The Bell of St. Paul's

Front matter

THE PICCADILLY NOVELS. POPULAR STORIES BY THE BEST AUTHORS. Library Editions, many Illustrated. Crown 8vo., cloth extra, y. 6d. each. [See also Chatto and Windus't List of 430 Two-Shilling Novels.] By GRANT ALLEN, By DUTTON COOK. Paul Foster's Daughter. By WILLIAM CYPLES. Hearts of Gold. Philistla. j The Devil's Die. This Mortal Coil. | The Tents of Shem. By Rev. S. BARING GOULD. Red Spider. I Eve. By ALPHONSE DAUDET. The Evangelist; or, Port Salvation. BY FRANK BARRETT. Fettered for Life. By JAMES DE MILLE. A Castle in Spain. By WALTER BESANT & TAMES RICE. Beady-Money Mortiboy. My Little Girl. Case of Mr. Luoraft. This Son of Vulcan. With Harp & Crown. The GoldenButterfly . By Celia's Arbour. Monks of Theiema. 'Twas in Trafalgar's Bay. The Seamy Side. Ten Years' Tenant. Chaplain of the Fleet By J. LEITH DERWENT.

Our Lady of Tears. | Circe's Lovers. By MRS. ANNIE EDWARDES. Archie Lovell. By M. BETHAM-EDWARDS. Felicia. By PERCY FITZGERALD. Fatal Zero. By WALTER BESANT. All Sorts and Conditions of Men. The Captains' Room. All in a Garden Fair. Dorothy Forster. Uncle Jack. Children os Gibeon. The World Went Very Well Then. Herr Paulus. By R. E. FRANCILLON. Queen Cophetua. I One by One. A Real Queen. | King or Knave? Prefaced by SIR H. BARTLE FRERE. Pandurang H_,ri. For Faith and Freedom. By ROBERT BUCHANAN. By EDWARD GARRETT. The Capel Girls. A Child os Nature. God and the Man. Shadow os the Sword The Martyrdom os Madeline. Love Me sor Ever. Annan Water. Matt. The New Abelard. Foxglove Manor. Master of the Mine. The Heir of Linne. By CHARLES GIBBON. Robin Gray. The Braea of Yarrow In Honour Bound. The Golden Shaft.

QueonoftheMeadow Of High Degree. Flower of the Forest. Loving a Dream. A Heart's Problem. By HALL CAINE. The Shadow os a I A Son os Hagar. Crime. I The Deemster. By BRET HARTE. A Waif of the Plains. By MRS. H. LOVETT CAMERON. Deceivers Ever. | Juliet's Guardian. By MORTIMER & FRANCES COLLINS By JULIAN HAWTHORNE. Garth. Beatrix Randolph. Ellioe Quentin. David Poindexter's Sebastian Strome. Disappearance. DUSt. The Spectre of the Fortune's Fool. Camera. Sweet Anne Page. Transmigration. From Midnight to Midnight. Blacksmith and Scholar. The Village Comedy You Play Me False. By SIR ARTHUR HELPS. Ivan de Biron. By ISAAC HENDERSON. Agatha Page. By MRS. ALFRED HUNT. Thornicrost's Model. I The Leaden Casket. Self-Condemned. | That Other Person. By JEAN INGELOW. Fated to be Free. By WILKIE COLLINS.

Part I. Chapter Pare

I. BEFORE THE PLAY BEGINS . . , , , 1 n. A SUNSET ON BANKSIDE 13 III. OUT OF THE SUNSET ...... 25 IV. THE ACADEMY ........ 28 V. THE BEST BEDROOM 35 VI. SUCCESSOR TO S. NORBERY . . , , . 45 VII. ON THE BRIDGE 54

Part II

I. IN RETIREMENT 60 II. FAIR FRIENDSHIP .70 III. POET AND PLAYER LAND 80 IV. THE RESULT OF AN EXPERIMENT .... 92 V. AFTER THE THEATRE 100 VI. AN INTERRUPTED RAMBLE 110 VII. SUNDAY MORNING 118 VIII. SUNDAY EVENING 129 IX. ' LET BROTHERLY LOVE CONTINUE ' . . . 137 X. THE ' SATURDAY REVIEW ' 145 XI. THE DOCTOR'S HAPPINESS 152 XII. ALTHEA'S ENGAGEMENT 157 XIII. GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART ...... 165 XIV. IN TIME OF TEMPTATION VI CONTENTS CHAPTKn PAGB XV. THE GUARANTEE IS CUT OFF ... . . 185 XVI. ' WHEN LOVE WITH UNCONFIN1.D WINGS ' • . 192 XVII. THE MOTOR PATH < • 201 XVin. FLEET STREET REVISITED 210 XIX. IS IT NOT TRUE ? 221 XX. THE FUGITIVE RETURNS 228 XXI. A MORNING ON DUTY 233 XXII. AN AFTERNOON ON LEAVE ..... 240 XXIII. THE DAY AFTER • 247 XXIV. CLAUDIA AND FLAVIA 251 XXV. AN INCREASE TO THE FAMILY . . ... 259 XXVI.

IN RICHMOND PARK 266 XXVII. THE TWO WILLS . 271 xxvm. ' our cousin ' . . •-" i . . . . 280 XXIX. ' WARNED OFF ' 289 XXX. ALL THAT SHE WANTED 295 XXXI. ' THE SENTENCE OF THE COURT ' . . . . 302 XXXTI. THE HONOUR OF THE FAMILY .... 312 XXXIII. THE END _..... ...

PART I. CHAPTER

I. BEFORE THE PLAY BEGINS. The well-known and always popular Common Lodging House in Sweet Lilac Walk, Spitalfields, has changed hands more than once since the year 1868. Had one nothing better to do, it would be interesting to follow the fortunes of the successive Chiefs of this institution, as well as the fate of those who have enjoyed its luxuries. This research, however, must be abandoned for other hands, younger and stronger. As regards the appearance of the House in that year, it was very much the same as it is now. For pubhc opinion in such matters is conservative : paint costs money : mere ornament is useless ostentation : even if you were to gild a lodging-house you could do no more than fill it : window cleaning, floor scrubbing, door-step whitening, furniture dusting, and the sweeping of stairs and passages all require the personal effort of somebody — who must be paid: and why perform a task which is neither needed nor appreciated ?

Would our gallant Tars continue to holystone the decks if their officers ceased to require of them that duty ? Certainly not. Then why blame the Master, Warden, Principal, or Dean of the Common Lodging House in Sweet Lilac Walk because he neglects what he is not called upon or expected to perform ? The least desirable, and the cheapest, part of the establish ment twenty years ago — perhaps it is so still — was a certain room in the basement. Here there were no beds, every man, woman, and child sleeping on the floor without either bedding or blanket. There was not so much as a wisp of straw to mitigate the hard ness of the boards — you cannot even now, I beheve, buy or B borrow such a thing as a wisp of straw in the whole of Spitalfields. For all alike there was the floor to lie upon, unless the lodgers preferred to lean against the wall.

Yet, since room must be always left for the exercise of choice and individual taste, there were favourite and eligible sites in which the sleeper could be agreeably, gently, and gradually warmed all over by the fire, just as there were others where one would be frozen by distance or roasted by undue proximity. The room was filled every night. Its occupants were those whom we associate with the Lowest Depth — ignorantly, because no one, not even a Hospital Nurse, has ever found the Lowest Depth. The people who frequent such a room seem at first as if they must be an interesting folk, from whose strange and varied experiences we might be led to expect whole mines of accumulated wisdom and treasures of sagacity. On examination, however, we find that their experiences have all gone for nothing.

Their minds are empty, entirely empty. What they learn one day they forget the next : in fact, they never do learn : they do not put together events and draw conclusions : they pay no heed to the wants and desires of any but themselves ; they know not any past and they look not for any future : their ideas on the conduct of life have nothing at all to do with the complex civilisation which is around them but does not contain them. There is a possible classification of mankind which no philosopher, to my knowledge, has hitherto considered. I mean, one based upon the wants, the desires, the aspirations, and the prayers of man, as they vary according to his various social levels. You, dear reader, if you were pressed to own the truth, would doubtless confess that you continually desire above all things the spiritual gifts and graces, and ask for nothing but to advance daily in the practice of virtues too lofty to be even sus pected by your humbler brother.

You are, in fact, about to take a First Class (Honours) in the Virtue Tripos. On tho other hand, your inferior brother — he ofthe so-called Lowest Depth — if he ever prays (which is indeed doubtful), or if he ever formu lates his wants (which he certainly cannot do), would ask for warmth first — warmth is the first factor in physical comfort — and for drink next. Thirdly, he would ask for food ; fourthly, for tobacco. As for society : conversation : respectable attire : cleanliness : love : sympathy : self-culture : knowledge : godli ness — all these things will come to him by degrees, as one ascends the scale. But at first — down there — he asks for nothin" but the simplest elements of physical comfort. The lodgers, then, being such as these, came to the bare room because it was cheap and warm.

Here there was every night a great fire built up — one that would last from midnight until six in the morning : they had, therefore, warmth. A jet of gas was BEFORE THE PLA V BEGINS 3 also burning all night, so that the people had light. The lodgers dropped in one after the other and lay down ; soon they grew warm : perhaps they were hungry — well, no great matter, better a hundred nights without supper than one in the cold. The air of the room presently became so foul that it might have reminded the historical student (if any were present) of Newgate, Ludgate, or the Compter in the old days. They cared nothing for the foul air : they were warm. The walls streamed : the floor was hard : the place was crammed : their companions were as wretched as themselves : — but they were warm. In the morning they would have to get up and go out and face the cold again : meantime, they were warm.

He who is down, sings the sweet poet of Bedford Clink, need fear no fall. The thought is doubtless a consoling boon to all those who are down. It should be graven on the pewter pots. These people were certainly very low down : their histories, had they been investigated, would have been those of the stonebroke sporting man ; the clerk with a lost character ; the workman out of work ; the penniless thief; the unrepentant— though middle aged — Magdalene ; the bankrupt shopkeeper ; the once brilliant masher of the music hall; the prison bird out for a spell of freedom ; the tramp of the casual ward : they were, no doubt, all here, with their wives and lady loves. But it is twenty years ago : the goodly company of this night must be nearly all dead. Why disturb the rubbish heap of twenty years ?

Besides, their successors we have always with us ; their stories — which require a good deal of artistic dressing — are always the same ; if any of that night's company still survive, their remaining days will be few and evil indeed — full of pneumonia, bronchitis, rheuma tism, lumbago, sciatica and asthma : they must now, those who are left, be drawing very near to the clean white bed in the quiet ward, where, after they have undergone the last indignity which Civilisation has in store for them — namely, that of being washed all over — they will be most tenderly cared for ; and when the last hour comes they will receive from the Nurse — or perhaps from the Sister, or even from the Chaplain himself - a kindly and affectionate dismissal upon that lonely journey of which we poetically say that it leads — ' Whither ? ' They lay asleep side by side all through the night.

There was no talking : some groaned who had pains ; some snored ; some coughed ; some lay like logs, and some rolled and fidgeted. When tbe day began they got up, pulled their rags and duds together, and miserably sallied forth without so much as a good morrow, to look for windfalls and strokes of luck : their hands and eyes keen to take advantage of careless costers and purblind salesmen ; ready to pick up unobserved trifles, corner bits, block ornaments, scraps, shards, and shreds ; open to receive alms and b2 doles if any should be offered ; professing to yearn for jobs and the hardest kinds of work, and lamenting the difficulty of finding employment however tough. But for the most part these people love not odd jobs, and cannot abide regular work — the tramp casual feels the curse of labour more keenly than his richer brothers : for choice they wait on the Great God Luck, the only deity whom they worship.

Some of them have once been steady workmen, perhaps, in the past ; but, look you, when a man has been out of work for six months and has pledged his tools, and has dropped out from the company of former mates, he has lost more than his wages : skill and sleight of hand have gone as well ; worst of all, the power of work has gone. He cannot work. Whatever offers, he can work no longer. Let us pity the poor casual as much as we possibly can : no creature is more deserving of pity because he cannot be helped upwards. If any one were to give him work to do he could not do it : he can no longer climb, he can only eat. He is condemned to remain, for the rest of his miserable life, a larrikin, a loafer, a hoodlum, a tramp : a creature who will steal, devour, and destroy, but will not produce. The lodgers, therefore, in this warm room got up when the October sun began to shine upon the streets of Spitalfields.

Observe that the sun falls as pleasantly and cheerfully upon these dingy streets as upon the red. and golden leaves of the Forest a hundred miles away. By seven o'clock the gas was turned down ; the fire had burned itself to white ashes ; and the room, save for three children, was quite empty. These children were lying together in a corner, their arms and legs a good deal mixed, and their heads triangularly dis posed, so that each should find upon the other a soft and warm pillow. As for the grace and beauty of the grouping, no young Princes could dispose of themselves more picturesquely than these three little gutter children, all in rags, their faces and hands smirched, their feet bare. They were all three sleeping still. When the company of the night got up and went forth, one by one, they left open the street door.

Then the air, which in the morning is quite as sweet, cool, and refreshing in Spitalfields as in Hyde Park, began to pour into the narrow passage, and thence to fall and flow in a soft, noiseless, and copious cascade down the stairs and into the basement room, rising by degrees, as a lasher rises after rains have swollen the mountain streams. When this cold but invisible pool had risen to a height of four inches and a half the children began to be restless. They rolled their heads : they opened their hands : they began to dream. Naturally, they dreamed that their headaches were gone —they always had a headache in the morning : that they were neither hungry nor cold : that there was nothing to be afraid of, no BEFORE THE PLAY BEGINS 5 cuffs and kicks to expect : that the whole of terror had gone out of their lives : that they were in Heaven — only they knew not the name of the lovely place : that they were sucking oranges, and that their pockets were full of brown sugar.

This blissful vision lasted for the space of a minute and a half. Still the cold air continued to mount higher. The children shivered and kicked, clung closer to each other, awoke with a start, and then, with one consent, sat up, rubbing their eyes, and looking about them, conscious that another day had begun. And they wondered, being quite experienced people, though not yet in years, what the day would produce in the way of grub. To such children there is neither breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, nor supper : every meal is a moveable feast : they eat what they can get, and when it comes. A hunch of bread may be breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, or supper : a snack of fried fish — but oh ! how seldom it is exhibited except hi the shop window ! — is a banquet whenever it appears. As for the fresh air, it mounted higher and higher, inch by inch, driving before it the foul and poisonous breath of the night.

Most of this, being forced up the chimney and so discharged upon the roof, roUed heavily about, a deadly, poisonous vapour, until it was blown to pieces, chemicaUy changed, and absorbed with the wholesome smoke of the chimney-pots. It lay clinging to the sloping tiles, it surged over invisible — yet it could be felt — upon the gutters, and rolled into the spout. Here it fell upon three young sparrows, who at the first breath of this deadly brew, gasped, turned back their eyes and dropped forward on their beaks with stiffened limbs, thus cruelly cut off in early promise. The Tom, who was watching them with a half-formed intention from the ambush of the chimney, escaped with typhoid and six weeks of hospital. The three children ' belonged ' — the word must not be taken in its narrowest sense — to a woman who was standing at the street door, her hands upon her hips, a shawl over her head.

She was a stout and strong woman whose red and brawny arms pro claimed a strength surpassing that of her sex in general. Her face was weather-beaten, her eyes were black, and her coarse black hair was thick and plentiful. She was — alas for perished youth ! — fifty years of age or more. Perhaps in early days her features might have been comely : perhaps not ; and to us, really, it matters very little. Her cheeks were blotched ; her neck was thick and puffy; her eyes were watery; her lips trembled. These are signs which we commonly associate, rightly or wrongly, with strong drink. She was a woman of terrifying aspect, before whose wrath the bravest man would crouch or fly. She stood at the open door, looking down the narrow street as if she expected some one. In fact she had an appointment ; and while she waited a gentleman appeared walking quickly down the street in order to keep that engagement.

Twenty years ago the appearance of a gentleman in a Spital fields back street was rare — one should not throw mud at an cestors, but this fact cannot be denied. Therefore, those of the inhabitants who were in the street looked surprised ; those who feared the police in plain clothes effaced themselves ; those who were in the upper chambers regretted that they had no flower pot to drop upon the head of the visitor : it was felt that if it had been evening instead of morning, if the street had contained its full population, united action might have bustled the stranger out of his purse, watch, chains, rings, pins, handkerchief, pocket book, silk hat, and broadcloth, and sent him forth, as Batcliffe Highway in the good old days loved to dismiss its sailors, into the wide wide world with nothing upon him but a newspaper — and that not the thick and solid Times — to keep off the cold and wind and rain.

The gentleman, however, walked along as if he was not in the least afraid of receiving these attentions. In fact, he was not one of those who are afraid of back slums, and if anybody had tried to bustle him there would have been a surprise for that bustler. He was a man about forty, strong, black bearded, well set up. ' Well, old lady,' he said, in a clear ringing voice, ' I am not too early, I see. You are up with the lark of Bethnal Green : you soar and sing at Heaven's gate : your heart is full of praise and your every breath is a hymn. Come down to earth. Alight upon the dewy sward. Where's the boy ? ' ' He's in the house,' the woman rephed, with a flash in her eye which showed that she was swift to wrath and that she only stood nonsense for commercial reasons. ' As for parting with one of those dear children ' ' Yes, I know.

Stow that and bring out the boy. Stay 1 Let me go and find him.' The woman led the way down the stairs. The three children were now on their feet, shivering in their bath of fresh air, and wondering why they had been left so long. As a rule the duties of the day— that is, the cadge for coppers and crusts, the cuffs and clouts, the bustle and business of the lively street — had already begun by this time. They were hungry, of course, but that was no new thing. There were two boys and a girl. All three were dark-skinned and black-eyed ; all three had thick masses of black hah. The two elder looked as if they would grow up into comely youth, if they only got a fair show and a sufficiency of food. The youngest, however, was a most curi ously ugly child : his hair was like a coarse mat ; his forehead was broad and square but much too large for his face ; his black eyes were large and hollow ; his nose was almost flat ; his sunken cheeks, wide mouth, and pale face produced the disagreeable impression of a skull with a skin drawn tightly over it.

All three children, at the appearance of their guardian, shrank back and lifted up their hands as if to ward off a blow. ' Here they are, Sir,' said the woman. ' I see. And this ' — he laid his hand upon the head of the youngest — ' is the one I have bought.' ' Buy them all, good gentleman,' said the woman. ' You can have the lot, if you like. Here's Sal : she's eight already and clever — why, there's no name for her cleverness. She'll be a credit to any one who has the bringing of her up : there's nothing you can't teach Sal. And as for looks, if you think of them, in eight or nine years more she'll be fit for silk stockings, and a carriage of her own. Buy her, good gentleman. You shall have her cheap. There's the other boy, too — my little Pharaoh — the image of his father. Buy the lot.' ' No,' said the good gentleman ; ' one is enough for me.

The other two jewels shall remain to become your pride and joy, the stay and comfort of your age, my pearl of grandmothers.' He took the youngest of the three children by the arm and drew him gently from the other two. ' Now, granny,' he said, 'remember our conditions. I am to take this boy and you are not to follow him up, or to seek out where he is, or to molest him in any way. He goes out of your hands altogether. In return I take him and bring him up at my own expense, and I give you for him five pounds — five golden sovereigns.' ' Bight, Sir. And if you'll take the other two as well ' ' What is his name, did you say ? ' ' We call him Sammy.' 1 Sammy — not as yet a son of the Church : not Samuel ; not baptised, I presume ? Quite so — Sammy, or Sam. And his surname, if he has one ? ' ' His father's name was Stanley.' ' Stanley.

A good old name. The excellent man is now— where is that father, now ? ' ' How should I know ? On the road, somewhere, he is. He lest her.' ' Her ? His wife, perhaps ? ' ' She was my daughter,' the good lady rephed, perhaps with evasion — ' and she's dead. She died in the London Hospital and left the three kids to me. He's away somewhere in the country.' ' That was hard upon you. WeU, this little Prince has a right royal inheritance. His grandmother is — yourself. His father is one of the Nomads who love the black tent and the travelling caravan. His mother is an unknown factor. I should say that his inheritance, if he ever comes to his own, will be the Vice of all the ages. Lucky Httle devil ! Could I have a better subject? ' The woman heard but understood not. ' Well, old lady, here's the money.' He opened his purse and took out five sovereigns.

She held out her hand greedily. ' Stop ! ' he said. ' Bemember the conditions.' ' I'll keep them true. I will, s'elp me.' ' Sal ' — she had followed the gentleman to the door and watched him down the street — ' Sal,' she cried, ' come up quick. Go after the swell. Find out where he goes. Don't let him see you. Bun after him if it is to the end of the world. If you dare to come back without finding where he takes the boy, I'U ' A mere threat, however vigorous and terrible, only demands the recognition of history when it has been actuaUy carried out. This threat was not carried out. For eight years of age Sal was remarkably clever and fuU of resource. She foUowed the gentleman along Commercial Street to Shoreditch : here he caUed a four-wheeler, which drove off briskly towards the City. The girl's knowledge of Spitalfields and Bethnal Green — an intricate maze of streets— was profound, considering her youth, but of the City she knew nothing.

And here as the crowd grew thicker and it was difficult to run on the pavement and keep a watch on the cab, she took the opportunity of a stoppage and climbed up behind. The people hurrying along Citywards were aU, at that hour of the morning, namely, between eight and nine o'clock, the young ladies and gentlemen employed in the City shops : the boys among them too dispirited, thinking of the day's work before them, to remind a cabman of a cut behind : Sal therefore remained undisturbed. The cab went down Bishopsgate Street and Gracechurch Street : it turned westward at Cannon Street : at Queen Street it turned again to the south and crossed the river by Southwark Bridge. On the other side it presently turned to the right into a region of smaU streets, with mean houses standing among great factories.

In one of these streets it stopped. Sal slid down quickly and retreated to the shelter of a neighbouring lamp-post, where, half hidden, she could watch. When the gentleman had gone into the house and the cab had driven away, the child left her lamp-post and examined at her ease both house and street. The house was easy to remember. It was of two stories, with three windows at the top, and two below : the door between the two was not an ordinary door, but set back in a broad frame with two short pillars, not forming a porch but flat with the front gf the house. They were pillars of the Doric order, agd the girl noted their shape though she knew not its name. The house was freshly painted — a very noticeable point when one looked around. And there was a brass plate on the door — the girl could not read, yet she could remember the appearance of the letters — they announced that Robert Luttrel, M.D., Uved, and presumably practised the science of healing, in that house.

When Sal had thoroughly mastered these details, and was quite certain that she would know the house again immediately and without the least hesitation, she turned her attention to the street. First of all, it was unlike any street she had ever seen in the Quarter famUiar to her. A street in Southwark may be mean, and so far may resemble a street in Spitalfields ; but in meanness there are shades and variations. This street had several houses which caUed aloud for paint and washing, but they were not like the houses she knew : it had also two great works where steam hammers were already practising their trade ; at the end was a yard, belonging to other works, and in the yard were three or four great trees : there was also, though the edifice conveyed no meaning to the child of nature, a Church ; and, though this fact escaped her attention, it was as profoundly ugly as they made them forty years ago.

The other end ' gave ' upon the river. The chUd went to look at it. She had never before seen the river, and in fact knew not whether it was the river Thames or the river Oceanus which runneth round the world : there were barges on it, some with masts and some without; there was a steamer or two plying on the stream ; across the river there was a great building, the biggest the child had ever seen. She noted aU these things, and then she addressed herself seriously and with the countenance of a responsible person to the task of getting back to Sweet LUac Walk. To those children of luxury whose senses have never been sharpened by the goad of daily necessity, the task would have been impossible. This girl, however, had remarked on her way that the cab foUowed one line south, and another west, and a third south again : she had noted the houses when they turned.