The Mysteries of London; or, Lights and Shadows of London Life — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

—_— ee ee ee Oe a eee ee —- = A la ~~ — ee THE MYSTERIES OF LONDON, - -————_- - —s 14 twisted into a tight noose. There was a subdued, sified we a en, and one powerful effort at extrication; but the strong, iron arm of the bird- fancier, who grasped him as if in a vice, completed the succesa of the encounter, which inebriation had pre- viously made more certain. “Quick, quick—the sculls!” cried Randall, in a rapid whisper to his companion, who, deeply interested im the scene, had kept as close as the impelling force of the current allowed; “the other two have gone overboerd—confound them!” “Are you sure that you have him secure ?” anxi- ously asked the old man, as, nearing the boat, he gave his associate the assistance required. “Is the danger over?” “Ay, over—to be sure it is.. Here somebody lays at least as flat down in our boat as a good ringing blow could make him. But come, climb over into, it yourself, and leave me to manage the other; we must make use of tide, and sculls too, if we are to get out of sight before daybreak.” Managing, not without some difficulty and risk, to make good his footing, the old man was transferred to the boat, where the object of his. deeply-cherished enmity was stretched completely senseless; and Ran- dall, who proved himself skilled in all the details, of the waterman’s craft, attached the wherry behind, and plied tho sculls vigorously, to bear them beyond the chance of observation, With such rapidity and dexterity the attack and capture had been accomplished, that the whole occur- reuce had not occupied more than a few minutes, and besides a foreign steamer and a few colliers that were going down with the ‘morning tide, nothing passed them on the way likely to excite alarm. On—on they went, past Woolwich, where the lights from the town came forth in picturesque contrast with the deep shadowy gloom of the country beyond; on by those dreary wastes of marshes that stretch along by the Essex shore; and then turning round by Barking Creek, they tied the boats to the stump of an old tree, and prepared to disembark at the place of their desti- nation. The barn, or hovel, for such it had become through the neglect of the owner and the different use to which it was now applied, was situated but a short distance from the entrance to the creek where they then were; and the conveyance of their captive was consequently rendered a matter of little difficulty. Accordingly Randall threw the inanimate form of the stranger on to his own shoulders,and, preceded by Hawkins, strode through the dewy fields of high rank grass, until the low stone walls of an outbuilding that had evidently been once a portion of a large farm, long ago demolished, now rose in palpable outline be- fore them. Unfastening the door with a key he de- tached from some secret pocket, and bestowing a sig- nificant glance at his companion, as if in remembrance of some past event associated with the spot, Hawkins led the way into the barn, which was of moderately hs | large dimensions, and lillumined by a small window mear the top. Here, as the first streaks of dawn rendered objects more and more distinct, Randall saw that the person be had attacked and secured was manifestly no match for his herculean strength, being a slim and youthful individual of apparently twenty years of age, A heavy blow, inflicted accidentally. in . the struggle by the scull as it had been struck out of his hands, had left a strong livid mark across the forehead, and was the cause of the protracted insensi- bility into which he had fallen. It was on this pallid lil i ee om tte inanimate form that the morning sun now shed its earliest beams, as Hawkins and Randall, anxious to retrace their steps to the waterside, left the bara, and resigned this solitary inmate to his fate, CHAPTER IV. _ . LIFE JN THE STREETS. ~ | On the morning after his arriyal in one Thornton, with the recollection of the | | events of the preceding night diverted by the novelty of the objects by which he was surrounded, t himself traversing the streets of the metropolis on his way to a merchant in the city, for whom obtained from his former employer a letter of intro- duction. . ; The myriad movements of the restless inhabitants, the throng of the thoroughfares, the teeming magnif cence of the shops, the lively bustle of the roads rife with vehicular animation, the harsh, jarring of the rich and oor so constantly brought inte jaxtaposition, and the contemplation of a mig m ‘a , titude, compelled diurnally to struggle for existence grappling with life itself, and striving by means, fi or foul, by honesty or thievery, to obtain the w withal to sup or sleep, formed a never-failirg interest. In one place he saw a poor ¢ tenuat figure in all the tawdry mockery of spangled belt a flimsy fleshings, twisting himself in every possib form of unnatural contortion to procure a simple crust of bread and cheese; in another, the satin-slippered ° daughters of opulence, descending from their - cushioned carriages, were bar bartering for needless lux~ | uries that which would have lightened the he thousands by whom the silken robes wete fashioned. Here hurried by the accoucheur, there the undertaker; now rattled past a railway omnibus, bearing its pa3- sengers away to the bright green fields and fresh atmosphere of the country; anon rolled onward from a police-office the prison van, to consign its inmates to the dismal cells of the county gaol; some feasting, amid the blaze of glittering chandeliers, delicacies of a rich man’s uet- dropping silently down through the darkness into the cold bed of the ever-murmuring river; one momert the news- paper-boy, laden with the morning journals, carelessly whistles as he deposits that which brings tidings of Pi ‘ ; Catt . 2 mata wealth or wretchedness to hundreds—and the next | we hear the summons of the imperturbable postman, heedless whether the intelligence he brings be that of | fortune or failure, delight or death; at one cornera boy has his eye on a pocket, in readiness to abstract its contents~in another the policeman has his eye on the boy, prepared to punish hi:a for the theft; and all these various movements, this constant revo- lution of the great and little wheels of the marvellous machinery of social existence, are put in motion by one mainspring—lread. The brain must provide for the wants of the body; and the mere daily attrition of the coats of the stomach is an event sufficiently im- portant to stimulate the universal struggle. in There is no place where a sense of loneliness steals more surely and solemnly upon the stranger than in the streets of London, where, in the consciousness felt that, amidst the thousands of human faces that hurry past us, we are not likely to encounter one that is familiar, the perception of our own individual insigni- ficance becomes painfully intense. The atom is abe | — sorbed in the aggregate, as the grain of sand by the sea-shore is imperceptible amongst the countless “ = Gomichboo cS etl i a, com