Old Death led the way, and Tom Rain followed, the latter conveying some pleasant intimation, as he closed the front-door behind him, about an ounce of lead in the other's back if he showed the slightest sign of treachery.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE MYSTERIES OF OLD DEATH'S ESTABLISHMENT.
From the back of the Sessions House on Clerkenwell Green, towards Smithfield Market, runs a thoroughfare the upper portion of which is known by the name of Turnmill Street, and the lower part as Cow-Cross Street.
Numerous rag-shops and marine-stores here meet the eye,—establishments where the thief in a small way may obtain a ready sale for the proceeds of his roguery. It is really curious to stand for a few moments and observe the miscellaneous assortment of articles crammed together in the dingy windows of these places,—as if they were receptacles for all the rags that misery could spare, and all the rubbish which domestic neatness throws into the street.
Some of the old clothes-shops in the thoroughfare which we are describing, are strikingly characteristic of the neighbourhood; for you cannot gaze a minute upon the silk handkerchiefs, the bonnets, the shirts, the gowns, the coats, the trousers, and the waistcoats, and other articles hanging outside the windows, or suspended to nails stuck into the walls, without being able to form a pretty accurate computation of the proportion which has been stolen, and that which has been obtained by legitimate purchase.
The women lounging at the doors in Turnmill and Cow-Cross Streets are of dissipated, dirty, and loathsome appearance: nor have the men any advantage over them in these respects.
Take a duchess from the saloons of fashion,—a duchess in her satin or velvet, with her feathers and her diamonds, her refined manners, her elegant demeanour, her polished discourse, and her civilising influence,—and place her by the side of one of those degraded women in Turnmill Street,—a woman with hoarse voice, revolting manners, incrusted with dirt, clothed in the meanest apparel, if not in absolute rags, and interlarding her conversation with oaths and obscenities,—place those two specimens of the female sex together,—and how astounding is the contrast!
But the duchess has no more claim to praise for the polish—the fascinations—the exquisite refinement which characterise her, than the poor woman of Turnmill Street deserves to be blamed for the degradation and repulsiveness in which she is steeped to the very crown of her head.
Had the two been changed at their birth, she who is now the duchess would have become the dissipated, loathsome, ragged wretch of Turnmill Street; and the babe who has grown to be this ragged wretch, would have sprung up into the splendid lady with the ducal coronet on her brow.
The rich and the high-born do not reflect upon this fact:—they fancy that their very aristocracy is innate as it is hereditary, and that the poor are naturally degraded, vicious, and immoral. Oh! the terrible error—the fearful mistake! For, after all, many a proud peer is in reality the son of his reputed father's groom or footman; and many a dazzling beauty owes her being to her mother's illicit amours with a butler or a page!