some very slight expectation which had little chance of being realised, when they were suddenly joined by this new associate. They halted with an exclamation of surprise, but suppressed it immediately; for a man in the garments of a countryman came close up — brushed against them, indeed — at that precise moment.
‘Not here,’ said Nancy hurriedly, ‘I am afraid to speak to you here. Come away — out of the public road — down the steps yonder!’
As she uttered these words, and indicated, with her hand, the direction in which she wished them to proceed, the countryman looked round, and roughly asking what they took up the whole pavement for, passed on.
The steps to which the girl had pointed, were those which, on the Surrey bank, and on the same side of the bridge as Saint Saviour’s Church, form a landing-stairs from the river. To this spot, the man bearing the appearance of a countryman, hastened unobserved; and after a moment’s survey of the place, he began to descend.
These stairs are a part of the bridge; they consist of three flights. Just below the end of the second, going down, the stone wall on the left terminates in an ornamental pilaster facing towards the Thames. At this point the lower steps widen: so that a person turning that angle of the wall, is necessarily unseen by any others on the stairs who chance to be above him, if only a step. The countryman looked hastily round, when he reached this point; and as there seemed no better place of concealment, and, the tide being out, there was plenty of room, he slipped aside, with his back to the pilaster, and there waited: pretty certain that they would come no lower, and that even if he could not hear what was said, he could follow them again, with safety.
So tardily stole the time in this lonely place, and so eager was the spy to penetrate the motives of an interview so different from what he had been led to expect, that he more than once gave the matter up for lost, and persuaded himself, either that they had stopped far above, or had resorted to some entirely different spot to hold their mysterious conversation. He was on the point of emerging from his hiding-place, and regaining the road above, when he heard the sound of footsteps, and directly afterwards of voices almost close at his ear.
He drew himself straight upright against the wall, and, scarcely breathing, listened attentively.
‘This is far enough,’ said a voice, which was evidently that of the gentleman. ‘I will not suffer the young lady to go any farther. Many people would have distrusted you too much to have come even so far, but you see I am willing to humour you.’
‘To humour me!’ cried the voice of the girl whom he had followed. ‘You’re considerate, indeed, sir. To humour me! Well, well, it’s no matter.’
‘Why, for what,’ said the gentleman in a kinder tone, ‘for what purpose can you have brought us to this strange place? Why not have let me speak to you, above there, where it is light, and there is something stirring, instead of bringing us to this dark and dismal hole?’
‘I told you before,’ replied Nancy, ‘that I was afraid to speak to you there. I don’t know why it is,’ said the girl, shuddering, ‘but I have such a fear and dread upon me tonight that I can hardly stand.’
‘A fear of what?’ asked the gentleman, who seemed to pity her.
‘I scarcely know of what,’ replied the girl. ‘I wish I did. Horrible thoughts of death, and shrouds with blood upon them, and a fear that has made me burn as if I was on fire, have been upon me all day. I was reading a book tonight, to wile the time away, and the same things came into the print.’
‘Imagination,’ said the gentleman, soothing her.
‘No imagination,’ replied the girl in a hoarse voice. ‘I’ll swear I saw “coffin” written in every page of the book in large black letters, — aye, and they carried one close to me, in the streets tonight.’
‘There is nothing unusual in that,’ said the gentleman. ‘They have passed me often.’
‘Real ones,’ rejoined the girl. ‘This was not.’
There was something so uncommon in her manner, that the flesh of the concealed listener crept as he heard the girl utter these words, and the blood chilled within him. He had never experienced a greater relief than in hearing the sweet voice of the young lady as she begged her to be calm, and not allow herself to become the prey of such fearful fancies.
‘Speak to her kindly,’ said the young lady to her companion. ‘Poor creature! She seems to need it.’
‘Your haughty religious people would have held their heads up to see me as I am tonight, and preached of flames and vengeance,’ cried the girl. ‘Oh, dear lady, why ar’n’t those who claim to be God’s own folks as gentle and as kind to us poor wretches as you, who, having youth, and beauty, and all that they have lost, might be a little proud instead of so much humbler?’
‘Ah!’ said the gentleman. ‘A Turk turns his face, after washing it well, to the East, when he says his prayers; these good people, after giving their faces such a rub against the World as to take the smiles off, turn with no less regularity, to the darkest side of Heaven. Between the Mussulman and the Pharisee, commend me to the first!’
These words appeared to be addressed to the young lady, and were perhaps uttered with the view of affording Nancy time to recover herself. The gentleman, shortly afterwards, addressed himself to her.
‘You were not here last Sunday night,’ he said.
‘I couldn’t come,’ replied Nancy; ‘I was kept by force.’
‘By whom?’
‘Him that I told the young lady of before.’
‘You were not suspected of holding any communication with anybody on the subject which has brought us here tonight, I hope?’ asked the old gentleman.
‘No,’ replied the girl, shaking her head. ‘It’s not very easy for me to leave him unless he knows why; I couldn’t give him a drink of laudanum before I came away.’
‘Did he awake before you returned?’ inquired the gentleman.
‘No; and neither he nor any of them suspect me.’
‘Good,’ said the gentleman. ‘Now listen to me.’
‘I am ready,’ replied the girl, as he paused for a moment.
‘This young lady,’ the gentleman began, ‘has communicated to me, and to some other friends who can be safely trusted, what you told her nearly a fortnight since. I confess to you that I had doubts, at first, whether you were to be implicitly relied upon, but now I firmly believe you are.’
‘I am,’ said the girl earnestly.
‘I repeat that I firmly believe it. To prove to you that I am disposed to trust you, I tell you without reserve, that we propose to extort the secret, whatever it may be, from the fear of this man Monks. But if — if — ‘ said the gentleman, ‘he cannot be secured, or, if secured, cannot be acted upon as we wish, you must deliver up the Jew.’
‘Fagin,’ cried the girl, recoiling.
‘That man must be delivered up by you,’ said the gentleman.
‘I will not do it! I will never do it!’ replied the girl. ‘Devil that he is, and worse than devil as he has been to me, I will never do that.’
‘You will not?’ said the gentleman, who seemed fully prepared for this answer.
‘Never!’ returned the girl.
‘Tell me why?’
‘For one reason,’ rejoined the girl firmly, ‘for one reason, that the lady knows and will stand by me in, I know she will, for I have her promise: and for this other reason, besides, that, bad life as he has led, I have led a bad life too; there are many of us who have kept the same courses together, and I’ll not turn upon them,