Spring-Heel'd Jack, The Terror of London — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

: : - \ SPRING-HEEL D JACK: THE TERROR OF LONDON. : roomed house in a very dilapidated condition, _Surmounted by a large structure of laths and _ rotten boards, yclept a pigeon-dormer. Many of the windows were broken, and filled | up, with bundles of dirty rags, or pasted over - with paper. Lhe shutters were broken, and through the _ centre of the door a hole had been bored, and a ~ had.” piece of dirty, greasy cord attached to the handle of the lock inside, passed through it, so that the knocker was seldom used by the inmates, as a pull at the cord instantly obtained them admission. The front room upstairs of this habitation, if such it could be called, was occupied by a poor seamstress, and a cheerless, miserable apartment it indeed was, its wretchedness being greatly enhanced in wet weather by the rain finding its way through the roof, which was sadly destroyed by the numerous pigeons kept there by the owner of the house. | Directly opposite was a small, low, dirty beer- shop, called the Pigeon Flyers, a place of resort for those whose tastes led them to keep the birds in such quantities in that locality. From this house the voices of several men in loud conversation issued, and broke the silence which otherwise would have reigned in the street at the hour at which we visit it, and caused a tall, well-dressed, gentlemanly-looking man to pause in his rather hurried walk, and cast a glance in upon those assembled before the bar. “ What aden!” he muttered ; ‘* but for such plate as these, many a sickly wife would be a appy woman, and many a starving child well fedandclad. “Lis a pity when men waste their hard-earned money thus! Bah! hard-earned did’ I say? Well, perhaps Iam right; for money ill-sot is hard-got, and then wasted in such houses as this.” | He turned as he finished speaking, and his eyes rested upon the faint glimmer of a candle as it played upon a dirty blind over the window of the upstairs room of the house we have noticed opposite, and then upon the Jath- work which protruded over the coping-stone, and with a shrug of the shoulders, he was about to continue his walk, when the angry conver- sation of those at the bar of the Pigeon Flyers arrested his attention. “TI tell you I ain’t got no money,” said a rouch-looking fellow, bringing down the quart- pot, out of which he had been drinking, with a loud bang on the counter, “ and you won't get it—there!”’ *“ Now, look here, Bill,’ said the man addressed, whose bleared eyes and swaying body betokened that he had been drinking pretty freely, as indeed had most of the party, ‘ you’ve owed me that half-a-crown for more nor a fortnight, and he won't trust me a pot; so shell out, and I'll pay for one.” “ Who won’t-trust you a pot?” said Bull, stagcering forward, and catching at the bar. “ Who won’t trust you a pot ?” *T won't,” said the landlord. ‘‘ I won't trust no more beer till I’ve been paid for what you've “You won't?” said Bill, in drunken accents ; “vou won't? Then will you trust me?” 19 “No. Ifyou pay Bob that half-bull, he’ll do it.’ “T ain’t got it.” “ Go and rob the old woman for it,” said Bob. “She ?—she’s never got any money,” said Dill ; ‘‘and that’s what makes me so thundering wild with her. I’m a jolly sight too easy, 1 am, and ought to stick to it all myself!” ‘So you ought,’ said Bob. ‘“* And so I will for the future.” *¢ And then you'd be able to pay your debts,” said Bob, sarcastically. ‘““T was obliged to lick her the other night, because she’d spent all the five bob I give her, and hadn’t left me any money for half an ounce of ’bacca. Yes, ’ma thundering sight too easy ! T let everybody impose upon me. But I mean to alter, Ido, now. People won’t let me owe them anything, and I won't let them owe me; if I do ”»—— “Shut up, Bill,” said one of the party. “Ils devilish little that’s owing you, and a devilish lot you owe, and are likely to. Id bet a crown that half a sov. would cover the lot you could ask for anywhere.” ‘And [ll have it, whatever it is, or there'll be a thundering row, and that afore long, too, youll see! You shall have your money, Bop, you shall have your money,” he added, moving towards the door, as the listener strode away from before the window of the Pigeon Flyers, with a smile on his face, and a contemptuous curl of the lip. The stranger did not go far, however, for when he had got about a dozen doors past the beer-shop, he crouched in the shadow of the wall, and kept his gaze fixed upon the house where he had observed the rushlight dimly burning in the up-stairs room, It was evident that he had some purpose in view, with regard to the house on which his gaze was so intently fixed, for his glance roving upwards to the network of laths, he struck his hands together with an exclamation of satisfaction. The gaslight in the beer-shop was faring away --for it was eleven o’clock at night—and lighting up the front of the house with the broken shut- ters, bringing out in strong relief the dirty bundles of rags in the upper windows, and com- pletely putting into the shade the sickly glimmer of a halfpenny rushlight, whose feeble rays in vain endeavoured to force themselves through the skirt of an old cotton gown which served the purpose of a blind, when bill Jackson—for such was the name by which the owner of the dwelling was familiarly called—staggered rather than walked out of the Pigeon Flyers, and after steadying himself on the cellar-fiap, crossed the road to his own door. Here he amused himself for some nioments by drawing his dirty hand over the panels in search of the greasy cord; and whether the flickering of the gaslight opposite, or a certain wandering of the-mind to which he was subject, rendered him forgetful of its exact position or not, we can- not say, but it is a fact that when, after about a minute’s searching for it, and making sure he had found it at last, he grasped only at ius shadow, and, staggering back to the kerb, fell into a sitting posture in the gutter, aud con- Comichboo An maser re Er er ere ees i CC CUE el Sr ee eee; esc es cs)| eC CU CCC 00 as eS SOE eee es —— -_ — —-w~ ee LL A —_ “‘S