Spring-Heel'd Jack, The Terror of London — page 228: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Ja0 SPRING-HEEL’D JACK well in the shadaw of the wretched dwellings, hurried his pace, and even reached the next habi- {ation to that of Bill’s without being detected, ere that worthy answered the loud summons of the merchant, which he did by flinging the door open, and saying — “© Why didn’t you pull the cord ? Then nobody would have heard you knock.” : “No matter ; there is no person about,” an- swered the merchant. ‘‘ How is your charge?” ‘Same as she was when you brought her this morning. Clean off her chump, governor,” was the reply. ‘‘She’s upstairs in the room the serving galhad. But come in, and I'll bring you a slim to go and look at her with. My old woman says she don’t like the idea of it; but I soon told her to shut up, or it would be the worst for her. I aint a-going to refuse a chance of earning a pound ’cos she don’t like it—not I. Let’s shut the door, and I’ll get you a light.” The door was closed, and Jack stepped out into the centre of the narrow pathway, shaking his head ominously. ‘‘T can no longer doubt but that by some vile means or another this villain has obtained pos- session of the person of the young widow, and that he has secreted her here with this callous- hearted ruffian, the better to enable him to carry out his infernal designs. But 1 will baulk him yet. Thrice have I been her champion in the hour of peril, and I will be soagaim. Ah! Master Jackson, the fright I gave you has not, then, caused you to change your wicked course. You shall see me when you little expect it.” He strode out into the roadway and looked up at the rag-and-paper patched window, and the sill covered with oyster-shells, brickbats, and rubbish, which had been adroitly pitched there by certain little hatless and bootless specimens of humanity, whose school was the streets, and whose prospect was the saol, The room was in perfect darkness when Jack first cast his eyes towards it, but in the course of a few seconds a light gleamed within it ; its lustre was deadened by the dirty panes of class and the old worsted shawl that had been hung before them. Jack knew, however, that Grasper had reached the room, and he listened for any sound that might indicate the presence of another than him- self within 1t. Te fancied he heard a faint scream, but was not certain; and though he still listened, he heard nothing more. ‘¢T will know who it is he has come to see,” muttered Jack; “(and I can do that without my presence being known, I fancy, unless the fellow has stopped up the opening in his roof, which once before gave me entrance and egress from the house. There is still that wretched building of dirty woodwork, so I doubt not all is as it was before. However, here goes to see.” Taking his mask from his pocket, he adjusted it to his face, and moved away from the spot. About seven or eight doors past the one with the greasy cord and dirty panels was a small opening, leading to the back yards of the houses on that side where Bill Jackson lived, oe ee ee a TTS LLL THE TERROR OF LONDON. This alley, if such it could be called, was greatly used during the day-time, albeit there was no house or habitation down it. But the costermongers and hawkers—of which there were several in that neighbourhood—found it well adapted for the passage of their barrows to their back yards. It was not very wide, certainly, but still wide enough for the purpose named, and certainly © saved the necessity of the wheels being re- moved from their carriages to enable them to be taken through the still narrower passages of the houses. | Some there were who ventured to leave them outside the front of their dwellings during the night ; but these were few, as the risk was very creat of their being stolen. It was to this entry, then, that Jack made — his way, and he dived down it. It was very dark. Not a single lamp, not a single ray of light, showed him where to step. But he had traversed it before, and passed quickly yet steadily on till he reached a low paling that prevented encroachment upon the yards of the houses on either side. For that locality the space of ground behind the dwellings was certainly more than would have been expected, or might be found in many a more respectable neighbourhood, being amply suffitient for a pretty little garden. But flowers were very rare there. sheds, formed of old and rotten boards or crooked laths, took the place of greenhouses ; and the only sign of vegetation was in the refuse of vegetable matter strewed about, and allowed to remain where thrown, mingling with dirt and ashes till it sprouted. if ‘A more wretched and deplorable place it would have been hard te find than the back of the house in the street to which Jack had-fol- lowed Grasper- Filth was everywhere, and the odour was far from pleasant. | However, Jack did not pause to gaze upon or ponder over the scenes around him, but lightly vaulted over the low palings into the yard next the court. A half-starved, long-tailed, long-eared mon- grel cur, who had taken up his lodgings in an over-turned soda cask, sprang yelping towards him, but which, as Jack raised his foot to give it a kick, slunk back, whining, to its kennel, with its long tail curled under its stomach, and gave him no further annoyance. So he vaulted over the next, and the next dilapidated row of low palings, till he stood in the yard attached to the house of the pigeon-fancier. There was a dim light in the back room of the lower part of the dwelling, and as Jack looked towards it, he saw, through the glass, Bull Jackson sitting on a broken chair, smoking a short pipe, before the fire-place, and his wife sitting beside a deal table, on which her elbow rested, looking the picture of grief and poverty. There was no curtain tothe window, and Jack had a full view of the wretched apartment, and, indeed, wretched it was. Scarcely a particle of furniture did it possess, and that was old, broken, and ricketty. | JOCK AMLCE (E() Dirty |