The Young Apprentice; or, The Watch-Words of Old London — page 101: what you’re looking at

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

pirited, he returned to first met him. ‘‘Curse them,” he muttered, as he concealed himself once more in a corner, where he avoided likewise the driving of the pitiless storm. “If it were but man to man I should not care; but these single figures represent s host of enemies. Had I attacked one, I should have been sur- rounded by a dozen.” : He waited patiently for a few moments, then his despair and anger once more broke forth into words, ‘‘The devil's own curse fall on them, I must it this place ere morning. The breaking of the day will place me amid a nest of hornets,” He looked round him again. All seemed quiet for atime; but presently at the corners of the four streets there appeared four figures. The line of the besiegers gradually was draw- ing round him. e man was evidently now ina deep state of e archway where we r. An agonised look overspread his dark features, and he glanced round about him hopelessly. Suddenly he heard a sound near him—a sound which no one could mistake—the heavy breath- ing of a human being—one evidently who was endeavouring to repress himself. ‘Who is there?” asked the man, bendin down, and drawing his sword. , There was no answer. The man, however, was desperate, and putting the point of his weapon close to the derk corner, he said, in a voice full of savage determination, “ Rise up and let me see your face, or I will drive my sword through your body.” “Ah!” cried a voice. “Ah! it is you, my Lord Raymond. If I had know that I wold have spoken before.” The speaker’s voice was as well known to Lord Raymond as the latter’s to the concealed It was that of Quelf the dwarf, who now sprang up eagerly. i What is the matter, my Lord ?” he asked, ere Lord Raymond could speak again. ‘‘ Are you con- cealing yourself from any one ?”’ ‘‘Yes, yes; I am endeavouring to enter Alsatia; my enemies are even now without, gradually closing upon me.” “ This way, then,’ said the dwarf; ‘take my hand and walk straight forward ; you need fear nothing.” Lord Raymond would have trusted himself with a far less assured friend. Passing out of the archway, Quelf led him up a broad stone staircase and along a wide passage almost entirely obacured in darkness, until they arrived in a back yard, where, in spite of the still raging storm, the light of heaven was a little visible. ‘Whither are we going /” asked Lord Ray- mond, at length. “Into Whitefriara,”’ ‘“Qood,” said Raymond; “I shall be safe there, at least, for a time.” Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this some ff sprang up from the darkness to Oppose fim ; and, at length, wearied and dis- ” THE YOUNG APPRENTICE; OR, time, as it had for more than sixty years after, the privilege of a ° Such a sanctuary was it that only the writ of the Lord Chief Justice or the Lords of the Privy Council could invade it. Indeed, it was a difficult thing—no matter for whom the writ—to execute it in such company. Bankrupt citizens, ruined gamblers, irreclaim- able prodigals, desperate duellists, bravoes, homicides and debauched profligates of every description, fall leagued together to maintain the immunities of the asylum, The ancient sanctuary Isy considerably lower than the elevated terraces and gardens of the Temple, and was therefore generally involved in the damps and fogs arising from the Thames. The brick buildings of which it was composed crowded closely on each other, for in a place so strangely privileged every foot of ground was valuable. Erected, moreover, in many cases by persons whose funda were insufficient, they exbibited the lamentable signs of ruin while they were yet new. The wailing of children, the scolding of mo- ~~“ - 3° , thers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linen | hung from windows to dry, spoke of the wanta and distresses of the miserable inhabitants. These sounds of complaint, however, were mocked and overwhelmed in the riotous shouta, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter that issued from the ale-houses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses put together. Faded, tinselled, and painted females were seen at their windows tending the pining flowers. It was into this safe though unsavoury neighbourhood that Quelf the dwarf conducted Lord Raymond, and at length, by passing through another part of the premises, they emerged close to a dilapidated tavern, which was, nevertheless, more ample in dimensions and less ruinous than many houses in the same evil neighbourhood. Two or three haggard, ragged drawers ran to and fro, whose looks, like those of owls, seemed only adapted for midnight, when other creatures sleep, and who by day seemed bleared, stupid, and only half awake, Guided by one of these blinking and ill-look- ing monstrosities, they entered a room where some twenty men were drinking and smoking, the smoke from their pipes creating a dense and suffocating atmosphere. They were mostly of the same class. Shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous moustaches were turned back over their ears and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some portion escaped through the rents. Their tarnished piush jerkins, large slops, and trunk-breeches; their broad, greasy shoulder- belts, and discoloured scarfs ; and, above all, the ostentatious way in which some of them wore broadswords and others long rapiers and poniards, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and, as I have said, for close upon a hundred years after, a well-known character in London. Those among the company who were not blindly insensible from liquor raised their heads Dbo'o \G