these parts, and stood in the country once. Then, perhaps, there
was something, which was not the beastly street, to see from the
shattered low fronts of the overhanging wooden houses we are
passing under – shut up now, pasted over with bills about the
literature and drama of the Mint, and mouldering away. This long
paved yard was a paddock or a garden once, or a court in front of
the Farm House. Perchance, with a dovecot in the centre, and fowls
peeking about – with fair elm trees, then, where discoloured
chimney-stacks and gables are now – noisy, then, with rooks which
have yielded to a different sort of rookery. It’s likelier than
not, Inspector Field thinks, as we turn into the common kitchen,
which is in the yard, and many paces from the house.
Well, my lads and lasses, how are you all? Where’s Blackey, who
has stood near London Bridge these five-and-twenty years, with a
painted skin to represent disease? – Here he is, Mr. Field! – How
are you, Blackey? – Jolly, sa! Not playing the fiddle to-night,
Blackey? – Not a night, sa! A sharp, smiling youth, the wit of the
kitchen, interposes. He an’t musical to-night, sir. I’ve been
giving him a moral lecture; I’ve been a talking to him about his
latter end, you see. A good many of these are my pupils, sir.
This here young man (smoothing down the hair of one near him,
reading a Sunday paper) is a pupil of mine. I’m a teaching of him
to read, sir. He’s a promising cove, sir. He’s a smith, he is,
and gets his living by the sweat of the brow, sir. So do I,
myself, sir. This young woman is my sister, Mr. Field. SHE’S
getting on very well too. I’ve a deal of trouble with ’em, sir,
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but I’m richly rewarded, now I see ’em all a doing so well, and
growing up so creditable. That’s a great comfort, that is, an’t
it, sir? – In the midst of the kitchen (the whole kitchen is in
ecstasies with this impromptu ‘chaff’) sits a young, modest,
gentle-looking creature, with a beautiful child in her lap. She
seems to belong to the company, but is so strangely unlike it. She
has such a pretty, quiet face and voice, and is so proud to hear
the child admired – thinks you would hardly believe that he is only
nine months old! Is she as bad as the rest, I wonder?
Inspectorial experience does not engender a belief contrariwise,
but prompts the answer, Not a ha’porth of difference!
There is a piano going in the old Farm House as we approach. It
stops. Landlady appears. Has no objections, Mr. Field, to
gentlemen being brought, but wishes it were at earlier hours, the
lodgers complaining of ill-conwenience. Inspector Field is polite
and soothing – knows his woman and the sex. Deputy (a girl in this
case) shows the way up a heavy, broad old staircase, kept very
clean, into clean rooms where many sleepers are, and where painted
panels of an older time look strangely on the truckle beds. The
sight of whitewash and the smell of soap – two things we seem by
this time to have parted from in infancy – make the old Farm House
a phenomenon, and connect themselves with the so curiously
misplaced picture of the pretty mother and child long after we have
left it, – long after we have left, besides, the neighbouring nook
with something of a rustic flavour in it yet, where once, beneath a
low wooden colonnade still standing as of yore, the eminent Jack
Sheppard condescended to regale himself, and where, now, two old
bachelor brothers in broad hats (who are whispered in the Mint to
have made a compact long ago that if either should ever marry, he
must forfeit his share of the joint property) still keep a
sequestered tavern, and sit o’ nights smoking pipes in the bar,
among ancient bottles and glasses, as our eyes behold them.
How goes the night now? Saint George of Southwark answers with
twelve blows upon his bell. Parker, good night, for Williams is