"Damn Sally Salisbury," cried the fine gentleman in a fury. "D'ye think I don't know gold from dross? I'll take my oath no man had touched the lips of that coy little wench before mine did."
"By all means keep to that belief, sir. It won't do you no harm. Now if you'll take my advice you'll let me drive you to Moll King's and you'll finish the night like a man of mettle and a gentleman."
Dorrimore was in a morose and sullen mood. He wanted bracing up and he adopted Rofflash's suggestion. The coach rattled to Mrs. King's notorious tavern in Covent Garden, where thieves and scoundrels, the very dregs of London, mingled with their betters; and amid a bestial uproar, with the assistance of claret and Burgundy, to say nothing of port "laced" with brandy on the one hand, and gin and porter on the other, all differences in stations were forgotten and gentlemen and footpads were on a level—dead drunk.
CHAPTER VI
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
A London night in the first quarter of the eighteenth century had very little rest. Until long past midnight a noisy, lawless, drunken rabble made the streets hideous. It was quite three o'clock, when as physiologists tell us the vital forces are at their lowest, before it could be said that the city was asleep. And that sleep did not last long. Soon the creaking of market cart and waggon wheels, the shouts of drovers and waggoners, tramping horses, bellowing cattle and bleating sheep would dispel the stillness and proclaim the beginning of another day.
Business in the approaches to the markets was in full swing before four o'clock. Carters and waggoners were thirsty and hungry souls and the eating houses and saloop stalls were thronged. The Old Bailey, from its nearness to Smithfield was crowded, and the buxom proprietress of Fenton's coffee house was hard put to it to serve her clamorous customers and to see that she wasn't cheated or robbed.
Mrs. Fenton had improved in appearance as well as in circumstances since she had come from Bedfordbury to the Old Bailey. She was a good-looking woman of the fleshly type, with a bosom such as Rowlandson loved to depict. She was high coloured, her eyes were deep blue, full and without a trace of softness. Her lips were red and well shaped, her teeth white and even. She was on the shady side of forty, but looked ten years younger. Her customers admired her and loved to exchange a little coarse badinage in which the good woman more than held her own.
There was a Mr. Fenton somewhere in the world, but his wife was quite indifferent to his existence. He might be in the West Indian plantations or the hulks for what she cared. She had always gone her own way and meant to do so to the end of her days.