The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

NN a ee eeSSsesdhsasnsnsShassossassiepaiayerceesy poor folks!” shrieked the landlady. “TI tell you Ive | | 16 had then been introduced to the garret ; bat the working-man would not remove into a better lodging for fear of absorbing his litele store ere he should succeed in obtaining employment. Then it hap- pened that he had about his person all his treasure at the moment when he became in- volved in the adventure which hurried him with such rapidity through the mock-trial at the Home Office—the jonrney to Woolwich — and the embarkation in the boat whence he plunged so desperately into the Thames on the night of pitchy darkness. But we must observe that when he had penned his brief and formal note, as dictated to him by the hirelings of despotic authorities, he had en- trustel his gold together with that letter to the peace-officer who undertook to deliver both next morning in London: but the villanous messenger left the note at the proper address, and retained the money for himself Yes—all—every farthing did the officer keep: not the smallest mite did he spare for the woman who was made as it were a widow and the children who were in like manner rendered fatherless ! And thus the few comforts which had been gathered in that garret—and the vesture which had been redeemed from pledge—ail found their way back to the pawnbroker’s to furnish the means of procuring bread. Woeful fate !—heart-rending and agonising was it for that poor mother to see article after article disappear, swallowed up by the ravenous maw of the monster Pauperism! And as she day by day saw the garret coming back to its recent state of misery—and her children lapsing into the shivering, shuddering chill of semi-nudity— and the landlady’s looks waxing blacker and more suspicious as the weekly rent-day was approaching, —the poor creature felt that she could have lain her- self down to die, had it not been necessary to live on as well and as long as she could for the sake of her children ! And now the morning had arrived when the pit- tance was to be paid for the garret—and it was the same day as that on which the incidents of the pre- ceding chapters took place. Scarcely had noon been proclaimed by all the clocks of the metropolis,—those faithful servitors of Old Time with their iron tongues,—when the sharp, ominous, expected tap at the door was heard; and Mrs. Thomas, the vixenish landlady, entered the garret. “Well, Mra. Melmoth, how be you to-day ?” asked the woman, affecting a civil tone although she more than half suspected that she should have to change it in a minute: for the distress of the poor family was no secret to her—her lynx eyes having marked every article that was taken out by the eldest boy to pledge. . “ Mrs. Thomas, I am very ill—and nearly driven to despair with misery and anguish,” replied the poor woman; “and what is worse,” she added, burst- ing into tears, “I am even unable to pay you the trifle——_" “I knowed it!" ejaculated the landlady, smacking her hand against the wall as a substitute for the table which she would have etruck if there had been ene there. “I am robbed as completely as if I was stopped on the highway.” “Robbed! Oh! no—no,” moaned Mrs. Melmoth, “Though poor—aye, destitate—we are honest -——” been robbed with my eyes hopen—and I'll prove it ! Hasn’t the things which should have been left for me to put the brokers in upon—hasn't they been re- moved under my wery nose——” “They have—they have indeed,” sobbed Mra, Melmoth, pressing her babe to her bosom and en- deavouring to calm the other children who began to cry: “ but everything has been made away with to procure bread——” “The rent should be paid first,” Mrs. Thomas. “Now what am I to tell my Pandlord wheg he comes and asks for Ais money—which he will de this evening—and I’m jast the half-crown short——®* “Surely, my dear Mrs, Thomas,” interrupted tne working man’s wife, “ you can trust me for a few days—till something turns up——” “Nothink won’t turn up,” cried the heartless vixen. “The Government is a persecuting you and yourn—and they'll hunt ye down to the dogs. Bat the chase shan’t take place in my house, I can tell you. Besides, the tax-gatherer has already been and asked me why I keep such seditious, vickedly. disposed people beneath my roof——” “You do not mean to turn us out?” exclaimed Mrs. Melmoth, casting a look of mingled terror and anguish upon the landlady. “ Yes, but I do though !”” was the withering, blight- ing response. “So tramp—be off——” “ Mercy—mercy !”” screamed the poor mother : ‘if not for me, at least for this innocent babe—and those unfortunate children——My God! mercy— mercy ——””’ “No—tramp—be off—out with ye!” vociferated Mrs. Thomas, working herself up into a perfect fury. “ Bundle—or I'll call in a constable——” “Come, then, my poor children—courage!” mur- mured Mrs. Melmoth, in a stifling voice—for she felt as if her heart must break. “Come—let us go forth into the street—and—and—— beg !"" As she uttered these last words, the poor woman staggered against the door- post and almost dropped the babe from her arms: for although she had often and often thought that to beggary her doom must lesd—and although for weeks and months past, her waking reveries by day and her dreams by night had depicted herself and all her children drawn up in a ghastly, ghost-like line in the public streets stretch- ing forth the hand of mendicity,—yet had she never dared breathe aloud the awful word itself until the present occasion. But now the appalling moment had arrived—the consummation of the calamity stared her in the face—she was already standing upoa the threshold of that doom which she had so long foreseen and which now made her blood stagnate as if chilled in her veins, And forth went the unhappy family—the in- human landlady overwhelming them with reproachea, because they were poor! Oh! poverty is indeed a crime in this land of civi- lisation and of Bible Societies,—in this country where religion is made so much of that there is a law to punish with the treadmill those who do not go to church,—in this kingdom where a young lady at present reigns “ by the grace of God !” But it was in the time of that diabolical old monster George II [—the mad, scrofulous, and cold- bloodedly cruel grandfather of this same young lady fo whom we have just alluded,—it was in the time of that atrocious tyrant whom despicably sycophantie “ There ain't no such a thing as honesty amongst eee ECORAIC Oe