And here the Resurrection Man laughed outright:—it was a horrible chuckle—the triumph of a miscreant of a most atrocious nature.
But he was happy—happy after his own fashion;—happy in counting and contemplating the produce of his turpitude.
While he was consigning his wealth to the larger bag, and gloating over the gold as he passed it through his hand, he was suddenly alarmed by a slight sound in the passage.
It seemed like a low footstep.
He listened, but it was not repeated.
For nearly a minute did he remain motionless, and almost breathless, in a state of painful attention; but not another sound met his ear.
Then, recovering from the state of uneasy suspense into which that incident had thrown him, he rose from the floor, and hurried into the passage which divided the two rows of cells.
All was quiet.
Ashamed of himself for his childish alarm, and stuttering a curse at his folly for having given way to that fear, he returned into the cell, buried his treasure and covered the place with the stone. He then carefully locked the door of the dungeon.
He crossed the passage, and proceeded gently to open the door leading into the cell occupied by Viola. When he entered this vault, he found the lamp extinguished;—but by the glare of his candle, he perceived the unhappy woman stretched in a profound slumber upon the bed.
“All right,” he muttered to himself,—“and just as I expected. She will sleep some hours yet, for the wine was well drugged; and thus we can convey her back again to her house in a state of insensibility. When she awakes in her own bed, her servants will assure her that all she has passed through was a mere dream; and by this plan she will be so bewildered, that she will actually fancy she has been delirious, and that her brain has wandered. This was Chichester’s suggestion; and I must give him credit for it. True—she will sooner or later discover that the departure of half her property is no dream; but then the first burst of passion will have gone by, and she will consider it prudent to hold her tongue. Well—let her sleep: at nine o’clock Chichester and Tomlinson will come, and then she shall be removed.”
At that instant an idea struck the Resurrection Man. Hitherto he had worked as Chichester’s agent, and by Chichester’s directions, in this affair: what if he were to turn the business to some good account for himself? The lady had only parted with half her property: she had eight thousand pounds left. Might not all, or a decent portion of this sum thus remaining, pass into the hands of the Resurrection Man? His mode of treatment had excited the first concession: some additional horrors might extort a further grant. The idea was excellent: fool that he was for not having thought of it before!
Thus reasoned Anthony Tidkins.
The more he thought of the new plot which had just entered his head, the more he grew enamoured of it. He was well aware that neither Chichester nor Tomlinson would dare to adopt measures to resist his will; and with a grin of savage delight, he exclaimed aloud, “By God, it shall be done!”
He then removed the bottle of wine from the cell, so that when Viola awoke she might not repeat her dose—supposing that she should be ignorant of the cause of her long lethargic slumber; for the Resurrection Man was not aware of the sudden effect which it had produced upon her, but imagined that the drugged liquid was only powerful enough to operate gradually. He next replenished the lamp with oil from a bottle which stood in one corner of the cell, and, having lighted the lamp, withdrew, carefully bolting and locking the door behind him.
He ascended from the subterranean prison, replaced the stone trap-door, and issued from the ground-floor of the house. He observed that the door leading into the alley was locked as he had left it when he entered; and this circumstance reassured him relative to the little incident which had temporarily disturbed him when counting his money in the cell.
Many circumstances combined to put the Resurrection Man into an excellent humour.
He had that day added four hundred pounds to his hidden treasure; he saw business of all kinds multiplying upon his hands, and promising a golden harvest; and he had hit upon a scheme which, he had no doubt, would produce him a larger sum than he had ever yet realized even in his dreams.
It was therefore with a smiling countenance that he entered the up-stairs room where the Rattlesnake was busily employed in spreading the contents of her cupboard upon the table.
“Well, Meg, you see I am home before my time,” he exclaimed. “I don’t want any dinner: I took some at a chop-house in town, as I had to wait on business. But leave the lush: I am in a humour for a glass of grog;—and you and I, Meg, will sit down and have a cozy chat together.”
“So we will, Tony,” returned the woman, with a manner even more wheedling and fawning than she had ever before used towards her terrible paramour. “You seem in excellent spirits, Tony.”
“Yes, Meg—excellent: I have done a good day’s work—and now I will enjoy myself till nine o’clock,—when I have got to meet two gentlemen close by here on another little matter.”
“Ah! you seldom tell me what you are doing, Tony,” said the Rattlesnake.
“No—no: I don’t like trusting women a bit farther than I can see them. Such things as getting up a body or so—well and good; but serious things, Meg—serious things, never!”
“Well, just as you like,” returned Margaret Flathers, affecting a smile as if she were quite satisfied; but as she turned to replace the meat in the cupboard, her countenance involuntarily assumed an expression of mysterious triumph.
“Come, now—sit down,” said the Resurrection Man: “give me a pipe, and brew me my lush. There—that’s a good girl.”
Tidkins lighted his pipe, and smoked for some moments in silence.
“I tell you what, Meg,” he exclaimed, after a pause; “you shall sing me a song. I feel in such an uncommon good humour this evening—in such excellent spirits. No—I won’t have a song: I tell you what you shall do.”
“What?” said Margaret, as she mixed two glasses of gin and water.
“You shall tell me all about the coal-mines, you know—your own history. You told it me once before; but then I wasn’t in a humour to hear you. I missed half, and have forgot t’other half. So now come—let’s have the Life and Adventures of Miss Margaret Flathers.”
The Resurrection Man laughed at this joke—as he considered and meant it to be; and the Rattlesnake, who never dared to thwart him in any thing, and who apparently had some additional motive to humour him on this occasion, hastened to comply with his request—or rather command.
She accordingly related her history, the phraseology of which we have taken the liberty materially to correct and amend, in the following manner.
CHAPTER CXVI.
THE RATTLESNAKE’S HISTORY.[162]
“I WAS born in a coal-mine in Staffordshire. My father was a married man, with five or six children by his wife: my mother was a single woman, who worked for him in the pit. I was, therefore, illegitimate; but this circumstance was neither considered disgraceful to my mother nor to myself, morality being on so low a scale amongst the mining population generally, as almost to amount to promiscuous intercourse. My mother was only eighteen when I was born. She worked in the pit up to the very hour of my birth; and when she found the labour-pains coming on, she threw off the belt and chain with which she had been dragging a heavy corf (or wicker basket), full of coal, up a slanting road,—retired to a damp cave in a narrow passage leading to the foot of the shaft, and there gave birth to her child. That child was myself. She wrapped me up in her petticoat, which was all the clothing she had on at the time, and crawled with me, along the passage, which was about two feet and a half high, to the bottom of the shaft. There she got into the basket, and was drawn up a height of about two hundred and thirty feet—holding the rope with her right hand, and supporting me on her left arm.
She often told me those particulars and said how she thought she should faint as she was ascending in the rickety vehicle, and how difficult she found it to maintain her hold of the rope, weak and enfeebled as she was. She, however, reached the top in safety, and hastened home to her miserable hovel—for she was an orphan, and lived by herself. In a week she was up again, and back to her work in the pit; and she hired a bit of a girl, about seven or eight years old, to take care of me.
“How my infancy was passed I, of course, can only form an idea by the mode of treatment generally adopted towards babies in the mining districts, and under such circumstances as those connected with my birth. My mother would, perhaps, come up from the pit once, in the middle of the day, to give me my natural nourishment; and when I screamed during her absence, the little girl, who acted as my nurse, most probably thrust a teaspoonful of some strong opiate down my throat to make me sleep and keep me quiet. Many children are killed by this treatment; but the reason of death, in such cases, is seldom known, because the Coroner’s assistance is seldom required in the mining districts.
“When I was seven years old, my mother one day told me that it was now high time for me to go down with her into the pit, and earn some money by my own labour. My father, who now and then called to see me of a Sunday, and brought me a cake or a toy, also declared that I was old enough to help my mother. So it was decided that I should go down into the pit. I remember that I was very much frightened at the idea, and cried very bitterly when the dreaded day came. It was a cold winter’s morning—I recollect that well; and the snow was very thick upon the ground. I shivered with chilliness and terror as my mother led me to the pit. She gave me a good scolding because I whimpered; and then a good beating because I cried lustily. But every thing combined to make me afraid. It was as early as five in that cold wintry morning that I was proceeding to a scene of labour which I knew to be far, far under the earth. The dense darkness of the hour was not even relieved by the white snow upon the ground; but over the country were seen blazing fires on every side,—fires which appeared to me to be issuing from the very bowels of the earth, but which were in reality burning upon the surface, for the purpose of converting coal into coke: there were also blazing fields of bituminous shale; and all the tall chimneys of the great towers of the iron furnaces vomited forth flames,—the whole scene thus forming a picture well calculated to appal and startle an infant mind.
“I remember at this moment what my feelings were then—as well as if the incident I am relating had only occurred yesterday. During the day-light I had seen the lofty chimneys giving vent to columns of dense smoke, the furnaces putting forth torrents of lurid flame, and the coke-fires burning upon the ground: but that was the first time I had ever beheld those meteors blazing amidst utter darkness; and I was afraid—I was afraid.
“The shaft was perfectly round, and not more than four feet in diameter. The mode of ascent and descent was precisely that of a well, with this difference—that, instead of a bucket there was a stout iron bar about three feet long attached in the middle, and suspended horizontally, to the end of the rope. From each end of this bar hung chains with hooks, to draw up the baskets of coal. This apparatus was called the clatch-harness. Two people ascended or descended at a time by these means. They had to sit cross-legged, as it were, upon the transverse bar, and cling to the rope. Thus, the person who got on first sate upon the bar, and the other person sate a-straddle on the first one’s thighs. An old woman presided at the wheel which wound up or lowered the rope sustaining the clatch-harness; and as she was by no means averse to a dram, the lives of the persons employed in the mine were constantly at the mercy of that old drunken harridan. Moreover, there seemed to me to be great danger in the way in which the miners got on and off the clatch-harness. One moment’s giddiness—a missing of the hold of the rope—and down to the bottom of the shaft headlong! When the clatch-harness was drawn up to the top, the old woman made the handle fast by a bolt drawn out from the upright post, and then, grasping a hand of both persons on the harness at the same time, brought them by main force to land. A false step on the part of that old woman,—the failure of the bolt which stopped the rotatory motion of the roller on which the rope was wound,—or the slipping of the hands which she grasped in hers,—and a terrible accident must have ensued!
“But to return to my first descent into the pit. My mother, who was dressed in a loose jacket, open in front, and trousers (which, besides her shoes, were the only articles of clothing on her, she wearing neither shirt nor stockings), leapt upon the clatch-iron as nimbly as a sailor in the rigging of his ship. She then received me from the outstretched arm of the old woman, and made me sit in the easiest and safest posture she could imagine. But when I found myself being gradually lowered down into a depth as black as night, I felt too terror-struck even to cry out; and had not my mother held me tight with one hand, I should have fallen precipitately into that hideous dark profundity.
“At length we reached the bottom, where my mother lifted me, half dead with giddiness and fright, from the clatch-iron. I felt the soil cold, damp, and muddy, under my feet. A lamp was burning in a shade suspended in a little recess in the side of the shaft; and my mother lighted a bit of candle which she had brought with her, and which she stuck into a piece of clay to hold it by. Then I perceived a long dark passage, about two feet and a half high, branching off from the foot of the shaft. My mother went on her hands and knees, and told me to creep along with her. The passage was nearly six feet wide; and thus there was plenty of room for me to keep abreast of her. Had not this been the case, I am sure that I never should have had the courage either to precede, or follow her; for nothing could be more hideous to my infantine imagination than that low, yawning, black-mouthed cavern, running into the very bowels of the earth, and leading I knew not whither. Indeed, as I walked in a painfully stooping posture along by my mother’s side, my fancy conjured up all kinds of horrors. I trembled lest some invisible hand should suddenly push forth from the side of the passage, and clutch me in its grasp: I dreaded lest every step I took might precipitate me into some tremendous abyss or deep well: I thought that the echoes which I heard afar off, and which were the sounds of the miner’s pickaxe or the rolling corves on the rails, were terrific warnings that the earth was falling in, and would bury us alive: then, when the light of my mother’s candle suddenly fell upon some human being groping his or her way along in darkness, I shuddered at the idea of encountering some ferocious monster or hideous spectre:—in a word, my feelings, as I toiled along that subterranean passage, were of so terrific a nature that they produced upon my memory an impression which never can be effaced, and which makes me turn cold all over as I contemplate those feelings now!
“You must remember that I had been reared in a complete state of mental darkness; and that no enlightened instruction had dispelled the clouds of superstition which naturally obscure the juvenile mind. I could not read: I had not even been taught my alphabet. I had not heard of such a name as JESUS CHRIST; and all the mention of God that had ever met my ears, was in the curses and execrations which fell from the lips of my father, my mother, her acquaintances, and even the little girl who had nursed me. You cannot wonder, then, if I was so appalled, when I first found myself in that strange and terrific place.
“At length we reached the end of that passage, and struck into another, which echoed with the noise of pickaxes. In a few moments I saw the undergoers (or miners) lying on their sides, and with their pickaxes breaking away the coal. They did not work to a greater height than two feet, for fear, as I subsequently learnt, that they should endanger the security of the roof of the passage, the seam of coal not being a thick one. I well remember my infantine alarm and horror when I perceived that these men were naked—stark naked. But my mother did not seem to be the least abashed or dismayed: on the contrary, she laughed and exchanged a joke with each one as we passed. In fact, I afterwards discovered that Bet Flathe
rs was a great favourite with the miners.
“Well, we went on, until we suddenly came upon a scene that astonished me not a little. The passage abruptly opened into a large room,—an immense cave, hollowed out of the coal in a seam that I since learnt to be twenty feet in thickness. This cave was lighted by a great number of candles; and at a table sate about twenty individuals—men, women, and children—all at breakfast. There they were, as black as negroes—eating, laughing, chattering, and drinking. But, to my surprise and disgust, I saw that the women and young girls were all naked from the waist upwards, and many of the men completely so. And yet there was no shame—no embarrassment! But the language that soon met my ears!—I could not comprehend half of it, but what I did understand, made me afraid!
“My mother caught me by the hand, and led me to the table, where I found my father. He gave us some breakfast; and in a short time, the party broke up—the men, women, and children separating to their respective places of labour. My mother and myself accompanied one of the men, for my mother had ceased to work for my father, since she had borne a child to him, as his wife had insisted upon their separation in respect to labour in the mine.
“The name of the man for whom my mother worked was Phil Blossom. He was married, but had no children. His wife was a cripple, having met with some accident in the mine, and could not work. He was therefore obliged to employ some one to carry his coal from the place where he worked, to the cart that conveyed it to the foot of the shaft. Until I went down into the mine, my mother had carried the coal for him, and also hurried (or dragged) the cart; but she now made me fill one cart while she hurried another. Thus, at seven years old, I had to carry about fifty-six pounds of coal in a wooden bucket. When the passage was high enough I carried it on my back; but when it was too low, I had to drag or push it along as best I could. Some parts of the passages were only twenty-two inches in height; this was where the workings were in very narrow seams; and the difficulty of dragging such a weight, at such an age, can be better understood than explained. I can well recollect that when I commenced that terrible labour, the perspiration, commingling with my tears, poured down my face.
The Mysteries of London Volume 1 Page 119