# fl *'"# . . * 
 
 * * ff * * jlr * * i " 
 * * * * * t 
 
 * . * * * 
 
 * * 
 
 * - "W 
 
 * '. * * *<" * * 
 
 * * 9 9 -.-.,; 
 *** 
 
 ,'-:; 
 
 * # 
 
 
 
 * ir * 
 
 ..;.,*' 
 
 * V 
 
 * * 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 * w 
 
 * w * 
 
 
 
 'V * * 
 
 ' w w 
 
 * * 
 
 .. 
 
 * 
 
 v 
 
 
 
 ^ * * ^ * ^r 

 
 Make a Chain ! For the land is full of bloody crimes, and 
 the city is full of violence. EZEKIEL.
 
 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN 
 
 BY EDWARD JENKINS, M.P., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "GIXX'S BABY," ETC. 
 
 STRAHAN & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 
 34 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 1876 
 
 [All rights rctcrved]
 
 PRINTED BY 
 M'CORQrOJMLE AXD CO., "THE ARMOURY," SOUTHWARK.
 
 TO 
 
 SIR WILFRID LAWSON, BART., M.P. 
 
 MY DEAR LAWSON, 
 
 I dedicate this book to you, not as a 
 token of adhesion to all your opinions, but as a 
 tribute of sympathy with you in your gallant 
 fight with a terrible evil, and of admiration for 
 your pluck. 
 
 At a time when this latter virtue has grown 
 weak on front benches, it is refreshing to find 
 it vigorous below the gangway. A man who 
 cannot be driven from a frank expression and 
 profession of the truth he holds within him, 
 either by the crackling laughter of a select few 
 
 22084G5
 
 VI DEDICATION. 
 
 or the outcry of the mob, is in these days a rare 
 work of God, the which, when one sees it, he 
 feels bound to bless heaven for, and to take 
 hopeful courage for humanity. 
 
 Perplexed between the extremes of a disease 
 at once so complicated and outrageous as that 
 which you work so hard to remedy, I do not 
 attempt in this book to prescribe the purge. 
 My aim is here as it was in " Ginx's Baby " 
 rather to exhibit in rude, stern, truthful outlines 
 the full features and proportions of the 
 abuses I would humbly help to remove. It 
 is a great thing done if we can get people to 
 think about the reality, bearings, and size of an 
 evil ; and in spite of the exposures, through the 
 press, of the dismal fruits of the traffic in drink, 
 I find men going about, and dining comfortably, 
 and voting steadily, in utter disregard of their 
 fell, disastrous, and diabolical effects. I cannot 
 acquit myself of having too long done the like.
 
 DEDICATION*. Vll 
 
 I have therefore tried to bring into one small 
 picture a somewhat comprehensive view of these 
 evils, in the hope of rousing some men of quiet 
 digestion out of their apathy, and so of aiding 
 your noble work. 
 
 No one knows better than you that there is 
 not an incident in the ensuing pages which is not 
 unhappily not only possible, but probable. In 
 no case have I represented here any individual, 
 yet, I do not doubt that I shall be credited with 
 intentional personalities. No better evidence 
 could be afforded of the extent and variety 
 of the evils against which you so righteously 
 
 protest 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 My dear Lawson, 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 
 EDWARD JENKINS. 
 
 20, SOUTHWELL GARDENS, 
 
 SOUTH KENSINGTON, 
 
 December 1st, 1875.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LIXK I.-IXXOCEXCE AND DUTY. 
 
 I. Two Falls in One Day ... I 
 
 LIXK II.-CITIZEXSHIP. 
 
 I. A most Judicious Scene ... 15 
 
 II. A brief Interjectional Shout . . 27 
 
 III. Of Honourable Family . . . . 29 
 
 LIXK III. POSITION AXD PROPERTY. 
 
 I. A Doubtful Aspect .... -59 
 
 II. Mates Unmated 41 
 
 III. Official and Censor . . c 2 
 
 LIXK IV. BUSINESS. 
 
 I. An Injured Innocent .... 6 2 
 
 II. A Business conducted with Spirit . 74 
 
 III. Hoist with his own Petard . . 81
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LINK V. AMBITION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. A Treasure hid in a Field and Lost 93 
 
 II. An Enthusiastic Convert . . . 106 
 
 LINK VL STRENGTH, LABOUR, AND SORROW. 
 
 I. Bill Knowsley . ... 118 
 
 II. The Last Lesson 133 
 
 III. Get Out ! 142 
 
 IV. A National Balance-Sheet . . . 144 
 V. Who is He ? 147 
 
 LINK VIL RELIGION AND PIETY. 
 
 I. A Backslider 155 
 
 II. Into the Maelstrom .... 168 
 
 III. Can a Woman Forget ? 178 
 
 IV. The Unity of the Spirit ... 187 
 V. Licensed License .... 188 
 
 VI. A Vision of Death .... 194 
 
 LINK VIIL POVERTY, CRIME, DESPAIR. 
 
 I. A Wandering Heir .... 203 
 
 II. The Captain's Story .... 208 
 
 III. Searching 211 
 
 IV. A New Order 216 
 
 V. Shadows of Death 221
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 LINK IX. HOPE, HONOUR, LIFE. 
 
 I, O Fatal Syllogism ! 236 
 
 II. An Unpleasant Visitor ... 247 
 
 III. News at last 258 
 
 IV. A Clean Sweep 266
 
 LINK THE FIRST. 
 
 INNOCENCE AND DUTY. 
 I. Two Falls in One Day. 
 
 /^\NE February afternoon, just as the yellow, 
 dingy thing in London called light was 
 deepening into absolute darkness, and the gas was 
 beginning to flicker in streets and shops, passen- 
 gers in St. Martin's Lane, about half-way between 
 St. Martin's Place and the crossways, were 
 startled by a shriek which came from a window 
 in the third floor of a house on the east side. 
 B
 
 THE DEVIL S CHAIN. 
 
 A shrill, harrowing shriek it was, that cut 
 and pierced the dismal air, and seemed to make 
 it quiver as with horror the shriek, too, of a 
 woman. Those who, hearing it, at once lifted 
 their eyes to the window whence it came, discerned 
 for a moment, through the dusk, a struggling 
 shadow within the casement, struggling with 
 some unseen hands, struggling only an instant, 
 for the next moment it sprang through the 
 window, with a second shriek more keen and 
 terrible than the first, turned once, struck with 
 its head almost noiselessly on a projecting sill of 
 stone, turned over again, and then dropped head- 
 first with a dull thud on the stone pavement. 
 And there it lay, a bundle of clothes and clay. 
 
 Within three feet of the fallen heap, whatever 
 it was, a man who had been reeling up the 
 street, with alternate lunges towards the kerb- 
 stone and the houses, and had brought up just
 
 TWO FALLS IN ONE DAY. 
 
 then against a door-post, looked down with 
 bleary eyes upon the object so suddenly pre- 
 sented to his gaze. 
 
 " W w wy ! " he said, " d d damn you, 
 w w were do you come from, eh ? w 
 w ho's a meaning o' shis? G g get out o' 
 the way, will you ! " 
 
 And reeling forward, he made an attempt to 
 strike the heap before him with his foot, but, 
 missing his blow, he stumbled over it prone upon 
 his face. 
 
 Accustomed though it was to London sights, 
 a thrill of horror ran through the small group 
 that immediately formed on the footway. Hands 
 were stretched out swiftly, and drew the cursing 
 vagabond, with his bleeding nose and forehead, 
 from off the awful heap of humanity that lay there 
 dark and motionless, and he was thrown with 
 maledictions on some stone steps not far away.
 
 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN*. 
 
 Then two or three trembling men laid hold of 
 a woman's gown and petticoats, and drew them 
 down decently over a woman's feet, which a 
 glance showed to be covered with gay shoes 
 and stockings. And then they turned over 
 what they knew must be a body, for there were 
 drops spattered about the flags that told their 
 own tale. Ah ! the pavement was dinted and 
 split, but what terrific vengeance it had taken on 
 the tender object which had so broken it ! 
 
 The crowd had now grown large. Among the 
 men and boys, the women and girls, who thronged 
 together and stood there, with shocked faces and 
 chilled hearts, shuddering at the spectacle I dare 
 not describe, was a young woman in her teens, 
 neatly and rather coquettishly dressed, carrying 
 a milliner's box. A minute before, she had been 
 tripping rapidly along the street with a light step 
 and jaunty air, her face brightened with a smile
 
 TWO FALLS IX OXE DAT. 
 
 as she hummed to herself a familiar catch. 
 Glued to the spot by a fatal fascination, she had 
 seen all we have been describing; and now, when 
 the silent men lifted the dead creature, the sight 
 was too much for the young girl to bear. Her 
 face grew pallid, and she began to stagger. As 
 she was about to fall, a young man saw her, 
 caught her round the waist with his right arm 
 a right strong arm and said : 
 
 " Hold up, my dear ! Don't look at it any 
 more. Here, I'll lead you out of the crowd." 
 
 He succeeded in getting her to a doorstep, 
 and, fanning her with his hat, she soon began 
 to revive. 
 
 "Thank you," she said, trying to smile at her 
 benefactor, " I shall be better presently. Thank 
 you ever so much." 
 
 The face she turned up to the young man was 
 a very sweet one. It was plump and full ; the
 
 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 round cheek was evidently not often so colour- 
 less as it was then. The delicate aquiline nose, 
 cherry lips, and bright blue eyes, the fair, long 
 hair she left disporting about her shoulders, and 
 the dainty little hat upon her head, altogether 
 formed a striking picture ; such a picture as in 
 our dull city often makes an honest man turn 
 round and, with a kindly wish, say to himself, 
 ' How pretty she is !' It was a modest face too. 
 The long lashes immediately drooped over the 
 eyes under the young man's ardent gaze, and the 
 colour began to gather in her cheeks as soon as 
 she knew he was looking at her intently and did 
 not mean to go away. 
 
 " You are still seedy," he said ; " come, let me 
 give you an arm and help you along. I dare 
 not leave you like this." 
 
 His voice was rather deep and full. His face, 
 though not a handsome one, was open and
 
 TWO FALLS IN ONE DAY. 
 
 manly. His eyes were large and brown. They 
 seemed to speak frankness. She thought so, 
 though she hesitated. London streets were 
 familiar to her. She had trodden them un- 
 harmed, but she knew something of their perils. 
 
 " I think I can manage," she said, trying to 
 get up. 
 
 But her knees trembled, for the crowd was 
 still there, and the police were taking notes over 
 the body of the dead woman. It was clear the 
 shock had unnerved the girl too much for so 
 rapid a recovery. He held out his arm, and she 
 took it. 
 
 " Now," he said, "which way are you going ? " 
 
 " To Russell Square," she said. " And there ! 
 I nearly left my parcel ! " (stooping to pick it 
 up). "I am taking this lace to a lady at No. 
 fifty-two." 
 
 " Ah ! then you work in a shop, eh ? "
 
 THE DEVIL S CHAIN. 
 
 "Yes, Cutter and Chettam's. But I think I 
 can get on alone now. Please let go of my arm, 
 sir. Thank you very much, I don't want to 
 keep you." 
 
 " O, nonsense! I mean to see you now as far as 
 Russell Square. I am going to Bedford Row. 
 Suppose you were to faint in the street and 
 some wicked people were to get hold of you, 
 and you so pretty ? " 
 
 The world was too young to her for this 
 obvious stroke to set her on her guard, and at 
 that moment her attention was diverted by the 
 noise of the crowd coming close behind them. 
 In the midst were the silent men bearing the 
 dark, dread object. It recalled her terror, and 
 she nearly swooned away. 
 
 " Look here," said the young man, " I see 
 what you want. You must have some brandy. 
 Here is a public." And he dragged her into
 
 T\VO FALLS IN ONE DAY. 
 
 the side-bar of a public-house, and put her on 
 the seat against the wainscot. 
 
 " Two brandy-and-waters hot ! " he said, " and 
 be quick, please. The young lady is unwell." 
 
 The bar-maid, with her withering painted 
 cheeks and garish dress, looked over the bright 
 handles of the beer pumps and the tall bottles 
 and the ranged pewters, at the pretty face of the 
 girl on the seat, with a meaning leer. Then she 
 winked to the young man. He understood her 
 directly, and his face crimsoned. The devilish 
 idea this woman let us admit naturally in the 
 circumstances and with her experience had 
 suggested to the young man, had really not 
 before crossed his mind. He was no greenhorn 
 no Christian no moralist no born gentle- 
 man he was, in fact, a lawyer's clerk, who ought, 
 at that time, to have been hurrying to his 
 employer's offices in Bedford Row, with the
 
 IO THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 bundle of letters and papers that made his side 
 pocket bulge so much. At the same time he 
 was not a roue. 
 
 " Mind your own business, miss," he said to 
 the bar-maid. " A woman has just fallen out of 
 window close by, and this young lady nearly 
 fainted." 
 
 " Oh ! I see," said the other, handing over two 
 glasses of hot stuff. " One and fourpence, 
 
 please A woman out of 
 
 window, Mrs. Stingo," she shouted through a 
 small aperture behind her to some one in a 
 back room. " Another inquest for us, I shouldn't 
 wonder." 
 
 " Thank God ! " cried a woman's voice. 
 
 Other people who had witnessed the catas- 
 trophe and found it too much for their feelings, 
 now began to pour into the outer bar, and called 
 off the attention of the bar-maid from the
 
 TWO FALLS IN ONE DAY. II 
 
 young couple. The young man drank his toddy 
 like one who took kindly to it. The girl sipped 
 it slowly. It soon began to revive her. Her 
 blood grew warm, her eyes brightened, her 
 cheeks flushed. She looked more boldly in her 
 companion's face, and her tongue, unloosed, spoke 
 more readily and cordially to him. On his part, 
 he was not unaffected by the spirit. His glances 
 at her face became more frequent and direct, 
 and once or twice, in speaking, he placed his 
 hand on her shoulder in a familiar way. Alas ! 
 she seemed not to notice it. Seeing she had not 
 half finished her glass, he ordered a second to 
 be prepared for himself. He was forgetting his 
 papers and his master. Her parcel was lying 
 unregarded by her side. At length, as they each 
 looked at the bottoms of their empty tumblers, 
 they spoke of going. 
 
 " Thank you," she said with brightening eyes.
 
 12 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 "That has made me feel ever so much better. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 She put out her hand and smiled. 
 
 " Good-bye ?" he said. " Are you going to 
 desert me so soon ? How ungrateful you are. 
 Let me walk part of the way with you." 
 
 Her face looked rather silly. When they got 
 outside, the street seemed to reel about her. 
 The sounds struck upon her ear with confusing 
 loudness ; her eyes saw dimly and strangely in 
 the dull darkness. And her steps her steps 
 were stumbling and uncertain ! She grasped his 
 arm tightly. 
 
 " Hallo !" he cried. " You've taken too much." 
 
 "Yes. I never took so much before. I feel 
 ill. I can scarcely stand." 
 
 It was then that the Devil entered into the 
 heart of Joseph Cray, and whispered to him that 
 this young girl was now in his hands to do with
 
 TWO FALLS IN ONE DAY. 13 
 
 her as he would. And the mind of Joseph Cray, 
 after those two glasses of hot grog, was "feeble to 
 repel the insidious hints of the Evil One. The 
 girl clung to his arm, and spoke thickly in his 
 ear : 
 
 "You you're so good. I like you so much. 
 It is so kind of you to help me." 
 
 " Look here," he said, laughing. " Do you 
 know you can't stand ? You're not fit to walk 
 about the street now. I must take you some- 
 where where you can rest till you get better. 
 Here, I '11 call a cab, and take you to my 
 place." 
 
 " Oh ! you're so good so good," the poor 
 girl cried, putting her arm round his neck, while 
 the maudlin tears ran down her face. 
 
 Joseph Cray held her up a moment, and hesi- 
 tated. She was nearly insensible. The struggle 
 within him was short. That which twenty
 
 14 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 minutes since he could have bravely withstood, 
 he had cast away the power to resist. He 
 called a cab and lifted her in. She lay there 
 now unconscious. 
 
 " To Pentonville," said Joseph Cray, as he 
 shut the door, and from that moment he was a 
 lost man. 
 
 And, my fair reader, virtuous and pure and 
 gentle, from that day your sister, Lucy Merton 
 herself fair and pure, and sweet and gentle 
 from that day on for ever, was to know virtue 
 and honour no more.
 
 LINK THE SECOND. 
 
 CITIZENSHIP. 
 
 I. A most Judicious Scene. 
 
 ^ I ""HERE was some slight commotion, notice- 
 able even amid the everlasting stir and 
 bustle of London, in the vicinity of the ' Wetted 
 Whistle/ a public-house in St. Martin's Lane, 
 duly licensed by the Middlesex magistrates to 
 retail wine, spirits, and beer, to be drunk on the 
 premises. 
 
 From the alleys in the rear of that well-known 
 trysting-place, limp, dirty-looking women and 
 drowsy, lousy-looking men, had sauntered to 
 the pavement, and there, on the strength of 
 many meetings at the bar, were comparing
 
 1 6 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 notes upon the event that had drawn them 
 together. The rumours they exchanged were 
 vague, and their comments of doubtful wisdom 
 and indifferent wit. It was 'generally under- 
 stood in well-informed circles ' that an in- 
 quest upon the body of the woman who had 
 
 fallen out of the window of No. would 
 
 be opened at eleven o'clock that morning by 
 the Coroner for Middlesex, and that it would 
 be held in the public room of the Wetted 
 Whistle. The appearance upon the scene of an 
 inspector of police and two privates, who went 
 into the public-house by its side door, tended 
 to confirm this news. 
 
 As these officials entered the house, they were 
 received with marked deference by Mrs. Stingo. 
 
 J O 
 
 She had donned a silk dress, and a new cap 
 of bright blue ribands, all in honour of the 
 day.
 
 A MOST JUDICIOUS SCENE. I'J 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Stingo!" said the inspector, 
 cheerily, " here we are again! Two hinquests in 
 one 'ouse in a month is luck you don't often 
 meet with." 
 
 "No, to be sure," said Mrs. Stingo, smiling 
 graciously ; " hand we're deeply obligated to 
 you, Mr. Hinspector, for bringin' us the business. 
 To be sure, that hother hacciden* with the 
 horange peel (has they swore, though between 
 you and me an' the post, Mr. Hinspector, I 
 believes the lemon peel which he left behind 
 in the tumbler wen 'e went hout 'ad more 
 to do with it !) 'appened a little nearer the 
 ' Buckle and Feathers ' than hit were to us ; but, 
 you see, they ha'n't got sich a commojus room for 
 'olding a hinquest as our public room, let alone 
 the respectibility of our 'ouse before theirn. But 
 Big Gill, our barman, he measured the distance 
 to the spot where the blood was last night, and 
 C
 
 1 8 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 this 'ouse is three yards an' a little hover nearer 
 to us than them. So I hold we're by rights 
 hentitled to it." 
 
 " So you are, Mrs. Stingo," said the in- 
 spector, wiping his mouth significantly with the 
 back of his hand a movement which, from 
 habitual discipline, was closely copied by the 
 rank and file. " So you are, and your 'ouse, as 
 you say, is the most respectible 'ouse for sich a 
 hinquiry to be 'eld in." 
 
 "What'll you have, gentlemen?" replied the 
 landlady. " They're tryin' work, them hinquests, 
 ain't they?" 
 
 "Ah!" replied the functionary, affecting to 
 heave a sigh from his gigantic breast, " it's tryin' 
 to the feelin's o' one's 'art, Mrs. Stingo. Some- 
 times I gets so nervous I can't skeersely stand." 
 
 " Ah ! then, you'll be better to take a quartern 
 o' gin, won't you ? Mariar ! three quarterns
 
 A 3IOST JUDICIOUS SCENE. 
 
 o' gin for the gentlemen ; and see, walk hin 'ere 
 an' 'ave it ; nobody won't see you 'ere." 
 
 The officer and his men entered the parlour, 
 where, safe from observation, they could, with 
 the aid of the stimulant, string up their shattered 
 nerves to the pitch of the strain they were about 
 to endure. 
 
 The bar outside was crowded with persons 
 who had been summoned as jurors or witnesses, 
 and who were preparing themselves in a similar 
 way for the ordeal of the inquiry. 
 
 Among these was a man in charge of a police- 
 man. His face was grimy, and showed traces of 
 blood. His head had been bound up with a 
 dirty handkerchief. Over it was perched, in 
 grotesque challenge of the laws of gravitation, 
 a broken hat, whereof the lopsided rakishness 
 was amusing to see. The poor wretch's eyes 
 looked red and bleary* you could scarcely believe
 
 2O THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 such orbits to be capable of sight. His flabby 
 cheeks were pale, his head shook, his hands 
 trembled, he quivered on his legs. Indeed, he 
 seemed so rickety and unbound, that a by- 
 stander had compassion on him. 
 
 " Hallo," he said, " you look seedy enough, my 
 friend. Is he a witness ? " 
 
 The policeman nodded. The man drew him- 
 self up, and tried to assume a dignified air. 
 
 " He looks as if he was breaking up. What'll 
 you take, old fellow ? Come, cheer up ! " 
 
 In an instant the man was enlivened. 
 
 " Gin, .sir," he replied with a husky voice, 
 "gin Old Tom, if you please, with a dash of 
 bitters." 
 
 His manner and tongue told of better days. 
 
 " You're under the weather, I think," said his 
 benefactor, as he handed him the tonic. 
 
 The man drained it in a moment, shook his
 
 A MOST JUDICIOUS SCENE. 21 
 
 head, drew a few breaths, as if he were recalling 
 the aroma of the delicious lubricant which had 
 passed down his throat, and looked somewhat 
 re-established. 
 
 " Ha !" he said, " if I could only have another, 
 I should be set up for the day." 
 
 Bystander No. 2 volunteered to supply another, 
 and he was set up for the day. 
 
 " Ee's the 'usband of the diseased," said the 
 policeman, in a confidential undertone, to By- 
 stander No. i. 
 
 "You don't say so! Good God! What'll you 
 take?" 
 
 Presently a middle-sized and middle-aged 
 gentleman entered the house by the side door. 
 He was portly and rubicund, and, by his 
 appearance, gave no indication of his ghastly 
 office. It was the Coroner not the present, 
 nor the last, nor any one you, my reader, may
 
 22 THE DEVILS CHAIN. 
 
 have known. Him Mrs. Stingo straightway 
 encountered with her best manners. 
 
 " Good morning, your washup ! " she said, 
 curtseying. "Glad to see your washup again. 
 Hevery heffort 'as been made, your washup, to 
 harrange things accordin' to your wishes. It's 
 not quite heleven yet, your washup. Will you 
 step into the parlour ? " 
 
 In the back parlour not the bar- parlour 
 where the inspector and his men were re- 
 freshing themselves Mr. Stingo was waiting 
 for the Coroner. On the table were decanters, 
 glasses, and biscuits. 
 
 "Glad to see your washup again!" said 
 Mr. Stingo, a well-distended host, of broad face 
 and flabby cheeks. 
 
 " Hem ! well," said the gentleman, " the busi- 
 ness is not a pleasant one. A serious inquiry, 
 my dear sir. A serious inquiry."
 
 A MOST JUDICIOUS SCENE. 23 
 
 " Ah ! yes," said Mr. Stingo. " But then, you 
 sec, sir, hif folks is to die by Occident, it 'elps 
 along our livin' has well as yours, sir ; don't it, 
 now ?" 
 
 The Coroner did not answer. He was a 
 gentleman, and he had a sensation that his posi- 
 tion was not a dignified one at that moment. 
 
 "What'llyou take, yer washup?" said Stingo, 
 "port or sherry?" 
 
 "Well, let me see," replied the Coroner. " I'm 
 a little out of sorts this morning. Dined with 
 the Lord Mayor last night. Havq, you any of 
 that ' extra ' brandy I had when I was here 
 last?" 
 
 " La ! yes, your washup," cried Mrs. Stingo, 
 " we keeps that for speshul friends." And she 
 produced from a mahogany case a square bottle, 
 out of which the reviewer of mortality poured a 
 generous dose, which he gently qualified with
 
 24 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 water. Mr. and Mrs. Stingo joined their visitor 
 from pure motives of courtesy. 
 
 The Coroner proceeded upstairs to the Court- 
 room. It was a strange scene, and would 
 have been amusing, separated from the tragical 
 grounds of it. A long low room, decorated with 
 the insignia of a secret society ; at the end a 
 dais, in the middle of which was a huge chair 
 of abnormally high and broad back, adorned 
 with curious emblems, and with a tendency to 
 gothic point. This was flanked by two other 
 chairs of inferior size, but also gothically and 
 emblematically inclined. Over the large chair 
 was a painting of some mystery, formed by an 
 eye, rays and other circumstances, which I dare 
 not more particularly describe, lest it should 
 seem to some of my good readers that I was 
 profanely quizzing these sacred emblems, whereas 
 I merely wish to indicate that they were there.
 
 A MOST JUDICIOUS SCENE. 25 
 
 A sort of altar stood in the corner, evincing 
 the tabernacular and moveable character of the 
 services to which the hall was dedicated. A 
 bundle of gilt-headed staves in the other corner 
 seemed to import a harmless addiction to bar- 
 baric ceremonies. 
 
 The Coroner occupied the great chair of 
 the master, or whatever other eminent officer 
 usually filled it with his august person and more 
 august apron. The jury were arranged on one 
 side. A table, generally devoted to convivial pur- 
 poses, as its dinted surface proved, was appro- 
 priated by the Coroner's clerk and the reporters. 
 
 A ghastly service, certainly, to which to put 
 such a place ! But there is no end to the variety 
 of uses to which a public-house may be perverted. 
 From the ' Goose Club ' upwards, through every 
 form of union, friendly and benefit societies, 
 amalgamated or otherwise, to farmers' dinners,
 
 26 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 to Masonic, Druidic, Odd fellows', and Foresters' 
 lodge-meetings to bar messes, charity balls, or 
 the temporary worship of Dissenters, not to 
 mention political committees at elections and 
 Saturday 'free-and-easys,' the great room of 
 many a public-house shifts its scenes with all 
 the comic and tragic consequences of a stage. 
 Trysting-places of thousands of good and sober 
 men, there should be written over their doors 
 alongside of ' licensed to be drunk on the premi- 
 ses,' the stern warning of a peculiarly quiet and 
 gentle judge, 'Men go into public-houses re- 
 spectable and respected, and come out felons.' 
 
 This, then, was the scene in which the Coroner 
 opened his court. His clerk had been refreshing 
 himself at the bar with a mixture of ale and gin. 
 The Coroner's Court, therefore, held in this 
 public-house half full of intoxicating liquor, con- 
 sisted of the following persons : The Coroner,
 
 A BRIEF INTERJECTION. 2.J 
 
 who had taken brandy and water ; his clerk, 
 who had taken gin and ale ; the inspector of 
 police and his men, who had taken at least a 
 quartern of gin a-piece ; a foreman and eleven 
 jurymen, of whom the majority had taken 
 ' something ' once or twice at the bar ; and a 
 number of witnesses, nearly all of whom had 
 fortified themselves against errors of memory by 
 doses of spirit. Lastly, there was the general 
 public, prepared in the same way to bear the 
 harrowing details of the evidence to be given. 
 Thus it might be said that one chain linked 
 together all these incongruous bodies ; or, to 
 
 change the figure, one spirit possessed them all. 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 II. A brief Interjectional Shout 
 
 Wi'LL it ever strike the Legislature that there 
 is something almost hideous in this practice of 
 holding inquests in public-houses ? Just con-
 
 28 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 sider a moment the indecency of the custom. 
 Perhaps two-thirds of the deaths by violence or 
 of a suspicious nature, are caused by drinking 
 the liquors sold at public-houses. And the pub- 
 lican body, which has already made money out 
 of the stuff by which the deceased was killed, 
 is invited to take a second haul out of the 
 ghastly proceedings consequent on its enterprise. 
 The present Coroner for Middlesex, who is not 
 concerned in this recital, would, like many of 
 his predecessors and colleagues, be glad, I doubt 
 not, to see some provision made, more con- 
 ducive to the dignity of his Court and the 
 gravity of its inquiries. To witness this anomaly 
 from year to year, and never to heed its im- 
 propriety, is eminently British ; but there are 
 not wanting proofs enough under heaven to 
 show that that may too often mean eminently 
 stupid and brutal. 
 
 -- * 
 
 *
 
 OF HONOURABLE FAMILY. 29 
 
 III. Of Honourable Family. 
 
 THE proceedings having been formally opened, 
 the jury sworn, and a postponement of the 'view ' 
 agreed upon until the police had given their 
 evidence, those public guardians were examined. 
 Their evidence was that, owing to information 
 they had received, they had come to the spot 
 immediately after the ' haccident.' They had 
 found the deceased quite dead. (Description of 
 her state, and other details not pleasant to 
 publish, for which see the Morning Register and 
 other newspapers.) Inquiry had been made 
 
 at No. . It appeared a woman had been 
 
 living there for some time, of the name of 
 Helen Bellhouse ; was supposed by the tenants 
 of the house to be ' respectable.' That the 
 previous ' afternoon she had been with two 
 gentlemen in the front room, her parlour,
 
 30 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 how they got there to be explained after- 
 wards, the bed-room being behind. She or 
 they had ordered refreshments (evidence of 
 respectability), a bottle of sherry, a bottle of 
 champagne, and a bottle of brandy (further 
 tokens of respectability). The gentlemen, who 
 were unknown to the keeper of the house, had 
 left it unnoticed during the confusion created by 
 the accident. The room showed signs of a scuffle 
 near the window, but was otherwise neat and 
 comfortable. The gentlemen had not been 
 traced. But, meanwhile, a very important piece 
 of evidence had turned up. Among the de- 
 ceased's effects were books and letters proving 
 her real name to be Helena Hurlingham ; and 
 also a number of letters from a person named 
 Hurlingham, who evidently was, or professed to 
 be, her husband. They were well written and 
 expressed, and indicated a person of superior
 
 OF HONOURABLE FAMILY. 3! 
 
 education, though of degraded character. By an 
 extraordinary chance the police had been obliged 
 to remove to the station the man who, in a state of 
 drunkenness, had, in the outrageous way before 
 detailed, stumbled over the body of the deceased. 
 In an old pocket-book found upon him his name 
 was written, and there were three or four letters 
 in a woman's handwriting. The name in the 
 pocket-book was Hurlingham. The letters were 
 addressed to ' Mr. Hurlingham,' and were 
 signed ' Helena Hurlingham.' They contained 
 answers to claims for money from the man to 
 the writer. One of them was read. It was only 
 a week old. 
 
 HENRY, / send you the last 10 I have, 
 and tJie very last you will ever get from me ; I 
 borrowed it from a gentleman last night. I have 
 told them at NibUs* to take in no more letters for 
 
 * A grocer in Netting Hill.
 
 32 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 11 1 c, as I shall never go there again. You need not 
 try to find me out, for I am determined yon shall 
 never see me again alive. You want to know where 
 our poor child Celia is. You hound ! I can scarcely 
 hold my pen for rage and contempt of you. I know 
 why you wish to get hold of her. You would sell her 
 for a nighfs drinking, and make her, as you tried 
 to make me, the minister of your vice. Oh ! I 
 think if you were here, I could stab you, and I 
 warn you to keep out of my way. By God's help, 
 my poor, poor girl shall be honest. Take my 
 advice, and leave her alone. I tell you I have a 
 povverful protector, and he likes me. Good-bye. 
 HELENA HURLINGHAM. 
 
 While the letter was being read, the miserable 
 creature we have described passed through 
 several changes of manner and feeling. He first 
 looked with brazen assurance round the room.
 
 OF HONOURABLE FAMILY. 33 
 
 When the child's name and the foul aspersion on 
 her father were arrived at, he began to cower and 
 tremble, and then subsided into silent maudlin 
 weeping. This was the man suggested by the 
 police to be the husband of the deceased woman, 
 whose real name was undoubtedly Helena Hur- 
 lingham. 
 
 After this evidence, the man was put forward 
 certainly a man to look at. I have looked on 
 wrecks by the sea-shore, whose very desolation 
 made one shudder. Such a wreck was he. He 
 seemed to be fifty years old, or more ; for his 
 face, though flabby, was withered, and his eyes 
 were sunken and his forehead wrinkled. He 
 attempted to steady his trembling head and 
 assume a bold stare, but the effort miserably 
 failed. His coat had been the coat of outward 
 gentlemanliness. It was well cut, and once fitted 
 him well, but it now sat loosely on the. palsied 
 D
 
 34 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 limbs. It had but one button on the front ; 
 its frayed edges, and shining seams, and badly 
 mended rents, showed how the hard usage of 
 shouldering walls and rolling in the gutter had 
 tried its texture and its gloss. There was no 
 waistcoat beneath the garment, a want which had 
 been partially concealed with the aid of a pin in 
 the two flaps of the coat. The wretched piece of 
 silk which did duty as a neckerchief had long 
 since lost its colour ; and the glimpse of shirt- 
 front which its slovenly ease permitted, showed 
 only a yellow, dirty, and ragged apology for linen. 
 Nevertheless, as the man stood up, strength- 
 ened a bit by his cordial, with his hand thrust 
 into his breast, and his eyes fixed 'as steadily 
 as was convenient upon the Coroner, you saw 
 that he had at some time been used to the 
 dignity of a gentleman. There was a shocking 
 air of fallen fineness about him.
 
 OF HONOURABLE FAMILY. 35 
 
 " Who are you ? " said the Coroner, briskly. 
 
 The man started, and looked an instant 
 indignantly at his querist, as if the sharp address 
 had touched within him some long-lost chord of 
 self-respect. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," he replied with a 
 certain dignity ; " are you addressing me ? " 
 
 The Coroner noticed the tone, and was re- 
 proved. 
 
 " Yes, sir," he rejoined. " Will you oblige 
 me with your name ? " 
 
 "Certainly, sir," said the other, with a ludicrous 
 air of condescension. " My name, sir, is Lucius 
 Shafto-Grenville Hurlingham." 
 
 " Any relation of Lord Shafto-Grenville, may 
 I ask ? " 
 
 " Remotely, sir ; very remotely ; in fact, as 
 you may observe, too remotely to profit by it." 
 
 He waved his left hand in the air. The little
 
 36 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 finger stuck out as if it had a jewelled ring upon 
 it, but that had long ago become liquescent and 
 gone down his throat 
 
 " May I ask, sir, are you the husband of the 
 deceased, Helena Hurlingham ? " 
 
 " I am, or was" said Mr. Hurlingham, putting 
 out his dirty hand to emphasize the distinction ; 
 "I am, or was, the husband, sir, of a certain 
 Helena Hurlingham ; but, as I have not had the 
 pleasure, I I mean the honour, of seeing the 
 deceased, sir I am unable at present to say 
 whether she is my wife or not." 
 
 " Ah ! well, then, gentlemen of the jury, this 
 would be a convenient time to view the body, 
 which has been removed to the Marylebone 
 dead-house." 
 
 It was not long before the Coroner, the jury, 
 and several witnesses were standing beside the 
 body of the dead woman, w r hich had been laid
 
 OF HONOURABLE FAMILY. 37 
 
 out on boards and tressels 
 
 The man came forward with a jaunty step 
 and air, his hat on one side, and looked at 
 IT. He, with that countenance so befouled 
 and shameful, yet living; she, with those battered 
 features still and dead ! Face to face with 
 the bruised relics of his early love, with his 
 wronged, neglected, blighted, and alas ! sinning 
 love ; and she, turning up the ghastly wreck of 
 her beauty towards the man between whom and 
 her there had been wrongs too sad and evil 
 to speak of ! For a moment or two he gasped 
 for breath, and caught for support at a bystander, 
 who shrank away. Then he took off his hat 
 Then he noticed a slight derangement of her 
 dress, and, with a gentle touch, put it right. Then 
 for an instant he glanced at the left hand, where 
 there still remained that token of so much 
 faithlessness, crime, and sorrow a wedding-ring.
 
 38 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 Then he looked at the face again, and, assuming 
 
 a bolder manner, he put on his hat, and turning 
 
 to the Coroner, said : 
 
 " Yes, by G , sir, that's the woman ! " 
 
 The jury turned away. They had seen 
 
 enough.
 
 LINK THE THIRD. 
 
 POSITION AND PROPERTY. 
 I. A Doubtful Aspect. 
 
 /^vN their return to the Wetted Whistle, the 
 Coroner's Court was adjourned for refresh- 
 ment, and the Coroner took his lunch, while 
 the bar was filled with men whose feelings of 
 sorrow or surprise at the frightful incidents of 
 the case were allayed by anodynes concocted by 
 the barmaid. Mr. Shafto-Grenville Hurlingham 
 was several times treated to a ' pick-me-up,' 
 until his guardian, the policeman, began to fear 
 that it would end in a set-me-down, and wisely- 
 checked the public generosity.
 
 4O THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 I own to the simplicity and attractiveness 
 of the process of discharging any claim which 
 we may imagine can be made upon us by some 
 peculiarly attentive railway-guard, or cabman, 
 or porter, or the man who brings home to our 
 house from the shop an article we have ordered, 
 or who does a chore or two, or in an unwonted 
 fit of diligence empties our dust-bin, or has 
 delivered our coal, or has done nothing, I own 
 to the attractiveness of discharging such a claim 
 by offering the refreshment of a glass of wine or 
 of beer to the object of our benevolence. But 
 did you ever consider what the responsibility of 
 that act is? Some people, who are ashamed to 
 refuse a gratuity, give this because it is cheaper 
 to do so, not caring one jot about the conse- 
 quences. Perhaps they have never thought of 
 watching a dust-cart down a street, and observ- 
 ing how, as at house after house the men took
 
 A DOUBTFUL ASPECT. 4! 
 
 their toll of beer, they at length grew heavy and 
 unfit for work, if not quarrelsome. The writer 
 has himself seen a well-known philanthropic 
 member of parliament in his house at eleven in the 
 morning, hand a glass of wine to a man who, in 
 discharge of his employer's orders, had delivered 
 a tradesman's parcel at the door. You may 
 test for your own satisfaction, if you are not 
 afraid, what this morning stimulant means a 
 temporary flush, a feverish hour, reaction and 
 thirst, a muddle of the brain ; and you will 
 understand how it is that a morning once 
 commenced in this way too often ends in an 
 evening of debauch or of stupid incapacity. 
 At ten o'clock in the morning you will 
 now see the myrmidon of an adjacent ale-house 
 going the round of the rising palaces in South 
 Kensington, and selling beer to the workmen 
 engaged in the buildings. Were I the employer
 
 42 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 of those men, I would drub that rascal's back until 
 it ached again, for stealing away so early the 
 wits of labour with his illegal pedlery. They see 
 it, and they buy it. It is brought to their work, 
 and held to their mouths. But where are the 
 police and the excise ? These morning and 
 complimentary drinks are the day's confusion 
 and the night's damnation. Or their effect may 
 be slower and surer. They may only show their 
 fatal influences when the pulpy and deteriorated 
 frame has to fight the blue devils who, long-a- 
 coming, have seized their prey at last. If you 
 must give a man a gratuity, give him an obolus. 
 Should he spend it in drink, you are acquitted. 
 Or offer him a healthy meal. An he refuse that, 
 you may bid him good morning with a clear 
 conscience. But your glass of wine or beer may 
 be the fifth or the tenth of such deadly kind- 
 nesses, and you have helped to endanger the
 
 A DOUBTFUL ASPECT. 43 
 
 character, honesty, health nay, perhaps the life 
 of a man ; and God knows that is a heavy burden 
 to accept. 
 
 Mr. Hurlingham's appearance, when the inquiry 
 was resumed, showed that influences had been at 
 work within him of an elevating character; but 
 it was demonstrated that he did not succumb to 
 anything short of extraordinary. When, some 
 eighteen or twenty years since, this man had 
 come back from Oxford, and strode the park, 
 a strong and beautiful youth with ' hyacinthine ' 
 locks, healthy complexion, and a noble frame, 
 well displayed in handsome, fashionable clothes, 
 all women looked at him with kindly eyes. 
 You would never have believed it possible 
 for any influence, however active or malignant, 
 to transform him in the interval into this poor, 
 rickety, foul, trembling, and degraded sot. If
 
 44 THE DEVIL S CHAIN. 
 
 you wish to know what power had worked this 
 awful miracle, walk into the next ' public,' and 
 ask them to set before you an unopened bottle 
 of what they call Cognac or Geneva, and if you 
 are that way disposed, sit and muse upon the 
 full power of the Genie which is shut up in that 
 crystal flask. If you pull out the cork, it may 
 rise with a horror that obscures the very light 
 of heaven. That was the power that had seized 
 on poor Hurlingham ' Oxford Hurlingham/ 
 second best cricketer, athletic, healthy, and 
 fairly virtuous and changed him, body and soul, 
 into this human ghoul ! 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 II. Mates unmated. 
 
 HE laid his hat on the table, passed his hand 
 carelessly through his disordered hair, sat 
 down in a half-ashamed, half-defiant, attitude, 
 on the seat assigned to him, and then, almost
 
 MATES UNMATED. 45 
 
 instantly changing his temper, brought his un- 
 bandaged eye round towards the Coroner, and 
 winked at him. The functionary was anxious 
 to get on, and disregarded this compliment. 
 
 " Mr. Hurlingham," he said, " it will be neces- 
 sary for me to examine you with regard to your 
 relations to the deceased. I do not wish to pry 
 needlessly into your history, which obviously is 
 sad enough, while your condition excites our 
 pity. Perhaps you will tell us who this woman 
 this lady was, and when she parted from you ? 
 You recognized her just now ? " 
 
 " Stop, sir. No more, I beg of you," said the 
 witness, putting his hands over his face, and 
 shuddering. " If you will let me alone, I will 
 tell you as shortly as I can her history and mine ; 
 and if there is any young man here," he added in 
 a familiar formula, " let him take warning from 
 my experience."
 
 46 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 Very bad people have a curious habit, in a 
 flush of maudlin sentiment, of unfolding the 
 details of their wickedness with a feverish 
 candour, for the moral benefit of mankind. In 
 reading the confessions which are sometimes 
 addressed to the public from the cell of the 
 condemned, one cannot but feel that, to point 
 his moral, the criminal has stretched his recol- 
 lections beyond their real limits, arid painted his 
 misdeeds in the strongest colours. Perhaps there 
 is some solace in penning exaggerations which 
 tend, at all events, to elevate him to eminence 
 in the role of life which he has played. 
 
 Mr. Hurlingham's story was very simple. 
 
 He was Mr. Lucius Shafto-Grenville Hurling- 
 ham, son of the late Walter Hurlingham, Esq., of 
 Greystone, in Warwickshire, who, dying before 
 his son came of age, left the latter a fine country 
 property of .4,000 a-year. Nineteen years since.
 
 MATES UNMATED. 47 
 
 he had married Helena Conistoun, daughter of 
 Lord Newmarket, a woman of great beauty, 
 cleverness, and ambition. He was disposed to 
 country life, she to the pleasures of fashionable 
 society. In time this led to misunderstandings, 
 quarrels, estrangements. He used to leave her in 
 their city house and retire to the country, where 
 his time was spent between hunting and 
 brooding over the disappointment of their mar- 
 riage. She, on the other hand, keenly resented 
 his indifference, and despised him for his lack of 
 ambition. Heaven had never meant them for 
 one another, and each was too proud to make 
 concessions which have sometimes brought 
 happy community out of ill-assorted unions. 
 
 One daughter had come of the marriage, 
 beautiful as her mother, and beloved of both. 
 After a while his wife's extravagant expenditure 
 began seriously to embarrass him. He implored
 
 48 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 her to retire into the country. When she saw 
 there was no help for it, she went ; but she 
 resigned herself only when it was inevitable, and 
 she had already tasted the corroding anxieties of 
 failure and narrow means. But her mortification 
 at their retirement, and his at his embarrass- 
 ments, found vent in frequent recriminations ; 
 and both sought in this crisis of their fate a 
 deadly consoler. He threw himself into the 
 wildest society of the county. She, on her part, 
 went wherever excitement could be found. One 
 day, when she had gone to the races with a 
 party of gentlemen, Mr. Hurlingham entered her 
 boudoir. A key was lying on the table beside 
 a lace handkerchief, evidently forgotten. It was 
 the key of a small cupboard safe. Curiosity led 
 him to open it, and he learned in the same 
 moment that she was as faithless and weak as he. 
 There were the brandy, and glass, and empty
 
 MATES UNMATED. 49 
 
 bottles, showing she had contracted no tem- 
 porary taste ; and there also were letters which 
 clearly proved her to have been guilty of worse 
 sins. 
 
 One meeting took place, in which those two 
 people owned to each other their mutual 
 wrongs and injuries one meeting in which, 
 after fierce recrimination, old sympathy revived 
 for a few short minutes, and sorrow melted 
 their hearts almost to repentance. But from 
 that meeting each returned to the consoling 
 stimulant, and hope fled that home for ever. 
 Two days afterwards Mrs. Hurlingham dis- 
 appeared with an officer, having placed her child 
 in some retreat which baffled her husband's 
 inquiry. 
 
 In the four years that ensued without a 
 meeting, the remnant of his property had gone 
 in gambling and drink, and he passed through 
 E
 
 5O THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 that state which is the precursor of vagrancy 
 living on his friends. From bad to worse, from 
 gentleman to blackguard, from blackguard to 
 cad, from cad to sottish outcast, had that man 
 steadily drunk his way downwards, day by day, 
 night by night, possessed by a hot, relentless 
 demon of thirst, to satisfy which he would work 
 while he was able, or borrow, or beg, or steal 
 through the snaky fires of delirium tremens, 
 wrecking the noble frame God had given him, 
 and testing its marvellous tenacity, until it was 
 well-nigh incredible that the machinery of life 
 should hold together, and the trembling fibres 
 obey any instruction of the lethargic soul. 
 
 How low he had fallen ! One day he met 
 a well-dressed, bright-cheeked, middle-aged 
 woman in the street, still handsome, and stopped 
 her. She had a gentleman with her. 
 
 "Helena!"
 
 3IATES UNMATED. 5! 
 
 She slipped a half-sovereign into his hand, 
 and turned away from the seedy-looking vagrant 
 He -had taken an alms from his own wife. 
 
 He followed her to her 'home,' and noted 
 k. That evening her ten shillings went down 
 his throat. The next morning he was at her 
 door, forced his way into her rooms, and, between 
 threats and entreaties, knowing the vile pro- 
 fession she was following, he agreed with her 
 in consideration of a regular payment, to let 
 her alone. For two years he lived thus. One 
 thing he never could ascertain. Where was his 
 child ? His wife defied him with imprecations 
 to endeavour to find out. But his cunning 
 had developed with the loss of better intellect 
 He did find out, and was on the point of 
 reclaiming the girl, for God knows what fate, 
 when her mother's vigilance outwitted him. 
 From that time she had evaded him. He was
 
 52 THE DEVILS CHAIN. 
 
 told to write to a certain tradesman's in Netting 
 Hill, and did so, receiving replies, as we have 
 seen ; but the letters were taken away secretly, 
 and he could never discover her whereabouts 
 never until, lounging against that door-post 
 in St. Martin's Lane, he had looked down upon 
 her dead body, and cursed it. 
 
 That was the gist of Mr. Hurlingham's evi- 
 dence, concluded at half-past six o'clock; and 
 when it was finished, the inquiry was adjourned. 
 
 * -* 
 
 * 
 
 III. Official and Censor. 
 
 THE police requested an adjournment for 
 a week, to make inquiries for the two gen- 
 tlemen who had been in the room with the 
 woman when she took her fatal leap. An 
 adjournment was accordingly agreed upon, and 
 the jury dispersed. I will relate barely, and
 
 OFFICIAL AND CENSOR. S3 
 
 without comment, a few of the evening's 
 sequences. 
 
 Our Coroner, deeply moved by the thrilling 
 disclosures of the day, stretched his arms 
 upwards, and felt hungry as he brought them 
 down again, and looked at his watch, a worthy 
 companion of the rotund sphere against which 
 it was wont to beat. 
 
 "Past seven o'clock," he said; "and I have 
 not dined." 
 
 His inner man, in all its ducts, arteries, veins, 
 and vessels, protested in the name of science 
 against this rare this anomalous circum- 
 stance. His wife and daughter had obtained 
 for that evening, as he knew, the favour of 
 an order for a free box from some poor 
 manager at one of the theatres a favour 
 which official loungers and literary men are 
 too apt to look upon as provisions of some
 
 54 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 beneficent deity to be enjoyed free of expense. 
 I know not what claim the Coroner for Mid- 
 dlesex had upon the manager of the theatre ; 
 unless, indeed, the latter felt that, if things 
 were to go on as they had been going with 
 him, and he continued to fill half his house 
 every night from a free-list of people perfectly 
 able to pay for their amusements, he would, be- 
 fore long, himself need the Coroner's services 
 and desired therefore to be well entreated of him 
 and his jury. However, our Coroner was well 
 assured that at precisely six o'clock his genial 
 partner and her congenial offspring had seated 
 themselves at table, to the soup, soles, and leg 
 of mutton which had been prognosticated at 
 breakfast-time. In one point, at least, he could 
 always rely upon the affinities. His family 
 never permitted a meal to be spoiled by wait- 
 ing a principle of his own oft quoted, and as
 
 OFFICIAL AND CENSOR. 55 
 
 oft enforced. Sticking to this rule man shall 
 live juicily, and not in vain. 
 
 At this moment I mean the moment when 
 the Coroner's watch had reached the bottom of 
 its fob, and had subsided again, after ' being 
 raised aloft, as a ship on the heaving billows, by 
 the great sigh which the tender recollection of 
 one more leg of mutton lost for ever had aroused 
 at this moment, I say, the correspondent, 
 reporter, and leader-writer of the Morning 
 Register, addressed the hesitating official. 
 
 " Where are you going to dine ? " 
 
 " That is just what I don't know, my dear 
 
 Bugby. This inf , I mean, this melancholy 
 
 case has upset all my plans. I was going home 
 to leg of mutton at six, and then we were all 
 booked for the Sleeping Huntsman. It's always 
 my luck. People will either die at such incon- 
 venient times, or the inquest will go on at such
 
 56 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 unreasonable length, that really one's life is 
 hardly worth living." 
 
 " I pity you, Coroner. And you only get a 
 thousand a year? " 
 
 " Ah ! society always underpays its best men ! 
 There's the Home Secretary gets five thousand 
 a year ; and if man were measured by man, 
 he and I would have to exchange places, though 
 I doubt if he is even fit for this one." 
 
 "Well, but dinner. ' What do you say to Hal- 
 ford's ? The best nook in London. Only up the 
 street. Formerly chef to the Governor-General of 
 India. Such curries as England cannot equal." 
 
 " Enough, I know him well. A place to be 
 cultivated and had in reverence. I never men- 
 tion it to any one. It is too good a place for 
 common men. How did you get to know of it ? " 
 
 " Come, I won't stand much of that before 
 dinner. We had better go."
 
 OFFICIAL AND CENSOR. 57 
 
 "Yes, we'll go. Good night, Mr. Stingo 
 good night, Mrs. Stingo ; we shall meet, I trust, 
 this day week. By the way, my good friend, 
 have you any more of that particular brandy ? 
 My nerves have been dreadfully tried to-day." 
 
 " Certainly, sir. Will you come into the 
 parlour, sir ? will your friend walk in, too, sir ? 
 your servant, sir ! " 
 
 " Oh ! he'll walk in walk into Hades for such 
 stuff as you have there. A most special tipple, 
 my dear Bugby." 
 
 The two gentlemen had thus, as they would 
 have expressed it, ' taken a tonic/ and they 
 departed forthwith for Mr. Halford's restaurant. 
 The dinner was' eaten with a zest that did the 
 tonic credit, each consuming a bottle of the 
 good claret there to be had, and at half-past 
 nine they were full and comfortable. 
 
 " Bugby," said the Coroner, " we have dined
 
 58 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 well. There is but one thing wanting. Claret, 
 especially claret like this or rather, to be more 
 exact, like that Leoville judiciously \varmed by 
 a loving and appreciative hand, is a good wine, 
 a gift of God while you are drinking it. But 
 you well know it is of its nature to be deficient 
 of alcohol, of that spirit which excites to natural 
 activity all the tissues, and induces within the 
 stomach that circulation and assimilation " 
 
 " Pray stop, my dear Coroner ! I have eaten 
 my dinner, and it is resting comfortably within 
 me, layer upon layer, every interstice filled up 
 with noble wine. Why should you, even in 
 imagination, seek to disturb this peace within 
 me ? Let it repose." 
 
 " True, my son. It was to this I was coming 
 repose. Repose is the secret of all art, (in 
 the Renaissance particularly to be desiderated,) 
 of architecture, of sculpture, of painting, of deco-
 
 OFFICIAL AND CENSOR. 59 
 
 ration, and of dining. It is that I would attain. 
 It must in our case be assured. There is a liquid 
 born of Erin which can assure it. Let us have 
 some punch. Waiter, old 'Jamieson' punch for 
 two." 
 
 By half-past ten, having turned up their 
 third tumblers, the Coroner and the journalist 
 struggled to their feet, and left the restaurant 
 arm-in-arm. The holder of the ancient and 
 dignified office, recalling the circumstance that 
 his wife and daughter would not be at home at 
 so early an hour, saw no reason for forestalling 
 them. He dropped in at a favourite club, where 
 the evening air was corrected by another whiskey 
 punch. I regret to write that it was not until 
 two in the morning that his faithful spouse and 
 eldest daughter aided his undignified ascent to 
 his bed-room, in a condition rather worse than 
 that of his witness of the day before.
 
 60 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 As for Mr. Bugby, he was a trained sybarite. 
 When he had refreshed himself with a cup of 
 tea in a Fleet Street haunt, and had again 
 washed his inner man with some brandy and 
 seltzer, he sat down and wrote for the Morning 
 Register an article which put the Alliance in 
 ecstasy. 
 
 " How appalling," cried the Morning Register 
 on paper, " is the denouement of the dread catas- 
 trophe ! Beauty, wealth, position, honour, virtue, 
 all undermined by the canker, DRINK top- 
 pling down a whole family in one fell and disas- 
 trous swoop.* Out of respect for the noble 
 race whose name has been unfortunately dragged 
 into this inquiry, and of the vast circle of friends 
 and acquaintances, of which the fair, the en- 
 gaging, the talented Miss Conistoun was so 
 conspicuous an ornament, we forbear from too 
 * Sic I
 
 OFFICIAL AND CENSOR. 6 1 
 
 minute an analysis of the strange facts brought 
 out before the worthy Coroner. Nothing could 
 exceed the delicacy with which he regulated this 
 part of the case. But what is it that stands out 
 in terrifying prominence in this astounding 
 history ? It is the solemn fact hearken, oh 
 satellites of Bacchus and Silenus ! that the 
 origin of this sad declension, the root and cause 
 of the lively sorrows which hang as a cloud* over 
 this illustrious family, the motive power of that 
 facilis descensus to humiliation and death, the 
 fons etorigo mail, was the demon of strong drink ! 
 Truly did the wise man say, ' Wine is a mocker, 
 strong drink is raging.' " 
 
 And Bugby wept real tears over his own 
 flabby and flatulent sentiment 
 
 * Sic I
 
 LINK THE FOURTH. 
 
 BUSINESS. 
 I. An injured Innocent 
 
 /^~\N the morning after the inquest, a pretty 
 breakfast-table was spread in a richly- 
 furnished room in Belgravia. The house which en- 
 closed this room a scene of exquisite comfort 
 was from the scraper to the topmost chimney, 
 inside and out, a standing advertisement of wealth, 
 and, one may add, of wealth tastefully expended. 
 The architect and decorator had - conspired, by 
 request, to produce the most extravagant re- 
 sults ; Messrs. Johnstone and Jeanes had received 
 orders to make the costliest combinations of 
 upholstery materials that could be worked
 
 AX INJURED INNOCENT. 
 
 into a tolerably large mansion, and had done 
 their best to fulfil the task. And when one 
 adds, that Christie Hanson's rooms had fur- 
 nished the modern pictures, and Mr. Agnew 
 the other gems of art, there can be no question 
 about the taste of the owner and his indifference 
 to expense. 
 
 We are, however, little concerned with the 
 aspect or the furniture of this gorgeous resi- 
 dence, and for further information must refer the 
 reader unfamiliar with Belgravian mansions to 
 the three-volume novels whose authoresses are 
 so intimate with that locality, or to the advertise- 
 ment of Mr. Gouldsmith, when, as occasionally 
 happens, the dread ghoul of bankruptcy enters 
 the pale of that aristocratic reserve. Our 
 concern is with the occupants of this breakfast- 
 room at about nine o'clock on the morning in 
 question.
 
 64 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 Three persons, evidently father, mother, and 
 daughter, were seated at the round table. A 
 plate laid for a fourth shewed that another 
 member of the household was expected. The 
 father, a gentleman of about fifty-five or sixty 
 years of age, with the long face, high cheek-bones, 
 prominent nose, and well-determined features 
 generally of a Western, or North of Ireland 
 Scotchman, was plodding through his Times 
 with a pertinacious doggedness indicative of a 
 sense of duty. And, indeed, that did oppress 
 him ; for Parliament had lately met, and he 
 was Mr. Bighorne, Member of Parliament, and 
 of the firm also of Bighorne, Swill, Pewter, 
 Ball & Juniper, the eminent distillers, who could 
 scarcely walk a street in London without seeing 
 the name of their firm blazing in letters of gold 
 on certain houses. 
 
 No doubt it was a proud thing for King
 
 AN INJURED INNOCENT. 65 
 
 Lewis, of Bavaria, in his latter days, to cir- 
 cumambulate Munich, and to read in almost 
 every street the bronze or gilt inscription which 
 celebrated his own magnificence : but what 
 must be the satisfaction that swells the bosom 
 of a private citizen, who, in whatever city, or 
 town, or village, of the United Kingdom he may 
 happen to alight, beholds the evidences of his 
 popularity, if not of his greatness, brilliantly 
 emblazoned on the most frequented of its places 
 of worship ? 
 
 Passing by the handsome, motherly woman, 
 who, to use the language of modern fiction, ' pre- 
 sided over the tea-urn/ the eye lights upon the 
 third member of the party with a sense of com- 
 plete satisfaction. The oval, sweet, yet firmly- 
 featured face, with that noble wealth of original 
 hair wreathed up in plaits and curls upon the 
 symmetrical head in Grecian fashion the slightly 
 F
 
 66 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 aquiline nose, exquisite mouth and chin, the 
 skin mantled with a complexion purely and 
 gloriously English all this made Miss Emily 
 Bighorne (bother her patronymic, and may she 
 soon change it for a better !) a subject of admi- 
 ration which could well endure the rivalry of 
 the artists who had showered their works upon 
 the home of the wealthy distiller of British 
 brandy and gin. This young lady was of the 
 advanced age of four-and-twenty and single, 
 though every one knew she was as good as 
 ;ioo,OOO to her happy possessor on the wedding 
 day ; but Miss Emily had opinions, a mind, and 
 also a will of her own, and these were unfa- 
 vourable to the addresses of fashionable gallants. 
 She believed in a modern chivalry, but at pre- 
 sent it had approached her only in the shape 
 of Quixotic idiots or vulgar Sancho Panzas 
 looking for a kingdom.
 
 AN INJURED INNOCENT. ,67 
 
 Just now she was studying the Liberal, a 
 journal of unpronounced radical opinions. 
 
 "Papa!" she said suddenly, "do you see 
 that?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "An inquest, on whom do you think? On a 
 daughter of Lord Newmarket ! She must be an 
 elder sister of your favourite aspirant the 
 Honourable Captain Conistoun." 
 
 " Good heavens ! Has she turned up again ?" 
 
 " Then you knew about her, papa ? And 
 yet " She paused. 
 
 " Knew what about her, my dear ? It was not 
 much to know. She has been a great grief to 
 her family ; I know that." 
 
 " Well, the Captain bears it very well, and 
 scarcely takes it to heart as seriously as he 
 might. De you know the reason of her mis- 
 fortune ? "
 
 68 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 " No, nor do I want to know. It is a painful 
 and disagreeable subject, my dear, especially for 
 you to discuss." 
 
 " For me to discuss, indeed! "said Miss Emily, 
 tossing her head. " My dear father, why do you 
 treat women like children ? If you could, you 
 would have kept my mind in long-clothes while 
 my body was growing to womanhood. But listen ! 
 The day before yesterday, Mrs. Bellhouse, a 
 disreputable person, who had been drinking with 
 two men in a room in St. Martin's Lane, threw 
 herself out of a window, almost upon a drunken 
 man who happened to be passing, and who 
 turned out to be her husband." 
 
 "Mercy on me !" said Mr. Bighorne, dropping 
 his paper at this bald epitome of the facts, while 
 his good lady wrung her hands in horror. They 
 both remembered perfectly the handsome young 
 couple, who, eighteen years ago, were so well
 
 AN INJURED INNOCENT. 69 
 
 known in the fashionable world. " Did you ever 
 hear of such a thing ? How horrible !" 
 
 " Isn't it?" said Miss Emily, very quietly, but 
 with the faintest tone of sarcasm, " especially in 
 a family of distinction ; and the whole story is 
 out, all about their early life, and her fall, and 
 that sort of thing ; and do you know what did 
 it all?" 
 
 " I haven't the least idea," said Mr. Bighorne 
 shyly, and not quite truthfully, for he was afraid 
 of what was coming. 
 
 " Well, father, it was BRANDY ! " replied Miss 
 Emily, with rude emphasis, and looking at her 
 father with a flushed face. " Brandy, and then 
 gin. What do you think of that, father ? " 
 
 Miss Emily was a very intense young radical 
 indeed, and, like all radicals, sometimes intensely 
 disagreeable quite beyond the power of her 
 father's respectable Liberal-Conservative Go-
 
 70 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 vernment He looked at her with severe eyes. 
 Mamma stepped in. 
 
 " Emily, have not I commanded and entreated 
 you not to make those offensive allusions ? and 
 to your own father, Emily, and in his own house, 
 and in the presence of your own mother, too ! " 
 There were indignant tears on Mrs. Bighorne's 
 cheeks. 
 
 " Oh ! papa, mamma ! " said Emily, standing 
 up and looking at them, "I can't 'tell you I 
 .daren't tell you how I feel about it. These 
 things cut me to the heart, and if I were to 
 say all I thought, you would never love me 
 again." 
 
 " Hush, Emily," said her father, who loved 
 her as the apple of his eye, an apple just then 
 somewhat dimmed with a dew of mortification ; 
 "you are utterly wrong, and perverse, and over- 
 sensitive. That Hiton Square parson has
 
 AN INJURED INNOCENT. 
 
 preached you into a morbid state of mind, which 
 I trust will soon be healed by your own natural 
 common-sense. I have repeatedly explained to 
 you that whatever evils may result from the 
 use of my manufactures is not due to any 
 action on my part, but to the voluntary abuse 
 by separate individuals, of an article which, like 
 anything else, if used in moderation, is harmless 
 and good." 
 
 " I wish I could think it were harmless and 
 good," replied Miss Emily. " But even then, 
 papa, you have never explained to me why it is 
 necessary for you to buy up or build so many 
 public-houses of your own. If it were not for 
 your money and activity, I don't believe there 
 would be enough of men with the means to take 
 up house after house, as between you distillers and 
 brewers is being now done. Surely it is your 
 money which is directly encouraging the traffic,
 
 72 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 and it is your instrument that actually holds it 
 to the people's mouths." 
 
 " You are very complimentary, Miss," replied 
 the distiller, looking harassed ; " but again, I 
 assure you I have nothing on earth to do with 
 it. I provide a good article, and, as a man of 
 business, I am obliged to take the usual methods 
 of selling it. If I were to rely solely on 
 wholesale transactions, my rivals would soon 
 run away with my business. I simply follow the 
 ordinary course, and have no responsibility 
 whatever for other people's weaknesses. Let us 
 drop the subject." 
 
 " Oh ! father," said Emily solemnly, as he 
 drew her to him to close the controversy with a 
 kiss, " unhappily, the subject won't drop for any 
 of us ; and here it comes," she added in a quick 
 low tone, " on two legs, and late for breakfast." 
 
 And breaking away from her father, Emily
 
 AN INJURED INNOCENT. 73 
 
 stood up to salute a tall young gentleman, per- 
 haps two years younger than herself, whose 
 handsome features, strongly resembling her own, 
 were pale, and almost ghastly. 
 
 "Why, Henry," she cried, looking at him, 
 " what is the matter with you ? Are you ill ?" 
 
 " No," he replied, disengaging himself and 
 kissing his mother. " It is nothing. I have had 
 a bad night." 
 
 " So you have, dear. I heard you pass my 
 room door at three o'clock," replied his sister 
 with affectionate cruelty. Master Henry en- 
 deavoured to look occupied with bread and 
 butter. 
 
 " At last ! Henry," said the senior. "A quarter 
 to ten, and you solemnly engaged to be in the 
 counting-house punctually at ten every morning. 
 You are hopeless." 
 
 " I'm afraid I am, sir," answered the junior,
 
 74 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 affecting to eat some breakfast, though it lay 
 almost untasted before him. " I'm afraid I am," 
 he repeated with a sigh. "Mother, some more 
 tea, please ! I was out late last night at Coni- 
 stoun's." 
 
 " Oh! well," said the father, glancing at Emily, 
 and somewhat mollified, " boys will be boys, I 
 fear." And with that comfortable and philo- 
 sophical reflection, he was lost between the 
 sheets of the Times again. 
 
 # * 
 * 
 
 II. A Business conducted with Spirit 
 THE firm of which Mr. Bighorne was the 
 senior partner, was one of the most energetic and 
 successful in the spirit trade. Beginning forty 
 years before, as mixers, diluters, and sweeteners 
 of pure spirit, to create the noxious pleasure 
 called gin, they had gradually pushed their
 
 CONDUCTED WITH SPIRIT. 75 
 
 business in every quarter and extended it to 
 the distilling of spirit and manufacture of brandy. 
 They paid nearly a million sterling a year to 
 the excise, thus finding the country on an 
 average about one-eightieth of its revenue a 
 fact which, on the face of it, entitled them 
 to the position of being its most valuable 
 citizens. That would be the view of an econo- 
 mist ; but a thick-headed, though warm-hearted 
 enthusiast, inquiring further into the benefits con- 
 ferred on society by this great firm, would have 
 boldly said that they were dearly bought. This 
 splendid subscription to the revenue represented 
 a manufacture of two millions of gallons per 
 annum of spirits above proof, which would pro- 
 duce I dare not say how many hundreds of thou- 
 sands of gallons of nutty brandy and cream gin. 
 Were the enthusiast aforesaid, as he is sure to 
 do, to follow the thousands of hogsheads, or the
 
 76 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 millions of gorgeously bedizened and sparkling 
 bottles, turned out by this firm, to their destina- 
 tions by land and sea, and down to the ultimate 
 stomach of that notorious insatiable, 'the con- 
 sumer,' he might might ! nay, would return with 
 a demonstration nothing could shake, that this 
 million gained to the revenue had cost the 
 country in wasted wages, lost means, bank- 
 ruptcies, shipping disasters, railway accidents, 
 wrecked lives, murders, assaults, crimes unmen- 
 tionable and innumerable, and general demorali- 
 zation, with their resulting expenses, as good as 
 ten or twenty millions sterling.* In truth, every 
 year Messrs. Bighorne and Company, for their 
 own profit, turned out a product which did as 
 much damage in the world as many a plague 
 or revolution. I state this as a serious proposi- 
 tion based upon facts, and unexaggerated. 
 
 * Vide W. Hoyle: "Waste of Wealth," etc., etc.
 
 CONDUCTED WITH SPIRIT. 77 
 
 That was a fact to which Mr. Bighorne's con- 
 science was alive, but the responsibility for which 
 it denied. That was a fact which the Chan- 
 cellor of Her Majesty's Exchequer knew, but 
 which he pleaded that, in the peremptory claims 
 of a revenue-raising patriotism, he could not 
 afford to recognize. That was a fact patent to 
 every thoughtful member of the party in Par- 
 liament among whom sat Mr. Bighorne, but it 
 never lessened him in their esteem, or choked 
 them at his brilliant entertainments. That was 
 a fact clear to some hundreds of respectable, 
 worthy, aristocratic, high-minded representative 
 gentlemen, who went into the lobby to establish, 
 confirm, and extend Mr. Bighorne's capacity of 
 contributing to the revenue out of his per-centages 
 upon drunkenness, death, and crime. But it was 
 plain to them all that not a shadow 'of blame 
 attached to Mr. Bighorne or to any one of them-
 
 78 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 selves, for people's abuse of an article too easily 
 abused; and they consequently referred the 
 startled reformer to the regenerating influences 
 of Christianity and culture, and stood to Mr. 
 Bighorne as an eminently rich, humane, conser- 
 vative, and most Christian friend, with a vested 
 interest which it would be both ' plundering and 
 blundering ' to disturb. 
 
 As for Mr. Bighorne, he claimed to be no more 
 chargeable with the consequences of his business 
 than the baker who sells the loaf that chokes 
 a too greedy man. 
 
 But we must really inquire, How did this 
 great firm build up, and how does it continue to 
 increase, its enormous business ? 
 
 The truth is, that the popularity of the 
 'creamy gin' and 'nutty brandy' depends in 
 a very small degree on any inherent supe- 
 riority of those spirits. It is true that there is
 
 CONDUCTED WITH SPIRIT. 79 
 
 much in maturing, mixing, colouring, and sweet- 
 ening the original distillation ; but after all, you 
 come back to the same white dew, condensed 
 and dripping, drop by drop, in crystal spirit. 
 But the two great agencies of Mr. Bighorne's 
 success for he was the head of the firm in 
 more senses than one were advertising and 
 agency. The world was nearly as full of the 
 attractions of Bighorne's gin as of Holloway's 
 pills : and there was not a district in the metro- 
 polis or in any great town, where Mr. Bighorne's 
 agent, in the shape of a publican ensconced in a 
 gorgeous gin-shop, did not dispense the two 
 seductive cordials. Let the truth come out, and 
 let these gentlemen bear the responsibility of it. 
 They are not mere wholesale producers who 
 sell their wares, and can fairly say they are 
 not concerned whether these go to heal at the 
 hospital, or to destroy in the public-house.
 
 8o THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 The exigencies of a trade in which competition 
 is so keen oblige brewer and distiller, for their 
 lives, to create and push the business. The 
 ordinary laws of supply and demand are not 
 regarded. The trade is forced. For example, 
 were it not for the capital of these vast firms, 
 whose agents are always on the look-out for 
 a chance to acquire a new vested interest in 
 the demoralisation of society, who will believe 
 that Regent Street, Westminster, or White- 
 chapel Road, would be filled with the expensive 
 establishments which make them so brilliant and 
 so damned at night ? And what are our magis- 
 trates about that they permit their brother magis- 
 trates, in the horrible rivalry of this destructive 
 trade, to overwhelm neighbourhoods like these 
 with poverty, crime, and sorrow ? The ^"4,000, 
 ^5,000, or ; 1 0,000 which starts a public-house, is 
 rarely found by the creature who stands behind
 
 HOIST WITH HIS OWN PETARD. 8 1 
 
 the bar ; if comes out of the same pockets as the 
 .1,000 subscriptions to restorations of cathedrals, 
 new churches, and to the conversion of the Dyak, 
 the Carib, or the Iroquois, from naked savagery, 
 to the English Bible, the English coat and hat, 
 and English fire-water. 
 
 * * 
 
 III. Hoist with his own Petard. 
 
 WHEN breakfast was over, Mr. Henry Bighorne, 
 whose uneasiness had throughout excited the 
 sharp attention of Emily, signalled to her to 
 follow him, and led the way to his own room at 
 the top of the house. There she found every- 
 thing in confusion, as if he were about to pack 
 up for a journey, and she noticed that he had 
 not used the bed. 
 
 " Henry," she said, " what's the matter ? You 
 G
 
 82 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 are dreadfully ill. Something has happened. I 
 never saw you like this." 
 
 "Something has happened," replied he 
 gloomily, "and I am going away." 
 
 " Going away ! Where ?" 
 
 " Oh ! anywhere. I am not certain just 
 now. But if they ask you, you had better say 
 I have gone down for a week's hunting with 
 Conistoun." 
 
 " I'll do nothing of the sort. Tell me what all 
 this means." 
 
 " Emily," he said, putting his arm round her 
 waist and resting his hot cheek against hers, so 
 delightfully cool and smooth, " don't ask me, 
 love, for it is impossible to tell you. But I've 
 got into a scrape, and there's a bigger man con- 
 cerned in it, and for his sake, I must be off at 
 all events for a time. No one must know where 
 I am ; so I shan't tell you, because you wouldn't
 
 HOIST WITH HIS OWN PETARD. 83 
 
 tell a lie for anybody, and they might put you 
 on your oath, you know." 
 
 " Oh, what is it ?" cried Emily, clasping his 
 two hands and looking him in the face. " What 
 have you been doing ? Oh, Henry, Henry !" and 
 those lovely sisterly arms went round his neck, 
 and she drew this weak fool to her noble bosom 
 with all the strength of a motherly affection. 
 Master Henry's mind was not in what is termed 
 ' good form,' and he felt just then that he was a 
 pitiable fellow and a most unfortunate one ; so 
 he began to cry, and Emily, like the recording 
 angel, cried too, and the tears of love and of 
 feeble hypocrisy flowed together. 
 
 Tears ? Ah ! tears of a tender loving woman, 
 in. whose heart the angel Virtue ever sits 
 enthroned ; tell me where you can find such 
 gems as these ? Man, beast, brute, savage, when 
 you see these pearling her cheeks, stand still and
 
 84 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 watch the only drops from the great river of 
 Celestial Mercy that ever take material form on 
 earth, and stay your passion, or your wrath, 
 or your cruelty, or your suspicion, before those 
 precious tokens of heavenly purity and grace. 
 If they are the outcome of sorrow for thee, O 
 erring man ! fall down and catch the holy water, 
 if perchance it may wash some black spot out 
 of thy soul, and think what glorious mercy they 
 express. No man can shed such tears as these 
 welling forth as pure as ever from the fountain 
 you may have shaken, and broken and stirred up 
 with your foul or ferocious abuses, but which 
 still sends forth a crystal stream of forgiving 
 love. Oh blest evidences of heavenly mercy! to 
 think that men should wantonly blind themselves 
 to your loving and gracious influences sweeter 
 than the sweet influences of the Pleiades ! The 
 heart that willingly drinks in your gentle showers
 
 HOIST WITH HIS OWN PETARD. 85 
 
 should surely send up some healthy growth of 
 goodness and of immortality ! 
 
 The relations between this sister and brother 
 were of a peculiar kind. It is hard to say it; but 
 it is true, and is, I fear, not the only case of the 
 sort that although Mr. Henry Bighorne was the 
 son of Mr. and Mrs. Bighorne, there was little 
 sympathy between him and his progenitors. 
 Emily had a good deal of the force and resolve of 
 her father, and of the common-sense of her 
 mother ; and the affinity of temper had fostered 
 a deep affection between them. But Henry was 
 one of those irregulars who sometimes appear in 
 families, and are said by physiologists to recall 
 some forgotten type of ancestry. Indeed, I have 
 been gravely assured by an eminent ontologist 
 that he knows in English families who can trace 
 their lineage for long generations of cases in 
 which some unremembered Chinese or Malayan
 
 86 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 of the line has inconveniently turned up again 
 in a living son or daughter. In Henry's case 
 the anterior ancestor must have been a mild, 
 beautiful, well-intentioned, bright, and capable 
 person, but deficient in the firmness which gives 
 all qualities their coherence and force. He was 
 a young man of fine culture. His Greek and 
 Latin verses at Eton were said to have shown 
 much more than mechanical power. When he 
 went to Oxford, he was conspicuous for his love 
 of the 'humanities/ his precocious judgment, 
 his mastery of literature, not merely in the 
 dead but in living languages. Knowing what 
 he is now, you may be amazed to hear that 
 his life at the University was singularly pure 
 and quiet. Emily was his constant corre- 
 spondent, and such a correspondent was like an 
 ' anchor within the veil.' One would hardly be 
 prepared to credit the fact that in three fatal
 
 HOIST WITH HIS OWN PETARD. 87 
 
 years this harmless and even promising boy had 
 been changed into a debased and morbid roue; 
 but it is as true as Gospel, and you can, if you 
 please, have a sight of the genie that worked 
 the transformation. 
 
 When Henry Bighorne came home from 
 Oxford to his cold, calculating, brisk, and 
 ambitious father, his practical mother, and 
 fashionable society, he emerged from a sort of 
 Garden of Eden, in which he had been walk- 
 ing and talking with divinities, and found 
 himself in an unexpectedly rude world. He 
 shrank towards Emily, who loved and admired 
 him. But Mr. Bighorne, after watching the 
 young gentleman for six months, and finding 
 him to be a shy, rather indolent student, 
 began to think that the career he desired for 
 this his son and heir, was in peril of coming to 
 nought. He meant that Henry should push
 
 88 THE DEVIL'S CHAIX. 
 
 on the fortunes of the family ; and should he 
 himself fail in reaching his determined goal, the 
 House of Lords, this cultivated young man was 
 by talent and wealth to accomplish it. He 
 therefore resolved to break into Master Henry's 
 gentle life, and ' stir it up a bit.' I can repeat 
 the conversation. 
 
 FATHER. Henry, I have something special 
 to say to you. You are positively doing nothing 
 but reading and riding about with Emily. Have 
 you thought at all about what you are going to 
 do in life ? 
 
 SON. No, sir. I am very contented with my 
 present occupation. I am writing a few criti- 
 cisms and 
 
 FATHER. Criticisms ! Fiddlesticks ! Leave 
 that to the fools who write books, or who can't 
 understand them. You must do something 
 practical in life.
 
 HOIST WITH HIS OWN PETARD. 89 
 
 SON. Well, sir, what shall I do ? 
 
 FATHER. You know you are the only one 
 who can succeed to my business. 
 
 SON. Your business, sir. Good heavens ! 
 
 FATHER (wrathfully). What the d do 
 
 you mean, sir ? Has Emily been infecting you 
 with her ridiculous sentiments? Are my own 
 children to turn round on their father as if 
 he were a criminal ? 
 
 SON. I I beg your pardon, sir. I really 
 meant no reflection. The idea came on me so 
 suddenly. I had never thought of such a thing. 
 
 FATHER. Precisely. Young men like you 
 never do think they have come into the world 
 to do more than enjoy the result of their father's 
 labour and sacrifice. But I don't believe in that 
 sort of thing. The business must have a head. 
 You will have to be that head, and therefore you 
 must understand business.
 
 90 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 O fatal syllogism ! It was the saddest thing 
 in life to witness the expansion, and, in the 
 expansion, the ruin of that young cultured mind. 
 He was placed in a counting-house in the vast 
 establishment of the firm. He was drilled in 
 figures, and numbers, and calculations. He was 
 ordered to acquaint himself with all the details 
 of the distillery and of the testing and tasting- 
 rooms. Emily, who fought a hard battle with 
 her father and mother about the arrangement, 
 watched its results with feverish anxiety. The 
 rather weak and weary youth used at first to come 
 home at night to her for comfort. Then he began 
 to form acquaintanceships of which she knew 
 little, and which kept him often away from her. 
 He grew more fond of society ; and among the 
 circle of her aristocratic suitors, not a few were 
 ready to favour young Bighorne, by inducting 
 him into the mysteries of town life. The
 
 HOIST WITH HIS OWN PETARD. 91 
 
 tax on a not very vigorous constitution was 
 met by constant visits to the tasting-room, 
 where he had learned his lesson well. Each 
 repair caused a reaction, and each reaction 
 required a repair. In those words you have a 
 whole history of a million or so of men. 
 Master Henry became bolder, louder, more 
 vivacious, more social, and his father rejoiced to 
 see him 'waking up a bit.' He had, indeed, 
 waked up with a vengeance. Emily watched it 
 all in agony. The late hours, the jaded body, 
 the pale face, the hot hand, the vulgar language, 
 all told her a tale of she knew not exactly what ; 
 but she felt it was something awful and evil. 
 She wrestled strongly with the devil for this 
 loved soul, but it seemed to be in vain. He 
 himself was sometimes cruel and rude then a 
 maudlin repentant. In two years Master Henry 
 held his own fairly with most gay men about
 
 92 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 town, and his father had the satisfaction of 
 paying for it. Nevertheless, the latter clung 
 to the hope that the youth would soon sow his 
 wild oats and settle down. He hid from himself 
 that the sowing was in a field that exhaled a 
 breath of doom. 
 
 " Emily," said Henry, kissing her, " don't ask 
 any more. Promise me you won't say anything 
 to excite suspicion. My very life may depend 
 on it. Give me all the money you have. The 
 governor has had his way. He has certainly 
 ' taught me the business' d him for it !" 
 
 Mr. Bighorne's syllogism was more logical 
 than happy.
 
 T 
 
 LINK THE FIFTH. 
 
 AMBITION. 
 
 I. A Treasure hidden in a field and Lost. 
 HE inquest on the body of Helena Hur- 
 
 lingham was resumed on the following- 
 Thursday. The police reported that, although 
 they had taxed their powers to the utmost, 
 they had obtained no clue to the identity of 
 the two mysterious ' gentlemen.' All that they 
 had been able to discover was this. The keepers 
 of the house, who affirmed themselves to be 
 strictly ' respectable,' had never seen either 
 of the gentlemen before. They admitted that 
 they were aware that gentlemen did visit their 
 lodger, whose rooms, by the way, were well
 
 94 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 furnished, and that she lived a very gay life ; 
 also that several times an elderly person, in a 
 cloak and black felt hat, had been seen going 
 up to and descending from these rooms, but 
 always at night, and no one had caught a glimpse 
 of his face. On the particular afternoon of the 
 poor 'lady's' death, as the maid-servant testified, 
 an unusual circumstance happened. Mrs. Bell- 
 house had company in the afternoon. She called 
 the girl to the door, and ordered some refresh- 
 ments. The girl observed within a gentleman 
 whose hair was turning grey, but who kept his 
 back to her, and could not further be distin- 
 guished in the gloom. How he got there, and 
 when, no one knew. The quick eye of the maid 
 had noticed another thing. A large cloak and 
 a black felt hat had been thrown upon the sofa, 
 opposite the door. 
 
 Some time after the girl had handed in the
 
 LOST. 95 
 
 refreshments, which, as we have seen, were on a 
 liberal scale, the landlady heard the front door 
 open, and steps upon the stairs. Coming out of 
 her room from behind the stairs, and glancing 
 up, she saw the back of a tall slender man, 
 whose hair appeared to be dark, and whose dress 
 was not distinguishable in the deepening dim- 
 ness of the afternoon ; but she distinctly heard 
 him knock at and enter the sitting-room door of 
 her up-stairs lady lodger. This was about ten 
 minutes before the awful event. Thus, there 
 were no other evidences of the identity of these 
 persons than the glance of a couple of women 
 at the backs of a couple of men, and a cloak 
 and a hat, which had vanished. 
 
 The keeper of the house testified that the 
 ' lady,' though her profession or practice might 
 have been questionable, always behaved like a 
 lady of rank, and when she had money, loved to
 
 96 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 surround herself with the conveniences and knick- 
 knacks of grand houses. Her only fault in the 
 estimation of her hostess was that she sometimes 
 took an uninterrupted ' spell ' of drinking. She 
 had just ended such a spell a day or two before 
 her death. They always knew when it was 
 coming on. She became moody and silent, 
 being ordinarily vivacious; would not go out, ate 
 nothing, sent repeatedly, first for stout, then for 
 gin, then steadily for brandy, by the bottle. 
 
 " And do you mean to say you used to get it 
 for her ?" cried the Coroner in a voice of thunder. 
 
 " Well, sir ; what was we to do ? You can't 
 displease your own lodgers, and them in the 
 house for months and months, and you making 
 your bread out of them, and them never doing 
 no harm to you nor your furniture." 
 
 " When she got started, then, how long would 
 she keep this up ? "
 
 LOST. 97 
 
 " Well, sir, never longer than a week, sir ; or 
 ten days at most, off and on." 
 
 " And how much gin and brandy would she 
 take in that time ? " 
 
 " Well, sir, she wasn't so bad as some people 
 I've known on, sir." 
 
 " But how much ? " 
 
 " Well, sir, a bottle or a bottle and a half a 
 day, sir. She took it quiet and steady, sir. She 
 never got drunk-like or noisy. She went to bed 
 and took it steady and medicine-like, sir." 
 
 The Coroner looked at the jury, and the jury 
 looked at the Coroner, as if they had never heard 
 of such a case before. 
 
 Among the private effects which the deceased 
 had left, was a Davenport, containing many 
 papers of no present consequence. Everything 
 was in order. She left very little to tell tales 
 about her friends. She had been a woman of 
 H
 
 98 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 business. Her hand-writing, though shaky, was 
 bold and handsome. But among the other 
 papers were some important documents. A 
 series of receipted bills for the board and edu- 
 cation of 'Miss Eleanor Why te,' with letters from 
 a lady, evidently the wife of a clergyman, who 
 had charge of the girl. The letters were dated 
 from Arleston Rectory, Cornwall, and always 
 gave an account of the child's religious, as well 
 as secular education. Another document was 
 a letter addressed to Miss Eleanor Whyte, dated 
 two days before the poor woman's death; and 
 unfinished. It ran thus : 
 
 London : 14, Titfton Street, 
 St. John's Wood* 
 
 MY DEAREST ELEANOR : 
 
 / have not Jieard from you or Mrs. 
 
 * This had been her previous lodging, and the landlady took 
 in letters there for her. The husband's letters were sent to 
 Netting Hill.
 
 LOST. 99 
 
 Young for nearly a fortnight, and am getting 
 nervous about it. I have been very unwell, and 
 mostly in bed for more titan a week, and to-day I 
 feel very sad and sorrowful and down-Jiearted. 
 
 Whether I shall ever send yon this letter, I don't 
 know ; but though I have struggled with myself 
 a long, long while against doing what I am going 
 to do, I feel myself driven by some good or wicked 
 spirit, I cannot tell which, to do it. I must tell 
 you who you are, for I have been deceiving you 
 and Mrs. Young, and yon are not what I said 
 you were only the daughter of a tradesman's 
 widow well-off, and your name is not Whyte. 
 
 Your real name is Hiirlingham ; you are tJie 
 daughter of a country gentleman at all events, 
 once a gentleman of higJi family and good 
 property ; and, my dear, dearest Eleanor, your 
 mother is the daughter of a peer of the realm. 
 [The indications about here were watery.]
 
 IOO THE DEVILS CHAIN. 
 
 But I vvant to tell you hoiu I was brought to 
 this, and I want to warn you, that you may avoid 
 the tempter which has made of your mother, once 
 beautiful, accomplished, and virtuous as you, a 
 what she is now ! My love, you must knoiu I was 
 very ambitious, and my poor husband (wlio loved 
 me dearly enough then, poor fellow, whatever Jie has 
 become since) was not. I tried to carry him into 
 the ivorld and into political life. I worked night 
 and day for it. I studied, I read, I talked with 
 statesmen; I entertained and went out; few would 
 believe what I did and what I was and was able 
 to do -few certainly who now see the wreck I am. 
 Meantime you had come into the world ; but much 
 as I loved you, I was trying to push forward 
 my ambitious aims. It taxed my strength terribly. 
 I consulted my physician, Sir Lullaby Turle. He 
 recommended me to take occasionally a little brandy. 
 Darling Eleanor, listen to your mother 1 s declaration.
 
 LOST. IOI 
 
 / took his advice, and I swear before God that, 
 looking back over those years, I cannot tell you how 
 it grew upon me, it came so gradually. I was not 
 conscious until I found I could not do without it. 
 It was noticed by quick designing men. Such 
 a man once took advantage of it, and in one brief 
 hour I lost my virtue and my honesty and self- 
 respect. How I fell, and struggled, and struggled, 
 and fell again, I cannot tell you. The devil had 
 got hold of me. I was fettered in his chains 
 and I am there now. God help me ! My 
 precious, precious child, I dare not tell you 
 what I am, nor what your father is. You are 
 too young, too good to know. Oh ! my God! 
 When I think of you and your pure, holy life, 
 and my own sinful depravity, I feel as if I were 
 in the torments of hell, like that Dives in the 
 Bible, and looking at you an angel in Heaven, 
 and asking God to let you cool my burning tongue
 
 IO2 THE DEVILS CHAIN. 
 
 with a drop of water. You would do it, wouldn't 
 'you ? for the sake even of your sinful mother who 
 has worked and sacrificed to keep you safe from 
 the pollutions of your two wicked parents. How I 
 have tried to Judge you round and keep you away 
 from temptation and those dear good people all 
 through these ten years have brought you up and 
 treated you like their own child and you are so 
 good, and so beautifid, and so clever, and have been 
 confirmed, and learnt to love your S 
 
 Here it was evident the writer had broken 
 down in a passion of sorrow. The latest words 
 were scarcely decipherable, and the pen had 
 dropped upon the paper never to resume its 
 work. The name of the holy and forgiving 
 One, who had mercy even for the sinning Mary 
 and the poor adulteress in the Temple, seemed 
 to have excited thoughts that made this poor
 
 LOST. IO3 
 
 woman shrink and cower and weep. Oh, had 
 she truly written it, even then might she not 
 have seen and felt something of the grace that 
 lurks in the name of Saviour ! 
 
 I will dryly state the remaining facts laid 
 before the jury by the police. An open letter, 
 brought in perhaps by the man who had last 
 entered the room, had been discovered in a 
 bloody fold of the woman's dress. It had been 
 hastily opened and thrust into the bosom. They 
 had deciphered it thus : 
 
 Arleston Rectory, Corn-wall, 
 
 February , 187 ^ 
 
 DEAR MADAM : 
 
 / write to you in a state of the most 
 terrible sorrow and regret. Our and your 
 darling Eleanor disappeared four days ago, and 
 we have been unable to get the least trace of her 
 since. Further than this : some one like her took
 
 1O4 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 the night train at Station, twelve miles 
 
 from here, the same night, ivith a gentleman ! 
 My husband is distracted^ and is away going 
 iip and down the country in search of her, TJie 
 police are doing their best. We had no suspicion 
 of it. Pray come down. I can write no more. 
 God save our poor dear Eleanor. 
 Yours, 
 
 EDITH YOUNG. 
 
 The clergyman and his wife stated that more 
 than ten years before, a Mrs. Whyte, who after- 
 wards appeared as a ladylike person in decent 
 but not handsome mourning, had answered their 
 advertisement for a child to educate and bring 
 up. She represented herself as the widow of a 
 London draper, so occupied with business that 
 she could not attend to her child, then eight 
 years of age. Two things she insisted on : that
 
 LOST. IO5 
 
 her child should have the strictest religious 
 training, and never be permitted to touch any 
 form of intoxicating drink. The rest of their 
 evidence was such as might be expected from the 
 facts already educed. The girl, a beautiful, 
 clever, and estimable young woman, had gone 
 away, they knew not whither or with whom. 
 They were quite unaware that she had formed 
 acquaintance with any one they could suspect. 
 
 This story, with all its in-and-out details, drawn 
 forth with the vulgar and sickening particularity 
 of such investigations, filled the newspapers and 
 inspired the moral lessons of the journalistic 
 staff, from the bishops, or other Athenaeum 
 magnates who write . for the leviathans of the 
 press, downwards. 
 
 The jury, with exemplary wisdom, after a long 
 and expensive inquiry, brought in the following 
 verdict :
 
 106 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 " That the deceased, Helena Hurlingham, alias 
 Bellhouse, came to her death by falling out 
 of a window at No. St. Martin's Lane ; but 
 whether by her own act or that of any other 
 person or persons, is unknown." 
 
 # * 
 * 
 
 II. An Enthusiastic Convert. 
 
 MlSS EMILY impelled by a morbid inclination 
 she could not explain, had followed the pro- 
 ceedings of the inquest on Mrs. Hurlingham's 
 body with unwonted excitement, and with sor- 
 rowful sympathy. Not content with this, she 
 wished her father and mother to share her 
 feelings. This was annoying. The subject was 
 disagreeable, and Emily's views about it were 
 uncomfortably odd. 
 
 The truth is, this young lady had latterly 
 adopted very uncongenial opinions. Having 
 gone one Sunday, during the past season, to a
 
 AN ENTHUSIASTIC CONVERT. 
 
 church in Hiton Square, when she had, as she 
 supposed, concluded the real part of the wor- 
 ship, and had assumed an attitude of recipient 
 resignation for the homily of the surpliced 
 priest, who was kneeling up there in the pulpit, 
 with his hands over his face, the ecclesiastic 
 took his revenge, not only out of her, but out of 
 a number of other equally placid ladies and 
 gentlemen whom the London season had drawn 
 together. He very quietly, but in eloquent and 
 incisive terms, told them that most of them were 
 living the lives of drones and cowards : drones, 
 because they were doing nothing for God or 
 man ; cowards, because they were afraid to look 
 the fact in the face, as became true hearts. 
 Then, with what they thought to be needless 
 cruelty, he went rather minutely into the details 
 of their present state. He painted the existing 
 conditions of the lives of many of his hearers
 
 Io8 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 with pre-Raphaelitish accuracy, and hardly any 
 allowance for perspective, until, in view of the 
 clear delineation, men and women might be seen 
 shrinking back in their pews as if they were 
 afraid to face those fine pale features and burn- 
 ing eyes, and to hear that terribly calm, sharp- 
 edged voice. 
 
 Then he turned round suddenly, and grew 
 warm, and vivid, and sonorous. Oh ! how 
 rousing it was to hear him tell the story of the 
 martyrs of God, and of the noble works our 
 fathers did in the old time, and of their stead- 
 fastness, chivalry, and prowess. He became 
 instinct with a grand passion which flashed 
 out from his heart to that of his hearers, like 
 lightning from cloud to cloud. And then he 
 asked why those before him should not essay 
 to continue the line of the old knights and 
 ladies of the Cross ; and he showed how &preux
 
 AN ENTHUSIASTIC CONVERT. IOQ 
 
 chevalier of these days should arm himself, of 
 what spirit he should be possessed, what deeds 
 he might do, and what a guerdon he might 
 win. And a number of chivalric souls, inspired 
 by the preacher's words, then and there made 
 oath to consecrate themselves to bold knight 
 and lady work for the Cross. And among them 
 was Emily Bighorne ; and being a girl of a 
 strong, well-balanced mind, this resolve of hers 
 had been no vain one, for she was following, 
 night and day, with many others the Greatheart 
 who had uttered that trumpet-call. They stood 
 by him, as it is needed all good souls should 
 stand by other good souls in this evil world. 
 Moreover, as it was of her nature to be earnest, 
 Miss Emily had become a propagandist, and a 
 voluntary sister of mercy. Hence, persons who 
 had settled down into an agreeable satisfaction 
 with themselves and their universal relations in
 
 IIG THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 time, space, and eternity, found her to be an 
 uncomfortably active reformer. 
 
 Miss Emily had not fluttered about on angels' 
 errands in the slums of Westminster very long 
 before she found herself brought in direct conflict 
 with the fearful .Power, which meets and often 
 thwarts the efforts of the little crusading army 
 of improvers, of every kind, that fight the Evil 
 One in that district. It appeared before her in 
 its effects dread misery, fell diseases, and the 
 wrecks of virtue. She was fearfully startled 
 when, one day, before her eyes, that Power took 
 the substantial form of a bottle of creamy 
 gin, bearing a blazoned label, and the name of 
 Bighorne. Then her eyes became further 
 opened, and she saw how often the same name 
 flaunted gaudily over the doors and windows of 
 the very dens she was trying to defraud of their 
 victims. After that she was obliged, to have
 
 AN ENTHUSIASTIC CONVERT. Ill 
 
 it out with Mr. Bighorne, who was, however, 
 above proof in more senses than one. 
 
 Mr. BIGHORNE. What have I to do with it ? 
 The stuff I make is perfectly good if they 
 abuse it, the worse for them ! 
 
 EMILY. Oh, papa ! Do you know what their 
 abuse of it means ? 
 
 Mr. BIGHORNE. Yes ; I see that by the 
 newspapers drunken husbands, broken heads, 
 starving families 
 
 EMILY (vehemently}. Murders parricides 
 slaughter of wives and children brutality 
 vices too horrible to mention. 
 
 Mr. BIGHORNE. Then, my dear, don't men- 
 tion them. It makes me shudder to think you 
 are acquainting yourself with such things. Good 
 Heavens ! Mrs. Bighorne what are you about ? 
 You are letting your daughter get into strange 
 associations !
 
 112 THE DEVILS CHAIN. 
 
 MRS. BlGHORNE. I regret to say, Mr. Big- 
 horne, it is useless for me to talk. She is too 
 like you, Mr. Bighorne, fond of having her own 
 way, and too old to be guided : and her only 
 director now is Mr. Holiwell, a good man 
 enough, and very earnest, I dare say, but ex- 
 ceedingly indiscreet in the work he sets young 
 ladies and gentlemen to do. 
 
 EMILY. Dear mamma, now, you're going 
 over to the enemy ! You know that you really 
 sympathise a good deal with him. Did you not 
 give me twenty pounds for his night mission 
 only last week ? But now, papa, how many 
 public-houses in London are you interested in ? 
 
 MR. BIGHORNE. I don't know 
 
 EMILY. Well, I got Henry to tell rne it is 
 one hundred and twenty. 
 
 MR. BlGHORNE. Confound Henry! 
 
 EMILY. Papa, in two streets in Westminster
 
 AN ENTHUSIASTIC CONVERT. 113 
 
 there are fifteen public-houses, and you own 
 four of them. 
 
 MR. BlGHORNE. I don't, I tell you. I only 
 lent the money. Do you know the Dean and 
 Chapter are said to own a lot of public-houses ? 
 Have you heard that the Bishop of London, 
 when he goes from St. James's Square to Ful- 
 ham, passes nearly one hundred public-houses 
 owned by the Church of England ? I'm as 
 good as the Church at all events. 
 
 EMILY. No, I don't think you are. The 
 Church is in a bad enough position, but yoif 
 are worse. They came into that property. Your 
 money buys them or puts them there. They 
 would not have been there but for that. 
 
 MR. BlGHORNE. Yes, they would. Some 
 other house would have put them there. 
 
 EMILY. Well, it is the same thing. You 
 are all a lot of rich capitalists, and between 
 I
 
 I 14 THE DEVIL S CHAIN. 
 
 you your capital builds all these public- 
 houses. 
 
 MR. BlGHORNE. No more than are required 
 by legitimate trade it is regulated by the law 
 of supply and demand. 
 
 EMILY. No, no ; if it were left to that, there 
 would not be so many houses, Mr. Holiwell says 
 so every one says so who knows anything about 
 it It is you wealthy distillers and brewers, 
 who can afford to wait a long time for your 
 returns, who are always creating new business ; 
 And, my dear papa, if you would only go with 
 me and see, I will show you, you are making it 
 out of the death and ruin of your fellow-creatures. 
 
 MR. BlGHORNE (testily): O dear! O dear! 
 when you women, or your friends the parsons, 
 who are just as bad, get on economical questions, 
 you run so wide of the mark! Look here, 
 Emily dear, do be rational if you can : A.
 
 AN ENTHUSIASTIC CONVERT. 115 
 
 builds a chemist's shop, and sells laudanum. B. 
 builds a rival chemist's shop next door, and sells 
 laudanum too. C. builds a chemist's shop oppo- 
 site, and also sells laudanum, ist, If the three 
 chemists are not wanted in that neighbourhood, 
 one or two will go to the wall. 2nd, The 
 three will sell no more laudanum than the one 
 would have done. 3rd, If any one takes too 
 much laudanum, it is not the chemist's fault, 
 provided he has used the proper precautions. 
 
 EMILY. I may be a poor economist, papa, but 
 even as a woman I can see through your falla- 
 cies, ist, The article we are speaking of is not 
 laudanum, which very few people are fond of, 
 and almost every one is afraid of ; but beer, gin, 
 brandy, etc., which many people are fond of, and 
 very few are afraid of. 2nd, The chemists don't 
 build up their business by encouraging people to 
 drink medicine and run in debt for it, do they ?
 
 1 16 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 They rarely no more than supply an actual want, 
 3rd,' Would a chemist who saw a man half 
 stupefied with laudanum sell him another dose to 
 finish him off, as you know, though you don't 
 care to enquire, those wretched agents of yours 
 in Westminster will do, simply to turn another 
 penny ? And, 4thly, If a man is going home to 
 his wife with his money in his pocket, would he 
 be as likely to get there safely, if he had twenty 
 public-houses to pass, as if he had twenty che- 
 mists' shops : or as saffly if he passed twenty as 
 if he passed only two ? If the Government had 
 arranged the licenses so that the public-houses 
 might really be like the chemists' shops, simply 
 to supply a legitimate demand, your conscience 
 might be clearer; but every time the least attempt 
 is made to decrease the number, you and all your 
 friends in the trade, and all your emissaries, move 
 heaven and earth, in and out of Parliament, to
 
 AN ENTHUSIASTIC CONVERT. 117 
 
 prevent it, and so you must accept the responsi- 
 bility ; and I feel I feel I can't tell you what 
 I feel 
 
 Thus it will appear that Miss Bighorne's 
 radicalism was vehement, and though femininely 
 illogical, not without bases in principles and 
 in facts. Mrs. Bighorne tried to act the part of a 
 go-between, but in reality sided with the older 
 and more conservative party. Master Henry 
 had been assailed with qpangelistic energy, and 
 once or twice was on the point of succumbing to 
 Emily's religious zeal ; but that more capable 
 warrior in wickedness, Captain Conistoun, had 
 come to his rescue and carried him off from 
 Puritan perils. This effectually settled the 
 Captain's chances with Miss Emily.
 
 LINK THE SIXTH. 
 
 STRENGTH, LABOUR, AND SORROW. 
 I. Bill Knowsley. 
 
 TTOR a dark, chill, and gusty night, the scene 
 inside one of Lord Dibblecum's great iron 
 works in Staffordshirf is cheery enough : fur- 
 naces glowing and roaring, men like sala- 
 manders playing with the fire ; ever and anon 
 throwing open great doors that radiate a fierce, 
 hot glare, seizing with long iron fingers the 
 metal forms that had been blown up to a white 
 heat inside, dragging them forth incandescent 
 and sputtering flames of blue and ruby fire ; and 
 then, in the clear circle of light, titans swinging
 
 BILL KNOWSLEY. 
 
 great hammers, and sparks shimmering out 
 in fountains and jets of brightness. As other 
 furnaces are opened, out rush cascades of molten 
 metal, wonderful to see a weird, translucent 
 glow about it, the fire infolding itself, and the 
 flames disporting in terrible, silent tongues of 
 amber. 
 
 At the end, nearest the great gate of the 
 largest shed, half a dozen big fellows are 
 fashioning a piece of iron into a girder for 
 a mill. One, two, three four, five, six go 
 the huge hammers, swung aloft and dropped 
 to a tenth of an inch exactly in the place, 
 and to the tenth of an ounce exactly with 
 the force desired by the skilful wielders. 
 One, two, three four, five, six rise and fall the 
 heavy hammers ; for it is Saturday night, and 
 this is a last bout of work by one of the late 
 shifts. Therefore, merrily and with a will ring
 
 I2O THE DEVILS CHAIN. 
 
 the hammers, in their cadence of labour, noble 
 and heartstirring music to the man who knows 
 what labour is. That big fellow who takes 
 the lead with a swing and stroke so mighty, 
 yet so deft, while his giant chest heaves glist- 
 ening in the mellow light, is Bill Knowsley, 
 one of the vastest men thereabouts ; and at 
 this moment another man, standing out in the 
 chill shadow, is watching the work and ob- 
 serving Bill Knowsley with curious eyes. 
 
 " That's the man," he had said to himself, 
 when he first stopped and glanced in ; and 
 then, shivering the while, he gazed admiringly 
 at the movements of the herculean frame and 
 listened to the ring of the rapid strokes, until, 
 beneath them, the iron had taken shape, and, 
 with its fire beaten out of it, lay there dull, 
 deadening, and subdued. 
 
 The light striking out from within against
 
 BILL KNOWSLEY. 12 I 
 
 the wind and the sooty night, showed this 
 man to be young and slender, though he 
 was dressed in coarse workman's garb, and 
 his face seemed to be grimed with the rust 
 and smear of the iron labour; but if you 
 had looked at him sharply, as the glare lit 
 up his features and his attitude, you would 
 have seen in a moment that neither belonged 
 to a true son of toil. That well-proportioned but 
 slim figure, that easy grace of posture, straight 
 leg and flexible back had never been left by 
 fair labour such as he had been watching. 
 Those curly locks were too smooth and clean 
 to be worn by any real son of fire and furnace. 
 
 Bill Knowsley having finished with an oath, 
 and slung his hammer away into the inner 
 gloom, had caught up his coat and was rushing 
 out to face the inclement night, when he was 
 stopped by the stranger.
 
 122 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 " I say." 
 
 
 
 " Well, what do ee say ?" 
 
 " Is your name Knowsley ?" 
 
 " Ay, I be Bill Knowsley, but who be you ? 
 You doan't talk like one of these paarts." 
 
 " No. Give me your hand God's hail ! " 
 
 Knowsley returned the pressure, and his 
 manner changed. 
 
 " Gods kail!" he replied, " and d the 
 
 traitor ! " 
 
 "All right," answered the other. "Moses 
 Pell sent me to you. I want a quiet lodging 
 for a day or two." 
 
 "Sh-sh-sh!" said Knowsley, slipping his arm 
 into that of the stranger and drawing him as 
 if he were a sparrow out of the lights and 
 away from the track of his departing comrades. 
 " You mun be hard pushed to come here. What 
 is it murder?"
 
 BILL KNOWSLEY. 123 
 
 " No," replied the other, shuddering. " It's 
 nothing. I am not what I seem. I want for spe- 
 cial reasons to keep out of the way a few days." 
 
 " Nowt ? Thee bean't a true man, I say. Perl 
 don't send folk to I for nowt less than man- 
 slaughter. Naw, naw. You be a Lunnun flash 
 cove, you be, but you woan't get the flash side of 
 Bill Knowsley. Tell us all about un avuore you 
 see th' inside o' ' Knowsley's shelter.' " And the 
 speaker stopped and grasped his companion's 
 two arms in his great hands. He could feel 
 they were not the arms of toil. 
 
 " Look here," said the other, " take me home 
 with you. It's all right, you know. Pell has 
 given me the word, and if you'll loose your in- 
 fernal grip, here's five pounds to begin." 
 
 "Foive pun!" exclaimed Bill Knowsley, 
 feeling the precious discs with his horny 
 fingers, and trying to make out whether the
 
 124 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 surfaces were yellow or white " Foive pun ! 
 Come along, gent, for gent you be. Foive pun ! 
 It's nowt but murder, young maaster, tho' a must 
 a been a ninny to be murdered by you ! " 
 
 He led the way to his house, the other re- 
 maining silent. 
 
 The home of the iron-worker was a half- 
 ruined stone cottage of two rooms. A rude 
 shed behind was used as a pig pen. By day the 
 sole redeeming feature of this residence was 
 its separation by about a quarter of a mile 
 from the rest of the huddled shelters of brick 
 and stone which constituted the village of West 
 Boynton. The house stood on a wavy expanse 
 of rusty slack and cinders, diversified here and 
 there with foul-looking pools of water when the 
 weather was not dry. Low, grim, and dirty 
 were its walls inside and out ; its broken pave- 
 ment looked as if generations had trodden it to a
 
 BILL KNOWSLEY. J25 
 
 permanent sooty blackness ; the shattered win- 
 dows flaunted their substitutes of mouldy rags. 
 Inside, the general foulness, the mixture of pots 
 and pans, and dirty children and broken furniture, 
 the odd evidences of civilization in soiled prints 
 and ragged English garments, and of barbarism 
 in the manner and talk of the inmates, would 
 have made the place a damaging study for the 
 'intelligent foreigner.' From big Bill Knows- 
 ley, turning out his three and four sovereigns a 
 week at the work that was keeping England in 
 the van of civilization and progress, and was en- 
 riching Lord Dibblecum beyond the dreams of 
 avarice, down to the baby in the corner, swaddled 
 in a bundle of fusty rags, and the pig whose 
 defiant grunt and scent seemed to establish his 
 equality with the other living things in the house- 
 hold this homestead of an English artizan was 
 a phenomenon to make a man rub his eyes and
 
 126 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 ask where he was. There was but one ex- 
 planation of it all, and that will presently 
 appear. Although Bill Knowsley had relations 
 with very curious characters, he did not belong 
 to the criminal class. His immense strength 
 tempted him to an occasional bout in the 
 ring, and this had brought him in contact with 
 some characters who occasionally called upon 
 him, as in honour bound, to discharge his devoir 
 to their secret association, by aiding to hide 
 fugitives from justice. Unless there had been 
 clear evidence and a strong force, few people 
 would have ventured to intrude into Bill Knows- 
 ley's house. This, its solitary position, and the 
 extreme rarity of the calls upon his hospitality, 
 made it a tolerably safe shelter for a day or two, 
 if a man were hard pressed. 
 
 Kicking open the door to let his wife know 
 emphatically that her master had arrived,
 
 BILL KNOWSLEY. 
 
 Knowsley entered and called upon the stranger 
 to follow. The woman turned from the bit of 
 fire where she was trying to warm I know not 
 what mess for the children who were snivelling 
 about Splendid as Bill's wages were, there 
 was rarely much more to show for them at the 
 end of the week than half a supper for the poor 
 woman and her little ones. On seeing him, her 
 face brightened for an instant with a pleased 
 surprise : not an originally comely face, but 
 brown, and haggard, and alas ! bearing marks 
 of Bill Knowsley's cowardly and drunken 
 prowess. 
 
 " VVhoam so soon, Bill ? " 
 
 " Ay, lass, d thee ; whoy not, I say ? Fse 
 
 fetched a gemman to the shelter. Shet up, 
 young uns ;" and five squalling children discreetly 
 stuffed their hands into their hungry mouths and 
 stopped their wailing.
 
 128 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 " A gemman ? " said the woman, sharply 
 conning the intruder from head to foot "What 
 have ee done ? " 
 
 " Keep thy tongue still, ooman ! Sit thee 
 down, lad sit thee down," and he put his own 
 great three-legged stool near the fire. 
 
 " Oh ! I shall do very well," said the stranger, 
 looking nevertheless very uncomfortable through 
 his disguise. " All I want is something to eat 
 and a place to shake down in." 
 
 " Summut to eat, ooman, do ee hear ? Summut 
 of the best for the gemman and me. Us'll have 
 it tidy, sir, sure enow. A candle, Lizzie."* 1 
 
 " Candle ? I've no candles, Bill." 
 
 "Well," said he with an oath, "buy 'em. Come 
 along, lass, and get us a feast. Gemman has 
 given I five pun. I'll take half a hour, I 
 will, at th' Iron Horse, while you be cooking 
 ofun."
 
 BILL KNOWSLEY. 
 
 "Bill," said the woman, her face falling; 
 " you stay here, I tell you, and I'll fetch ee the 
 things, and doan't ee go nigh to th' Iron Horse 
 to-night." 
 
 " You be blowed, and leave I aloan will ee ! 
 I've a bout o' one bottle wi' Nick Staveley 'ull 
 be oaver in a giffey, sure. You keep still 'ere, 
 lad ; I'll be back soon as th' owd ooman's ready." 
 
 While the unlucky stranger remained shiver- 
 ing in the dull light of the embers among the 
 squalling children, Knowsley having given his 
 wife a couple of sovereigns, strode off jingling 
 the other three in his pocket along with three 
 companion pieces and some silver which had 
 that afternoon been paid to him for his week's 
 wages. 
 
 Mrs. Knowsley did not stay long away. Her 
 step was brisker and her heart a little lighter 
 than usual, though there were reasons, known 
 K
 
 130 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 only to women, to impede and burden both. It 
 was so unheard-of a thing for her husband to 
 come home early or sober of a Saturday night. 
 This brightened the evening ; and again, her 
 children, who usually had to spend a hungry 
 twenty-four hours before Sunday's breakfast, 
 would go to bed satisfied. 
 
 Mrs. Knowsley had brought a magnificent 
 beefsteak, potatoes, bread, not forgetting the 
 gin and some bottled ale besides ; and after a 
 preliminary conflict with the general confusion, 
 and an issue of pacifying chunks from the loaf 
 to the black-eyed and black-faced little ones, 
 she soon filled the room with the fragrance of 
 good meat and smoke of sputtering fry. A 
 semi-circle of appeased young humanity sat in 
 the glow and quietly enjoyed the hopeful scene 
 Candles lit up the brown table-cloth she had 
 dragged from under the bed in the next room.
 
 BILL KNOWSLEY. 
 
 Plates, well battered, chipped, and burnt, graced 
 the front of the fire. The stranger began to feel 
 some incomings of comfort. Meantime he 
 seized a bottle of ale and drained a glass with 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Thus a half-hour passed, and Mrs. Knowsley's 
 preparations were complete. Her cheeks glowed 
 with warm exercise, and she chatted cheerfully 
 with her guest. Another half-hour went by, and 
 she looked out and listened for her husband. 
 She dared not ask the stranger to begin before 
 Knowsley arrived, and still less dared to go for 
 him. He was an autocrat of the purest stamp. 
 He maintained his supremacy by but one prin- 
 ciple force. History shows that that may 
 succeed with women and some nations. 
 
 At length it was half-past eight. The juicy 
 steak was drying up. The potatoes were cleav- 
 ing to the pan. The stranger could stand out
 
 132 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 no longer. Were Bill Knowsley ever so angry, 
 it was beyond all reason that a hungry man 
 should sit still opposite a spoiling steak for 
 which he had already paid. 
 
 "Mother," he said, "I'll begin. I am paying 
 for this supper. Go and fetch your husband, and 
 I'll give the youngsters something." 
 
 She peered out again. A dreary night ! As 
 she opened the door the wind came sweeping in 
 cold and harsh, whirling up a cloud of smoke 
 from the fire and putting out the candles. 
 On her face the freezing drizzle struck like a 
 shower of pins. Road, nor post, nor village 
 light was visible only a scene of wild, drifting 
 blackness. In a lull of the rushing wind, she 
 thought she heard the faint notes of a chorus. 
 She had often listened to them of a clear night. 
 
 What was she thinking of while she stood 
 there, barefaced and bareheaded, her hand hold-
 
 THE LAST LESSON. 133 
 
 ing the shaking door against her back, her ear 
 straining to catch a sound, and her eyes trying to 
 pierce the inky night that stretched its pall be- 
 tween heaven and her ? Was it possible, as she 
 had heard men say, that above this woeful whirl 
 there always rested a serene sky, a clear light of 
 sun or moon, an infinite and undisturbed rest ! 
 
 When Lizzie Knowsley turned inside again r . 
 the stranger might have observed by the candles 
 which he had re-lit, a strange expression in her 
 face. She put on a rough straw hat and an old 
 shawl, and, glancing round upon her children, 
 set her lips firmly and went out in the teeth 
 of the storm and gloom. 
 
 * * 
 
 * 
 
 II. The Last Lessen. 
 
 THE bar-room of the Iron Horse was a long, 
 low chamber, the ceiling and floor dipping up
 
 134 THE DEVIL S CHAIN. 
 
 and down like a great loose raft in a light swell ; 
 the walls ludicrously harmonizing with the 
 general notion of upheaviness. As you 
 entered the room from the door, which pierced 
 one of the longer sides at the corner, the 
 bar stood opposite, forming a quadrant in the 
 other corner. A rude place enough, though 
 once garishly decorated, having in front of it 
 a low stout iron railing to keep its bottles, 
 glasses, and inmates out of reach with a small 
 room in the rear for the latter to retreat to in 
 cases of dire extremity. For although Sam 
 Rattler, the bar-keeper, had been a prize-fighter, 
 and could on occasion ' lay ' a drunken intruder 
 into his domain with a science which left (the 
 intruder) nothing to be desired, Sam was out of 
 practice ; while the brawny frequenters of the 
 place were in the daily habit of swinging hun- 
 dred-weights of iron in the teeth of tons of the
 
 THE LAST LESSON. 135 
 
 same metal ; and when half-a-dozen such men 
 determined to clear the room, Sam, among 
 others, held it to be the better part of valour 
 to submit to them. 
 
 On this particular Saturday evening, at 
 nearly nine o'clock, Sam, his shirt-sleeves tucked 
 up, was leaning on his muscular arms, and, with 
 a short cutty in his mouth, watching with rather 
 an anxious eye the play of feeling among his 
 customers. Fifty or more of their big forms 
 loomed up through the smoke that rolled up- 
 ward to the low ceiling, and wreathed in murky 
 haze the weak lights of the petroleum lamps 
 against the wall. He had handed out, in less 
 than three hours, forty-one quarts of beer and 
 sixty odd half-pints of gin. 
 
 The room was arranged by low wooden 
 partitions into bays, where eight or ten men 
 could sit together and rest their pewters and
 
 136 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 glasses on the narrow tables between. Each 
 bay had its company, though the lowness of the 
 partitions enabled the men to interchange freely 
 foul stories, oaths, threats, challenges, sometimes 
 clouts, and other convivial recognitions. Most 
 of them were rmoking short black pipes ; some, 
 with every semblance of reason gone from their 
 faces, were sitting up and drinking steadily, 
 their friends supplying them. Some had fallen 
 asleep with their pipes in their mouths, or with 
 heads drooping on table, or partition, or bench. 
 These were the subject of rude practical jokes. 
 I will relate one. 
 
 One man, seeing his friend's face hanging over 
 the partition, with his dark matted beard turned 
 sideways, lit a match, and winking to his com- 
 rades to note the splendid joke, set fire to the 
 hair. It flamed up, scorching the skin of the 
 unconscious wretch, who woke in the morn-
 
 THE LAST LESSON. 137 
 
 ing marked for life. For the time his friends 
 enjoyed the fun immensely ; but some mornings 
 afterwards the joker was found lying in the 
 street with his head smashed in with a ham- 
 mer; and later on Mr. Calcraft, then in office, 
 hanged a man, half of whose face looked red 
 and skinless. This little drunken joke cost the 
 country two strong men, and over 600. 
 
 If this joke be incredible to you, read the 
 account of another, perpetrated by four such 
 men on an old Irishman, whom, in pure 
 alcoholic fun, they dragged out of bed, and 
 gouging his eyes out filled them with quick- 
 lime. 
 
 It must be unpleasant to brewers, distillers, 
 publicans, deans and chapters with public- 
 house property, and lords and gentlemen who 
 have voted against Sunday closing and in favour 
 of longer hours for the sale of this playful
 
 138 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 inspiration, to read of such cases ; wherefore 
 I forbear filling up this book, as I could easily do, 
 with more of them. But I charge distinctly 
 that every man who (from a Home Secretary 
 down to the lowest publican) encourages tlie 
 increase of this traffic and delays or hinders its 
 decrease, assumes directly a share of the responsi- 
 bility for such incidents as these. 
 
 At the far end of the room, near the fire, a 
 party held on bravely with uproarious revelry. 
 It was at this party that Sam the barman was 
 blinking through the smoke. They were the 
 choice boys of his custom, and when they got 
 thoroughly under way, as they had now done, 
 he knew them capable of any mischief. Over 
 this select crew presided Mr. Bill Knowsley, four 
 of whose sovereigns lay warm in Mr. Sam 
 Rattler's till. Bill had begun the evening by 
 saying he was only going to divide a pint of
 
 THE LAST LESSON. 139 
 
 gin with three friends and must then go away 
 to meet a chum, but he had evidently changed 
 his mind. 
 
 While Sam Rattler was thus gazing he heard 
 the door open, and saw a woman enter, dripping 
 with the evening storm, her wet shawl drawn 
 close about her shoulders. She paused a moment 
 and looked down the room. 
 
 " Doan't ee do it," said Sam in a low voice, as 
 he saw her recognize Bill Knowsley and pass 
 onward. Either she did not hear him or did 
 not heed him, for she slipped silently down the 
 room. Even then you could see by her walk 
 that she was heavy with a double burden of 
 life. 
 
 Bill Knowsley, sitting at the corner of the bay, 
 glass in hand and far from drowsy, though 
 terribly drunk, suddenly found his arm touched, 
 and hearc. these words in his ear.
 
 140 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 "Bill, Bill, remember th' gemman, and th' 
 sooper all so nice ; coom along, chap." 
 
 When Bill turned and looked at his wife, she 
 wished she had stayed at home. There was 
 a dead silence among the men. 
 
 " Ded'n I tell ee," he roared out, " never moure 
 t' coom an' trouble I en this plaace ? " 
 
 "Yes, Bill," said the poor woman, "but, Bill, 
 remember th' sooper, lad, and th' man waiten 
 at th' house." 
 
 Bill Knowsley finished his glass, and set it 
 down, and rose up with wrath in his eye and 
 the devil in his heart. Without a word he 
 smote with his left straight out, as if it had been 
 at the hardened ' mug ' of a bruiser, into the 
 middle of the woman's face. Shrieking, she 
 went down on her back, face no longer featured, 
 face bloody and featureless. 
 
 " Take that and that ! "
 
 THE LAST LESSON. 141 
 
 The maniac's clogs were heavy. Once into 
 her side, and O my God ! are you men who are 
 looking on, are you men or beasts ? once again 
 into her tender side ! With that fell blow two 
 lives went out. 
 
 Man ! Man ! Stay thy useless fury now. The 
 work is done. , No need to break or bruise the 
 poor limp body any more. The spirit is already 
 before the Judge of the quick and the dead. 
 
 Not a man in the room moved while Bill 
 Knowsley exercised his admitted rights of home 
 government. One or two laughed foolishly. 
 One man said "Sarve 'en right." The rest 
 were cowed or indifferent. Bill Knowsley, glanc- 
 ing round savagely, as if to see whether anyone 
 had any protest to make, sat down and called for 
 more gin. 
 
 Then Sam Rattler came down the room, and 
 after gazing a moment at the still heap that
 
 142 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 lay there weltering, he pointed to Knowsley's 
 clogs and said quietly but hoarsely : 
 
 "Theere's blood, Bill Knowsley. Thee'd best 
 to mizzle." 
 
 Bill Knowsley looking down on his boots, 
 seemed to gather an idea. He got up, and 
 casting his eyes an instant on his deadly work, 
 slunk along the room and went out into outer 
 darkness. 
 
 * * 
 
 III. Get out! 
 
 THE stranger in Bill Knowsley's house was 
 drawing toward the close of a hearty meal, when 
 the door suddenly came in with a crash, and 
 his host staggered into the kitchen. 
 
 "Hallo!" cried the guest, hardly looking 
 up, or he would not have said it. " So you're
 
 GET OUT ! 143 
 
 here at last ! Here's your supper spoiling. 
 What have you been doing ? " 
 
 "What a' I been a doen ?" replied Knowsley, 
 with a roar that made the stranger look quickly 
 up at his furious face and bloodshot eyes. 
 " What th' devil is to thee what I've been a 
 doen ? Look'ee ! get thee gone quick." 
 
 As he screamed this out in a terrible voice, 
 he seemed to be struggling against an impulse 
 to rush upon his guest and throttle him. His 
 face and hands worked viciously. 
 
 "All right, old fellow," replied the other, 
 affecting to be indifferent. "You'll be better 
 by-and-bye. Come, sit down and take some- 
 thing." 
 
 " Wull'ee go, I say ? For God's sake get thee 
 gone, lad ! " 
 
 And Bill Knowsley rushed to the fireplace 
 and seized the poker, a long bar of iron.
 
 144 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 The stranger jumped to his feet and stood 
 near the door. 
 
 " Why, Knowsley," he said, " you won't turn 
 me out like a dog ? " 
 
 "Out, I tell'ee !" shouted Bill, raising his poker; 
 and the stranger, without an instant's hesitation, 
 sprang through the door. Just in time, for his 
 host rushed at him with the fury of a tiger. 
 Then the murderer shut the door and turned 
 to the children cowering round the room. 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 IV. A National Balance-Sheet. 
 
 WOULD it not be well if some Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer would present to Parliament abalance- 
 sheet of the gains and losses of the community 
 in the national business of strong drink ? I have 
 seen estimates by Mr. Hoyle especially, and
 
 A NATIONAL BALANCE-SHEET. 145 
 
 other worthy advocates of Prohibition which are, 
 I fear, more true in reality than authoritatively 
 accepted. That we lose the 3 1,000,000 a year 
 derived from customs and excise on ale and 
 liquors, and much more, in good lives, poverty, 
 prosecutions, jails, burned houses and wrecked 
 ships, and railway accidents, no one who has 
 looked into the subject will deny. And knowing 
 
 this, few can reasonably be surprised if men are 
 tl 
 
 driven to the very verge of benevolent madness 
 in their crusade against this cause of so much 
 loss to the strength and well-being of the 
 State. It justifies the extremest enthusiasm. 
 I append here a statement of the profit 
 and loss of that single evening's work in a 
 solitary inn in the United Kingdom : and 
 when I add that such a night's work is not 
 uncommon, this balance-sheet is not without 
 its significance. 
 
 L
 
 H 
 
 3 
 
 H 
 H 
 
 < 
 & 
 
 S 
 t 
 c/3 
 
 05 
 S 
 
 ~. O 
 
 N w 
 
 in 
 
 K 
 z 
 
 PS 
 O 
 
 W 
 
 O 
 
 I-H 
 
 P3 
 
 . _J .- O t\ O 
 
 
 
 
 1 VO 1 1 1 1 ^0 -i 
 
 
 
 1 r , - 
 
 
 U3UIOAV 
 
 IOO O O 
 , - j 
 
 c\ 
 
 
 1 - vn ^ h- 
 
 f) 
 
 
 I-O vo fO 
 
 "1~ 
 
 uaw 
 
 fo S^ooo 
 
 K? 
 
 
 ' rt ^* -_i 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ^S ^ "5* 
 
 "w ^^ ,_> CJ j.^ " 13 ^. 
 
 
 
 3 ^^^bJJJc ^ I^O 
 
 t 
 
 
 ^s^?ll^ 1 
 
 t 
 
 C 
 
 
 ^ I 3 . IT >; 3? - s ^ H M 
 
 o 
 
 s 
 
 
 ^ H ^"^ * 1> 3 S y 
 
 *H 
 
 
 r'g -gS.O x*'o S 
 
 rt 
 
 
 K^ 5 O *^ ^^ *^ C 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 *t CO H "^ * ^^ rn rt 
 
 . 
 
 
 oJC^^O^^ "to 
 
 .5 
 
 
 l*^ ^ W hH 1J ^ t * <y r^ 
 
 ^H 
 
 
 f'H c3 13 r- 1 *. 
 
 rt 
 
 
 [2 = s.-s 6 ' 1*2, " 
 
 ES 
 
 
 I ^"-S 
 
 
 
 u^ <^ O^ o g 
 
 
 
 ooC^ ^>4 So* 
 
 
 
 5? <; C3 1 

 
 WHO IS HE ? 147 
 
 It will be seen that there is an element in this 
 balance-sheet which cannot be calculated in 
 money ; to wit, ten human lives. English law 
 has never yet gone so far as to recognize fully the 
 superior value of life over property, and, there- 
 fore, I do not press that unduly on the practical 
 minds of my countrymen. But possibly our 
 economists may see cause to insist that 1,540 6s. 
 is too monstrous a loss to be borne, simply that 
 Messrs. Bighorne and Company may turn a 
 profit of 20 to 25 ! 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 V. Who is he? 
 
 THE stranger, so roughly driven from Bill 
 Knowsley's shelter, hurried out of hearing into 
 the wild gloom as fast as he could. Avoiding 
 the village, he stumbled across the waste of 
 slack, until he struck upon a high road leading
 
 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 northwards. A road drear and lonely enough 
 by day, but on that night suggestive only of 
 despair. Over the broad plain swept the icy 
 north-east wind, carrying upon its strong wings 
 a scurrying mass of sleet and rain. Not a ray 
 relieved the gloom from window of wayside 
 cottage or lantern of waggoner late upon the 
 road. It seemed to the lonely man, struggling 
 painfully against the masterful storm, as if the 
 world were left to tempest and to him. Hard on 
 his right shoulder beat the blast, wetting him 
 through to the skin, and forcing the deathly 
 chillness almost home to his heart. Well for 
 him then, he thought to himself, that he had 
 secured a good supper and a warming glass. He 
 could scarcely see a footstep before him. So he 
 went on, wrestling with the fierce, gusty wind, 
 plashing through unexpected pools, and now 
 and then stumbling into the ditch on either
 
 WHO IS HE ? 149 
 
 hand ; but never daring to stop or rest, for he 
 knew that life depended on persistent motion. 
 Thus, hour after hour, slowly winning his way, 
 he kept up the unequal contest man against 
 the elements a contest man so often wins, 
 ay ! and as often loses. 
 
 What may have been his thoughts as he 
 braced his mind and body to despairing effort, 
 who can tell ? Men wrestling with storm and 
 sea through long, weary hours of shipwreck, or 
 with hunger through days and nights of exposure, 
 or with pain through the protracted anguish of 
 a deserted battle-field with quickened memory 
 of the past, with vivid sense of nigh eternity, 
 with feebly flickering hope, might tell us of the 
 thoughts that crowd upon the fevered brain in 
 such an hour as this. 'Tis a reality of purgatory 
 one would never desire fully to know or to 
 describe.
 
 150 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 He had gone on hour after hour, not discern- 
 ing on either hand trace of human dwelling, until 
 at last hope failed him, and with it strength, 
 and he made up his mind to lie down and die. 
 But the fury of the night began to be appeased, 
 and he noted indications that he was in the 
 neighbourhood of houses. At intervals he was 
 sheltered from the wind by some obstacles on 
 the right. Staggering to that side, he laid his 
 hand upon a paled fence, and, feeling his way 
 along it, reached a small wicket, which he opened, 
 regardless of master or dog. By the path he 
 arrived at a wall, and round the wall came upon 
 an outhouse-door. Opening this he stumbled in 
 the darkness to a corner, and falling there upon 
 some straw, instantly lost his senses in a heavy 
 sleep. 
 
 The wind went down, the grey morning sup- 
 planted the murky night, and busy life was
 
 WHO IS HE? 151 
 
 again asserting its place in nature, when the 
 wanderer opened his eyes. A man who had just 
 shaken him, powerfully but not rudely, was 
 standing looking at him with a gentle anxious 
 gaze. He was tall and broad-chested, clad in 
 a dark though rusty suit of Oxford mixture, 
 which, with a white necktie, indicated his clerical 
 profession ; in slippers, and with no hat upon 
 his head, which bore a fine crop of dark hair. He 
 had been called out from his bachelor breakfast 
 by the woman who was peering in at the door. 
 
 The eyes which the awakened stranger turned 
 up to the light were dazed and wild. 
 
 " Who are you ? " said the gentleman. 
 
 No answer. The wanderer seemed to be 
 searching his mind for something lost. 
 
 "My poor fellow, you are fearfully wet and 
 cold ! How came you here ? " 
 
 Still no answer.
 
 152 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 " If you don't tell me, you know, I must send 
 for the police. Pray tell me." 
 
 At the word ' police ' the young man sprang 
 to his feet, but fell down immediately, and cried 
 out piteously : 
 
 " Where ? Where ? For God's sake hide me ! 
 Don't let the police see me ! " 
 
 The curate laid his hand on the wet forehead. 
 
 " He is ill," he said. " And he is not what he 
 seems, Mary. He does not talk like a working 
 man ; and look at his hands, they are thin and 
 delicate. There is some mystery here. Go next 
 door and ask Joseph Watson to come in and lend 
 me a hand, and then get the bed ready in the 
 best bedroom. Stay, though, my own bed will 
 be warmer, and there is a fire in my room. We 
 will put him in there." 
 
 In a short time the stranger lay in a warm bed. 
 A doctor was examining him.
 
 WHO IS HE ? 153 
 
 " Brain fever, Wood ; brought on, I should say, 
 by anxiety and exposure, but I suspect, from his 
 appearance, with a touch of D T. What a fine 
 
 face he has, and how he has spoiled it ! That 
 
 I 
 white flabby flesh tells of an unhealthy life. His 
 
 temperature is tremendous. It will be a long 
 struggle, if, indeed, he ever gets through with it. 
 I will send down the hospital van for him. You 
 can't keep him here." 
 
 "Yes, he shall stay here," replied the other, 
 who was a curate of St. Enoch's, in the wretched 
 town of Burslem. 
 
 " Well, I know it is no use to talk to you when 
 you have made up your mind," replied the 
 doctor ; " but I warn you that this may be an 
 affair of a couple of months, if it does not end 
 fatally very soon. And the expense will be 
 frightful for you." 
 
 " No matter," said the other, cheerfully ; " the
 
 154 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 Lord has sent him here, and I cannot turn him 
 out" 
 
 " Hem ! Very well, my dear fellow. Just 
 
 like you. Then we will make this agree- 
 
 9 
 ment I will give the medical attendance and 
 
 you shall give the home and nursing the ' cup 
 of cold water,' eh ? I tell you what : if it were 
 not for another cup, we English Christians would 
 not be called upon half so often to administer 
 the cup of cold water to prisoner and outcast. 
 Well now, that's a bargain ! Give him nourish- 
 ment, as much as he will take, but no stimulants, 
 you know ; he has had too much of them already, 
 I suspect. Good-bye. I shall see him again 
 towards evening."
 
 D 
 
 LINK THE SEVENTH. 
 
 RELIGION AND PIETY. 
 
 L A Backslider. 
 OWN in the pretty town of Cherry-Luton 
 
 in Somersetshire, a small tradesman and 
 corn-factor, with a wife and quiverful of children, 
 had held his head tolerably high for respect- 
 ability, though he had had hard struggling to 
 keep it above water. To earn a daily meal all 
 round was no small matter with fifteen mouths to 
 fill. When, in addition, public opinion demanded 
 the use of clothing and a proper pride insisted 
 on education, and dissent was hungry for sub- 
 scriptions, it was a toil to cheat the constable 
 which Mr. William Merton often felt tempted to
 
 156 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 throw up in despair. He had been diligent in 
 business and fervent in spirit ; but if no efforts 
 will extend the one, the other is apt occasionally 
 to flag. He rose up early and went to bed late ; 
 regularly attended the market ; prosecuted his 
 commissions with zeal ; and was, moreover, in 
 accordance with country usages in business, liberal 
 in treating his customers. The conditions of 
 business at Cherry-Luton, as in too many other 
 and larger towns, to the disgrace, be it said, of 
 local authorities, were such that it was difficult 
 to avoid either giving or taking ' something ' 
 when business was transacted. The open mar- 
 ket-place, with its pavement of cobblestones, 
 was well enough so long as you were canvassing 
 the quality of your merchandise, whatever it 
 might be ; but to clinch your bargain and 
 exchange your memoranda or take your money, 
 there was no more propitious shelter than the
 
 A BACKSLIDER. 
 
 '57 
 
 ' Blue Boar ' or the ' King's Arms.' Thus those 
 places became the mart and exchange of Cherry- 
 Luton, and men paid for their accommodation 
 by drinking their liquors. You would scarcely 
 credit the expenditure demanded of a man like 
 Mr. Mcrton in this line. To a novice it cer- 
 tainly looks a perilous thing to begin business 
 in the morning with drink, and carry it on hour 
 after hour with interchanges of exciting stimu- 
 lants. Yet thousands of traders and travellers 
 do it for a time. Again and again falls out 
 some man stricken to the death by this relentless 
 custom. 
 
 When Mr. Merton began life in earnest he 
 was by nature a man of full body but temper- 
 ate habit. His wife was a pattern of virtue and 
 good-sense, and he loved her well. He was one 
 of those men who seem to take to religion in a 
 way, as ducks take to water. Being a natural
 
 158 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 element for a frank, good-hearted, quiet, yet 
 active fellow, it was therefore no wonder that he 
 became a shining light in the Methodist Zion of 
 Cherry-Luton. No leader prayed with greater 
 unction, or gave the Minister nicer suppers, or 
 better beer, or more acceptable toddy after the 
 fatigues of three sermons and of meeting many 
 classes. His wife thought that he went too far 
 in this line, and indeed sometimes the ministers 
 too ; though she was an unsuspicious woman, 
 and never loved even to think evil of dignities, 
 still less to speak it. 
 
 Nevertheless, as the years went on, and Mr. 
 Merton's struggles increased, and he plied his 
 task more earnestly on Wednesdays and Satur- 
 days, his wife became conscious of a change in 
 him, which began by startling her, and then 
 settled down like a heavy cloud over her heart. 
 Now and then it appeared to her he was a little
 
 A BACKSLIDER. 159 
 
 over-excited on a market-day. The indication 
 was slight though, and affection soon invented 
 excuses to repress anxiety. By-and-by, however, 
 sharpened eyes noticed that far more was taken 
 at home than formerly. Her gentle hint was 
 met with a good-natured laugh at her suspicion 
 that there was ' any danger of his taking too 
 much,' and a demonstration that he required 
 more stimulant in order to meet the increasing 
 strain upon him. Meantime he was sincerely 
 ' labouring in the vineyard,' according to the 
 Reverend Gideon Ouseley Pratt, who, though 
 himself the teetotaller of the circuit, for a long 
 time never suspected anything wrong about his 
 friend Mr. Merton. 
 
 It was a fearful hour in Mrs. Merton's ex- 
 perience, home and religious, when one day the 
 Reverend Gideon sought a confidential interview 
 with her, and broke it to her that he was sorely
 
 160 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN 
 
 exercised about his dear brother Mr. Merton. 
 His conduct latterly at one or two prayer- 
 meetings had not savoured of godliness. 
 In truth Mr. Merton had, ' on two occasions,' 
 when called upon to lead the worship in 
 prayer, been fast asleep beyond any ordinary 
 awakening processes adopted by neighbour- 
 ing brethren to stir him up ; and when finally 
 aroused at the close of the meeting he had 
 shown a vacancy of mind and superabundance 
 of spirits, which gravely troubled the good 
 minister. On being challenged, Mr. Merton, for 
 the first time probably in his manhood, preva- 
 ricated. I know not how truly ; but it is cer- 
 tainly affirmed by eminent medical authorities, 
 and with reasonable proof, that a constant habit 
 of heavy drinking will not only deteriorate the 
 mind, but in doing that, hopelessly degrade the 
 moral principle. So Mrs. Merton. watching
 
 A BACKSLIDER. l6l 
 
 painfully, saw a yet greater change come over 
 her husband. The ' means of grace ' he once 
 seemed to cherish, not alone with reverence but 
 enjoyment, were gradually deserted. First on 
 the week nights, then on the Sunday. At times 
 it was perfectly clear that he had begun to 
 pass the limits of sobriety. Still affection 
 pleaded, and hoped, and worked, with blood 
 distilling the while in great drops from the 
 loving heart, in the agony of anticipated 
 sorrow. 
 
 Two hopes the poor woman clung to. One a 
 bold, brave boy, her eldest born, who was away 
 at sea, and kept sending home cheery prophecies 
 of a successful career. The other her daughter 
 Lucy, apprenticed to Messrs. Cutter & Chettam, 
 the 'eminent' house of London milliners, who 
 had ever so many hundred girls in their employ- 
 ment, and to whom a hard-earned pile of money 
 M
 
 162 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 had gone in consideration of their promise to 
 initiate her into the mysteries of their art. Some 
 day so Mrs. Merton dreamed Lucy was to 
 return to Cherry-Luton a paragon of French 
 taste, and to set up a shop which would be the 
 head-quarters of neighbouring female fashion. 
 These two were the reserve anchors, if at any 
 time the best bower of the family ship should 
 give way. 
 
 One morning, towards the end of February, 
 the Merton family, too large to be here described 
 one by one, were seated at breakfast, showing in 
 the dress of all, and in that strangely true mirror 
 of sorrow, the mother's face, how poverty was 
 beginning to pinch them. 
 
 Mrs. Merton was looking out of the window. 
 
 " Run, Johnny," she cried to one of the boys. 
 "There's the postman. Something from Lucy 
 at last, I hope ! "
 
 A BACKSLIDER. 163 
 
 Johnny brought a letter to his father : there 
 was none for mother. Mr. Merton's face fell 
 as he read it. He had asked some accom- 
 modation of a friend whom he had once 
 assisted. It was refused ; and the friend with 
 most amiable frankness told him that if the 
 reports about him were correct, he ought to 
 ' save his pocket at the expense of his mouth,' 
 a vulgar and personal though shrewd advice. 
 No man would like to shew such a letter to his 
 wife. Merton crumpled it up and thrust it into 
 his^ trousers-pocket. 
 
 " Is it anything about Lucy ? " said the anxious 
 mother. 
 
 " No," he said gruffly. " It's from Toxdale. 
 He won't help me." 
 
 "But, father, what do you think can be the 
 matter with Lucy ? " 
 
 " I can't tell," he replied peevishly. He was
 
 164 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 angry that his wife for the moment overlooked 
 his mortification. 
 
 "Father, there must be something wrong,"' 
 cried Mrs. Merton anxiously. " She always. 
 wrote at least once a week, and now a fortnight 
 has passed without a word." 
 
 " Stay," said Mr. Merton, who had turned his 
 head to the window, " Here's the postman 
 coming back again with another letter." 
 
 It was brought in ; a letter addressed in a 
 clerkly hand with the London postmark, and for 
 
 Mrs. Merton. 
 
 * 
 
 " Let me open it, Elizabeth," said the man 
 with a sudden touch of tenderness, as he glanced 
 from the letter in his hand to her face. 
 
 " No," she replied. " If it is anything bad, let 
 me find it out myself." And with forced calmness 
 she broke it open and read :
 
 A BACKSLIDER. 165 
 
 232, Great Bazaar Street, 
 
 London, February th, 187 . 
 
 MDM, 
 
 Yrs of 2^th, making enquiries abt yr dghter, 
 Miss Lucy Mcrton, reed, and contents noted. 
 
 We regret to state that abt a fortnight since 
 Miss Merton was entrusted with a commission 
 on belilf of this firm, to a particular customer. 
 She did not return until tJie middle of next day, 
 and, as we had reason to believe, had been 
 drinking. She was unwell at her lodgings for 
 some days, and as she gave no satisfactory acct of 
 herslf, except that she had bn taken ill at the 
 sight of a terrible accident wh happened on the day 
 referred to, the young ladies of our estabt, who 
 are all of the highest respectability, declined her 
 company. We were abt, in consequence, to advise 
 yoit of same, but she disappeared from her lodgings,
 
 1 66 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 and we concluded had left for home. Otherwise 
 shd have advised you earlier. 
 
 Trusting that nothing serious may have oc- 
 curred, 
 
 We are, Madam, 
 
 Yours obedy, 
 Mrs. Merton. CUTTER & CHETTAM. 
 
 Mrs. Merton threw the letter over to her hus- 
 band, and ran out of the room. She could bear 
 no witness to the storm of her sorrow. As for 
 him his eyes were sensitive too, and the sharp- 
 ness of the stroke roused his mind and heart 
 
 to a sadness keen enough. 
 
 ***** 
 
 By the evening he was ready for London. 
 Mrs. Merton pleaded hard to be allowed to 
 accompany him, but he would not hear of it. 
 He had succeeded in borrowing from a sympa-
 
 A BACKSLIDER. 167 
 
 thetic friend twenty pounds for the journey. His 
 manner was a little changed. But when he took 
 Mrs. Merton into his arms to say good-bye, she 
 knew he had been seeking consolation at the 
 wrong fountain. 
 
 "For God's sake, John," she whispered, "keep 
 steady. It is life and death for us all. Good- 
 bye, dear." 
 
 "All right, Lizzie," he said, the dew in his 
 eyes ; " I shall restrain myself for your sake and 
 hers. God bless you, my dear wife." 
 
 She went in, and to her room and on her 
 knees, and tried to get faith to believe that out 
 of this darkness there would come light. 
 
 He jumped into the omnibus which was at 
 the door, and ten minutes after was taking a 
 glass of hot grog at the bar in the railway 
 station. The nights were cold. 
 
 * 
 
 *
 
 i68 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 II. Into the Maelstrom. 
 
 ON London, from every quarter of England, 
 converge the waifs of misery, sin, shame, and 
 crime. Into the great vortex, one by one, 
 float and whirl the driftwood and wreck of 
 English humanity. Decayed gentleman or 
 gentlewoman, broken bankrupt, runaway clerk, 
 dissolute clergyman, dishonoured lady, ruined 
 maid, deserter, thief, malefactor, tramp, blackleg, 
 adventurer all sink out of sight into the depths 
 of that voracious sea. 
 
 And herein, one autumn evening, plunged 
 two people, after some months of a wander- 
 ing which had been evil and sorrowful as the 
 wanderings of Cain. Hither they came, eager 
 to forget the past, and, if possible, to deaden the 
 consciousness of the present ; third-class Parlia- 
 mentary into Paddington Station at night ; 
 their joint effects I might say surviving effects
 
 INTO THE MAELSTROM. 169 
 
 contained in a solitary bag of soiled carpet 
 and dingy leather. The man, as he stepped out 
 of the train, and furtively scanned the faces about, 
 to see if anyone recognised him, looked haggard 
 and dejected. The young girl who followed him 
 was attired in a dress well-fitting and tasteful, and 
 a fashionable hat, but nevertheless her appear- 
 ance gave an impression of jaded gentility. For 
 her dress had in one or two places been torn and 
 never mended ; her collar and cuffs were dirty and 
 ruffled; the feather of her hat was limp and broken; 
 the blue ribbons had lost half their hue. When she 
 lifted her dress to step out of the carriage, she 
 disclosed a well-made boot on a pretty foot; but 
 the leather was worn and slit, and the slovenly 
 laces left gaping yawns of stocking, while the 
 embroidered skirt was browned with overmuch 
 wear. Nevertheless any one would have paused 
 a moment to look at the pale face which was half
 
 I7O THE DEVII/S CHAIN. 
 
 concealed by the torn veil. A chin like that of 
 Venus, cheeks lovely in their soft contour, sweet 
 childish lips which mantled with their coralline 
 bloom the pearly beauties of a perfect mouth ; 
 eyes so softly blue-and-grey and yet so quick 
 and bright, and that straight Saxon nose with 
 a wavy grace of outline and carved delicacy of 
 nostril, which neither word nor painting could 
 depict such was the girl who stepped after the 
 man, he carrying the carpet bag, while she bore a 
 shawl and umbrella. At the refreshment bar he 
 stopped and looked in. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, " I 've had nothing since we 
 left Reading. Here, dear, hold this a moment" 
 
 He went in and took a glass of brandy. 
 Already the girl had noticed how he trembled. 
 He had been drinking all day in spite of her 
 remonstrances, and she dreaded what might corne 
 of it. Looking at him now in the bright gas-
 
 INTO THE MAELSTROM. 
 
 light, his long shabby black surtout, felt hat, and 
 dark trousers were suggestively clerical : though 
 the black and white check 'kerchief on his neck, 
 with its greasy ends, did not answer to the 
 other aspects. He was of middle age, tall, and, 
 except for his shabbiness and a dreadful sense of 
 despondency in his face, was a man of almost 
 noble presence. 
 
 Their destination was the Bow Road, in the 
 East end. He knew nothing about the place 
 where he meant to put up, except that some 
 friendly vagabond he had lately met, had spoken 
 well of it. It was a long way out a broad, low, 
 three-storied house of mottled brick, with a 
 narrow doorway, approached by broken steps, 
 well worn. In front of it there were a few feet of 
 frowsy grass, intended to be kept sacred from 
 intrusion by an iron railing shattered and rusty, 
 from which the tramps had wrenched many a
 
 172 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 pound to sell. A greenish brass plate on the door 
 exhibited the name of Mrs. Perkins. The bell- 
 handle had evidently parted with the bell on 
 severely irreconcilable terms, and was hanging 
 dejectedly out on the right. Notices of ' apart- 
 ments ' decorated several of the front windows, 
 peering through their opaque foulness. 
 
 Here the couple brought up, and after a little 
 chaffering with the landlady, who gave way, 
 however, as soon as she had caught sight of the 
 young girl's face, they agreed to take a room in 
 the attic at eight shillings a week. The man put 
 down his bag, and went out to buy a few neces- 
 saries ; the girl, casting off her hat, threw herself 
 on the miserable bed, and sobbed violently. Six 
 months of sinful vagrancy had not yet hardened 
 her. 
 
 " My God," she said, "my God ! have mercy 
 upon me ! "
 
 INTO THE MAELSTROM. 1 73 
 
 But the more she wrung her hands and wept, 
 the more terrible and hopeless seemed her 
 despair. 
 
 " I cannot go back, I cannot go on !" she 
 cried passionately. " O merciful God ! why 
 don't you strike me dead ? Why have you 
 deserted me ? Is there no hope no re- 
 pentance ? " 
 
 Mrs. Perkins slipped into the room. 
 
 "Why, why what's the matter, dear?" she 
 said, holding her candle to look at the beautiful 
 disordered face, flushed with weeping. " You 
 are a beauty ! " 
 
 " Will you go away, please ? " said the girl 
 immediately, sitting up with dignity and wiping 
 her eyes. " Who asked you to come here ? " 
 
 The woman was quick. She saw this was no 
 common country girl. 
 
 " Oh ! I beg your pardon, miss ! only I heard
 
 174 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 you going on so terrible, miss. Can't I get you 
 something please ? " 
 
 " No, thank you. No one can do me any 
 good." 
 
 The landlady saw an opening. 
 
 " Yes, dear, they can. Such a sweet, beautiful 
 creature as you needn't lie here crying and 
 sobbing enough to break her heart. Cheer up, 
 my dear. You're in London now, and don't 
 know what luck's in store for you. I'll bring 
 you something directly that '11 do you good." 
 
 The everlasting comforter the solace the girl 
 was already learning fast, fast, to fly to as the 
 only one left to her! Here, in superciliously 
 pious England, we have built a wall of brass 
 between innocence and undiscovered guilt on 
 one side, and discovered sin upon the other. 
 And moreover, by our most Christian and moral 
 practice, the errors once detected shall have
 
 INTO THE MAELSTROM. 175 
 
 a tenfold greater heinousness and a hundredfold 
 greater penalty if they be of a woman than if 
 they be of a man. O most just, most equitable, 
 most politic, most consistent, and most Christ- 
 like nation, which is less forgiving even than 
 the Judge of heaven and earth ! 
 
 The man at length returned with candles, food, 
 and a bottle of rum. He looked at his com- 
 panion askance and troubled. 
 
 " Nelly, dear," he said, " you Ve been crying 
 again." 
 
 " I shall never have done." 
 
 " What is the use ? " said the man sadly, and 
 breathing painfully, as if struggling with some 
 strong feeling within. " What is the good of it 
 now ? Ah ! I wish I could believe the old 
 heathen : 
 
 Nos ubi decidimus 
 
 Quo plus JEneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus, 
 Pulvis et umbra sumus ! "
 
 176 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 As he said these words a slight flash of old 
 University memory seemed to animate him. 
 Then he relapsed into a gloomy despondency. 
 
 " But no throw it to the devil and have 
 done with it." 
 
 "It is done, and done for ever," she said, 
 " Nothing can undo it. O dear ! O dear ! I shall 
 kill myself!" 
 
 And the full passion of her sorrow burst 
 forth again. The man at first was cowed by the 
 strength of it ; but he opened his bottle and 
 drank, and was revived. Then he mixed some 
 rum with water and offered it to her. 
 
 She forced it down her throat. Again I say, to 
 a hopeless outcast from love or sympathy, what 
 other ' respite and nepenthe ' is there for the 
 sensitive conscience ? The man had skilfully in- 
 gratiated this idea into her mind. His own soul 
 was wrung with the deadly anguish of remorse ;
 
 INTO THE MAELSTROM. 177 
 
 and her conscience-stricken agony was a pain he 
 desired, for his own sake as well as for hers, to 
 deaden. So for that night she managed to drive 
 away the ' Blue Devils.' But they were coming 
 back in real earnest for her companion. He 
 finished the bottle that night. The next morning 
 he lay weak and trembling in bed, and sent for 
 another. And after that the real Blue Devils, 
 who had been dogging him a long time, fastened 
 on their prey. 
 
 There is no use in prolonging the story of the 
 miserable strife. A doctor came and ordered 
 him to the hospital, and the poor girl saw him 
 carried away, alternately praying and blasphem- 
 ing repeating the Church Service and then 
 pouring out curses and indecency. It was thus 
 he died. 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 x
 
 178 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 III. Can a Woman forget ? 
 
 A GREAT Apostle startles us by saying that 
 he the teacher, the soldier strong and valiant 
 even to martyrdom kept his body in sub- 
 jection, lest that he who had preached to 
 others should himself become a castaway. Few 
 had so tested in their own persons at once 
 the strength and the weakness of human na- 
 ture. Therefore we may reasonably believe it 
 possible that the Rev. Quintus Craven, M.A., 
 really went into the Church of England a 
 sincere enthusiast ; married his wife, as he 
 averred, not merely for her person, but for 
 her goodness ; waged for many a year an honest 
 conflict with Satan for the souls and bodies of 
 sundry poor Cornishmen ; and was justly re- 
 spected and beloved of the bishop, and other 
 clerical brethren of his diocese. 
 
 The eldest son of a wealthy gentleman, whose
 
 CAN A WOMAN FORGET ? 1 79 
 
 ambition he disappointed by choosing the 
 Church, he had proved his sincerity, and lost 
 much, so far as this world was concerned. Is it 
 not terrible to think that after all the sacrifice 
 was unavailing ? 
 
 A good-looking, muscular, genial, large, and 
 naturally buoyant fellow, always refined and 
 punctilious in his conduct, as a man of the world 
 or as a Christian ; had you asked a church- 
 warden, or even the village doctor twenty years 
 before, whether Mr. Craven would have two 
 attacks of delirium tremcns, sink to the lowest 
 depths of immorality, and die raving in a hos- 
 pital, you would probably have been put down 
 as fit for some such fate yourself. Yet it is 
 certain that all this happened happened to a 
 man encircled by the purest home influences, and 
 by his work brought into daily contact with the 
 ideas and principles of Christianity.
 
 I So THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 Twice he had fallen, and twice repented. The 
 woman, whose noble affections he had wronged, 
 forgave him, struggled steadily for his redemp- 
 tion, helped to conceal his sin, and then watched 
 him with the weariless wariness of a heart-broken 
 love. 
 
 Tragedies like these are all around us ! 
 
 How flesh and blood can endure the strain 
 put upon them by souls so gloriously uplifted 
 above the standard of humanity, I cannot even 
 fancy. Bruised and beaten, wronged and tramp- 
 led under foot, utterly betrayed by perjured 
 caitiff there is yet a love of woman which can 
 endure. There is yet a love of woman which, 
 looking down from its pure height of goodness 
 on the foul wreckage below, will fly to gather 
 up and cherish in its bosom the last shreds of 
 perverted affection. 
 
 When the death of the Rev. Ouintus Craven,
 
 CAN A WOMAN FORGET? l8l 
 
 M.A., in the East-end hospital, was announced at 
 St. Jacob's Vicarage, the noble mother gathered 
 her children together, and told them that 
 their father was dead. Then she began to 
 recall him to them as he once was, manly, 
 gentle, and good. She told them of his early 
 virtues, and besought them with tears to remem- 
 ber him thus. Shutting within her heart the 
 carking agony of her despair, she went away 
 quietly by herself to London to claim the dead 
 and bury him decently, where no one but she 
 should find him. 
 
 Next to her heart was a letter, written in a 
 trembling hand, in one of the fits of remorse 
 which had succeeded to his last outrage upon 
 her affection. I have read the letter. It ran 
 thus : 
 
 MY DEAR, DEAR WlFE, 
 
 / write to you out of the deepest depths of
 
 1 82 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 sorroiv and remorse. Why I do it, I cannot tell. 
 My state is indescribable. I suffer the very pains 
 
 of Jiell. / know I am in tJic bonds of 
 
 iniquity, yet I cannot shake myself free. I cannot 
 even bring myself to say " I would be better again 
 if I could" All that has passed from me. My 
 brain is confused, and my conscience hardened 
 beyond recovery. Every day I have to endure an 
 awful penalty in seeing- the grief of the poor, lovely, 
 innocent creature to whom I have brought ruin 
 
 and disgrace My mind recalls things 
 
 vaguely. I look upon the past as an exile looks 
 upon the distant panorama of the shore he knows 
 he shall never see again. All those sweet years 
 with you, those zealous works for God and the 
 Church, the delights of intellectual or holy converse, 
 the love I bore our children Ah, me ! I cannot 
 write about it ! My soul w;7V//r with agony in 
 the utter hopelessness of relief. Two lines from
 
 CAN A WOMAN FORGET? 183 
 
 the "Raven" are ever in my brain, ringing in 
 relentless tones : 
 
 " Is there, is there balm in Gilead ? Tell me, tell me, I implore ! 
 Quoth the Raven, 'Never more.'" 
 
 There is no hope. I am riveted in a fatal chain. 
 I cannot even vvith blood get free. 
 
 Catherine, yon will hardly believe me, but I love 
 yon still. My heart has really never been false to 
 yon, whatever has happened* Yon come before me 
 now spotless and holy my first and only love. I 
 have wronged yon beyond forgiveness ; bin, Cathe- 
 rine, yon have never ceased to be the one day star of 
 my existence. 
 
 How the Devil laid hold of me, it is impossible 
 
 * This sort of thing often occurs in such documents as the 
 above, and affords a curious psychological phenomenon. How 
 is it these demoralised people pen or speak such egregious lies 
 in moments of apparently sincere confession ? Do they come 
 simply of the maudlin hypocrisy of an absolutely depraved 
 heart ? or has the toxic poison really destroyed the capacity of 
 the brain to distinguish between one feeling and another ?
 
 184 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 for me to describe. I never was a wild drinker at 
 Trinity, as I have knoivu several men to be in 
 their youth who are now exemplary clergymen. 
 When I married you I was a temperate man, as 
 things zvcnt, ahvays being able to take my fair 
 share at table ivit/i the other clergy, but never 
 consciously exceeding. At home, you arc aware, 
 we principally drank beer, and wine only on 
 Sundays, and sometimes after a specially hard 
 day's work I had my tumbler of spirits. I can 
 recollect no particular time when I began to feel 
 the thirst. It grciu upon me as every habit grows 
 upon unwatchful souls. The struggle in me wJicn 
 I began to feel its power was fierce and long. I 
 have spent half a night upon my knees weakly 
 crying to be delivered, and yet hardly wishing- it. 
 I broke off, you remember, for six months ; and 
 you, little suspecting, remonstrated with me, 
 thinking it injured my health, and that a little
 
 CAN A WOMAN FORGET? l8: 
 
 did vie good. You did not knoiv that I had long 
 since passed the mark of a" little. ' ' I took it all the 
 time, and wherever I could get it ; in visiting my 
 parishioners, and in driving about the country, at 
 inns. And so it went on ; first with beer and 
 wines, then witJi spirits, until, I confess to you 
 before God, Catherine, I could not, to save my life, 
 pass a place where I knew it was to be had or 
 purchased, without stopping to get it. So unap- 
 peasable grew the craving that, I own to you, I 
 have had my glass of toddy of an evening with you, 
 and after that have taken to bed w'ith me a bottle 
 of brandy, and consumed it before morning 
 unknown to you. I was strong. I ivas never 
 drunk in the ordinary sense, but always under the 
 
 fatal influence. 
 
 For a long time I discharged my duties conscien- 
 tiously, and Jiopcd for the best. Then I found I 
 had to resort to equivocation and to tricks to
 
 1 86 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 conceal from you and others the growing habit. 
 Prayers soon became forms to my scared conscience, 
 and principles gave way to the desires of the flesh. 
 My mind seemed powerless to resist; and as I drew 
 away from the anchor of Jiopc I felt myself driven, as 
 by a tempest I conld not withstand, into dark seas 
 of passion and sin. God help me ! I cannot tell 
 you all. Twice, you remember, my awful thirst 
 and guilty desires took me away from you a 
 short time into excesses that only the Devil can 
 know or conceive. Yet, Catherine, you hid it 
 all -you forgave it. I drew again the breath 
 of life, and there seemed hope of recovery for me, 
 when the Devil threw in my way that poor girl. 
 You knoiv hozu she took to us all Jioiv innocent 
 she was how she wished to be a good church- 
 woman, and take her share in parish work! 
 She said her mother wished it. Catherine, I 
 seemed to be impelled by a resistless poivcr to
 
 THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT. 187 
 
 that sin. How successfully, alas ! and with what 
 terrible results to us and to her ! 
 
 This was what Catherine Craven carried near 
 her heart when she went to claim her husband's 
 
 dishonoured body. 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 IV. The Unity of the Spirit. 
 
 THE funeral coach was standing at the door of 
 the hospital. The coffin had been borne out by 
 the shaky porters of mortality. The widow alone, 
 and in the deepest black, followed them. As 
 the sad party went out through the large hall, 
 a woman and two men, who were also about to 
 go out, were checked to let it pass. The woman 
 was pale and sorrowful, and looked at the long, 
 black-veiled figure of the mourner with respectful 
 sympathy. She, having her own griefs, had 
 been told the story of the desolate widow. 
 The man by her side was in charge of the
 
 1 88 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 third person of the party. His eyes looked upon 
 the scene with meaningless gaze ; his face had 
 no expression. He drivelled out a word or two, 
 and laughed foolishly. The woman turned to 
 him with a sigh. It was Mrs. Merton. Singular 
 fatality ! Her husband, found wandering about 
 the streets demented, had been taken to this 
 hospital some months before, and was now, for 
 the first time, pronounced fit to be removed to 
 an asylum. 
 
 Parish priest and Methodist class-leader ! we 
 have at length discovered a common ground 
 of concord for you both ! 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 V. Licensed License. 
 
 WHY God made Mrs. Perkins, or the like of 
 her, is no small problem in divinity. There are 
 human devils going about this world which
 
 LICENSED LICENSE. 189 
 
 astound humanity. If they come across Inno- 
 cence, they must mar it. If they meet with 
 Error turning to repentance, they must take it 
 round the neck and drag it deeper into the mire. 
 If Wickedness comes into contact with them, 
 they must do their worst to make it ten times 
 more evil than before. Mrs. Perkins was of this 
 sort. 
 
 But for Mrs. Perkins, Catherine Craven would 
 have found out Eleanor Whyte, and would, by 
 her large-hearted and holy sympathy, have won 
 the child back to a happy life. The lodging- 
 house keeper, having once set eyes on her 
 prey, was not to be easily circumvented. When 
 the news came that the Rev. Quintus Craven 
 was dead, she hid it from the unhappy girl. 
 She saw Mrs. Craven, who had been directed 
 to the place,. and told her the child had run 
 away. Meantime the woman had given Eleanor
 
 icjo THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 hopes that her friend was getting better. She 
 dressed herself up and went out with her. She 
 feigned sympathy, talked piously, took her on 
 Sunday to church, and on Monday to a 
 music-hall in the West-end. 
 
 The unsuspecting girl there saw a sight that 
 outwits and surpasses in successful conception 
 and execution all the other deviltry of the 
 Metropolis put together. You may go and see 
 that sight any night of the week except Sunday : 
 once seen, never forgotten. It is duly licensed 
 by Act of Parliament. 
 
 The powers that grant the license are magis- 
 trates of Middlesex, who are fathers of families, 
 attendants (at least) of churches, some of them 
 servants of the Crown, some of them members 
 of the aristocracy (i.e., of the aristoi, the best 
 and noblest that ought to be of the State), all 
 of them gentlemen and men of honour by public
 
 LICENSED LICENSE. 
 
 profession. Some of these gentlemen have been 
 known to frequent this place. Others upon the 
 bench, in the face of the whole metropolis look- 
 ing on and knowing the facts, and in discharge 
 of their solemn duty as justices, under a truer, 
 higher, more sacred obligation even than if 
 they had been put into a witness box and duly 
 sworn on the Testament of our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ, have declared that they 
 had visited this place and there never saw any- 
 thing wrong. Therefore, / cannot be wrong to 
 describe it only dimly, good lady ! and with a 
 veil around it 
 
 And so they have licensed it to snare, 
 seduce, ruin, and damn the bodies and souls of 
 young men and women for six nights a week 
 Sundays being oddly excepted. 
 
 The clergy, backed by all decent people, have 
 sought in vain to clean out this foul nest of vice.
 
 192 THE DEVIL'S CHAIX. 
 
 It is too popular; it is under too lofty patronage ; 
 it is managed with devilish cunning; and the 
 profits are so enormous that any sum can be 
 afforded which is necessary to establish its 
 irreproachable respectability. 
 
 Outside wait long trains of hackney coaches, 
 carriages, broughams with servants in liver}', 
 some of them boys, unschooled except in horse- 
 manship and vice ; inside, the seductive strains 
 of music, the whirling dance, the brilliancy of 
 gold and shining mirror and blazing gas, and 
 the sensual enchantments of mercenary beauty 
 tricked out in borrowed plumes, or in the glitter- 
 ing spoil of wild nobility and of parvenu wealth, 
 are supplemented by the winning presentment 
 of exciting drink. 
 
 Persnasit nox, amor, vinnm, adolcsccntia ! 
 Most virtuously displayed vice ! Men and women 
 who never saw each other before are dancing
 
 LICENSED LICENSE. 193 
 
 promiscuously. See those bright-eyed, pink- 
 fleshed women, clad in rich furs and velvet robes, 
 and sparkling with costly jewels, parading, arm- 
 in-arm a long Circean chain ; while a mixed 
 mob of men and women, peers, clerks, members of 
 Parliament, lawyers, authors, doctors, tradesmen, 
 touts, travellers, blacklegs, and clergymen, ay, 
 and certain respectable persons, with their wives, 
 so sworn and declared before the justices, stand by 
 and scan, and canvas this bazaar of human flesh. 
 Each painted face and voluptuous form caskets 
 dead virtue, and challenges the competition of 
 vice. 
 
 To this legitimate, because law-licensed, place 
 the benevolent Perkins took her pretty victim. 
 The girl was dazzled with the lights, enchanted 
 with the spectacle, forgot her sorrow in the 
 brilliant scene, revived her spirit with Circean 
 
 draughts ; and there, fair, pure women of 
 o
 
 194 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 England, we leave her to the care of your 
 fathers, brothers, and sons. 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 VI. A Vision of Death. 
 COULD we get behind the veil that separates 
 
 the Seen from the Unseen, we might find that 
 to the Hidden Powers these terrible pageants 
 and dramas of life, whereof we are spectators, are 
 things of awful consequence. I have fancied 
 that in a vision I could see the Evil that over- 
 shadows the land Embodied and Personate ! 
 A Demon Spirit colossal a monster truly to 
 make the whole world tremble ! 
 
 Come and look, O man of pleasure, high-born 
 or base, refined or gross, come, tarnished 
 women, and you, sweet younglings, tempted by 
 siren looks and voices, or drawn by fatal long- 
 ings, toward brimming sparkle of foam-topped 
 elixir, or you, tried and troubled ones, who
 
 A VISION OF DEATH. 195 
 
 bear the sorrows and carry the labours of 
 humanity, who are wont to seek in cordial 
 draughts brief solace of grief and strength for 
 daily toil or you, dreamers and men of thought, 
 drawing no Heliconian draughts from these fatal 
 springs, come here, I say, and watch him at 
 his deadly work ! Truly a mighty, dread, por- 
 tentous Demon ! 
 
 Aloft upon his huge distended trunk behold 
 the features, not of a smooth and laughing 
 Bacchus, as poet and artist love to figure him, 
 but of a brute foul and fierce, presenting withal 
 the features of a man. See the bloated, red, 
 and pimpled face, the purpled cheeks, the huge 
 swelled lips which, opening, show the cankered 
 teeth and feverish foulness of his unhealthy 
 mouth : matted in rough locks over the slanting 
 forehead, red flaming hair, crowned, in mockery, 
 with wreaths that have withered at the touch of
 
 196 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 his burning brow. See the bloodshot eyes, 
 small and cunning, rolling with cruel ecstasy 
 as he urges fast and furiously his fearful task. 
 Cross-kneed he sits, malignant as Siva ! his pro- 
 digious trunk swathed in a motley robe, the 
 patchwork spoil of many victims. 
 
 His apparel is red with the blood of murder 
 and crime, of rage and cruelty, of madness 
 and sin. O look here, Christian and civilized 
 Britons ! look upon these garments, red and 
 gory, and tell me what the frightful motley 
 means ? Tunic and cloak of every fashion, 
 velvet and ermine of king or emperor, livery 
 of menial, rags of beggar, chasuble of priest, 
 Genevan gown, satin and silk of noble dame, 
 thin torn skirt of shivering milliner, gaudy pet- 
 ticoat of dancing columbine, peasant's corduroy, 
 and foppish coat of city clerk, the navvy's shirt 
 and soldier's uniform ay ! and if ye look well,
 
 A VISION OF DEATH. 197 
 
 ye may discern a judge's gown, and not far off 
 a gore-stained patch, the very dress wherein the 
 criminal he condemned to death had done his 
 sinful deed. Mark ye this great garment well, 
 for it is in itself a veritable calendar of Death ! 
 Where hath he not gathered ? What hath he 
 not won of life, of health, of power or feeble- 
 ness, of fame or shame ? What is there of 
 all the varieties of life unrepresented here ? It 
 is the register of his labours, and each mark 
 presents the fate of a human soul ! 
 
 Behold him his gaunt arms sweeping into 
 the abyss of his lap multitudes of trembling 
 creatures, the materials of his work, for he 
 is fashioning a chain. Draw nigh and ex- 
 amine it long, living, endless it interweaves 
 and enthrals society with a warp of death 
 woven from out itself. His quick fingers for 
 the work is urgent and goes on night and day
 
 198 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 string together the writhing forms, and as 
 coil upon coil rolls out, you may see again how 
 vast is the scope of his labours ! Ay ! no rank 
 is free, no family circle, no happy range of 
 friendship ! From his high seat the Demon 
 scans the field, and, as his fingers swiftly ply, 
 follows with greedy eyes the labours of his 
 attendant imps. For below him, you may see 
 them gathering in that strange spoil. In spired 
 and pillared city, in smoky manufacturing town, 
 in valleys resounding with the hum and clang of 
 labour labour blessed of God, cursed of this 
 potent fiend ! 'neath peaceful eaves of pastoral 
 homes, amid pretty woodbined hamlets, see those 
 busy workers garnering in the Demon's prey. 
 Oh ! how much falls to their snares, of the best 
 of the life and hope and promise of a goodly 
 land ! What ministers ! Widespread as society, 
 active as angels of grace, pernicious as Hell !
 
 A VISION OF DEATH. 199 
 
 And as they scour the world in reckless 
 energy, for his rewards are right generous and 
 rich, he, the Drink Demon, sweeps into his lap 
 their shrinking spoil, and twists the living vic- 
 tims one by one into a great chain of life and 
 death. And all the while he roars and calls for 
 chorus thus : 
 
 SONG. 
 
 DEMON. Ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! Away ye go ! 
 CHORUS. Ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! Away we go 1 
 
 DEMON. Scour the homes and haunts of men, 
 Thronged city and dotted plain, 
 Over the mountain, down the glen, 
 Scour the land and scour the main, 
 And gather links for the Devil's Chain. 
 
 CHORUS. Drink, drink ! 
 Drain, drain ! 
 Another link 
 For the Devil's Chain !
 
 2OO THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 DEMON. For the Devil a wondrous chain shall wear, 
 Of twisted bodies strong and fair, 
 Arm to leg and leg to arm, 
 Linked together quick and warm, 
 Of bad and good, of high and low : 
 A chain for his Majesty down below : 
 
 Long, unending, 
 
 Ever descending 
 
 Out of the light 
 
 Into the night ! 
 
 CHORUS. Drink, drink! 
 Drain, drain ! 
 Another link 
 For the Devil's Chain ! 
 
 DEMON. Ho for the boroughs ! ho for the fields ! 
 Under the hedges, across the wealds, 
 To the shepherd wandering over the down, 
 To the toiling crowds of the factory town : 
 Here in the grimy thronging street, 
 There in the student's lone retreat :
 
 A VISION OF DEATH. 2OI 
 
 Gather the master, gather the man, 
 Gather them all as fast as you can, 
 To be linked together quick and warm, 
 Arm to leg and leg to arm ; 
 
 CHORUS. Drink, drink ! 
 Drain, drain ! 
 Another link 
 For the Devil's Chain. 
 
 DEMON. King and courtier, priest and nun, 
 Daughter, father, mother, son, 
 Doctor, patient, judge and crier, 
 Farmer, yokel, lord and squire, 
 Weave them all in the Devil's Chain, 
 For ever and ever tight in the strain ! 
 
 CHORUS. Drink, drink ! 
 Drain, drain ! 
 Another link 
 For the Devil's Chain. 
 
 DEMON. Labour and sorrow, trust and truth, 
 Vigour and weakness, age and youth.
 
 2O2 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 Beauty and ugliness, wealth and worth, 
 All the best and worst of earth, 
 Poison it, ruin it, kill it with drink, 
 And bring it to me for another link. 
 
 CHORUS. Drink, drink ! 
 Drain, drain ! 
 Another link 
 For the Devil's Chain ! 
 
 DEMON. Jolly eve, ghastly morrow, 
 
 Sorrows drowned to bring new sorrow, 
 Bars thronged prisons crammed, 
 Racy chorus shriek of damned. 
 
 CHORUS. O drink, drink ! 
 Drain, drain ! 
 Another link 
 For the Devil's Chain 1
 
 LINK THE EIGHTH. 
 
 POVERTY, CRIME, DESPAIR. 
 I. A Wandering Heir. 
 
 r I "'HERE was mourning in the house bf Big- 
 horne. Ten days had passed since the 
 departure of the son and heir, and not a word 
 had been heard of him. He had taken with him 
 very little baggage. A note was left for his 
 father. This was merely to inform him that the 
 writer had engaged to go down to Norfolk with 
 Captain Conistoun for a week's hunting, the 
 latter having promised to find the horses. 
 
 Mr. Bighorne accepted the explanation and 
 troubled himself no further. Emily was the 
 only one who felt uneasy, and she kept her 
 anxiety to herself. She could not help hazarding
 
 2O4 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 guesses in her own mind at the reasons of 
 Henry's odd conduct, but she did not impart 
 her fancies to either of her parents. At the end 
 of a week, however, driving down Piccadilly, her 
 quick eye detected Captain Conistoun, who exe- 
 cuted a rather obvious retiring movement down 
 St. James's Passage with too great celerity to 
 be caught by the servant She became tho- 
 roughly alarmed. Mr. Bighorne, on hearing that 
 the Captain was in town without Henry, also 
 grew anxious. He looked the Captain up, and 
 at the end of a couple of hours' search, being 
 a determined man, found him at an obscure and 
 dubious club. Then he learned after a good 
 deal of fencing, that Henry had asked his friend 
 to keep out of the way for a week, as he had 
 private business in the country, and desired to 
 use Conistoun's name to explain his absence. 
 The poor Captain was obliged to get into
 
 A WANDERING HEIR. 2O5 
 
 a cab and accompany the father home, where 
 he got it severely all round for lending himself 
 to this deception, Miss Emily putting it to 
 him in a cruelly sharp way. 
 
 " He is so greatly indebted to you, Captain 
 Conistoun, and knows you so intimately, that 
 perhaps it is no wonder he should have asked 
 you to help him like this ! You know I felt so 
 satisfied when I knew he was with you, be- 
 cause, of course, one was certain there could 
 be nothing worse than usual," &c. 
 
 The Captain afterwards said he would rather 
 have been in the Balaclava charge than go 
 through that ordeal. He was now as alarmed 
 as the family themselves, and for the first time 
 won Emily's approval by the activity and 
 shrewdness which he put forth for the occa- 
 sion. Mr. Bighorne could do nothing. He 
 was almost paralyzed with apprehension.
 
 206 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 Emily forthwith took charge of the arrange- 
 ments. She determined to keep the matter 
 perfectly quiet, but to engage a couple of de- 
 tectives. An advertisement, the drawing up of 
 which occupied the Captain two hours, in a 
 cunning endeavour to reach the proper person 
 without giving anyone else a clue, was so gro- 
 tesque that Emily laughed at it in spite of 
 the gravity of the subject : 
 
 " To CORNU GRANDE. Return to your native 
 Geneva, d la creme. Most anxious to see you 
 again. Your sister Emily." 
 
 It was a supreme effort of the Captain's 
 military genius, and he felt sure its ingenuity 
 would baffle the strongest intellect among 
 Henry Bighorne's numerous friends, although 
 he had given them at least three clues. Emily, 
 however, discarded it, and simply wrote 
 
 " HENRY. Return to your sister."
 
 A WANDERING HEIR. 2O7 
 
 Her heart told her that if anything would 
 bring him back, that would. 
 
 The detectives, who were put upon the scent 
 during the next few days, began to get up 
 Master Henry's history for a month or two before 
 his disappearance. This was an annoyance to 
 Captain Conistoun, since the threads of that 
 history were continually crossing and re-crossing 
 his recent paths, and sometimes in very awkward 
 conjunctions. As everyone, however, who really 
 knew anything important, was interested in 
 keeping it quiet, the tenth day had come and the 
 police confessed that they had not even an idea 
 how this young gentleman got out of London. 
 
 Conistoun meanwhile had gone to Norfolk. 
 It was the blind looking after the blind, and 
 quite a forlorn hope, but Emily had a faint 
 suspicion that Henry had mentioned his real 
 destination.
 
 2O8 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 The Captain shall tell his own story. 
 
 # * 
 * 
 
 II. The Captain's Story. 
 
 "Aw! my deah Miss Bighawne, heah I am 
 again ! as they say in the pantomime I I beg 
 yeaw pardon ! Yaas I wemembah you've ab- 
 jewawed the theatre and I must say, Miss Big- 
 hawne, you are quite wight the ballet, you know. 
 Eh ? deuced objectionable. Eh ? What docs 
 1 deuced'' mean? I I beg pardon. Bad habit ? 
 I know it is. So sawry ? 
 
 "Well, Miss Bighawne, in accawdance with 
 yeaw instructions I poasted down to Nawfolk, 
 always liked Nawfolk, most chawming county, 
 and dwopped in casually, you know you we- 
 membah the 'ameteua casual'? ontheBwown- 
 Wobinson's, yeaw fwiends deuced pretty girl 
 Miss Anastasia Bwown-Wobinson, ain't she ? 
 Ah ! yaas, yaas, yeaw the only woman I know who
 
 THE CAPTAIN'S STORY. 209 
 
 does justice to her fwiends ah vewy generous, 
 eh ? Nevaw let on you know about pooah Henry 
 they asked faw him so you see I found out quietly 
 he had not been theaw, though shouldn't have 
 been surpwised at his visiting that chawming Miss 
 Anastasia, you know. Eh ? Well, no she ain't 
 my style exactly, but stwiking, you know. 
 
 " Aftah visiting the Pwettidales, Mercers, and 
 Batcombes, you know, gave it up in respectable 
 quartas and went in for -the ' cads.' Eh ? 
 What docs that mean ? My deaw Miss Bighawne, 
 you aw so ingenuous, so to speak. ' Cads ' mean 
 the Iowa awdors hoi polloi, you know. Know 
 Greek ? Ah ! enough to understand that ? Ha r 
 ha ! vewy good ! Exactly. 
 
 " Communicated immediately with police. 
 
 Awfully stupid cweetiaws countwy bobbies, you 
 
 know. Led me a deuce of a chase aftah a fellow 
 
 turned out to be solicitor's clerk, John Cway, 
 
 P
 
 21O THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 wunning off from his master fwaud, embezzle- 
 ment five pounds, you know. Poah devil beg 
 pardon ! But that ain't swearing though. Eh ? 
 " Searched the whole country didn't see a 
 whisk of his tail. Eh ! I hope you understand, 
 though didn't mean to say Bighawne was a fox. 
 Went evewy wheah into awfully queah places, 
 you know ! Saw vewy stwange things can't 
 tell you all. Public-house at Buwy, Saturday 
 night, 'fwee-and-easy.' Evewybody dwunk 
 women two bull tewwias fighting ownas fell 
 out and got a-fighting too fought like dogs 
 themselves bit and scwatched each other, 
 wolled about woom people all lookin' on 
 women clappin' their hands and sweawin' tewibly 
 police sent in deuce's own wow. Beg pardon ! 
 you look pale ; best stop. Eh ? No well, went 
 to common lodgin'-house, you know Nawich. 
 Seen them at Westminster? The dickens you
 
 SEARCHING. 211 
 
 have ? AAV, well, saw woman dwunk in bed, 
 wolled over, you know, on her baby police took 
 her off child quite dead suffocated by its own 
 mother, you know. Awfully shocking, eh? 
 Heard afterwards woman woke up and went 
 mad about it. Made me quite unwell, you know. 
 Eh ? Oh ! nothing do anything for you. Mean 
 to take the pledge if this sawt o' thing goes 
 on much longer." 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 III. Searching. 
 
 THE anxiety of the Bighornes had increased 
 as the months went by, and no hint of Henry's 
 fate had come to them. The elders thoroughly 
 collapsed, and Mrs. Bighorne was sadly nurs- 
 ing her husband at their country place in 
 Hampshire. Emily, whose sorrow was deepest, 
 alone preserved her balance. She remained 
 in London, energetically originating and pur
 
 212 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 suing plans of discovery. She drove back into 
 her heart the fear that her brother had taken 
 away his own life, and worked on hopefully, 
 now with the police, now with the family solici- 
 tors, and now with friends like Captain Conistoun 
 or Mr. Holiwell. She had a dread suspicion 
 of the cause of Henry's flight, but kept it strictly 
 within her own thoughts. 
 
 Captain Conistoun was indefatigable. All 
 that Henry had told him was simply that ' there 
 was a woman in the matter,' news which the 
 Captain philosophically stated was a ' matta of 
 cawse.' But he had become a veiy changed 
 man. In his frequent interviews with Miss 
 Bighorne, his admiration for her lucid intellect 
 and cool decision of character was proportion- 
 ate to the consciousness of his own lack of 
 those qualities. He dropped out of several of 
 the worst cliques in London, and_ became an
 
 SEARCHING. 2 1 3 
 
 exemplary attendant at St. Thomas's, where 
 he could see Emily worshipping, and himself 
 worship her. 
 
 He told a fellow-guardsman in the confidence 
 of an evening punch : 
 
 " Ton my soul, Brady you know I'm afwaid 
 she'll make a weligious man of me. I nevaw 
 saw goodness so beautiful." 
 
 The idea of the police that Henry Bighorne 
 had never left London constantly pressed on 
 Emily's mind. From West to East End, by her 
 urgent directions, detectives and friends had 
 sought him in the obscurest haunts without 
 success. Her connection with the mission in 
 Westminster enabled her to assure herself that 
 he was not there. But she was haunted with 
 the fear that in other places other eyes might 
 overlook him. She felt certain that no disguise 
 could hide him from her. So this young lady
 
 214 THE DEVILS CHAIN. 
 
 resolved that it was her duty to seek him through 
 London for herself. 
 
 Strong and adventurous men set out from 
 England, to court danger in all parts of the 
 globe. In the ranks of the rude Herzegovinese, 
 fighting for deliverance from the vulture rapacity 
 and inhuman tyranny of the Moslem in Europe ; 
 among fierce Albanians, bloody Bashi-Bazouks, 
 the semi-barbarous hordes of Russia pushing 
 eastward in fatal and resistless conquest ; in 
 perilous pilgrimage to Mecca ; in the heart of 
 Central Africa, among slave-dealers and jealous 
 savages ; in China, or Perak, or the Andaman 
 Islands, or the Northern Provinces of India, with 
 the Dyaks of Borneo, or among the cannibals of 
 Polynesia justly resentful of the undesired 
 benevolence of a forcible hiring to labour in the 
 sugar-fields of Queensland for civilization and 
 Christianity ; in South American republics, with
 
 SEARCHING. 2 I C 
 
 volcanoes bursting up alternately from the earth 
 and from society ; or in the mines of California, 
 British Columbia, or South Africa. And they 
 return alive to tell the tale of all they have 
 dared and done. 
 
 Yet, if danger be all that is sought, and a 
 demonstration of a resourceful bravery be aimed 
 at, might not a Baker, or a Burton, or a Speke, 
 or a Livingstone, or a Butler, or a Stanley, setting 
 out alone to explore the regions of London 
 savagery, encounter risks as great as any to be 
 withstood in perilous journey by land and sea ? 
 And let all quiet, respectable, and comfortable 
 people be mindful, that to the innate or 
 cultivated rascality, the degraded ferocity of 
 classes of the population to whose existence 
 they deliberately shut their eyes, there is ever 
 added the licensed danger of a supply always 
 ready to hand of that which can add tenfold
 
 216 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 intensity to cruelty and tenfold wantonness 
 to crime. I, for my part, cannot look upon 
 the continuous flare of public-houses in White- 
 chapel, or Westminster, or Marylebone, without 
 shuddering to think that in the event of a 
 popular outbreak, the Legislature and the 
 magistrates between them have laid to the 
 people's hands, in criminal profusion, the 
 inspiring elements of the most horrible disas- 
 ters. Against this dire possibility we have set 
 up a system of police, and about this I crave 
 leave to say a word or two. 
 
 * * 
 # 
 
 IV. A new Order. 
 
 I HOLD that the office of the Policeman is, or 
 ought to be, an honourable office. It is an office 
 that should properly be esteemed by society 
 above that of a soldier. A friend of mine has 
 told me of a little. girl who calls the man we
 
 A NEW ORDER. 217 
 
 irreverently term ' bobby ' the PEACEMAN. 
 Herein is a happy and even noble allegory, 
 bright with sensible suggestion. Why should 
 not an able Home Secretary sit down for a day, 
 or mayhap a week, and work it out into prac- 
 tical shape ? 
 
 The Policeman, or Peaceman, should have 
 much the same qualifications as certain officers 
 in the Church : he should be the husband of 
 one wife, vigilant, sober, modest, not ready to 
 quarrel and offer wrong as one in wine, not 
 double-tongued, not given to much wine, not 
 greedy of filthy lucre ; let him be taught to 
 feel the true honourableness of his office, and 
 even to magnify it. 
 
 I say he is greater than a soldier, is your 
 true Policeman. The powers with whom he 
 contends are not only of this world. If he be a 
 sterling man, and a good Peaceman, he will
 
 218 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 apprehend that he also is one of the missionaries 
 of society. For him there is not alone^catching 
 and making ready for hanging, or other'method 
 of security, but work akin to that of the'clergy- 
 man, the doctor, the brother or sister of charity. 
 
 In the police force now embodied, there are 
 some who feel after this ideal, dimly though 
 honestly. But they are few. The other day in 
 Whitechapel I came across a fine-looking man 
 keeping a public-house, where common sailors 
 and low women congregated, who had been a 
 detective officer. This is not the stuff whereof 
 a Peaceman should be made. Is it not/ something 
 worth while to be the man who stands up 
 between society and anarchy waving the censer 
 of authority as Aaron and his fellows stood 
 and waved their censers between Israel and 
 destruction? To do their work in a manly, brave, 
 yet gentle way as the chevalier/ of justice
 
 A NEW ORDER. 2IQ 
 
 should is now accomplished by the higher 
 officers of our home forces, but by the Peaceman 
 proper, only rarely. Our system creates machines 
 of inexorable law, or, too frequently, hypo- 
 critical temporisers with crime. 
 
 Mr. A. J. Duffield, who will no doubt be 
 thought a lunatic, has suggested that the police- 
 man should be elevated. He has proposed that 
 briefless barristers, 'stickit ministers,' and young 
 gentlemen generally, with more bone and sinew 
 than they can properly utilise in the genteel 
 professions, should here find a work not un- 
 worthy of their power. Is not this a good sug- 
 gestion? Have we yet realised what might be 
 done in the way of improving this great domestic 
 service ? 
 
 Why should we not have a noble order of the 
 Peaceman ? At present we show our estimate of 
 the policeman's office by taking up shillings to
 
 22O THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 reward his bravery, or granting him 2 out of 
 the poor-box for a broken head and ruined 
 constitution. The proper recognition of the 
 policeman's services should come from the State, 
 and the head of the State and fountain of 
 honour is Royalty. Institute, therefore, for the 
 police force an ORDER OF MERIT. Recognize 
 its true status. Raise its character. Attract to 
 it honesty, ability, and even ambition. Make 
 way, I say, for the Most Noble Order of the 
 Peacemen ! 
 
 One word more. The safety of society is 
 committed to the care of this order. Should it 
 not also be an order of sobriety ? Every Peace- 
 man should be a total abstainer, whatever license 
 we may give to other services. Make our 
 new Order models of virtue, bravery, and self- 
 restraint.
 
 SHADOWS OF DEATH. 221 
 
 V. Shadows of Death. 
 
 LADIES and gentlemen who shop and lounge in 
 the splendid streets that display the wealth and 
 luxury of the Metropolis, rarely think that they 
 are walking and driving on the shores of a 
 desolation, often as extreme and melancholy as 
 that of any disaster-ridden sea or, to change 
 the figure, they are skirting wildernesses'of human 
 destiny, which, like the mangrove-swamps of 
 Western Africa, hide lurking-places of the foulest 
 malaria and most perilous savagery. And there, 
 amongst those dim recesses of life, men ply 
 a trade which exaggerates disease, and adds 
 vigour to the powers of evil. Dainty ladies, 
 conceive what it was for Miss Emily Bighorne, 
 under the chivalrous impulse of her nature, to 
 seek her brother in and out among those shadows 
 of death ! 
 
 Through city slums, in alleys of Soho or
 
 222. THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 Bloomsbury, in the squalid streets of White- 
 chapel^ or Southwark, to see this fair and noble 
 girl pick her way, was a spectacle not without sig- 
 nificance. It brought into contrast the terrific 
 distance, moral and material, between the limited 
 wealthy class and the hordes of labour, misery, 
 and crime. 
 
 The Drury Lane Music-hall, with its several 
 bars, its pit filled with small tradesmen and their 
 wives, and fast clerks and porters with their 
 'girls;' its galleries crowded with motley crews 
 of doubtful men and women, its upper gallery 
 crammed with boys the gamins of London, 
 viewing on the stage the pleasures of vice, the 
 apotheosis of crime was only a few degrees 
 down below the more elegant and glittering 
 saloons of a higher society. There young rascal- 
 dom learned how to drink and swear with the 
 worst. There Emily saw children, not as high
 
 SHADOWS OF DEATH. 223 
 
 as the bar, taking hot gin-and-water as if it 
 were milk, and staggering off to heaven-knows- 
 what attempts to emulate the wickedness of 
 their elders. 
 
 Searching a court out of Gray's Inn Lane one 
 night when the ' Old Arm Chair ' public-house 
 had emptied its last frequenters into the street, 
 she had there seen her conductor, a policeman, 
 penetrate a crowd of drunken wretches, stretching 
 their necks to see a man who, in drunken fury, 
 had caught the hair of his wife, also drunk, and 
 twisting it round his hand, was hauling at the 
 shrieking victim with his knee upon her chest. 
 
 It was when the public-houses were about 
 turning out in Whitechapel that Emily took her 
 way thither with the inspector and his sergeant 
 to canvas the reeking lodging-houses in search 
 of the wanderer. An early visit to the places 
 in Flower-and-Dean Street and thereabouts,
 
 224 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 where sometimes as many as three hundred beds 
 are occupied of a night at threepence or four- 
 pence apiece, opens up to the thoughtful mind 
 a vista of sorrows so long, so various, and so 
 horrible, that one might well shrink from 
 encountering the intense awfulness of the 
 spectacle at an hour when half a hundred neigh- 
 bouring gin-shops are disgorging their throngs~of 
 drunken customers. It is there that you may 
 learn that however bad human nature may be, 
 there is something you can administer to it and 
 make it worse, and that there is nothing so 
 devilish but what drink will add to its deviltry. 
 
 Strange and dismal outcome of civilisation ! 
 To enter the thronged kitchen of these caravan- 
 saries of crime and beggary, and look round 
 eagerly for the beloved face, was to Emily Big- 
 horne to learn a harrowing lesson in humanity. A 
 mixed crowd thieves, tramps, beggars. Here,
 
 SHADOWS OF DEATH. 
 
 perhaps, a Scotchman on crutches, arguing even 
 on that weak basis, with an inspirited Irishman ; 
 there a group of youngish pale fellows, whose 
 hands showed they did no honest toil, but preyed 
 with light fingers on the watches of mankind ; 
 their glances furtive, their faces sometimes 
 marked with scars or bruises of night affrays, or 
 tied up in bloody kerchiefs. Here, again a weary 
 traveller, with a great shock of rough hair, in a suit 
 of shabby velveteen, who had dropped off asleep 
 with his hat and bundle by his side. And 
 again a gentleman's gentleman, evidently under 
 the weather, with a black suit, very seedy, and 
 his tall hat brushed into a bright polish, sitting 
 apart in disconsolate incongruity with the rough 
 elements around him. Slovenly mothers with 
 dirty children; girls with coarse repulsive ' fea- 
 tures some with black eyes, the. tell-tales of the 
 dangerous life they led ; and here and there the 
 Q
 
 226 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 scrofulous infant, whose appearance made the ob- 
 server shudder to think what a hopeless thing was 
 life for it from cradle to grave. You could not 
 have collected two pounds among the hundred, 
 and yet there was hardly one that had not left a 
 toll that night at the public-house. Profits of 
 theft, proceeds of pawn or sale of the last passable 
 garment, day's begging, or casual wage, all gone 
 down into the till of the publican to leave these 
 people as they were nay worse, and with less 
 of hope ! 
 
 Thus he, the Publican, emissary of the brewer 
 and distiller, works at both ends ; to bring down 
 the high, to confirm and deepen the degradation 
 of the low. 
 
 Here is his shop, divided into compartments 
 for bar, retail and refreshment. Two or three 
 rows of ivory-handled pumps, their brass bright 
 and shining ; dinted pewters and polished glasses
 
 SHADOWS OF DEATH. 227 
 
 ranged along the metal shelves. Sometimes a 
 row of great pipes of spirits, tapped, to pour their 
 fiery water into the cans which supply the model 
 barrels of glass on the shelf behind the bar ; 
 and hundreds of bottles of every shape and every 
 hue of bright contents arranged in dazzling ranks 
 wherever a standing place can be found. Flaring 
 gas, bright mirror, foaming pewter, smoking 
 glass, quick barmaids, drawing, drawing, draw- 
 ing from the endless store, and dropping, drop- 
 ping, dropping, with a merry chink, the hopes 
 and healths of many a customer into their tills. 
 There is little difference truly between the 
 splendid bars of the West-end and their kindred 
 institutions in Whitechapel or Southwark. They 
 are all equally designed to allure and stimulate 
 the feverish thirst. The pale and weary girls who, 
 at the humbler places, serve out to ragged poverty 
 and crime or robust labour their lush and stingo,
 
 228 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 are no worse than the frumped-up beauties who, 
 as they exchange free jokes or affected compli- 
 ments with lounging clerks, or dandy blacklegs, 
 or fast young parvenus, keep them alive with 
 flips and tonics. 
 
 One night Emily, disguised in a coarse 
 woollen dress and a staid bonnet with a thick 
 veil, entered, in the course of her trying round, 
 one of the houses in Ratcliffe Highway which 
 had a license for liquor, music, and dancing. The 
 bar below was filled with sailors of every national- 
 ity, engaged in drinking, in polyglott blasphemy, 
 and coarse courtship. Lascar, Swede, Russian, 
 Dane, Dutchman, Italian, mingled with the sons 
 of the three kingdoms. Here possibly Henry 
 might have found his way to endeavour to get a 
 berth in some obscure vessel. Through the cram- 
 med bar a lane was forthwith made, at the call 
 of the stout landlady, as soon as the inspector's
 
 SHADOWS OF DEATH. 22Q 
 
 face was seen ; while the publican a powerful 
 man, who had been a detective in his day turned 
 with ludicrous solemnity to remonstrate with a 
 tipsy woman for using improper language a 
 remonstrance she treated with derisive levity. 
 
 Up a few steps and through a door, they passed 
 into a room resounding with odd orchestral music, 
 a lofty room with a ventilating skylight. The 
 walls were decorated with paper in gaudy 
 panels, in the middle of which were depicted 
 highly-coloured Terpsichorean beauties, display- 
 ing their charms with Grecian naivete but un- 
 Grecian grace. By the door was the semicircular 
 bar, where three women were kept busy in draw- 
 ing and mixing the liquors. Over the bar the 
 orchestra urged its doleful jollity of sound. On 
 one side of the room were narrow tables and 
 seats, just then crowded with men, chiefly sailors 
 and women, all of one class. The rest of the
 
 230 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 large space was devoted to dancing : a strange 
 amusement of half-drunken coarseness and folly. 
 Women sailed to and fro to the bar to fetch 
 liquor to their companions, or to buy it for 
 themselves ; and then they could be seen going 
 the rounds with their own hot toddy, exchanging 
 a sip of it indiscriminately with any who would 
 give them a pull at pewter or glass. It was plain 
 enough in flushing face and glancing eye how 
 this horrible mixture was working. Emily 
 turned quickly away to scan the faces of the 
 men, but Henry was not there. 
 
 Just as she was leaving, her eye caught sight 
 of a girl, quite young, whose face looked fresher 
 and prettier than any of the rest, and whose dress 
 was neater in fit and appearance. She had just 
 raised to her lips a glass of punch, which she 
 drained, and then rushed into the dance with 
 feverish animation.
 
 SHADOWS OF DEATH. 23 I 
 
 " Do you know who that poor girl is?" said 
 Emily to her conductor. 
 
 " O yes, miss ! It's the saddest case I know 
 of. She hasn't been long at the East End, and 
 she won't stay here long with that face and 
 figure. She is a girl called Lucy Merton. A 
 young lawyer's clerk, named Cray, brought 
 her down here. He had run away from his 
 employers, solicitors in Bedford Row, with 
 some papers and a few pounds of money. That 
 girl was with him. They had to knock about 
 in low places to keep out of sight When we 
 caught him they were well-nigh starving, and 
 after we took him away there was not much left 
 to her to do but what she's doing. We don't 
 know where she comes from, but I should say 
 she was out of a West-end shop. I've tried 
 hard to get her to tell me, but it ain't no use. 
 She's going through a sort of stage now just
 
 232 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 running on as you see, trying to drown all and 
 forget like. We see such cases sometimes, 
 though not often. If they wouldn't take to 
 drinking they might come round again. Your 
 friend ain't here, miss ? Then we'd best go." 
 
 Emily's heart was bleeding. 
 
 " Stay," she said. " She is not dancing now. 
 Will you ask her to come here ?" 
 
 The girl came forward at the policeman's 
 summons ; how different from the bright, light- 
 hearted maiden that tripped along St. Martin's 
 Lane a few months since ! The cheeks were 
 still comely, but flushed with the heat of wine. 
 There was sadness in the blue eyes which were 
 growing so hard and saucy, and in the dark 
 rings beneath them were the written evidences 
 of ill-health of body and soul. Emily raised her 
 veil. At sight of the beautiful pale features 
 and the sweet eyes regarding her so sadly,
 
 SHADOWS OF DEATH. 233 
 
 the poor girl shrank back. But Emily took her 
 hand. 
 
 " Let me go ! " cried Lucy Merton thickly, 
 for 'twas late and the drink was telling on her. 
 
 " No," replied Emily firmly. " Come with me." 
 
 The superior spirit conquered, and Lucy 
 Merton suffered herself to be led through the 
 crowd at the bar till they got out into the street ; 
 then she tried to break away, but the policeman 
 held her. 
 
 " Let me go !" she said, crying with terror and 
 vexation. " I've done nothing to you." 
 
 " True," said Emily. " But, my poor sister, 
 can I do nothing for you ? " 
 
 " Sister ! " she said with a shower of tears, 
 "Don't mock me, miss! I don't know what you 
 do here. You are a lady. Go away and let 
 me alone. You are cruel ; you are bringing 
 back all my sorrow ! "
 
 234 THE DEVIL S CHAIN. 
 
 "Yes, I repeat it, 'Sister!' Do you not know 
 of One who called a sinner 'daughter?' I, who 
 know my own sinfulness, cannot shrink from 
 owning an erring sister. My dear girl, can I 
 not save you from your sorrow, or, at least, allay 
 it ? There is always hope." 
 
 " No, no ! You need not tell me that. I never 
 sought to be as I am. It came to me. I was 
 innocent. I know not why it came. I curse 
 God every day I live for it ; and now I'll live it 
 out." 
 
 When a fine nature wakes to the fact that it 
 has been outwitted by some devilish subterfuge, 
 and has lost for ever the virtue whereon it 
 prided itself, it rarely stops to consider circum- 
 stances and estimate exact responsibilities. The 
 reaction from trust and hope is often madly 
 extreme. And the fact which in our social 
 existence comes most cruelly home to a woman
 
 SHADOWS OF DEATH. 235 
 
 wronged, as was Lucy Merton, is that there 
 is written by English opinion over the door 
 of society the notice to such as she Nnlla 
 retrorsum. 
 
 Miss Bighorne again took the girl's hand, but 
 she broke away, and hastily drying her eyes, 
 ran back into the room. Spite of the inspector's 
 remonstrance Emily pushed through in pursuit, 
 but arrived only in time to see the object of her 
 care toss off a glass of wine and resume the 
 dance. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the inspector sententiously, as 
 they went away, " if it wasn't for the drink, that 
 girl might be saved. Now she's taken to drown- 
 ing out her sorrow that way, it ain't a bit of use, 
 miss you take my word for it."
 
 LINK THE NINTH. 
 
 HOPE, HONOUR, LIFE. 
 
 I. O Fatal Syllogism! 
 
 O LOW and weary passed the weeks at the 
 humble hospice of the Burslem curate. 
 Critical danger and trembling suspense ; the un- 
 conscious wanderer watched with all the earnest- 
 ness of a humanity which was possessed with the 
 noblest spirit of brotherhood. A strange, long 
 struggle of a feeble vitality and diseased brain 
 with the power that may put out the lamps of life 
 and thought. Often the good doctor sat by and 
 feared that the spirit would slip away like a 
 shadow, and escape his saving hand. And the 
 poor curate, overworked by day in a ceaseless
 
 o FATAL SYLLOGISM! 237 
 
 warfare with the diligent sorrows of men, sat 
 through the hours of night waiting on this un- 
 known stranger, and listening for any word that 
 might give him a thread to trace his identity. 
 Now and then came hints of evil life that made 
 the good man quail ; now a coupling of the 
 name of 'father' with saddening epithets of scorn 
 and anger, or of ' mother ' with gentle endear- 
 ments. Often the sick man called for ' Emily ' 
 with fond exclamations and words of regret. 
 Yet he never dropped a surname. 
 
 But one night, just after twelve o'clock, the sick 
 man's incoherent mutterings suddenly stopped. 
 The curate, sitting drowsily at the table, with 
 a shaded candle, nodding over the paper in- 
 tended for Sunday morning's sermon, while 
 the fire slumbered in the grate, heard a clear 
 voice : 
 
 " Emily ! "
 
 238 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 He started up, and bringing forward the light, 
 saw that a .great change had come over the 
 young man. The chiselled face lay upwards, no 
 longer distorted with pain or the fury of delirium, 
 but tranquil. It was like a marble face, and the 
 marble was weeping. 
 
 " Did you call ? " said Mr. Wood. 
 
 " Where's Emily ? Where am I ? " 
 
 " In good hands, my friend ; in good hands, 
 thank God. Emily is not here at present." 
 
 " Not here ? " said the sick man, turning his 
 eyes towards the speaker, and searching the 
 gentle, open face. "Does she know I'm ill ? I 
 have been awake for an hour, and I feel very 
 weak and ill. How long have I been here ? " 
 
 " For some time," said the curate. 
 
 " And is she not within call ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then I shall never see her again ? " said the
 
 O FATAL SYLLOGISM ! 239 
 
 youth. He turned away languidly and painfully, 
 to hide his tears. 
 
 "By God's grace you will, my friend. You 
 are getting better now." 
 
 " No," replied the sick man. " I woke up, and 
 felt at once it was to die. How came I here ? " 
 
 " I found you in my outhouse. You had sought 
 shelter there one stormy night." 
 
 " Oh ! I remember," replied the patient, with a 
 shudder," Bill Knowsley." 
 
 " Bill Knowsley, young man ! " cried the curate, 
 startled out of his wariness for the moment. 
 " Why, only this very day have I read of that 
 man's execution, for the murder of his wife and 
 children ! I trust you had nought to do with 
 it?" 
 
 " Nothing, thank God," replied the other. " I 
 have sins enough to answer for without that. 
 I was hiding at his house for special reasons,
 
 240 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 and I fear the money I gave him had something 
 to do with his crime. But you say he is exe- 
 cuted. How long is that ago how long have I 
 been here ? " 
 
 " Many weeks. Do not overtax yourself now. 
 I am a clergyman. Not knowing what may 
 happen, though I hope the best, I ask you, before 
 God, to tell me who you are, and how you came 
 here. " 
 
 " Then you have not found out who I am, and 
 Emily knows nothing ? " said the other in a sad 
 whisper. And he re-took to weeping. The 
 clergyman waited. Then he began to repeat 
 softly one or two of the Collects, and the 
 words seemed to steal like soothing music into 
 the sick man's heart 
 
 " Thank you," he said ; " I am very grateful. 
 Those words revive sweet memories but it is 
 too late now. The few minutes I have to live,
 
 o FATAL SYLLOGISM! 241 
 
 I must spend in thanking you for your goodness, 
 and in making a statement of the circumstances 
 that have brought me here. Have you a pen 
 and ink ? " 
 
 The curate gave him a few spoonfuls of nour- 
 ishment, but he read in the youth's face that his 
 premonition was too correct, and hastened to the 
 writing materials. 
 
 " Take down that my name is Henry Willesden 
 Bighorne, son of Mr. Richard Bighorne, member 
 of Parliament the great distiller. Twenty-two 
 years of age, of Balliol College, Oxford from 
 which University my own father removed me to 
 the distillery, and to the life which is ending in 
 
 this but I do not blame him 
 
 please take that down. Tell him, that dying, I 
 said I nourished no angry or unfilial thought, 
 and took all the fault upon myself. He never 
 was so weak as I have been. My sister, Emily 
 
 R
 
 242 THE DEVIL S CHAIN. 
 
 you cannot tell what a dear lovely girl she 
 is! what a blessing it will be to you to get 
 her thanks for your kindness ! tell her, too, 
 that hers was the only name I could think 
 
 about when I was dying 
 
 " I have no time for confessions : I feel myself 
 growing weaker every minute. Write rapidly. 
 Say that on the of February last, I went to 
 No. St. Martin's Lane, London, to call upon 
 a person there, named Helena Bellhouse. Do 
 not be shocked. Sad as her life was, she was a 
 born lady, and a wonderfully clever and en- 
 gaging woman, quite of an unusual character, 
 and though under a dreadful cloud, strangely 
 ambitious to preserve some self-respect and be 
 the best she could be. God knows how little 
 that was, k for she was a hard drinker at times. 
 It does not matter how I became acquainted 
 with her. She was twice my age, but I took a
 
 o FATAL SYLLOGISM! 243 
 
 kindly interest in her, and especially because 
 she had told me of a beautiful child she had in 
 the country who was born in lawful wedlock, 
 and whom she was protecting from a bad hus- 
 band. She never mentioned his name. I helped 
 her as much as I could to carry out her plans, 
 and latterly used to fetch the letters that came 
 for her from the child or her guardians. She 
 never told me, however, who she really was. I 
 should say I had a most intimate friend, Cap- 
 tain Conistoun, son of Lord Newmarket, to 
 whom, poor fellow, I owe a terrible debt for 
 initiating me into the mysteries of life. I also 
 knew a gentleman of high position and loose 
 morality, well known in London society. He is 
 a Secretary of State. He was a strange man, 
 and had taken a fancy to this woman because 
 she was so clever and ladylike. 
 
 " Well, sir, on that day of February, I went in
 
 244 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 the afternoon, just about dusk, to call on Mrs. 
 Bellhouse, as she called herself. I had been to 
 Netting Hill to get a letter she^expected from 
 her daughter. When I entered her room, Mr. 
 Delamarre was there a cloak and hat in which 
 he used to disguise himself lay on the sofa. 
 Wine and spirits were on the table they had 
 both been drinking. She was excited. He 
 seemed troubled and vexed. 
 
 " ' Bighorne/ he said immediately, ' I have 
 made an astounding discovery. Let me pre- 
 sent to you Mrs. Hurlingham, the sister of 
 your friend and mine, Captain Conistoun.' 
 
 " I staggered and sat down. ' Good heavens !' 
 I said, ' Helen, is this true ? ' 
 
 " 'Yes !' she replied, ' it is true.' 
 
 " I cannot describe to you, sir, the horror with 
 which we three people looked at each other it 
 seemed as if some evil spirit had dropped down
 
 o FATAL SYLLOGISM! 245 
 
 and with a wave of his wand set us all aghast 
 with mutual repulsion. To lessen probably the 
 painful restraint of this exposure, the poor lady 
 tore open the letter I had brought, and ran her 
 eyes over it. Before she had finished she thrust 
 it into her bosom and uttered a fearful shriek. 
 Then she ran to the window. We rushed 
 forward to stop her, but only seized a light 
 shawl she had on, which slipped off her shoulders. 
 The next instant she had thrown herself out, 
 
 with a shriek more awful than before 
 
 Write this down carefully, sir. I make my solemn 
 declaration on my dying bed that neither I nor 
 Delamarre contributed in any way whatever to 
 that woman's death." 
 
 " But, Mr. Bighorne, excuse me. If that is so, 
 why, may I ask, did you desire to secrete your- 
 self?" 
 
 " To save my friend, Mr. Delamarre. He is
 
 246 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 one of the props of the Ministry they are 
 already weak. If this had come out he must 
 have been disgraced, and then forced to resign. 
 You may tell my friends of it, but keep it a 
 
 solemn secret Neither of us' 
 
 had been recognised ; but my terror of discovery 
 grew so strong, I had to run away. Through 
 some strange acquaintances I had formed in the 
 course of my wild life, I succeeded in getting 
 out of London undetected, and disguising my- 
 self, was passed from shelter to shelter, until I 
 came across Bill Knowsley " 
 
 The curate ran to the bed. The youth was 
 in a syncope. The good man saw some swift 
 restorative was needed, and poured out from the 
 hitherto untouched flask a little brandy, with 
 which he touched the patient's lips. The sick
 
 AN UNPLEASANT VISITOR. 247 
 
 man feebly opened his eyes, in which for an 
 instant a strange light played. 
 
 "Ah!" he whispered, "Brandy! Would to 
 God I had never known the taste ! " 
 
 * * 
 
 * 
 
 II. An Unpleasant Visitor. 
 
 MR. DELAMARRE was one of Miss Bighorne's 
 admirers. He was assuredly a most distin- 
 guished suitor : Secretary of State for the 
 Marine, forty-seven years of age, of an agree- 
 able and winning presence, connected with ex- 
 alted families, a man of unquestionable talent, 
 standing high with his party, and universally 
 popular in society. Emily might have been 
 forgiven by some people, had she overlooked 
 his glaring faults and accepted his hand. But 
 while society acknowleged and admired Mr. 
 Delamarre, it took the privilege of talking freely
 
 248 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 about him, and the gossip was not edifying. In 
 truth 'the Secretary was not over particular 
 about his private life, and not even careful to 
 keep it private. When a man drives his Stan- 
 hope to Richmond or Greenwich, and airs him- 
 self there before the public with whatever com- 
 pany he may have, he challenges society to 
 take note in what manner he is living. But 
 Mr. Delamarre's fame as a man of the town 
 was, as is usual, confined to certain cliques, 
 reputable and disreputable. Only vague 
 rumours reached the ears of lady friends, and 
 these were most discreetly chastened. For 
 while it is generally true that evil report is apt 
 to grow as it progresses, an exception is some- 
 times made in the case of the nobility and upper 
 classes. A peer's son or the heir of a millionnaire 
 will have his follies reported in euphemisms and 
 his vices painted with a gentle hand.
 
 AN UNPLEASANT VISITOR. 249 
 
 Miss Emily had never taken to Mr. Dela- 
 marre, and her instinctive dislike to him had 
 been confirmed by Henry Bighorne, who once 
 curtly said to his sister, ' 'Ware Delamarre ! ' 
 This was not an unnecessary warning, since the 
 elder Bighorne's faith in the recuperative powers 
 of human nature, both moral and physical, 
 when it was of the aristocratic order, was so 
 great, that he would willingly have run the 
 risk of the Secretary's reformation. 
 
 On the very morning of Henry Bighorne's 
 death, Mr. Delamarre was leisurely dressing at 
 his house in Dover Street, at the early hour of 
 ten, when his servant entered and announced 
 that an inspector of police from Scotland Yard 
 desired to see him. 
 
 "Wishes to see me, Laycock ? He must have 
 made a mistake. I'm not the Home Secretary." 
 
 " I told him, sir, there was some mistake,
 
 250 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 and that you were dressing. But he has your 
 name down, and he insists on seeing you at once." 
 
 " Well, then, show him up here." 
 
 The Inspector entered a broad, serious-faced 
 fellow, and gave a salute. 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir," he said, " but information 
 we've received, sir, interests you particularly. 
 I thought I had best come up and see you about 
 it alone, sir." 
 
 " Very good of you, Inspector," said Dela- 
 marre, buttoning hid' braces. " But is it really 
 so important that you must break into my dress- 
 ing-room to tell it?" 
 
 " That's as you think, sir, when you've heard 
 it," replied the policeman shortly like a man 
 who knows his position and how to keep it. 
 
 " Well, let us hear this wonderful information 
 you have got hold of,/ny friend." 
 
 " Yes, sir, certainly. Did you happen, sir, to
 
 AN UNPLEASANT VISITOR. 251 
 
 know a Mrs. Bellhouse, who lived at St. 
 Martin's Lane ? " 
 
 " Ho ! " said Mr. Delamarre, with a little 
 laugh. " You came to tell me something, and 
 now you're cross-examining me ! " 
 
 " Well, Mr. Delamarre, if you know anything 
 about her it will come out ; and if you don't, 
 well and good," and drawing a pocket-book from 
 his pocket, he opened it and took out an enve- 
 lope, addressed in a female hand to Mr. Dela- 
 marre. 
 
 " Do you know that writing, sir ? " 
 
 " I tell you I am not going to answer any 
 questions put to me by an inspector of police. 
 If you have any statement to make, make it 
 and then begone: my breakfast is waiting." 
 
 The Inspector took no notice, but went on 
 with his work. 
 
 " Mr. Delamarre ! " he said, standing in front
 
 252 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 of the Minister, " this envelope " Delamarre 
 snatched it out of his hand, and was about to 
 throw it into the fire " and the letter inside it, 
 sir, which I have in my pocket. You needn't 
 destroy that," he added quietly "you can't 
 destroy my evidence ! " 
 
 Mr. Delamarre laughed and said, " Oh ! I was 
 getting tired of the subject. And as the enve- 
 lope is my property, picked up somewhere 
 no doubt, I thought I would cut the matter 
 short by burning it. But there it is, if you 
 want to keep it. You are only wasting time, 
 however." 
 
 " That envelope, Mr. Delamarre," said the 
 policeman, steadily, " was found on the sofa in 
 the room Mrs. Bellhouse occupied the day she 
 threw herself out of window. You remember, 
 sir, at the inquest " 
 
 " I know nothing about the inquest," inter-
 
 AN UNPLEASANT VISITOR. 253 
 
 rupted Mr. Delamarre. " It was a scandal which 
 did not concern me." 
 
 " Perhaps so, sir. But at the inquest it was 
 stated that two gents were in the room with 
 Mrs. Bellhouse that afternoon, and at the time 
 when she fell out of the window. Also that one 
 of those gentlemen wore a cloak and black felt 
 hat, Mr. Delamarre something like this cloak 
 and hat, sir, I suspect," said the policeman, 
 gravely, as he pointed to a chair in the dressing- 
 room where two such articles appeared to have 
 been thrown the evening before. 
 
 Delamarre looked uneasy. 
 
 " Look here, Inspector, he said, " you fellows 
 are so accustomed to putting things together in 
 accordance with your theories, that you make 
 extraordinary blunders. You state that you 
 found that letter in a sofa that stood in Mrs. 
 Bellhouse's room. Well, if you have the letter
 
 254 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 too, you know that it was from Mrs. Bellhouse 
 herself. I admit I was acquainted with her, and 
 she occasionally corresponded with me. But 
 you can easily suppose that I had handed it back 
 to Mrs. Bellhouse, and she had put the letter 
 there herself." 
 
 " No, sir ; I think not. The envelope has the 
 ' London West ' post mark, and was delivered at 
 half-past four on February ist, and on the other 
 side from the direction there's a memorandum 
 in pencil, sir : ' Saiv Elliston. Claymore to be 
 recalled. Coke to be V. Ad' You remember, 
 sir, Admiral Claymore was recalled in February, 
 and your cousin, Captain Coke, was made Vice- 
 admiral ? The letter was dropped out of your 
 pocket, sir, in Mrs. Bellhouse's room." 
 
 "Look here, Inspector!" replied Delamarre, 
 uneasily. "You're a man of the world. You 
 know I'm a man of the world. There is no use
 
 AN UNPLEASANT VISITOR. 255 
 
 opening up a gentleman's private life, and 
 making a great scandal for nothing. I can 
 assure you I had nothing to do with Mrs. Bell- 
 house's death. Throw the papers into the fire." 
 
 " Can't do it, sir. They've been in the hands 
 of the Chief Commissioner." 
 
 " The deuce they have ! " 
 
 " Yes ; and he says he must do his duty. 
 Where's the other man, sir ? It may be a case 
 of murder, Mr. Delamarre ! " 
 
 Delamarre shuddered, and turned and looked 
 into the glass over the mantel-piece. With 
 perfect command of countenance, he could not 
 but see that a light pallor tinged his face. We 
 know he was innocent of that terrible crime, but 
 it was a startling thing to hear the word uttered 
 in connection with his name. After so many 
 years of successful politics, so many years of 
 loose pleasure, so long a period in which outer
 
 256 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 respectability had been concurrent with a dis- 
 reputable private life it did shock this man out 
 of his self-possession suddenly to find himself 
 face to face with an outraged society in the 
 person of this stolid policeman uttering the word 
 murder ! He reflected over his position a long 
 time before he turned again. He saw how 
 awkward the situation was. He could think of 
 no escape from that which he dreaded most, a 
 scandalous exposure, and his thoughts ran 
 rapidly over the probable effects upon himself 
 and on the Ministry, to whose existence he knew 
 he was essential. It was impossible to see light 
 through the bewildering chaos. Worse than all, 
 in view of that ugly word, ' murder,' Henry 
 Bighorne had put himself out of the way, no one 
 knew where. On the other hand, a sentiment of 
 honour forbade that he should mention Bighorne's 
 name, since the latter had done so much for
 
 AX UNPLEASANT VISITOR. 257 
 
 him. At length he turned calmly to the 
 Inspector. 
 
 " Well, what do you want to do ? " 
 
 " Well, Mr. Delamarre, the first Commissioner 
 ordered me to bring- two gentlemen in plain 
 clothes, and leave them in the house for the pre- 
 sent, till you can see your friends. Of course you 
 won't leave this room ; and they will remain down- 
 stairs in the hall. You arequite free to seeanyone." 
 
 " Hem ! " said Mr. Delamarre, with a choking 
 sensation in his throat which he wished to con- 
 ceal. " It's very obliging of the Chief Commis- 
 sioner! And seeing I appointed him when I 
 was Home Secretary, it's grateful. But, my 
 dear inspector, don't leave a couple of men like 
 sheriffs' messengers in my hall. Put them in the 
 library." He rang the bell. 
 
 Laycock appeared, looking very white and 
 disturbed. 
 
 s
 
 258 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 "Shew those two ah gentlemen, into the 
 library, Laycock, and get them some breakfast. 
 This gentleman, perhaps, will join them. We 
 have an awkward affair on at the Admiralty, 
 which requires their assistance." 
 
 The Inspector lingered a moment behind the 
 servant. 
 
 " It ain't regular, Mr. Delamarre," he said, in 
 an undertone. " But you give me your word of 
 honour as a gentleman you won't leave this 
 house?" 
 
 " You need not fear, " replied the minister. 
 " You can rely on my honour." 
 * * 
 
 III. News at last. 
 
 LATE in the evening of the day in which things 
 
 , were running so hard against Mr. Delamarre, a 
 
 stranger rang the bell at Grosvenor Place, and 
 
 requested to see Miss Bighorne. The tall foot-
 
 NEWS AT LAST. 259 
 
 man, who regarded his young lady with a sort 
 of fraternal sympathy, ventured upon a delicate 
 remonstrance with the ' person ' who proposed 
 an interview at so unreasonable an hour. 
 
 "Be good enough," said the stranger with 
 dignity, " to state that .the Rev. Charles Wood, 
 curate of Burslem, has called with some news of 
 Mr. Henry Bighorne." 
 
 In a few moments Emily was with him face to 
 face in the library. The good clergyman was a 
 bachelor, but the thinning hair, and lines about 
 the fine eyes and square, deep forehead, showed 
 that he was forty, at least. His face was not a 
 handsome one, though striking for its intelligent 
 finesse, and the play of gentle benevolence which 
 touched and softened every feature. There was 
 a slight confusion in his manner when James, 
 the footman, opened the door, and she came 
 hastily towards him. He glanced at the fair
 
 260 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 anxious face, grown pale with sorrow and anxiety, 
 and felt abashed with terror at the task he had 
 to perform. 
 
 " You say you have news of my brother, sir ? " 
 cried Emily. 
 
 " Yes," he replied. " Will you be good 
 enough to shut the door ? " he added, turning to 
 the lingering footman, and then proceeded : 
 "Allow me to introduce myself, Miss Bighorne 
 the Reverend Charles Wood, curate of St. 
 Enoch's, Burslem, in Staffordshire." 
 
 " Have you seen my brother, sir? Is he well?" 
 
 " My dear young lady," said the curate, 
 nervously, " may I ask you to sit down ? for 
 for I have a long story to tell. And pray be 
 calm, Miss Bighorne." 
 
 " Don't conceal anything, I beg of you !" said 
 Emily, taking the stranger's hand, in her excite- 
 ment, and looking earnestly in his face. He
 
 NEWS AT LAST. 2OI 
 
 looked so manly, and withal so gentle, that he 
 seemed like an old friend. " You have bad news, 
 I am sure ? " 
 
 He looked in her face a moment and consi- 
 dered. Can she bear it ? Then he simply said : 
 
 " Alas ! yes. The worst." 
 
 A lovely girl in a storm of sorrow and a 
 strange curate walking up and down the room, 
 silently dropping tears about in an agony of 
 sympathy. He did not know what had hap- 
 pened to him, but he felt for her as if she had 
 been his own. A long time he walked about, 
 and his lips moved in prayer. By-and-by he 
 went and spoke to her. 
 
 " Miss Bighorne, I watched by his side 
 through his illness, I closed his eyes when all 
 was over. He has charged me with messages. 
 Shall I go away to-night and come again in the 
 morning? "
 
 262 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 " You closed his eyes ? You nursed him ? " 
 said Emily. " How good of you ! Pray, pray, 
 do not go away. I am better now. Please tell 
 me all to-night." 
 
 Slowly and sadly he went through the mourn- 
 ful details, often interrupted by her sorrow, 
 though she struggled against it bravely. She 
 was ashamed to break down so completely 
 before a stranger ; but his tact and kindness 
 encouraged her, and by the time he had con- 
 cluded, she was comparatively calm. 
 
 As they parted, she took both his hands and 
 looked straight into his honest eyes. 
 
 " I we papa and mamma and I owe you a 
 debt, Mr. Woods, we can never, never repay. You 
 have been a Christian and a Samaritan. God 
 will reward you. To-morrow my parents will 
 be here. You will, of course, come and stay 
 with us?"
 
 NEWS AT LAST. 263 
 
 There was a strange light in the curate's eyes, 
 and a strange flutter in his heart, as he went 
 out into the cheerless loneliness of London on 
 that dark November evening. 
 
 The morning after Emily Bighorne's interview 
 with Mr. Wood, disquieting rumours circulated 
 among the higher officials of Downing Street. 
 A Secretary of State was missing ; a disaster 
 considered in that quarter to be of the first mag- 
 nitude, though in outer society regarded as more 
 easily remediable than the sinking of an iron- 
 clad. Mr. Delamarre's word of honour hitherto 
 unimpeached at Tattersall's, on the turf, in the 
 ring, or even in the House of Commons, where 
 Ministerial exigencies sometimes run things very 
 close had at length been broken to a police- 
 man. With the aid of the ingenious Laycock, 
 the two detectives had been stretched on their 
 backs in the library no doubt narcotised, after
 
 264 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 preliminary potations and Mr. Delamarre and 
 his servant had disappeared. 
 
 It was six or seven hours after they had left 
 Mayfair before the escape was discovered, and 
 they were by that time a long way from London. 
 The evening papers alluded to mysterious 
 rumours about a gentleman of distinction, and 
 the next morning's press came out Avith the 
 whole story. The sofa in Mrs. Bellhouse's parlour 
 had been sold, and in overhauling it, the letter 
 addressed to Mr. Delamarre was found between 
 the cushion and the back. 
 
 The excitement was naturally intense. It 
 grew to white heat on the succeeding day when 
 Henry Bighorne's decease was announced, and 
 the newspapers published the few words of his 
 dying declaration, which acquitted Mr. Dela- 
 marre and himself of any direct responsibility 
 for Mrs. Hurline:ham's death. Then there was
 
 NEWS AT LAST. 265 
 
 a reaction in Mr. Delamarre's favour. It was a 
 keen sense of honour which had taken him away. 
 He could come back to society at all events, if 
 not to the Ministry. 
 
 The romance was so piquant. The higher 
 classes discussed it. The ' lower orders ' crowded 
 to Dover Street, Grosvenor Place, and St. Mar- 
 tin's Lane the three scenes of the tragedy 
 and besieged the bars of all the public-houses 
 in those neighbourhoods. Whether the excite- 
 ment be a war, or a funeral, or a murder, or a 
 wedding, or a comedy, or a cantata, there is 
 one person who may sit serene amidst it all 
 because each alike brings grist to his mill, and 
 money to his till that is the PUBLICAN ! 
 
 In the meantime, however, Mr. Delamarre had 
 placed himself beyond the possibility of return. 
 
 * * 
 
 *
 
 266 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 IV. A Clean Sweep. 
 
 A SHIP, the ' Four~Bells,' 950 tons, out of Ply- 
 mouth Sound, bound for New Zealand, was 
 running down the Channel before a south-east 
 breeze, freshening "to a gale. A noble clipper, 
 she had left Plymouth before daylight, on a 
 murky November morning, with a full cargo and 
 480 emigrants for Christchurch. The grey 
 afternoon had ended in a dark and dirty evening. 
 The^sea increased ; the wind, which now and 
 then swept up in angry gusts, brought with it a 
 cold and drizzly rain. The gallant ship, under 
 reefed mainsail, foresail, and topsails, danced before 
 the wind in the joy of strength and beauty her 
 taper mast and white sails bending gently to the 
 breeze, and her graceful hull skipping over the 
 white-topped waves like some living leviathan 
 sporting in the water. The emigrants had gone
 
 A CLEAN SWEEP. 267 
 
 below, most of them overcome by the weather, 
 and only two or three in shining waterproofs 
 remained on deck, clinging to the bulwarks on 
 the lee side. Two of these were talking to the 
 look-out on] the fore-deck, who, clad in oilskin 
 from head to foot, stood peering through the dark- 
 ening scurry of the elements, as the bow of the 
 noble vessel went up and down, to the roll and 
 hollowing of the waves, which ever and anon 
 flung their crests over the bulwarks with a 
 mighty splash, followed by the hissing swirl of 
 water to and fro as it rolled into the waterways 
 and out at the scuppers. 
 
 " I am the second mate," he had said, in 
 answer to one of the emigrants. 
 
 " Are you the only look-out ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 t " Is it not a very bad night ? " 
 
 " Dirty enough, sir."
 
 268 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 "Why, there's no one on deck but you and 
 the man at the wheel." 
 
 " Oh yes," replied the mate. " There's the 
 first-mate in his cabin ; and the captain too, for 
 that matter." 
 
 " Are you short-handed ? " 
 
 " Well, we are and we aren't," said the officer, 
 laughing. " We have a full crew aboard, but 
 they're not in working trim yet. They don't 
 muster well the first day, anyhow ; but I never 
 sailed with such a lot of drunken dogs as these." 
 
 " Do you mean to say they are all drunk ? " 
 
 " Drunk as fiddlers." 
 
 I am unable to state what degree of intoxi- 
 cation is implied by this standard of measure- 
 ment, though I presume it means that they 
 had waxed very drunk, but it certainly was a 
 long way beyond capacity to stand and act. 
 
 " And do you mean to say," said the elder of
 
 A CLEAN SWEEP. 269 
 
 the emigrants, who spoke in a cultivated, 
 authoritative tone, which the mate noticed 
 particularly, " that the captain has gone to sea 
 with only four able seamen on board, and that 
 you four are all there are to handle the ship 
 through such a night as this ? " 
 
 " There aren't four ! " replied the other, sen- 
 tentiously. " Captain's not quite straight yet." 
 
 " Good heavens ! " cried the emigrant. 
 " Here's a pretty look-out, Laycock ! " 
 
 The two consulted together for a moment. 
 
 " We shall remain on deck all night, sir," 
 said the man to the mate. " You can command 
 us for any aid we can render. I have taken my 
 turn at the ropes on a yacht now and then. 
 How do you dare to leave port under such 
 conditions ? " he continued warmly. " I shall 
 
 inquire into this matter personally " He 
 
 checked himself.
 
 270 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 "Well, sir," replied the mate, ^ dodging a 
 sprinkle of brine that came hissing over the 
 weather bow, " I don't know who you may be, 
 but how are we to help it ? We were ready to 
 sail at four o'clock yesterday afternoon, but our 
 fellows were all ashore, spending the last of the 
 credit they had on their advance-notes. There 
 was no one aboard but Jim Rousby there at the 
 wheel, and we mates. The captain was terribly 
 put out he ain't naturally sweet-tempered, any- 
 how, and he likes his glass of grog when he's 
 going to sea, though he doesn't take any on the 
 voyage. Six-bells struck, an hour before mid- 
 night, and he would stand it no longer. 
 ' Merton/ he said, ' you take Jim Rousby and go 
 ashore and get a couple of policemen, and bring 
 those fellows off, or lock 'em up, one or the 
 other.' I can assure you, sir, it's no fun going 
 ashore to look up such a crew as this in Ply-
 
 A CLEAN SWEEP. 27! 
 
 mouth hells. Low, dirty places they are, where 
 the crimps get hold of poor Jack, and prey on 
 him as if he was a pig or a sheep. And I'll tell 
 you what does it it's those advance-notes. The 
 owners think they bind the sailors by them, and 
 they do ; but I don't like such security. It 
 plays the devil with the shipping. We had to 
 go and drag those fellows out one by one ; some 
 dead drunk, some mad drunk, and we got the 
 whole lot off by early morning ; and my belief is 
 they haven't done yet. They have some stowed 
 away in the fo'ksle, or my name's not Merton.' " 
 On went the noble ship, the gale increasing 
 every minute. With great difficulty at four-bells, 
 aided by one or two stewards from the stern 
 cabin, the chief mate, who had charge of her 
 while the captain was sleeping off his annoy- 
 ance and his grog, managed to take in the main 
 and fore-sails, and she went plunging forwards
 
 2/2 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 under a jib and reefed fore-top-sail. The sea 
 began to sweep the deck from end to end, but 
 the two emigrants ~still clung to the rigging by 
 the bulwarks on the lee side. 
 
 Wilder and wilder grew the night Angry 
 scream of furious wind through strand and 
 rigging ; fierce plash and boom of billows break- 
 ing over the bow ; roar of the great waves far 
 and near wrestling with the gale ; rattle of 
 rolling blocks; squirm and creak of stay, and 
 girder, and beam, and planking ; and on the 
 decks below, among the crowded emigrants, 
 noises, and groaning, and women's shrieks, and 
 the cries of children. Still gallantly onward 
 went the ship, straining to her work, shaking off 
 the storm, and swiftly winning her way. And 
 well and warily did mates and steersman handle 
 her till eight-bells struck for the noon of night. 
 Then the storm seemed to be moderating, and
 
 A CLEAN SWEEP. 273 
 
 Delamarre, for it was he, turned to his com- 
 panion and said : 
 
 " I think we may go down now. I am fear- 
 fully cold and wet. Everything seems safe." 
 
 Yes ; everything is safe, as far as foresight of 
 generous owners could make it. A good ship, 
 picked captain, sufficient crew ; with these 
 they could face old ocean and laugh at the 
 boisterous elements. But there is one element 
 no care can outwit, no forecast guard against, 
 able at all times to cheat caution and proba- 
 bility, to defy skill and regulation, and that 
 element was aboard the ship that night. 
 
 The two men had reached the forward com- 
 panion, leading to the emigrants' quarter, for 
 they were travelling in disguise. Laycock 
 opened the door ; a puff of smoke, a flash of 
 lurid light athwart the lower deck, and a shriek 
 of ' Fire!' came at the instant from the forecastle 
 T
 
 274 THE DEVIL'S CHAIN. 
 
 of the ship flash of flame caused by the spirit 
 from a broken bottle which a drunken wretch 
 had fired with the match he struck to see what 
 had come of it. 
 
 "Fire! Fire! FIRE!" sharp shrieks and shouts 
 of men and women ; wail of frightened children 
 rushing to and fro, and deadly struggling for 
 life in the midst of blinding smoke ; curse and 
 scream of drunken sailors rolling in avenging 
 flames ; loud alarm of hurrying stewards rous- 
 ing the passengers in the stern cabin, and these, 
 unmindful of the bitter blast, rushing wildly upon 
 deck, and clinging together upon the poop near 
 the wheel. Here come strong men with a mad 
 rush for the boats, thrusting aside and trampling 
 down weak women and children. The captain, 
 wakened out of his sleep, stares in half-drunken 
 incapacity at the dreadful scene, or shouts incon- 
 gruous orders. Ignorant hands have swamped
 
 A CLEAN SWEEP. 
 
 two boats, and paid the penalty. William Merton, 
 like the brave young fellow he was, fought 
 desperately to save a third boat-load, and had 
 nearly succeeded, when a charge of frantic 
 labourers overpowered him, and he went down 
 among those he was trying to save, last hope of 
 that poor widow at Cherry- Luton, last of three 
 hopes, three several times blighted by the same 
 fell destroyer ! 
 
 And now at length two hundred souls are 
 crowded shivering on the stern poop, where Jim 
 Rousby still stands, with his mouth shut and his 
 eye keenly watching, keeping the tossing furnace 
 before the wind, the bright flames licking out 
 from the fore-hatchways, and fighting their way 
 slowly but surely against the storm along the 
 deck while the lurid light gleams on cringing 
 forms and pallid faces, and praying lips, and eyes 
 fixed in horror, and a scene of helpless despair.
 
 276 THE DEVIL'S CHAIX. 
 
 Facing the flames, in front of all, stands Dela- 
 marre, without his cloak, which he has thrown 
 over a half-naked girl, his hatless head erect, his 
 teeth clenched recalling to himself the long 
 distinguished and degraded past, and bravely 
 awaiting this obscure doom. 
 
 The flames, raging now with fierce heat, leaped 
 up around the main-mast and toward the mizen, 
 and onward to the poop deck. The dismal crowd 
 watched in fearful suspense ; for they knew that 
 deep down in the hold lay hogsheads of the same 
 fiery spirit that had set this hellish blaze a-going. 
 At length there was a short preliminary burst, 
 then another, then a fierce explosion, and the 
 wail and outcry of perishing mortality went up 
 to Heaven through the storm, as the victims of 
 the Drink Demon were swallowed up in the 
 yawning mouth of the relentless ocean. 
 
 McCorquodale & Co., Printers, " The Armoury," Southwark.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000056511 9
 
 * * 
 
 t 
 
 **. 
 
 *' 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 **##.** 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 * W * 
 
 i * * 
 
 * * * * ir 
 
 *<>*#* 
 
 <! 
 
 
 
 t * 
 
 
 
 * # 4 * 
 
 1 *ir 
 
 9 * 
 
 * * i*r * * .if 
 
 *