The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 235: what you’re looking at

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218 TRE MYSTERIBG. a ae drag herself along through that morass of human reptiles, back to the cold and naked lodging where she had left a loved husband lying sick on a bundle of rags or a heap of straw, and famished | little ones huddling together to keep themselves | warm, while the poor father endeavoured to cheer his wretched offspring with the hope that their mother would be sure to bring them bread—a hope which in a few minutes was to experience so dire a disappointment! For, oh! honest poverty and unblushing vice are always to be found in the same districts—always inhabit the same neighbourhoods: becanse a bad reputation cheapens lodgings im those quarters, and the upright poor are driven by an imperious and stern necessity to seek the advantages which inveterate demoralization has thes procured. And it is in this manner that the honest poverty ends by being drawn into the vortex ef corruption and absorbed in the mass of profligacy and crime: it is thus that the poor artizan is led to steal soover than bebeld his children starwe;—it is thus that his wife is drawn into the loatheome circle whose ce wi at th fo { ExSRaREEE! A I°R8 SES =. not thinking that the poor girl who mate the aatin ' dress that she wears, was with the same needle and : thread sewing her own winding-sheet ;—away passes the sumptuous barouche, bearing to some banquet | the wealthy manufacturer who has just been voting ' in the House of Commons some measure calculated ' to rivet the iron oppression which already goads | his slaves to desperation: away glides the brilliant equipage, on ‘the downy cushion of which slambers | ima dreamy listlessness the ooal-mine owner of | countless riches, all produced by a sweat as ago- | gising as that which streamed from the Saviour’s .?pores on the Mount of Olives!—away flies the state coach of Royalty to the Opera which fills the pockets of foreigners with old, while the vota- ries of the national Grama are pining in debtors’ prisons or preparing to visit the Bankruptcy Court on the morrow ;—away, away they all go—those | magnificent equipages, with their splendid steeds, ) and their glancing lamps, and their pampered me- | nials,—away, away, spurning that ground to which the poor are crushed, and throwing up clouds of that dust which the famished slaves of toil are com- pelled to lick ! But to return to our tale. d Miles the Buzgloak pursued his path amidst the pestilential streets which lie behind the Abbey; aad at length he entered a low public-house, or flash ken, koown by the sign of the Jolly Prizec- fighters. Nodding familiarly to the landlord as he passed the bar, he entered the tap-room, in which there was only one person seated at the moment he crossed the threshold. That person was Dick the Tramper,—a tall, ath- letic, stoutly-built man, with a shock of fiery red hair, a large round face to matck, and bushy whis- kers of the same hug. “ Well, Miles—is # all sig’t 2” demanded this in- dividual, as his friend threw himeelf on the same bench near the fine. “All right,” sesponéed tee Bangieak. “ The saw-bones Thuzston will give thicty-Gee ahiners— and I closed with him.” “ That’s just what wi ret by ask- ing forty,” obeerved the ell, I han’t | been idle either,” he co usky voice that was habitual with ‘en &@ com- plete surwey of the pre! yes about 5 i Ger it’s the that Reas"t got bars at the | Mites, “Bet what about fh us.” answered Dick the Bs quite sick of leying hid make one ia the affair, if in practice. fie’ll meet us square which we’ve agreed | ‘'eriedthe Buzgloak. “I’m t- mothink never fails that | eats the tools?” | —wrench—skeleton-keys— | away cafe,” responded the | mands upep the capacious | it. 6, With ea epprovigg nod of tart ten misutes aster mid- — peantime- we'wegot half-an- ‘ _ (d-@rink a pet er so.” 7 “With all my heart,” returned the Tramper. | And the two willains set to work to enjoy them. | sélves accordingly. | CHAPTER Ld. THE ROYAL GUESS ‘WE must now return to the Earl af Deshoroygh, whom we left at the moment when he guitted Mr. Thurston’s house in May Fair. Summoning all his fortitude to his aid, after the | crushing asaurance which he had received to the.ef- fect that his last and only hope was fruitless, the no- bleman returned home —shut himaelf up in his Private apartment—and gave way to a long and pain- ful meditation. We cannot possibly endeavour to penetrate his: thoughts: but that they were of the most harrowing | description, might .be inferred from his occasional outbursts of passionate grief—the superhuman efforts he made to subdue the fearful excitement which thus maddened him at intervals—the anguish with which he from time to time dashed his hands COONAN ateilo) FD) SS COMM