But the great stream of people pouring through that crowded thoroughfare usually passed without noticing her, for the frequency of such sights, and of much worse sights of misery, in the London streets, and the utter impossibility of relieving them all, hardens the hearts of the people.
But the poor pity the poor. And our poor gentleman, passing the poor beggar twice every day, pitied her—pitied her, even though she had once picked his pocket of his coarse white linen handkerchief, and he knew the fact beyond a doubt. And almost every day, in passing, he gave her a half-penny; and once a quarter, when he got paid off, he gave her a sixpence.
But in all the years in which she had sat there, and in which he had passed twice a day in going and returning to and from his employment, he had never happened to see any one else give her anything.
Of course he knew that she must make something by sitting there or she would not stay; but it was so very little and so very seldom, that he never knew it from personal observation. And from all this he concluded that she was deadly poor.
He often wondered where she lived, how she slept, what she ate, with whom she kept company, and who were her kinsfolks, if she had any.
That she consorted with the lowest thieves and vagrants, with the most desperate men and women ready for any crime, he felt morally certain. Had she not picked the pocket of her benefactor?
But, still he pitied her and almost justified her; for he knew what poverty and its bitter temptations were, and besides, while his charity was large his moral sense was not very clear; and, poor as he was, he would have lost every pocket-handkerchief he possessed before he would have prosecuted this miserable old woman, or even withheld from her the tri-weekly half-penny or the quarterly sixpence.
Now, when the vague idea of “disappearance” shaped itself into the distinct thought of ABDUCTION, and the thought grew into a purpose, and the purpose strengthened into resolution, he remembered the old woman under St. Mary’s le Strand, and believed that he could make her subservient to his use.
One rainy day he went out at noon for the usual recess. It was a day and an hour when there were comparatively few passengers in the street. He went in search of the old woman whom he found in her accustomed place, but backed up close against the wall to secure some partial shelter from the pelting rain.
“Have you no umbrella—not even an old wreck of one?” were the first words addressed to her by Everage.