FOR FELONY
Late in the afternoon of the day following the encounter in Bloomsbury Square, a little group of excited loiterers filled the entrance and passage way at 59 Bradwell Street, the former lodgings of the two young gentlemen from Scotland. The motley assemblage seemed for the most part to make merry at the expense of a certain messenger boy, who bore a long wicker box, which presently he shifted from his shoulder to a more convenient resting place on the curb.
"Do 'ee but look at un," said one ancient dame. "He! he! Hath a parcel of fine clothes for the tall gentleman was up in third floor! He! he! Clothes for Mr. Law, indeed!"
"Fine clothes, eh?" cried another, a portly dame of certain years. "Much fine clothes he'll need where he'm gone."
"Yes, indeed, that he will na. Bad luck 'twas to Mary Cullen as took un into her house. Now she's no lodging money for her rooms, and her lodgers be both in Newgate; least ways, one of un."
"Ah now, 'tis a pity for Mary Cullen, she do need the money so much—"
"Shut ye all your mouths, the lot o' you," cried Mary Cullen herself, appearing at the door. "'Tis not she is needing the little money, for she has it right here in the corner of her apron. Every stiver Mary Cullen's young men said they'd pay they paid, like the gentlemen they were. I'll warrant the raggle of ye would do well to make out fine as Mary Cullen hath."
"Oh now, is that true, Mary Cullen?" said a voice. "'Twas said that these two were noble folk come here for the sport of it."
"What else but true? Do you never know the look of gentry? My fakes, I'll warrant the young gentleman is back within a fortnight. His brother, the younger one, said to me hisself but this very morn, his brother was hinnocent as a child; that he was obliged to strike the other man for fear of his own life. Now, what can judge do but turn un loose? Four sovereigns he gave me this very morn. What else can judge do but turn un free? Tell me that, now!"
"Let's see the fine clothes," said the first old lady to the apprentice boy, reaching out a hand and pulling at the corner of the box-lid. The youth was nothing loath to show, with professional pride, the quality of his burden, and so raised the lid.