Jack Sheppard ebook

Contents

EPOCH THE FIRST, 1703: JONATHAN WILD

I. THE WIDOW AND HER CHILD

II. THE OLD MINT

III. THE MASTER OF THE MINT

IV. THE ROOF AND THE WINDOW

V. THE DENUNCIATION

VI. THE STORM

VII. OLD LONDON BRIDGE

EPOCH THE SECOND, 1715: THAMES DARRELL

I. THE IDLE APPRENTICE

II. THAMES DARRELL

III. THE JACOBITE

IV. MR. KNEEBONE AND HIS FRIENDS

V. HAWK AND BUZZARD

VI. THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS THE LADDER

VII. BROTHER AND SISTER

VIII. MICHING MALLECHO

IX. CONSEQUENCES OF THE THEFT

X. MOTHER AND SON

XI. THE MOHOCKS

XII. SAINT GILES’S ROUND-HOUSE

XIII. THE MAGDALENE

XIV. THE FLASH KEN

XV. THE ROBBERY IN WILLESDEN CHURCH

XVI. JONATHAN WILD’S HOUSE IN THE OLD BAILEY

XVII. THE NIGHT-CELLAR

XVIII. HOW JACK SHEPPARD BROKE OUT OF THE CAGE AT WILLESDEN

XIX. GOOD AND EVIL

EPOCH THE THIRD, 1724: THE PRISON-BREAKER

I. THE RETURN

II. THE BURGLARY AT DOLLIS HILL

III. JACK SHEPPARD’S QUARREL WITH JONATHAN WILD

IV. JACK SHEPPARD’S ESCAPE FROM THE NEW PRISON

V. THE DISGUISE

VI. WINIFRED RECEIVES TWO PROPOSALS

VII. JACK SHEPPARD WARNS THAMES DARRELL

VIII. OLD BEDLAM

IX. OLD NEWGATE

X. HOW JACK SHEPPARD GOT OUT OF THE CONDEMNED HOLD

XI. DOLLIS HILL REVISITED

XII. THE WELL HOLE

XIII. THE SUPPER AT MR. KNEEBONE’S

XIV. HOW JACK SHEPPARD WAS AGAIN CAPTURED

XV. HOW BLUESKIN UNDERWENT THE PEINE FORTE ET DURE

XVI. HOW JACK SHEPPARD’S PORTRAIT WAS PAINTED

XVII. THE IRON BAR

XVIII. THE RED ROOM

XIX. THE CHAPEL

XX. THE LEADS

XXI. WHAT BEFELL JACK SHEPPARD IN THE TURNER’S HOUSE

XXII. FAST AND LOOSE

XXIII. THE LAST MEETING BETWEEN JACK SHEPPARD AND HIS MOTHER

XXIV. THE PURSUIT

XXV. HOW JACK SHEPPARD GOT RID OF HIS IRONS

XXVI. HOW JACK SHEPPARD ATTENDED HIS MOTHER’S FUNERAL

XXVII. HOW JACK SHEPPARD WAS BROUGHT BACK TO NEWGATE

XXVIII. WHAT HAPPENED AT DOLLIS HILL

XXIX. HOW JACK SHEPPARD WAS TAKEN TO WESTMINSTER HALL

XXX. HOW JONATHAN WILD’S HOUSE WAS BURNT DOWN

XXXI. THE PROCESSION TO TYBURN

XXXII. THE CLOSING SCENE

EPOCH THE FIRST, 1703: JONATHAN WILD

I. THE WIDOW AND HER CHILD

On the night of Friday, the 26th of November, 1703, and at the hour of eleven, the door of a miserable habitation, situated in an obscure quarter of the Borough of Southwark, known as the Old Mint, was opened; and a man, with a lantern in his hand, appeared at the threshold. This person, whose age might be about forty, was attired in a brown double-breasted frieze coat, with very wide skirts, and a very narrow collar; a light drugget waistcoat, with pockets reaching to the knees; black plush breeches; grey worsted hose; and shoes with round toes, wooden heels, and high quarters, fastened by small silver buckles. He wore a three-cornered hat, a sandy-coloured scratch wig, and had a thick woollen wrapper folded round his throat. His clothes had evidently seen some service, and were plentifully begrimed with the dust of the workshop. Still he had a decent look, and decidedly the air of one well-to-do in the world. In stature, he was short and stumpy; in person, corpulent; and in countenance, sleek, snub-nosed, and demure.

Immediately behind this individual, came a pale, poverty-stricken woman, whose forlorn aspect contrasted strongly with his plump and comfortable physiognomy. She was dressed in a tattered black stuff gown, discoloured by various stains, and intended, it would seem, from the remnants of rusty crape with which it was here and there tricked out, to represent the garb of widowhood, and held in her arms a sleeping infant, swathed in the folds of a linsey-woolsey shawl.

Notwithstanding her emaciation, her features still retained something of a pleasing expression, and might have been termed beautiful, had it not been for that repulsive freshness of lip denoting the habitual dram-drinker; a freshness in her case rendered the more shocking from the almost livid hue of the rest of her complexion. She could not be more than twenty; and though want and other suffering had done the work of time, had wasted her frame, and robbed her cheek of its bloom and roundness, they had not extinguished the lustre of her eyes, nor thinned her raven hair. Checking an ominous cough, that, ever and anon, convulsed her lungs, the poor woman addressed a few parting words to her companion, who lingered at the doorway as if he had something on his mind, which he did not very well know how to communicate.

“Well, good night, Mr. Wood,” said she, in the deep, hoarse accents of consumption; “and may God Almighty bless and reward you for your kindness! You were always the best of masters to my poor husband; and now you’ve proved the best of friends to his widow and orphan boy.”

“Poh! poh! say no more about it,” rejoined the man hastily. “I’ve done no more than my duty, Mrs. Sheppard, and neither deserve nor desire your thanks. “Whoso giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord;’ that’s my comfort. And such slight relief as I can afford should have been offered earlier, if I’d known where you’d taken refuge after your unfortunate husband’s–”

“Execution, you would say, Sir,” added Mrs. Sheppard, with a deep sigh, perceiving that her benefactor hesitated to pronounce the word. “You show more consideration to the feelings of a hempen widow, than there is any need to show. I’m used to insult as I am to misfortune, and am grown callous to both; but I’m notused to compassion, and know not how to take it. My heart would speak if it could, for it is very full. There was a time, long, long ago, when the tears would have rushed to my eyes unbidden at the bare mention of generosity like yours, Mr. Wood; but they never come now. I have never wept since that day.”

“And I trust you will never have occasion to weep again, my poor soul,” replied Wood, setting down his lantern, and brushing a few drops from his eyes, “unless it be tears of joy. Pshaw!” added he, making an effort to subdue his emotion, “I can’t leave you in this way. I must stay a minute longer, if only to see you smile.”

So saying, he re-entered the house, closed the door, and, followed by the widow, proceeded to the fire-place, where a handful of chips, apparently just lighted, crackled within the rusty grate.

The room in which this interview took place had a sordid and miserable look. Rotten, and covered with a thick coat of dirt, the boards of the floor presented a very insecure footing; the bare walls were scored all over with grotesque designs, the chief of which represented the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar. The rest were hieroglyphic characters, executed in red chalk and charcoal. The ceiling had, in many places, given way; the laths had been removed; and, where any plaster remained, it was either mapped and blistered with damps, or festooned with dusty cobwebs. Over an old crazy bedstead was thrown a squalid, patchwork counterpane; and upon the counterpane lay a black hood and scarf, a pair of bodice of the cumbrous form in vogue at the beginning of the last century, and some other articles of female attire. On a small shelf near the foot of the bed stood a couple of empty phials, a cracked ewer and basin, a brown jug without a handle, a small tin coffee-pot without a spout, a saucer of rouge, a fragment of looking-glass, and a flask, labelled “Rosa Solis.” Broken pipes littered the floor, if that can be said to be littered, which, in the first instance, was a mass of squalor and filth.

Over the chimney-piece was pasted a handbill, purporting to be “The last Dying Speech and Confession ofTom Sheppard, the Notorious Housebreaker, who suffered at Tyburn on the 25th of February, 1703.” This placard was adorned with a rude wood-cut, representing the unhappy malefactor at the place of execution. On one side of the handbill a print of the reigning sovereign, Anne, had been pinned over the portrait of William the Third, whose aquiline nose, keen eyes, and luxuriant wig, were just visible above the diadem of the queen. On the other a wretched engraving of the Chevalier de Saint George, or, as he was styled in the label attached to the portrait, James the Third, raised a suspicion that the inmate of the house was not altogether free from some tincture of Jacobitism.

Beneath these prints, a cluster of hobnails, driven into the wall, formed certain letters, which, if properly deciphered, produced the words, “Paul Groves, cobler;” and under the name, traced in charcoal, appeared the following record of the poor fellow’s fate, “Hung himsel in this rum for luv off licker;” accompanied by a graphic sketch of the unhappy suicide dangling from a beam. A farthing candle, stuck in a bottle neck, shed its feeble light upon the table, which, owing to the provident kindness of Mr. Wood, was much better furnished with eatables than might have been expected, and boasted a loaf, a knuckle of ham, a meat-pie, and a flask of wine.

“You’ve but a sorry lodging, Mrs. Sheppard,” said Wood, glancing round the chamber, as he expanded his palms before the scanty flame.

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