 | CHAPTER XI.
THE ESCAPE. Ellen Norbury, or, The adventures of an orphan |  |
11. CHAPTER XI.
THE ESCAPE.
It is needless to say, that the long hours of her solitary
confinement, after awaking from the sleep into which she
had fallen, were hours of torture to little Ellen. And yet
it was not the imprisonment itself, nor the danger that
seemed to menace her personally, that most troubled her—
benefactors of having robbed them. In anguish of spirit,
she groaned aloud, and wrung her hands, and sobbed,
and prayed to God to deliver her, that she might make
her innocence known. Throughout that day, as we have
elsewhere said, all remained silent below; and Ellen at
last became impressed with the belief that the house had
been deserted by its late criminal occupants, and that she
was herself the only human being within its walls. Perhaps
they had made off with their plunder, and left her
there to escape or perish! The thought was somewhat
consoling—for any fate seemed better than that of remaining
in their hands.
Barely tasting the plain food which had been placed by
her side—and this rather for the purpose of supporting her
drooping form, than because she had any appetite—she
passed the greater portion of the day in praying for deliverance,
without making any attempt to examine the
security of her prison. As night approached, and the
house continued silent, it suddenly occurred to her, that
possibly she might escape. Instantly the bare hope made
every nerve thrill with a strange sensation; and she
started to her feet, feeling her strength increased in a surprising
degree. She now passed around the room, examining
every part; and at length discovered that one of the boards,
which closed up the window, had been nailed on in a manner
so careless, as to require no great strength to wrench it
off. With emotions of hope, joy, and fear indescribable, she
clasped her hands, and murmured:
“Oh! I may yet escape!”
The hour was still too early to make the trial with safety;
and so Ellen sat down by the window, her little heart wildly
throbbing, and awaited with what patience and calmness
she could summon to her aid, the moment when the
effect, without exposing it to others. If she could but succeed
in removing this board, the aperture would be sufficient
to admit her body, when she could drop to the
ground, without much danger of being injured—the distance
not being over ten or twelve feet. But it would be
necessary to her purpose, to await the opportunity when
none of the occupants of the miserable shanties around
and adjoining might be on the lookout, or any one passing
along the miserable alley—lest discovery, exciting curiosity,
should lead to inquiry, and be the means of restoring her
to her dreaded jailors, or of placing her in a situation as
dreadful as her present one.
The sun went down at last, and night gradually gathered
around our anxious, trembling prisoner; but for an hour
or two, the certainty that there were a number of persons
moving about in the narrow alley in which the hovel in
question was situated, deterred her from making the
attempt, on whose success she felt hung more than life.
During the period that she was occupied in listening, some
person came to the door, which was just under the window
by which she was seated, and tried to gain admittance
—but failed, and went away, grumbling and cursing. This,
although Ellen did not know it, was Mulwrack himself, who
had remained secreted in another place during the day, and
was then on his way to pay that visit to Deacon Pinchbeck,
of which we have given an account in the preceding chapter.
And we may as well state here, that, notwithstanding
the old hovel had the appearance of being untenanted, and
was so quiet as to lead Ellen to suppose the occupants had
all left, yet Margaret was in the room below, lying on a
straw mattrass, in a state of beastly intoxication.
At last the time arrived when Ellen thought she might
venture to begin her work; and applying all her strength
labor, in wrenching it off, without making sufficient noise
to attract the attention of any one outside. Who shall
describe her feelings now, as she stood within the aperture,
prepared for flight, and felt the cool night-breeze upon
her fevered brow and cheek? Before her were life,
liberty, innocence, and happiness—behind her, misery,
crime, imprisonment, and perhaps death! Could she
hesitate which to choose? Taking hold of the window-casement,
she gradually lowered herself, till she hung by
her hands, and then dropped to the ground without injury.
She was now in a dark, narrow, filthy alley, and knew not
which way to go; but any way was better than standing
still; and any place, she fancied, better than the one
she had left. So she started forward, groping along in a
darkness as black and cheerless as the dismal shades of
Erebus; but had not gone far, when her foot slipped on
the muddy earth, and she pitched her whole weight upon
the body of some human being, stretched out upon the damp
ground. Terrified nearly out of her senses, she uttered a
sharp cry, scrambled upon her feet, and passed over the
body, which still lay motionless—but whether dead, or
drunk, she had no means of knowing, and certainly did
not consider herself in a proper condition to stop and ascertain.
A little further on, she reached the corner of the
alley, and turned into another, which, if there could be
any comparison between such vile places, was worse than
the first. She now became aware that she had taken the
wrong direction to reach the larger street by the shortest
course—but still kept on, fearing to retrace her steps
Suddenly she found her progress terminated by an old
crazy building, which stretched across the alley, and which
was apparently filled with human beings of the lowest and
most degraded class. Here and there a crevice showed
and hoarse, cracked voices, giving vent to profanity and obscenity,
with an occasional demoniac yell, and the stamping
and shuffling of many feet, indicated that orgies were
there taking place, more worthy of the fiends of darkness
than of beings made in the image of Jehovah.
Little Ellen shuddered as she listened, and she looked
around in terror and bewilderment. She could not go
forward, and she trembled at the thought of going back;
while to remain where she was, was almost certain to lead
to discovery. And then, if missed from her prison, every
exertion she knew would be made to recapture her—and
nowhere in this loathsome quarter could she feel herself
safe for a moment. What was to be done? She crossed
the street, and discovered a board fence, which ran between
the larger building and a low, miserable hovel.
Should she climb this fence and try her fortune on the
other side? It seemed preferable to turning back, or remaining
where she was; and so she made haste to mount,
and descend into a small, muddy, filthy lot, which abounded
with stagnant pools, dead animals, and decaying offal,
whose sickening stench and malarious poison were almost
insupportable. In attempting to cross this open ground,
to where she saw a light glimmering on the other side, little
Ellen soon found herself sinking in a miry pool; and she
was forced to retrace her steps, with wet, muddy feet.
She now passed around by the fence, which enclosed the
lot on one side, to the rear of some low, miserable shanties;
and while searching for a passage-way into the street, she
trod upon a rotten cellar-door, which gave way under her
light weight, and plunged her into a dark, damp vault,
where, her head striking against the ground, she was deprived
of consciousness.
How long she lay in a state of insensibility, she never
the damp earth, on the very spot where she had fallen, and
around her a darkness impenetrable to the eye; while the
stench was so overpowering, that it seemed as if she would
faint with every foul breath she drew. She looked up
through the broken door, and perceived one or two stars
twinkling in their far-off realms; and the sight brought a
ray of hope to her despairing soul. She got upon her
feet, feeling cold, weak, and dizzy, and made an effort to
get out of her second prison—but only to meet with failure.
The slimy wall was high above her head, and there
were neither stairs nor ladder, nor aught that she could
stand upon, to reach the top with her hands. She was
afraid to call for help, lest she should be discovered by
some one who would return her to her late jailors—and
yet to remain where she was, seemed little less terrible.
While she thus stood trembling, uncertain what to do,
she was startled by a dismal groan, which seemed to proceed
from some object enclosed within the same horrible
pit as herself. She sunk down terrified, afraid to speak or
move; and again that awful groan sounded in her ear, and
she heard something move within a few feet of her. This
was an accumulation of terrors, greater than her over-tasked
nerves could bear, and nature kindly came to her
relief. She swooned, and for a long time lay as one dead,
on the damp ground, in that noisome, pestilential atmosphere.
When consciousness again returned, the gray of morning
was struggling to dispel the darkness from the
horrible vault, or cellar, in which Ellen had passed that
eventful night. At first her mind was too much confused
and bewildered to permit her to comprehend where she
was, or how she came there; but by degrees memory gave
forth each event, in the order of its occurrence, and she
weak and stiff as scarcely to be able to get upon her feet.
An object, at the distance of some two or three paces—which
appeared to be the figure of a man, stretched out upon the
earth, though barely seen in the gloomy light—arrested
her attention, and caused a cold shudder of dread undefinable
to pass through her slender frame. There seemed
something awful in that still form, seen in that dismal
abode, in that dreary, uncertain light—something that
seemed to tell of death in one of its most terrible forms—
of death when the soul leaves the body without a friend
nigh, to speak a consoling word, or breathe a kind farewell.
Should she approach that object, and learn the truth, the
horrible truth? She involuntarily shrunk back, trembling
at the bare thought; and yet a mysterious spell seemed to
fasten her eyes there, and she fancied it impossible to remove
her gaze. Slowly, slowly, she drew near the mysterious
object; and at last, shuddering with unspeakable
terror, bent over it. Yes! it was a dead body—a skeleton
body—the body of a man who had perished of starvation
and a loathsome, contagious disease—a disease that gives
forth its seeds long after the breath has ceased.
Horror-stricken, poor Ellen turned away, looking for
some means of escape. A hollow, unearthly groan again
sounded in her ear; and for a moment she felt as if
her senses were again leaving her. She looked wildly
around, and, in the increasing light, saw another human
form, stretched out on the damp ground, only a few feet
distant from the first. This second object moved—it
was alive. Nerved by the courage that springs from desperation,
Ellen approached, and bent over it, in the dim
light. She saw it was a woman—a woman in the last stage
of mortal suffering. Partly resting on her breast, with
one arm of the living mother thorwn around it, lay a dead
father dead—the child dead—the mother dying! Heavens!
what a scene!
And yet, kind reader, a scene that is not fictitious, and
wrought up for effect—a scene that is not uncommon in
the loathsome quarter we have sought to bring to your
notice. Must such scenes continue to be of almost daily
occurrence in our populous and wealthy cities? Will man
never learn the duty he owes to his God, and assist his
fellow man, by lifting him up from the miry pit of degradation
and misery?—and by feeding him, and clothing
him, give him palpable assurance that he is one of the
great human family, whose kind and loving Father is in
Heaven? We hope so! we trust so! God in mercy forbid
that it should be otherwise!
“Can I do anything for you, poor woman?” inquired
little Ellen, in a low, gentle, pitying tone, as she bent
over the dying mother.
“Who speaks?” returned the sufferer, opening her eyes,
and fixing them upon Ellen, with a wild and somewhat
vacant stare.
“Can I do any thing for you, poor woman?” repeated
Ellen.
“Do! for me?” cried the wretched mother, striving to
fix her eyes upon the cold dead infant on her bosom.
“Yes! take this little one away, and nurse it, and take
care of it, and look to God for your reward.”
“But the child is dead!” said Ellen, deeply affected.
“Right!” rejoined the mother, speaking with difficulty;
“you are right! it is dead! and it is better off than the
living. But my husband—my dear husband—he is sick
and suffering—yonder—help him if you can—I am past
all human aid!”
“Alas! he is dead too!” sighed Ellen.
“Dead?” repeated the woman, making an effort to rise,
and speaking in a wild, startled tone. “Dead? all dead?”
She closed her eyes, shut her teeth hard, drew in a long
breath, and sent it forth in a shriek of anguish.
It was her last. With that shriek her spirit parted
from the clay, and stood in a better world; and poor
little Ellen was alone with the dead, in that damp, dismal
vault.
With a cry of horror, she turned to escape. A broken
chair caught her eye. She seized this, and bore it to the
mouth of what was now a charnel house. Mounting upon
it, and stretching up her slender form, she was barely able
to grasp the sill of the doorway above. Weak though she
was, the excitement of horror and terror gave her strength;
and she drew her body up into the light of breaking day,
and for a few moments seemed to gulp the fresh air, as one
struggling against suffocation.
She was now in the same lot or open space which she
had ventured into the night before, and knew not where to
go or what to do. Should she seek out some of the miserable
inhabitants of the miserable hovels before her, and
tell them what she knew of the horrors of the dismal vault
from which she had just escaped? But for what purpose?
what good could result from her information? The late
inmates of that awful place were all dead; and why should
she expose herself to questions of curiosity, which might
lead to her own detection and return to the quarters where
she had so recently been held a prisoner? more especially,
since it was very likely that she had been missed ere this,
and a careful search been set on foot. No! self-preservation
required her to be silent concerning what she had
witnessed, and fly from this loathsome quarter as from the
devouring plague. Looking hurriedly around, she perceived
a narrow passage-way, between two old buildings,
with as much haste as her weak but nervous and excited
condition would permit.
She breathed freer when she had gained the street, and
perceived that only here and there an inhabitant of this
vile locality was abroad at that early hour; but she was
not safe even now; and she hurried on, guided more by
instinct than reason, looking timidly and suspiciously at
every object, and shrinking from the notice of any she met
or passed, like one guilty of a deed of crime. Thus terrified,
she hurried on, her nerves braced with intense excitement,
and her gentle but sinking spirit buoyed up with the
hope that she was about to escape and return to her
friends. She had turned two corners, and was still pressing
eagerly forward, through a street of better appearance
than the one she had lately quitted, when she was startled
at hearing herself addressed in a familiar manner, and in a
voice that she fancied she recognised.
“Ah! my little lady! whither away so fast this fine
April morning? Come! I pray you stop, and have a chat
with an old friend.”
Ellen looked quickly around, and perceived Nabob
Hunchy hastening across the street to meet her. She
would gladly have avoided him—but finding she could not,
she stopped, and said:
“What do you want with me?”
“To say how do ye do, and apologize for the abrupt manner
in which I parted from you at Jimmy Quiglan's,” returned
the Hunchback, with the greatest sang froid. “Why,
my little lady,” he continued, in a tone of surprise, glancing
at Ellen's rich garments—which the reader will bear in
mind were the same which Mulwrack had forced her to put
on when he took her away from the mansion of Sir Walter
—“why, you have had good pickings, somewhere, since we
are you living? what have you been doing? and where are
you going now?”
Ellen shuddered.
“Oh!” she said—“ask me no questions! but show me
the way to some fine street.”
“Aha! bound for a promenade?” returned Nob, laughing.
“But you look pale!” he added, in an altered tone;
“you appear to be weak and faint! Come! I'll stand treat
this time; and a little good brandy will set you all right.
By-the-by,” he continued, feeling in his pockets, “I believe,
upon my soul, I have left my money at my lodgings;
but that needn't make any difference, since you can spare
that apron, which I can pawn for enough to make us both
jolly.”
“Leave me! leave me!” cried Ellen, nervously; “show
me the way out of this awful place, and leave me!”
“But let us have a merry drink together first.”
“No! no! I never drink. Oh! I am so much alarmed!
I want to get away—quick—get far, far from here.”
“Well, then, I'll tell you what I'll do—I'll guard and
guide you into a clean, nice street, if that is what you
want, and you shall leave me that pretty apron as a keepsake.”
“Yes, yes—take it—take it!” rejoined Ellen, almost
tearing it from her, in her haste, and handing it to the
other; “and now quick! quick! let us go!” and she
looked hurriedly around, fearful of being discovered by the
Burglar.
Nabob Hunchy coolly pocketed the apron of little Ellen,
muttering to himself:
“I'm good for one jolly drunk on that, at all events.”
He then set off with Ellen, both walking fast. As they
turned the corner of a street leading out of that wretched
structure, from which projected a sort of iron trident, suspending
three large, gilded balls, announcing it to be a licensed
establishment for the encouragement of thieves and
the robbery of the poor—or, in other words, a pawnbroker's
shop.
Many of these shops, which, if properly conducted, might
be of some benefit to the community, are in fact but little
better than hells of vice. They encourage thieves, because
most of them receive stolen goods in pledge for a trifling
loan of money, and ask no questions. They rob the poor,
because they loan money on every article brought to them,
at the rate of-about one-third, or, at the most, one-half of
its real value, and, for the use of the money so loaned,
charge the enormous interest of seventy-five per cent. per
annum. If the poor wretch who borrows, is not able to redeem
his property within a certain time, it is sold at auction,
the pawnbroker receives his pay in full, and there is
an end of the matter. They indirectly encourage drunkenness,
because the habitual inebriate, out of money, seizes
upon some article of dress or furniture, and takes it to the
place where he is certain to get sufficient means to purchase
enough of his favorite poison to lay him out in the gutter,
or make him a dangerous maniac. They corrupt morals,
because the principle upon which they start is a kind of
legal swindle; and those who swindle cannot be honest, and
those who deal with swindlers see no encouragement to remain
honest. Vice is a muddy pool, in which none can
dabble and escape being soiled.
It was before one of these establishments, of the lowest
order, that the Hunchback made a halt; and turning to
Ellen, he said:
“Wait here a moment—I have some business with the
gentleman inside.'
“I will hurry on then, by myself,” replied Ellen, nervously;
“so, good bye!”
“Oh, no—stay—I will only be a moment!” said Nob;
“and having promised to see you safe out of this quarter,
I should like to keep my word.” As he spoke, he tried the
door, but found it fast. The hour was early, and the proprietor
had not yet opened his nefarious business for the day.
“I know how to get in,” continued the deformed boy; and
turning into a narrow, filthy alley, which ran along one
side of the building, he hastened round to a back entrance,
and little Ellen lost sight of him.
For a short time, Ellen awaited his return in a rather
impatient mood—during which she kept her eyes constantly
roving around; while she trembled, lest they should
light upon her most dreaded enemy. Suddenly she started,
and a cry of terror sprung to her lips—but she succeeded
in repressing it. On the other side of the way, almost opposite
to where she stood, was another alley; and coming
down this, toward the larger street, was a person whom
she believed to be Mulwrack. Should he discover her, she
felt she would be lost; and any place of refuge, she thought,
would be better than remaining so exposed. So she darted
into the alley nearest her, intending to follow the Hunchback
into the pawnbroker's; but when she reached the back
entrance, it was closed, and he was not to be seen; and not
being certain where he had entered, and fearing discovery,
she sped on some distance, down the filthy alley, till she
came to an open gate of a small yard. Without looking
back, she sprung through the opening, and, hurriedly closing
the gate, looked around her, trembling and half bewildered.
| CHAPTER XI.
THE ESCAPE. Ellen Norbury, or, The adventures of an orphan | |