Oldal 258 [258]
196 OLIVER
TWIST.
muddy ditch six or eight feet deep, and
fifteen or twenty wide, when the tide is
in, once called Mill Pond, but known in
these days as Folly Ditch. It is a creek
or inlet from the Thames, and can always
be filled up at high water by opening the
sluices at the head mills from which it
took its old name. At such times, a
stranger, looking from one of the wooden |
bridges thrown across it at Mill Lane, |
will see the inhabitants of the houses on |
either side lowering from their back doors
and windows, buckets, jars, domestic |
utensils of all kinds, in which to haul the
water up; and when his eye is turned
from these operations to the houses them¬
selves, his utmost astonishment will be
excited by the scene before him. Crazy
wooden galleries, common to the backs
of halfa-dozen houses, with holes from |
which to look upon the sluice beneath ;
windows broken and patched, with poles
thrust out on which to dry linen that is |
never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so
confined, that the air would seem too
tainted even for the dirt and squalor which
they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting
themselves out above the mud, and threat¬
ening to fall into it—as some have done;
dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foun¬
dations; every repulsive lineament of |
poverty, every loathsome indication of
filth, rot, and garbage — all these orna¬
ment the banks of Folly Ditch.
In Jacob’s Island the warehouses are
roofless and empty, the walls are crum¬
bling down, the windows are windows no
- more, the doors are falling into the street,
the chimneys are blackened, but they
yield no smoke. ‘Thirty or forty years
ago, before losses and chancery suits
came upon it, it was a thriving place;
but now it is a desolate island indeed.
The houses have no owners; they are
broken open and entered upon by those
who have the courage, and there they |
live and there they die. They must have
powerful motives for a secret residence,
or be reduced to a destitute condition in¬
deed, who seek a refuge in Jacob’s Island.
In an upper room of one of the houses
—a detached house of a fair size—ruin¬
ous in other respects, but strongly defend¬
ed at door and window, of which the back
commanded the ditch, in manner already
described, there were assembled three |
men, who, regarding each other every
now then with looks expressive of per- |
plexity and expectation, sat for some time
in profound and gloomy silence. One of |
these was Toby Crackit, another Mr.
Clutling, and the third a robber of fifty |
years, whose nose had been almost beaten
in in some old scuffle, and whose face bore
a frightful scar, which might probably be
traced back to the same occasion. ‘This
man was a returned transport, and his
name was Kags.
6 [ wish,” said Toby, turning to Mr.
Chitling, “ that you had picked out some
other crib when the two old ones got too
warm, and not come here, my fine feller.”
6 Why didn’t you, blunder-head?” said
Kags.
“ Well, I thought you’d have been a
little more glad to see me than this,” re¬
plied Mr. Chitling with a melancholy
air.
6 Why lookee, young gentleman,” said
Toby, “ when a man keeps himself so
very ex-clusive, as I have done, and by
that means has a snug house over his
head, with nobody prying and smelling
about it, it’s rather a startling thing to
have the honour of a wisit from a young
gentleman (however respectable and plea¬
sant a person he may be to play cards
with at conveniency) circumstanced as
you are."
“ Especially when the exclusive young
man has got a friend stopping with him,
that ’s arrived sooner than was expected,
from foreign parts, and too modest to
want to be presented to the Judges on his
return,’ added Mr. Kags.
There was a short silence, after which
Toby Crackit, seeming to abandon as
hopeless, any further effort to maintain
his usual devil-may-care swagger, turned
to Chitling and said—
‘When was Fagin took, then?”
“ Just at dinner time—two o’clock this
afternoon,” was thereply. ‘Charley and
I made our lucky up the washer’s chim¬
ney, and Bolter got into the empty water¬
butt, head downwards, but his legs were
so precious long that they stuck out at
the top, and so they took him too.”
*“ And Bet!"
“ Poor Bet! she went to see the body
to speak to who it was,” replied Chitling,
his countenance falling more and more,
“and went off mad, screaming and raving
and beating her head against the boards,
so they put a strait weskut on her and
took her to the hospital—and there she
is.”
“ Wot’s come of young Bates?" de¬
manded Kags.
“ He hung about, not to come over here
afore dark, but he’ll be here soon,” re¬
plied Chitling. “ There’s no where else
to go to now, for the people at the Crip¬
ples are all in custody, and the bar of the