The trail of the serpent
of six-roomed houses yclept Little Gulliver Street. At No. 5, Little
Gulliver Street, Mr. Peters’ attention had been attracted by the
announcement of the readiness and willingness of the occupier of the
house to take in and do for a single gentleman. Mr. Peters was a single
gentleman, and he accordingly presented himself at No. 5, expressing
the amiable desire of being forthwith taken in and done for.
The back bedroom of that establishment, he was assured by its
proprietress, was an indoor garden-of-Eden for a single man; and
certainly, looked at by the light of such advantages as a rent of
four-and-sixpence a week, a sofa-bedstead--(that deliciously innocent
white lie in the way of furniture which never yet deceived anybody);
a Dutch oven, an apparatus for cooking anything, from a pheasant to
a red herring; and a little high-art in the way of a young gentleman
in red-and-yellow making honourable proposals to a young lady in
yellow-and-red, in picture number one; and the same lady and gentleman
perpetuating themselves in picture number two, by means of a red
baby in a yellow cradle;--taking into consideration such advantages
as these, the one-pair back was a paradise calculated to charm a
virtuously-minded single man. Mr. Peters therefore took immediate
possession by planting his honest gingham in a corner of the room, and
by placing two-and-sixpence in the hands of the proprietress by way of
deposit. His luggage was more convenient than extensive--consisting of
a parcel in the crown of his hat, containing the lighter elegancies of
his costume; a small bundle in a red cotton pocket handkerchief, which
held the heavier articles of his wardrobe; and a comb, which he carried
in his pocket-book.
The proprietress of the indoor Eden was a maiden lady of mature age,
with a sharp red nose and metallic pattens. It was with some difficulty
that Mr. Peters made her understand, by the aid of pantomimic gestures
and violent shakings of the head, that he was dumb, but not deaf; that
she need be under no necessity of doing violence to the muscles of her
throat, as he could hear her with perfect ease in her natural key. He
then--still by the aid of pantomime--made known a desire for pencil and
paper, and on being supplied with these articles wrote the one word
“baby,” and handed that specimen of caligraphy to the proprietress.
That sharp-nosed damsel’s maidenly indignation sent new roses to join
the permanent blossoms at the end of her olfactory organ, and she
remarked, in a voice of vinegar, that she let her lodgings to single
men, and that single men as were single men, and not impostors, had no
business with babies.
Mr. Peters again had recourse to the pencil, “Not mine--fondling; to be
brought up by hand; would pay for food and nursing.”
The maiden proprietress had no objection to a fondling, if paid for its
requirements; liked children in their places; would call Kuppins; and
did call Kuppins.
A voice at the bottom of the stairs responded to the call of Kuppins; a
boy’s voice most decidedly; a boy’s step upon the stairs announced the
approach of Kuppins; and Kuppins entered the room with a boy’s stride
and a boy’s slouch; but for all this, Kuppins was a girl.
Not very much like a girl about the head, with that shock of dark
rough short hair; not much like a girl about the feet, in high-lows,
with hobnailed soles; but a girl for all that, as testified by short
petticoats and a long blue pinafore, ornamented profusely with
every variety of decoration in the way of three-cornered slits and
grease-spots.
Kuppins was informed by her mistress that the gent had come to lodge;
and moreover that the gent was dumb. It is impossible to describe
Kuppins’ delight at the idea of a dumb lodger.
Kuppins had knowed a dumb boy as lived three doors from mother’s
(Kuppins’ mother understood); this ’ere dumb boy was wicious, and when
he was gone agin, ’owled ’orrid.
Was told that the gent wasn’t vicious and never howled, and seemed, if
anything, disappointed. Understood the dumb alphabet, and had conversed
in it for hours with the aforesaid dumb boy. The author, as omniscient,
may state that Kuppins and the vicious boy had had some love-passages
in days gone by. Mr. Peters was delighted to find a kindred spirit
capable of understanding his dirty alphabet, and explained his wish
that a baby, “a fondling” he intended to bring up, might be taken in
and done for as well as himself.
Kuppins doated on babies; had nursed nine brothers and sisters, and
had nursed outside the family circle, at the rate of fifteen-pence a
week, for some years. Kuppins had been out in the world from the age of
twelve, and was used up as to Slopperton at sixteen.
Mr. Peters stated by means of the dirty alphabet--(more than usually
dirty to-day, after his journey from Gardenford, whence he had
transplanted his household gods, namely, the gingham umbrella, the
bundle, parcel, pocket-book, and comb)--that he would go and fetch
the baby. Kuppins immediately proved herself an adept in the art of
construing this manual language, and nodded triumphantly a great many
times in token that she understood the detective’s meaning.
The baby was apparently not far off, for Mr. Peters returned in five
minutes with a limp bundle smothered in an old pea-jacket, which on
close inspection turned out to be the “fondling.”
Mr. Peters had lately purchased the pea-jacket second-hand, and
believed it to be an appropriate outer garment for a baby in
long-clothes.
The fondling soon evinced signs of a strongly-marked character, not to
say a vindictive disposition, and fought manfully with Kuppins, smiting
that young lady in the face, and abstracting handfuls of her hair with
an address beyond his years.
“Ain’t he playful?” asked that young person, who was evidently
experienced in fretful babies, and indifferent to the loss of a stray
tress or so from her luxuriant locks. “Ain’t he playful, pretty
hinnercent! Lor! he’ll make the place quite cheerful!”
In corroboration of which prediction the “fondling” set up a dismal
wail, varied with occasional chokes and screams.
Surely there never could have been, since the foundation-stones of
the hospitals for abandoned children in Paris and London were laid,
such a “fondling” to choke as this fondling. The manner in which his
complexion would turn--from its original sickly sallow to a vivid
crimson, from crimson to dark blue, and from blue to black--was
something miraculous; and Kuppins was promised much employment in
the way of shakings and pattings on the back, to keep the “fondling”
from an early and unpleasant death. But Kuppins, as we have remarked,
liked a baby--and, indeed, would have given the preference to a cross
baby--a cross baby being, as it were, a battle to fight, and a victory
to achieve.
In half an hour she had conquered the fondling in a manner wonderful to
behold. She laid him across her knee while she lighted a fire in the
smoky little grate; for the indoor Eden offered a Hobson’s choice to
its inhabitants, of smoke or damp; and Mr. Peters preferred smoke. She
carried the infant on her left arm, while she fetched a red herring, an
ounce of tea, and other comestibles from the chandler’s at the corner;
put him under her arm while she cooked the herring and made the tea,
and waited on Mr. Peters at his modest repast with the fondling choking
on her shoulder.
Mr. Peters, having discussed his meal, conversed with Kuppins as she
removed the tea-things. The alphabet by this time had acquired a
piscatorial flavour, from his having made use of the five vowels to
remove the bones of his herring.
“That baby’s a rare fretful one,” says Mr. Peters with rapid fingers.
Kuppins had nursed a many fretful babies. “Orphants was generally
fretful; supposed the ‘fondling’ was a orphant.”
“Poor little chap!--yes,” said Peters. “He’s had his trials, though he
is a young ’un. I’m afeard he’ll never grow up a teetotaller. He’s had
a little too much of the water already.”
Has had too much of the water? Kuppins would very much like to know
the meaning of this observation. But Mr. Peters relapses into profound
thought, and looks at the “fondling” (still choking) with the eye of a
philanthropist and almost the tenderness of a father.
He who provides for the young ravens had, perhaps, in the marvellous
fitness of all things of His creation, given to this helpless little
one a better protector in the dumb scrub of the police force than he
might have had in the father who had cast him off, whoever that father
might be.
Mr. Peters presently remarks to the interested Kuppins, that he shall
“ederkate,”--he is some time deciding on the conflicting merits of a
_c_ or a _k_ for this word--he shall “ederkate the fondling,
and bring him up to his own business.”
“What is his business?” asks Kuppins naturally.
“Detecktive,” Mr. Peters spells, embellishing the word with an
extraneous _k_.
“Oh, perlice,” said Kuppins. “Crikey, how jolly! Shouldn’t I like to be
a perliceman, and find out all about this ’ere ’orrid murder!”
Mr. Peters brightens at the word “murder,” and he regards Kuppins with
a friendly glance.
“So you takes a hinterest in this ’ere murder, do yer?” he spells out.
“Oh, don’t I? I bought a Sunday paper. Shouldn’t I like to see that
there young man as killed his uncle scragged--that’s all!”
Mr. Peters shook his head doubtfully, with a less friendly glance at
Kuppins. But there were secrets and mysteries of his art he did not
trust at all times to the dirty alphabet; and perhaps his opinion on
the subject of the murder of Mr. Montague Harding was one of them.
Kuppins presently fetched him a pipe; and as he sat by this smoky fire,
he watched alternately the blue cloud that issued from his lips and
the clumsy figure of the damsel pacing up and down with the “fondling”
(asleep after the exhaustion attendant on a desperate choke) upon her
arms.
“If,” mused Mr. Peters, with his mouth very much to the left of his
nose--“if that there baby was grow’d up, he might help me to find out
the rights and wrongs of this ’ere murder.”
Who so fit? or who so unfit? Which shall we say? If in the wonderful
course of events, this little child shall ever have a part in dragging
a murderer to a murderer’s doom, shall it be called a monstrous and a
terrible outrage of nature, or a just and a fitting retribution?
CHAPTER VIII.
SEVEN LETTERS ON THE DIRTY ALPHABET.
THE 17th of February shone out bright and clear, and a frosty sunlight
illumined the windows of the court where Richard Marwood stood to be
tried for his life.
Never, perhaps, had that court been so crowded; never, perhaps, had
there been so much anxiety felt in Slopperton for the result of any
trial as was felt that day for the issue of the trial of Richard
Marwood.
The cold bright sunlight streaming in at the windows seemed to fall
brightest and coldest on the wan white face of the prisoner at the bar.
Three months of mental torture had done their work, and had written
their progress in such characters upon that young and once radiant
countenance, as Time, in his smooth and peaceful course, would have
taken years to trace. But Richard Marwood was calm to-day, with the
awful calmness of that despair which is past all hope. Suspense had
exhausted him. But he had done with suspense, and felt that his fate
was sealed; unless, indeed, Heaven--infinite both in mercy and in
power--raised up as by a miracle some earthly instrument to save him.
The court was one vast sea of eager faces; for, to the spectators,
this trial was as a great game of chance, which the counsel for the
prosecution, the judge, and the jury, played against the prisoner and