The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 109: what you’re looking at

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

SS ey THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. 103 bell has just rung. Go, mother, quick—and sce we instant rendered intolerable for any eyes to what he wants!” gaze upon. Mrs. Webber accordingly bustled up the flight “ Ah! it’s an uncommon convenient place—isn’t of steps; and having remained absent for five it, Barney ?” observed Jack Smedley, after a pause minutes, she re-appeared in the scullery. which had followed the ruffian’s sentiment: and “He has made up his mind to leave,” she said, be gold-beater, as he thus spoke, looked down in a mysterious whisper, and with still more omi- | upon the drugget as his wife had previously done. nously mysterious looks. “He says he shall go |“ Now, what things do go on in London! Who the day after to-morrow—and he asked if I could | would suspect——” get somebody who might be trusted to delivera/ “Don’t be so silly, Jack,” interrupted Bab. letter to-morrow iy One would think you were going to moralize on “To be sure!” interjected the Burker, with a | the secrets that this house could reveal if it liked. significant leer. ‘ You said yes, of course?” I am always afraid of your tongue te “Of course I did!” responded the old woman, * No—you needn’t be afeard,” interrupted the almost indignantly, as if she thought that it was | Burker. “Ive knowed Jack Smedley long enough an insult to doubt the nature of the reply she | to be sure that he’s as downy as the knocker at | had given. “Who knows but that the letter may | Newgate, and as safe and tight as the stone-jug be a full confession of all the wrong he has done? | itself. Why, let me see—it’s a matter of ten year Perhaps it will be to the people he has robbed: | you’ve been in this house—and you've kept up a for that he has done something of the sort, there | good name the whole time.” can’t be the slightest uncertainty.” “Tt was my dodge, the joining in with the chaps “ Not a bit of it!” said Bab assentingly. “But | next door!” observed Smedley, with a triumphant under present circumstances, we won’t doanything | grin expanding over his mean-looking counte- to-night: we will wait till to-morrow night. We| nance: “and let me ‘tell you it’s the very best will read the letter that he wants to send; and| dodge that ever was. They take me for as maybe it will put him so much in our power that | snivelling and sanctimonious a fellow as them- we may be able to make him give up to us all he | selves.” has got, and so save us the necessity of——-you| “To be sure theydo!” ejaculated Barney: “and know what:”’—and with a darkly sinister look, |it’s a dodge you must keep up. I thought of she glanced down to that part of the floor where | taking to it myself—only when I peep in the glass, the table stood upon a small square piece of | J can’t bring my mind to the belief that my looks drugget. is the wery best that’s suited for putting on a “ Aye,” said the Burker, “that’s the best plan. | psalm-singing mug. No—that gammon won’t do If as how we can get it by fair means, well and| for me: I must stick to what Lam. Besides, I good: and if not, then " shall make summut of them two Scotts soon. And lifting up his club, he shook it in a signifi- | But I'll tell you what’s wanted.” cant manner, his countenance at the same time| “And what’s that?” inquired Bab Smedley. becoming so diabolically ferocious that even his “Just to look on such a business as we may accomplices in crime could not prevent themselves | perhaps have here to-morrow night,’ answered from shuddering. the Burker. “There’s no’‘use for chaps like the “That place has seen one or two go down,” | Scotts to think of launching theirselves regular in observed Jack Smedley ; “and may be it will see | the profession till they've seen summut of that another before we are much older.” sort. They’ve got mischief enow in’em: but they “Yes—you and me have done a little business | want hardenin’. I understand it right well enow. together in our time, Jack,’ responded the Burker, | I know what human nature is. One must be as if the antecedents just alluded to were a subject | deep in for it, as the sayin’ is, before one is at all for satisfactory retrospection. “ So, may our friend- | times ready to go the whole hog. The feelin’s ship never be less !”—and with this sentiment, the | must be blunted. Bless you! it’s experience as ruffian nodded to his three accomplices as he raised | does it all. Why should we be a sitting here and the glass to his lips. talking so cool over a little affair of this sort, if Good heavens ! that the burning alcohol did not | we hadu’t gone through it all afore? ‘To be sure choke the miscreant whose tongue had thus im- | not!”’—and as if to clench the argument, the piously perverted the sacred name of friendship, | Burker again struck his fist forcibly upon the and had made it the illustration of his own horri- | table. ble ideas of fellowship and intimacy. Forit wasa| “Hush!” said Bab Smedley: “not so loud! frightful friendship, if the word can be so used, | The old man up-stairs may hear you.” which linked him with that man and with those “T suppose he hasn’t no suspicion ?” asked two women—a friendship which held them together | Barney. . for the sake of crimes the darkest and the deepest “Not a bit!” ejaculated Mrs. Webber. “He —a terrible intimacy, that was cemented with| takes me for a nice, good-natured, comfortable blood—a fellowship such as that which may be | matron that tries to do all she can for him ; and supposed to prevail in pandemonium! Yet those| he thinks that Jack is everything that all the wretches dared look each other in the face; and if| neighbours think him. As for Bab, he one day three of them shuddered for an instant at the]! said to me that my son-in-law ought to be proud frightful expression which appeared upon the | of such a fine handsome wife i countenance of the fourth, it was not that they| “And so he ought!” exclaimed Mrs. Smedley, were stricken with remorse for past misdeeds, nor | flinging upo# her husband a Jook which was as with loathing for their associate—but merely that | much as to reproach him for not glorifying him- there was an instinctive recoil from a physical | self sufficiently in the possession of his spouse. } ugliness which the reflex of a blood-stained soul at “Well,” said the Burker, “TI think Ill be jog- x a en | ty nen: Pe Sea NT ee leoniciooks:co