Part 23 (1/2)

'I don't know, I don't know. Since she left off the orange line, Jenny hasn't been the same to her old mother: not to tell her things, I mean, and to take her advice. I should have made her rich by this time if she had taken my advice.'

'Many people like to have their own way, don't they?'

'They do, Sir--they do--to their loss.' She took another pull at the punch and began to get maudlin and to shed tears--while she enlarged upon what she would have done had Jenny only listened to her. I gathered from her discourse that the old gipsy woman, like the whole of her tribe, was without a gleam or a spark of virtue or goodness. Her nature was sordid and depraved through and through. With such a mother--poor Jenny!

Suddenly the old woman stopped short and sat upright with a look of terror.

'Good Lord!' she murmured. 'It's Mr. Merridew!'

At sight of the new-comer standing on the steps a dead silence fell upon the whole Company. All knew him by name: those who knew his face whispered to each other: all quailed before him; down to the meanest little pickpocket, they knew him and feared him. Every face became white; even the faces of the women who shook with terror on account of the men. I observed the girl on the Captain's knee catch him by the hand and place herself in front of him, as if to save him. Then his arm left her waist and she slipped down and sat humbly on the bench beside her man. Thus there was some human affection among these poor things. But the Captain's face blanched with terror and the gla.s.s that he was lifting to his lips remained halfway on its journey. The Bishop's face could not turn white, in any extremity of fear, but it became yellow--while his eyes rolled about and he grasped the table beside him in his agitation. Doll, I observed, after a glance to learn the cause of the sudden silence went on sucking her fingers, rubbing out the figures on the slate and adding them up again.

'Who is it?' I whispered to Jenny.

'Hus.h.!.+ It's the thief-taker: they are all afraid that their time has come. If he wants one of them he will have to get up and go.'

'Won't they fight, then? Do they sit still to be taken?'

'Fight Mr. Merridew? As well walk straight to Tyburn.'

The man was a large and heavy creature, having something of the look of a prosperous farmer. His face, however, was coa.r.s.e and brutal. And he looked round the terrified room as if he was selecting a pig from a herd, with as much pity and no more! This was the man whose perjuries had added a new detainer to my imprisonment. I could have fallen upon him with the first weapon handy, but refrained.

He came into the room. 'Your place stinks, Mother,' he said, 'and it's so thick with tobacco and the steam of the punch that a body can't see across.'

'To be sure, Mr. Merridew,' the old woman apologised. 'If we'd known you were coming----'

'There would have been a large company, would there not?'

'Well, Sir, you see us here, as we are, as orderly and peaceful a house as your Wors.h.i.+p would desire.'

The fellow grinned. 'Orderly, truly, mother. It is a quiet and a well-conducted company, isn't it? These are quiet and well-conducted girls are they not?' He chucked one of the girls under the chin.

'As much as you like--there,' said the girl, impudently, 'so long as you keep your fingers off my neck.'

At this playful allusion to his profession, that of sending people to the gallows, Mr. Merridew laughed and patted the girl on the cheek. 'My dear,' he said, 'if you were on my list you should get rich and you should have the longest rope of any one.'

'The man,' Jenny told me afterwards, 'is the greatest villain in the whole world. He is a thief-taker by profession.'

'You mean, he informs and takes the reward.'

'Yes: but he makes the thing which he sells. He lays traps for pickpockets and such small fry and while he has them in his power he encourages them to become bigger rogues who will be worth more to him.

Do you understand? A highwayman is worth about eighty pounds' reward to him: a man returned from transportation before his time is worth no more than forty. He does not therefore give up the returned convict until he has returned to his highway robberies. All those fellows you saw last night are in his power. The Captain is a returned convict whose time must before long be up, for Merridew only allows a certain amount of rope. He says he cannot afford more. As for the Bishop, he will go on longer: he is useful in many other ways: he can write letters and forge things and invent villainies: he persuades the young fellows to take to the road. I think he will be suffered to go on as long as his powers last.'

'Why was your mother so terrified?'

Jenny hesitated. 'Because--I told you, but you do not understand--because she, too, is in his power for receiving stolen goods. My mother is what they call a fence. Oh!' she shook herself impatiently: 'they are all rogues together. I wonder I can ever hold up my head. To think of the Black Jack and the Company there!'

The Captain sprang to his feet with an effort at ease and politeness.

'What will your Honour think of us?' he cried. 'Gentlemen, Mr. Merridew is thirsty and no one offers him a drink. Call for it, sir--call for the best this house affords.'