed the Buffer, after a pause.

"And the wind sweeps along like a hurricane," said the Resurrection Man. "By the by, this is New Year's Day. What different weather it is from what it was last New Year's Day."

"Do you recollect what sort of weather it was last New Year's Day?" demanded the Buffer.

"Perfectly well," answered the Resurrection Man; "because it was on that evening that I and the poor Cracksman helped young Holford over the Palace wall."

"And that venture turned out no go, didn't it?" asked the Buffer.

"It failed because the young scamp either turned funky or played us false, I never could make out which. But I have an account to settle with him too; and the first time I meet him I'll teach him what it is to humbug a man like me."

There was a pause, during which the two men smoked their pipes with all the calmness of individuals engaged in virtuous and innocent meditation; and the Rattlesnake added fresh fuel to the fire, the flames of which roared cheerfully up the chimney.

"Come, sing as a song, Meg," cried the Buffer, breaking a silence which had lasted several minutes.

"I have got a cold, and can't sing," replied the woman.

"Well, then, Tony," said the Buffer, "tell us some of your adventures. They'll amuse us till Moll comes back."

"I am quite tired of telling the same things over and over again," answered the Resurrection Man. "We've never heard you practise in that line yet; so the sooner you begin the better. Come, tell us your history."

"There isn't much to tell," said the Buffer, refilling his pipe; "but such as it is, you're welcome to it."

"You are well aware that my name is really John Wicks, although very few of my pals know me by any other title than the Buffer.

"My father and mother kept a coal and potatoe shed in Great Suffolk Street, Borough. I was their only child; and as they were very fond of me, they would not let me be bothered and annoyed with learning. For decency's sake, however, they made me go to the Sunday-school, and there I just learnt to read, and that's all.

"When I was twelve years old, I began to carry out small quantities of coals and potatoes to the customers. We used to supply a great many of the prisoners in the Bench; and whenever I went into that place, I generally managed to have a game of marbles, and sometimes rackets, with the young blackguards that lurked about the prison to pick up the racket balls, run on messages, and so on. At length I got to play for money; and as I generally lost, I had to take the money which I received from the customers to pay my little gambling debts. I was obliged to tell my father and mother all kinds of falsehoods to account for the disappearance of the money. Sometimes I said that I had lost a few halfpence; then I declared that a beggar in the street had snatched a sixpence out of my hand, and ran away; or else I swore that the customers had not paid me. This last excuse led to serious misunderstandings; for sometimes my father went himself to collect the debts owing to him; and then, when the prisoners declared they had paid me, I stuck out that it was false; and my father called them rogues and swindlers. At length, he began seriously to suspect that his son was robbing him; and one day he found it out in a manner which I could not deny. I was then fourteen, and was pretty well hardened, I can tell you. So I turned round, and told my father that he had brought it all on himself, because he had instructed me how to cheat the customers in weight and measure, and had therefore brought me up in wrong principles.

"You must understand that the usual mode of doing business in coal-sheds is this: all the weights only weigh one half of what they are represented to weigh. For instance, the one which is used as the fifty pound weight is hollow, and is, therefore, made as large in outward appearance as the real fifty pound weight; whereas, in consequence of being hollow, it actually only weighs twenty-five pounds. This is the case with all the weights; the pound weight really weighs only half a pound, and so on. You may ask why the weights are thus exactly one half less than they are represented to be,—neither more nor less than one half. I will tell you: when the leet jury comes round and points, for instance, to the weight used for fifty pounds, the answer is, 'Oh, that is the twenty-five pound weight;' and, upon being tested, the assertion is found to be correct. So there is never any danger of being hauled over the coals by the leet jury; but if the weights were each an odd number of ounces or pounds short, they could not be passed off to the jury as weights of a particular standard, and then the warehouseman would get into a scrape. It is just the same with the measures. The bushel contains a false bottom, and is really half a bushel; and when the leet jury calls, it is stated to be the half bushel measure, whereas to customers it is passed off as the bushel. This will also account to you for the way in which costermongers in the streets are able to sell fruit (cherries particularly) and peas, in the season, for just one half of the price at which they can be bought at respectable dealers. The poor dupe who gives twopence for a pound of cherries of a costermonger in the street, only obtains half a pound; and the housewife who thinks that she can save a hundred per cent. by buying her peas in the same way, only gets half a peck instead of a peck.

"My father had thirty barrows, which he let out to the costermongers at the rate of eighteen pence a day each; and some of those men could clear eight or ten shillings a day by their traffic. But they are so addicted to drinking that they spend all they get; and in the winter season they starve. Now and then a costermonger would disappear with the barrow, for the loan of which my father never required any security, as the poor souls had none to give; and then my father offered a reward for the apprehension of the absentee. He was generally caught, and my father always had him taken before the magistrate and punished—as a warning, he said, to the rest. I used to think he behaved very harshly in this respect, as the poor wretch whom he thus got sent to the treadmill had most probably paid for the barrow over and over again.

"But to return to my story. When my father discovered that I had robbed him, I threw in his teeth the use he made of false weights and measures. He was alarmed at this, because I threatened to inform the neighbours; and so he did not give me the thrashing which he had at first promised. He, however, resolved to send me away from home, and in the course of a few days got me a place at a friend's of his, who kept a sweet-stuff shop, in Friar Street, Blackfriars. There I was initiated into all the mysteries of that trade. I found that the white-sugar articles were all largely adulterated with plaster of Paris; and that immediately accounted to me for the pernicious—often fatal—effects produced by this kind of trash upon children. If parents, who really care for their children, were only commonly prudent, they would never allow them to eat any white-sugar sweet-stuff at all. Then I discovered that the articles passed off as burnt almonds, really contained the kernels of fruits; for the kitchen-maids in wealthy families and hotels collect and sell the stones of the peaches, apricots, and nectarines, eaten at the dinner-tables of their masters, as regularly as cooks dispose of their bones and grease. In fact, the most deleterious ingredients enter into the composition of sweet-stuff. The sugar-refiners sell all their scum to the sweet-stuff makers; and this scum is composed of the lime, alum, bullock's blood, charcoal, acetate of soda, and other things used for fining sugar. Oxide of lead is also mixed with the small proportions of sugar used in making sweet-stuff; and thus you may perceive what filthy and poisonous substances are given to children in the shape of sugar-plums. I hope that I do not weary you with this description; and if you should be surprised that I can now recollect the chemical names of the ingredients used, I must tell you that I went so often to the sugar-refiners, and to the chemists, for my master, that I soon became familiar with every thing at all relating to the business.