University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.

It would be painful to detail the steps by which Duncan Powell
descended into the depths of vice and moral ruin! From being the
inhabitant of a fashionable hotel; from sporting his bays upon the
Avenue and race-course; from giving sumptuous dinners and drinking
costly wines; from being the leader of a `certain set' and
envied for his riches, he became a lodger in a miserable tenement
in an obscure part of the city, made his appearance only in the
night, and then skulking like a guilty thing along the darkest passages;
his daily food scarcely gratifying the cravings of hunger, while
deep and beastly rum-drinking took the place of that fashionable
wine-bibbing, which had initiated him into intemperance. Hating
himself and shunned, as he shunned all his former associates, he
had fallen to the lowest state of degradation. Driven at length to
the verge of perishing, he sought and found associates, like himself,
shaken from the skirts of society; and, to get means to live, was
forced daily to become the companion of the vilest cut-throats that
ever infested a metropolis. At length, taught by them all the science
of burglary, theft, pocket-lifting, and other crimes, he soon became
a total outcast and set examples to his associates in villainy!
So low may man fall when he has suffered vice to obscure the
purity of his soul! when he has lived reckless of the admonitions
of his conscience, and given up to the world and the indulgences of
his passions the heart, which reason tells us should have been
placed on nobler and higher objects than love of pleasure and of
man's admiration.

Duncan Powell's revenge against the Jew had not slept in his
bosom! He felt his selfishness and avarice, in affording him facilities
for dissipation, had been mainly instrumental in leading him
into the ruin into which he was now plunged. At length his daily
brooded vengeance matured, and he resolved to carry into effect,
aided by four of the most desperate of his associates to whom he
communicated his plan, a project for not only revenging himself
upon him for his insults but also getting money.

The apartment in which this plan was canvassed was a low,
wretched room in the rear of a porter-cellar in the lowest alley of
the purlieus then known as the `Five Points.' A tallow candle,
stuck in the circular hole of a broken chair from which a round had
fallen, shed a murky light over the group, leaving the extremities of
the subterranean chamber in darkness. Visages such as three of
the four which surrounded Duncan, while their owners listened to
the detail of his plot, have seldom rejoiced the eyes of `Old
Hays.' One of them, known as `Butcher Bob,' was a thick-set fellow,
with the coarse features of an English man-of-war's-man, but
with nothing of the sailors in his appearance. One eye was covered
by a black handkerchief, a scar had severed his under lip, and the
deep scar of a knife-wound was in his cheek. He looked like a murderer,
every inch of him. He was seated on a beer-barrel, his arms
folded on his knees and his face bent towards the speaker, attentively
listening and at intervals approving. Opposite to him, a little
to the left, was a younger man, with a restless gray eye, thin lips,
and a countenance of reckless and savage resolution. His torm was
slight and sinewy, and his movements were nervous and cat-like.
Of the two he was the man most to be feared, by a victim who hoped
for mercy. He went by the name of Jakes. Next to him was a young
fellow in the remains of fashionable attire; his face bloated and red
by intemperance, and a look of dogged and sullen determination
upon his once fine but now degraded features. He was called Clendemen
by his associates, and his story, it was said by those who
knew him, was one of romance and of crime. The fourth was Paul
Tatnall.

His story, too, was one of vice, misery, and crime; but, as he is
not our principal hero, we shall enter into it only briefly. Having
once plunged into a reckless career, he had, as the coxswain of the
`River Rovers' Club,' led his band of dissolute young men into every
excess of lawless robbery! Every few days the police would
be startled by reports of vessels boarded by night, in the river, and
pilfered, by a party of young men, disguised, who pulled a long red
cutter, and who always escaped with their booty ere pursuit could
be made; of carriages stopped on the river-road, a few miles above
town, by a similar party; and ladies robbed of their watches, and
gentlemen of their pocket-books; of country houses situated near
the water, entered, and plate carried off; but, in all cases, the bold
perpetrators of these outrages escaped with impunity!

Their escape from detection had, in every instance, been owing
to Paul's tact, coolness, and daring, as well in planning the expeditions,
as in carrying them through. Hitherto his enterprises had
been bloodless, for his conscience was not yet seared; and, in his
retired moments, he even indulged the wild dream of being one day
restored to society, with the love of Catharine Ogilvie! He pursued
this reckless course for some months, till at length he became
disgusted with his companions, and sated with the life he led.
Reflections of his home and of his mother came to him, and he resolved
to leave them, and secretly visit his native Highlands, and
once more behold Catharine Ogilvie! He had come to this conclusion
one night after he had incurred the deadly hostility of four of
his companions, by rescuing from their lust, at the peril of his life,
a young girl whom they were bearing through the grounds of a
villa, to the boat. Other crimes which he refused to consent to had
brought upon him their malice; and, in his heart disgusted with,
and regretting his career, he resolved to withdraw from the club the
first opportunity.

This determination was made as they were about a league above
the city, rapidly pulling down the river, with curtains of black-painted
canvass hanging over the sides of their boat, to conceal her red
color; for they had been chased the last half hour by a police boat,
that had been several nights in search of them, and had just distanced
their pursuers! Steering her towards the slip opposite the
`Bowl and Pitcher,' they pulled on till they reached its head, nearly
up with the street, when, at a word from Paul, their oars were trailed,
and all stooping low, the sharp-bowed boat turned to either side
a two-leaved gate, so artfully constructed, as to resemble the solid
plank of the pier, and shot beneath the street through a low passage
that opened from the dock. The impetus of the motion was such
as to send her far under the dark-arched passage into a little square
basin, the size of a room, with a floor above, on which were heard
walkings. Scarcely had they disappeared beneath the pier ere a
boat came down the river and shot swiftly into the dock. It contained
a dozen men, and they were pulling with all their strength!
In the bows stood a police officer, with a night-glass to his eye!

`Give way, up the slip!' he cried, `and, on my life, we have
them! They are not yet landed! Give way, men, hard!'

The long heavy oars bent to their strength, and the barge was
within two lengths of the head of the dock, when the officer looked
about him with vexation and astonishment!

`They cannot have landed and carried their boat with them!
nor scuttled her so quick! This is mysterious!' And be glanced
around in every direction. It was half an hour after midnight, and
all was still around! But one vessel — a small sloop, was in the
slip, and this he saw did not conceal the fugitives. While he was
wondering at their escape, the barge, which had been moving forward
under the impetus that had been given it, threatened to strike
against the pier; but, before he could give orders to `back-water'
the bows touched, but, to their surprise, instead of rebounding, they
saw the pier yield and open to her advance! The surprised officer
was knocked into the bottom of the boat, which, after entering half
her length, stopped.

`Now we have them,' growled the undaunted police officer!
`shove her in with your hands! This is the way! It is as dark as
the infernal regions here! but I see a glimmering — ahead!
shove away!

With a hearty will the boat was drawn farther into the subterranean
water-way, and at length the officer saw the basin, looking
like a huge bath-room, beyond, and the `Rovers' slinging their
boat to hang dry from davits, by the aid of a dark lantern, held by
Paul.

The next moment they were upon them! Taken by surprise, the
party of river rovers, who were nine in number, stood their ground
bravely. The police-men were armed with cutlasses, and the others
with pistols and knives! The police fell upon them with determined
courage, and, inspired by the voice of Paul, they defended
themselves with desperate resolution. At length they were driven
— several fell, severely wounded, and the others fled, notwithstanding
all Paul could do by voice and example to restrain them,
through the door leading by a stair-way up into their rendezvous in
the `Bowl and Pitcher.' Finding all lost, Paul, who had been for
some time engaged single-handed with the police officer, succeeded in
disarming and wounding him; and then dashing out the light, plunged
into the basin. The others were pursued through the door, and all
were taken, to a man! Paul, accustomed to swimming the broad
Hudson, in the Highlands, when a Boy, succeeded, after swimming
through the passage, in gaining the slip. But as the noise of the
under-ground rencontre had drawn a numerous body of persons
about the precincts of the scene, he did not land; but swimming
out of the slip into the stream, he suffered himself to float half a
mile down the river, when he struck for the shore. He succeeded
in climbing the pier-head to the wharf, and was deliberating what
course he should pursue, when three men passed him, one of
whom, by his air and a sudden reflection of the street-lamp, he
knew to be Duncan Powell. He would not, perhaps, have recognized
him in the vile garb he wore, if he had not already heard of
his degradation and tall, since which he had sought to meet with

him; for he felt neither had any thing to reproach the other for.
He therefore now repeated his name.

The disinherited young man started and stopped! Paul came
forward and was instantly recognized, and as Duncan had heard
enough to suspect that Paul's way of life was little better than his
own, he warmly welcomed him, and introduced him to his companions,
`Jakes' and `Butcher Bob!' Desirous of knowing
something of Duncan's life, and anxious for concealment, he gladly
followed them to their den, whither they were returning, after a
burglarious expedition, in which they had been tolerably successful.

Paul, on the evening of the broaching of the latter's plot, had
been with Duncan three days, during which, each had been mutually
communicative concerning the past. Paul, however, could not
help feeling a disgust for his companions, and a contempt for Duncan's
degraded character, which he felt had fallen low, indeed!
He, himself, it is true, had been recklessly vicious, but never intemperate,
brutal, or murderous! Though he had made himself amenable
to justice, he had become so, rather from suffering himself to be
carried away by a carrent of impassioned feeling, from impalience
of restraint, than from a love of vice and plunder. His head, perhaps,
rather than his heart, had been wrong; while Duncan had
fallen low in degradation, both in head and heart; he was maliciously
bad and revengeful from principle! If either could be ever
reclaimed from his course, that one was Paul!

The plot which Duncan communicated was well received!
Paul, who was with him only for a shelter during the search made
for him, look no part in it, save as a listener! Under the pretence
of breaking into the Jew's premises and robbing him, Duncan, who
well knew he kept no coin in his dwelling, contemplated carrying
off the daughter in revenge for the double insult of her father's proposing
her to him as the purchase-price of Kirkwood, and of refusing
him permission afterwards to see her. His motives, in wishing
to get her into his power, were baser than those of mere avarice!
He knew well he could avenge himself on the Jew by the ruin of
his daughter!

`You shall have the gold, boys,' he said, and I will have the
daughter; and if the old man will ransom her, you are to share.
This is fair!'

`Fair enough,' was assented all round; `but what are you going
to do with the girl?' growled Butcher Bob.

`I have got a boarding house for her, at Jinny Carnhy's, answered
Duncan, in a significant tone. `Don't trouble yourselves!'

`But how'll you get a squalling woman along the streets?' said
Jakes. `The Charlies'll nab us, every soul! It'll dash the business
at once! Let the girl alone!'

`Never,' said Duncan, in a deep, emphatic tone. `She shall not
whimper!'