The Mysteries of London; or, Lights and Shadows of London Life — page 353: what you’re looking at

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

one a - P LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF LONDON LIFE. another—a clod, a thing without a miad or beart— should possess her, I drew from my pocket the phial containing the poison. It was prussic acid. One drop and all weal have been over; but at that instant she unclosed her eyes, and | was disarmed. To save my ey es yelp pel ¥ eaald not have harmed a ; as P ' —~, pe he ME ae. “Poor Frank!” said Wilmott, a sentiment of former kindness recurring; “ who would have guessed this; you—the gayest of the gay—the libertine—the sceptic ~—you to have been canght thus!’ “TI have never been caught since; but I am a fool to have suffered old recollections toe touch me even for & moment ; although they are seldom absent from me, I do not often prate about them. When I haye felt the Kiss of beauty on my lip, my heart has whispered ‘This ‘is not’— but I dare not breathe her name, it would be profanation now. Let us change the sub- ject. Ihavetakenthe room.” = ~ What room?” demanded Wilmott, turning deadly pale. “Why, for the execution, to be sure. Ordered breakfast at ten, and sent champagne and cigars, You will accompany me?” } “Not for worlds,” whispered the horror-stricken accomplice of his crime. “You must; half the sporting men about town will be there; our absence would be remarked. Besides, “ horror of 18 reality may cure the baby terrors ‘No; sleeping or waking they haunt me ever! I see him first in the pride of health, then struggling in our murderous grasp! His warm blood is ever on Pr band I feel it trickling over me even as I speak 1” “ Fool,” said Paddle; “it has been washed from it long since.” | “rom my hand it may be, but not my soul!” “Leave your soul to look after the affairs of the firm, and suffer your conscience to be the sleeping partner. Why, man, at times I have a touch of what you call remorse, as well'as you; but not in this case. Both Hawk and the young stranger were robbers.” “ They plundered us.” Ss And we punished them instead of the law. Come no more of this whining; but come and take a drive with me: it will cheer your blood, which seems to run through your yeins this morning with about the same celerity as the life-stream circulates in a Wilmott, whose greatest horror was being left alone to his own reflection, consented, and in a few papi the drag rattled away from the door. Few that noticed them as they passed through the Weat- crowded with brilliant equipages and happy faces, would have imagined how much misery and ime that dashing turn-out conveyed. _ No sooner were they gone than Rose, who had overheard their discourse, tettered from her place of concealment. Her cheek was pale, and her eyes dilated with horror. She had heard sufficient to con- ‘Vince her that the father of her child was a murderer, a being whe might be called to expiate his crim. mpon a scaffold, bequeathing to her and her boy the heritage of infamy. Scarcely knowing how, sh: contrived to reach her chamber, and snatching her infant from its Cot, pressed it to her maternal breast. hedding over it bitter tears. They relieved her ES 321 The morning of the execution at last arrived, and Lendon poured forth its thousands to witness brutal spectacle. The streets in the neighbourhood of Newgate seemed to have been flooded with a long stream. To those who looked down from the tops of the houses, or the windows—which, like boxes at the opera on a gala night, command an extra price when morbid curiosity is roused by the peculiar crime of the being about to die—each street seemed paved with heads. Mechanics neglecting their morning work; apprentices and boys now had crept from their homes without permission; the pickpocket, pugilist, gambler; the ruffian ef every grade was there, with Upstaring faces fixed upon the rude cross-beam, upon which society was about to wrest fron God his. high prerogative, and deprive a fellow creature of life. Hawk had been well known in the sporting werld, e windows in the immediate vicinity of the gallows were well let. The police were from an early hou in the morning making way for parties to their re- spective boxes, much in the same way as the attend- ints do at a theatre. Most of.these favoured person- ages were armed with a ticket, signed by one of the commissioners of {police, with the simple direction 0 pass on the bearer; a half-crown or two did the est. “That cove, in my pinion, had better ha’ stayed in bed,” observéd a costermonger, 28 Wilmott, more dead than alive, made his way, leaning upon Faddle’s arm, to the room - r them. A policémad, to whom they had shown one of the magical cards, preceded them. ' hata sigs ' Silence, fellow,” said the officer, pushing him aside. ‘ ae ee ' ! 7 “T shan’t; the play ain’t begun yet; I have as good a tight to a place in the pit as you have.” = A loud laugh from those around ‘spplauded this sally of the costermonger, who, encouraged by their approbation, indulged his propensity to talk about what he called the rights of things, for he was an orator in his own neighbourhood. — ow * “That’s it. Why can’t the rich keep to their own amusements, and leave us ours? We never interferes er crowds them at the operor; why should they bustle ushere? This is our operer—the people’s play—and devilish good acting there is too; that Calcraft is a capital performer.” | ' Hecertainly does take a jirst line of business,” ob- served Mr. Scraper, one of the smail fry of the press, a thing who lived by raking up the garbage of hu- manity, and serving its most putrid morsels to the diseased appetite of the public. Hecould not resist the occasion for making what he was pleased to de- signate a pun—and he found fools to laugh at it. He had his twenty accounts of the execution all ready— written, of course, over night—io his pocket. ‘The moment the drop sheuld fall, he was, as usual, pre- pared to start; leaving one at every office. It was sure to be received at two or three. An execution was a godsend to Mr. Scraper, who could always ob* rain credit at the coffee-shop upon the strength one, a week, at least, in advance. we The room which Faddle had engaged belonged to a widow, who kept a shep directly opposite the place of execution, and as her business was barely sufficient ‘o support her and her family of lazy grown up sons, vho were supposed to masage her affairs, but who daily robbed her, an execution of any peculiar interest was as important to her as to Mr, Scraper—it frequently enabléd her to pay her rent. The ‘two first-floor windows she reckoned ten guineas. She OND OOO <S (E() im