'No! No!' she replied, 'not if you stuffed my pockets full of guineas. You've put my man in prison. They say he'll stand in pillory and p'r'aps be killed—the properest man in St. Giles's. They kill them sometimes in the pillory,' she shuddered, 'but p'r'aps they'll let him off easy. As for you, my fine Madame—you that look so haughty—you, the orange girl—you'll be hanged—you'll be hanged!' She screamed these words dancing about and cracking her fingers like a mad woman. Never before had I seen a woman so entirely possessed by the fury of love's bereavement. Do not imagine that I have set down her actual words—that I could not do—nor the half of what she said. And all for such a lover! for a footpad and highway robber; for a brute who beat her, kicked her, and knocked her down; a low, dirty villain, who made her fetch and carry and work for him; who had no tenderness, or any good thing in him at all. Yet he was her man; and she loved him; and she would be revenged for him. This woman, I say, was like a tigress bereft of her cubs. Had it not been for the constable who stood between and for myself who stood beside, she would have flown at poor Jenny with nail and claw and, indeed, any other weapon which Nature had given to woman. I saw two women fighting once for a man: 'twas in the King's Bench Prison; they were pulled apart after one had been disfigured for life by the other's teeth. This woman wanted only permission to rush in and do likewise. But the constable kept her back with his strong arm.
'Come,' he said, 'enough said. What's the use of crying and shrieking? You'll all be hanged in good time—all be hanged. What else are you fit for? And a blessed thing it is for you that you will be hanged. That's what I say. If you only knew it. Madame,' he said very respectfully, 'I must ask leave to take you before his worship.' He held out his hand: the hand of Law in all her branches from Counsel to thief taker is always held out. I gave him half a guinea.
The woman was still standing beside us, shaking and trembling under the agitation of the late storm. 'Here you,' said the officer, 'we've had enough of your filthy tongue. Get off with you. Go, I say.' He stepped forward with a menacing gesture. Among these women a blow generally follows a word. She turned and walked away. I followed her with my eyes. Her shoulders still heaved; her fingers worked: from time to time she turned and shook her fist: and though I could not hear I am certain she was talking to herself.
'Where are we going?' Jenny asked, humbly.
'To Sir John Fielding's, Bow Street, Madame. Lord! what signifies what a madwoman like that says? She's lost her man and she's off her head.'
'How are we to get there?'
'Well, Madam, there is no coach to be got this side the High Street. If I may make so bold there's the boats at the Horseferry. We can drop down the river more quickly than over London Bridge.'
Jenny made no remark. She sat in the boat with bent head, her cheeks still flaming.
'I am thinking, Will. Don't speak to me just at present.'
The boat carried us swiftly down the river.