"Ve calls 'em vilks, sir," answered the man, "six a penny: shall I open ye a penn'orth o' fresh uns, sir?"
"Oh! these will do—let me have a dozen," said Ned Wilcom, and seized, and devoured a couple in a moment.
"La! stop, sir!" cried the man—"you vants winegar to 'em!"—and he took the old broken bottle of earthenware, with the cork and a hole in it, and would fain have poured some of the horrible adulteration upon the shell-fish, but the very smell of it was too much for the youth's senses. He devoured the dozen; but though the first mouthful had seemed delicious, he had some difficulty in gulping the last; and had not proceeded twenty paces from the stall, after receiving the change for his half-crown, before he felt half overcome with sickness and nausea. He was about to pass by a dram-shop—but the thought suddenly struck him that a small glass of brandy would dispel the sickness; and he stepped in and called for one. An elderly female was sipping a very small glass of liquor, when Ned crossed the threshold, but passed out immediately, after giving him a keen glance, as he gave his call, and laid a shilling on the dram-shop counter. By this woman he was immediately accosted, when he quitted the dram-shop:—
"Have you taken coffee this morning, sir?" said she, with a short courtesy: "I shall be happy to accommodate you, if you have not, sir: my house is just here, sir"—and so saying, she led the way into Bath Street, at the corner of St. Luke's, and Ned, half-helplessly, followed; for though the brandy had dispelled the sickness, it seemed to have given a wolvish strength to his two days' hunger.
A younger female, tawdrily clad, but possessing features of sufficient power to attract Ned's especial gaze, was the only apparent occupant of the low habitation into which the elderly woman led the way. Breakfast was speedily prepared, in a somewhat humble mode, but Ned was too hungry to be delicate. The younger woman was soon engaged so freely and familiarly in conversation with the youth, as to venture a mirthful observation on his good appetite. Ned's heart glowed too warmly with the fitful delight of having found the half-crown and the means of a breakfast, to permit him to cultivate secrecy. He told it outright—the fact that he had fasted two days, and found the half-crown but half an hour before on the pavement. What will not the tongue tell, when the heart has been suddenly and unexpectedly unbondaged, though it be but temporarily, from deep-during sorrow?
And then, of course, that confession led to others, and the whole story of Ned's life and parentage, of his sickness and harsh treatment, and of his sufferings and deprivations, till that moment, were unfolded. And then came the formidable question—What did he now intend to do?—and it was one that brought back the full sense of his misery, for his half-crown was reduced already to a shilling; and he knew not what must become of him when that was spent—unless he stood in the streets to beg!
The evil moment that was to seal Ned's ruin was come. The elderly female at a glance given her by the younger, which the youth's misery prevented his observing, threw on her shawl, and went out.—
She returned—but it was after two hours had passed; and Ned Wilcom, who, when he entered London, believed himself heir to a gentleman's fortune and rank, had become the slave of a prostitute, and had pledged himself to take lessons from her in the practice of dishonesty. That very afternoon, he entered on his guilty profession: she hung on his arm, and as they entered a crowded thoroughfare she taught him to purloin, successively, a handkerchief, a book, and a watch, from the pockets of passengers.
The perfect security with which his first thefts were accomplished, and the galling remembrance of his past indignities, added to the new fascination above mentioned, stifled the reproaches of Ned Wilcom's conscience, when the hour of reflection came. He advanced in the downward path, until he became a daring burglar, and a skilful adept at swindling, under the name of card-playing, in addition to his more petty practice on pockets. Some idea of his son's fate, at length reached the brutal and sordid mind of Wilcom the elder. He commissioned a friend, two or three times, on his London journies, to make strict inquiry as to the accuracy of the reports concerning Ned. The youth avoided the search as much as possible, but could not prevent the truth from reaching his native town.
The catastrophe approached in another year. The papers contained an account of Ned's apprehension for a series of daring robberies: his father's acquaintances boldly and honestly reprehended his unparental cruelty; and though the Mammon-worshipping wretch was unmoved for some time, at length he dashed up to town to "see what all the noise was about," as he said. He arrived soon enough to see his son at the bar as a degraded criminal; and before he had gazed upon him for more than five minutes, heard him sentenced to transportation for life! Ned was immediately reconducted to his cell, while his father fell, senseless, in the Court; and though he was taken home to Leeds the following week, it was to be a helpless, doting paralytic, and a proverb to the end of his life.