I have said I had hopes, and accordingly I had scarcely lost sight of them when I encountered, a little on this side of the Abbey strand, a small Cupid of a fellow standing in the middle of the street, (he had crept from a stair foot,) having a little bit of a shirt on him coming down to his knees, and crying lustily with beslubbered face.
That’s my robbed traveller, said I to myself, as I made up to the young sufferer who had so early fallen among thieves.
And just at the same time as the wondering women of the Watergate were pouring in to see the interesting personage, up comes the mother, who (as I afterwards learned) having sent out Johnny for a loaf of bread, and finding he didn’t return, issued forth to seek for him. One may guess her astonishment at meeting him within so short a time, probably not ten minutes, in a state approaching to nudity, but the guess would hardly come up to the real thing. The notion of his having been robbed and stripped didn’t occur to her, and her amazement did not abate until I told her the truth, whereupon the women—like so many hens whose chickens had been seized by a hawk—broke into a scream of execration which excited the wit of an Irishman, “Have the vagabonds taken the watch from the gintleman? Why didn’t they take the shirt too, and make a naked shaim ov it?” And having taken the name of the mother, I made after my strippers.
Nor was it long until I got them again within my vision. It seemed to be a feasting-day with the ogresses. They met and parted, every one looking out for some little Red Ridinghood, who was doubtless unconscious of the tender mercies of the she-wolves. The league consisted of five, all of whom had been through my hands for thefts and robberies—Catharine Lang, Helen Duff, Mary Joice, Margaret Joice, and Robina Finnie. If you have ever been among the wynds, you can form an idea of these hags; if you haven’t, you must excuse me—squalor-painting is at best a mud-daub. Amongst all, mark this strange feature—that though some of them had been mothers, the mother was here inverted, the natural feelings turned upside down; the innocent creatures for whom some stray sympathy might have been expected, changed into objects of rapine and cruelty for the sake of a few rags. I soon not only marked their movements, but saw that an opportunity waited them—for where in the old town will you not find clots of children? and are not these, when engaged in play, artless and confiding? Who, however degraded, will harm them? Nay, if there is any creature secure from the drunkard, the libertine, or the thief, it is the merry playmates of the pavement, whose gambols bring back to the seared heart of the vicious the happiness and innocence they have so long been strangers to. Yes, all true, though a little poetical; but I suspect there is a depth even below vice.
The wolves’ eyes were, as I could see, on the merry Red Ridinghoods; and as their number was five, I beckoned to a constable to get one or two of his brethren and watch in the neighbouring close-mouths. As for myself, I betook me to a stair-foot at the top of New Street, where, besides the advantage of a look-out, I had the chance, according to my calculation, of being on the very spot of the expected operation, for there were but few convenient places about. The women were so intent upon their victims, that they seemed to have forgotten that while they were supervising they might themselves be supervised. Nor was it long before I began to see that my expectations would be realised. Lang had almost immediately the best dressed of the gambolers in her motherly hand, and the bit of sugar-candy was working its charm; so true it is that there is awaiting every one a bait at the end of the standing line, stretched out in the waters of life, about which we are always swimming and flapping our tails, passing and repassing without ever dreaming of the hook. Ay, there are big fish intent upon large enterprises among the deeper places, who will snap at the dead worm even in the midst of living gold-fish. And is it not a pleasure sometimes to see them caught by the garbage when one can net the angler as well as the angled? My moral applies not to the gudgeons, but the pikes.
Yes, I was right, Lang, with the girl in her hand, and followed by Duff and one of the Joices, made right for my entry. I stepped up the stair a few paces to be out of the way. I wanted for ardent reasons that the operation should be as complete as possible, for the cancer had become too deep for any good from mere skin-cutting. The moment they got the confiding soul in, who no doubt thought herself in hands far more kindly than her mother’s, the sugar-candy of temptation was changed for the aloes of force. The three, stimulated by the fear of some one coming in upon them, either from below or above, flew at her like hawks pouncing upon a gowdie. Did ever before the fingers of ogresses go with such rapidity to strip the clothes that they might gobble up the body? The little mouth, still stuffed with the sweet bait, was taken care of by a rough hand. The plucking was the work of an instant—bonnet, pinny, napkin, frock, petticoats, boots and stockings.
“It’s a good shurt, Kate.”
“Worth a shilling, Nell.”
“Off wid it,” cried Joice.
The little chemise is whirled over the head, and the minum “nude” is left roaring alone—a chance living lay figure, which would have charmed even Lord Haddo, if he had a palette and brush, with its exquisite natural tints.