Mr. Peters, having discussed his meal, conversed with Kuppins as she removed the tea-things. The alphabet by this time had acquired a piscatorial flavour, from his having made use of the five vowels to remove the bones of his herring.
“That baby’s a rare fretful one,” says Mr. Peters with rapid fingers.
Kuppins had nursed a many fretful babies. “Orphants was generally fretful; supposed the ‘fondling’ was a orphant.”
“Poor little chap!—yes,” said Peters. “He’s had his trials, though he is a young ’un. I’m afeard he’ll never grow up a teetotaller. He’s had a little too much of the water already.”
Has had too much of the water? Kuppins would very much like to know the meaning of this observation. But Mr. Peters relapses into profound thought, and looks at the “fondling” (still choking) with the eye of a philanthropist and almost the tenderness of a father.
He who provides for the young ravens had, perhaps, in the marvellous fitness of all things of His creation, given to this helpless little one a better protector in the dumb scrub of the police force than he might have had in the father who had cast him off, whoever that father might be.
Mr. Peters presently remarks to the interested Kuppins, that he shall “ederkate,”—he is some time deciding on the conflicting merits of a c or a k for this word—he shall “ederkate the fondling, and bring him up to his own business.”
“What is his business?” asks Kuppins naturally.
“Detecktive,” Mr. Peters spells, embellishing the word with an extraneous k.
“Oh, perlice,” said Kuppins. “Crikey, how jolly! Shouldn’t I like to be a perliceman, and find out all about this ’ere ’orrid murder!”
Mr. Peters brightens at the word “murder,” and he regards Kuppins with a friendly glance.
“So you takes a hinterest in this ’ere murder, do yer?” he spells out.
“Oh, don’t I? I bought a Sunday paper. Shouldn’t I like to see that there young man as killed his uncle scragged—that’s all!”
Mr. Peters shook his head doubtfully, with a less friendly glance at Kuppins. But there were secrets and mysteries of his art he did not trust at all times to the dirty alphabet; and perhaps his opinion on the subject of the murder of Mr. Montague Harding was one of them.
Kuppins presently fetched him a pipe; and as he sat by this smoky fire, he watched alternately the blue cloud that issued from his lips and the clumsy figure of the damsel pacing up and down with the “fondling” (asleep after the exhaustion attendant on a desperate choke) upon her arms.
“If,” mused Mr. Peters, with his mouth very much to the left of his nose—“if that there baby was grow’d up, he might help me to find out the rights and wrongs of this ’ere murder.”
Who so fit? or who so unfit? Which shall we say? If in the wonderful course of events, this little child shall ever have a part in dragging a murderer to a murderer’s doom, shall it be called a monstrous and a terrible outrage of nature, or a just and a fitting retribution?
VIII
Seven Letters on the Dirty Alphabet
The 17th of February shone out bright and clear, and a frosty sunlight illumined the windows of the court where Richard Marwood stood to be tried for his life.
Never, perhaps, had that court been so crowded; never, perhaps, had there been so much anxiety felt in Slopperton for the result of any trial as was felt that day for the issue of the trial of Richard Marwood.
The cold bright sunlight streaming in at the windows seemed to fall brightest and coldest on the wan white face of the prisoner at the bar.
Three months of mental torture had done their work, and had written their progress in such characters upon that young and once radiant countenance, as Time, in his smooth and peaceful course, would have taken years to trace. But Richard Marwood was calm today, with the awful calmness of that despair which is past all hope. Suspense had exhausted him. But he had done with suspense, and felt that his fate was sealed; unless, indeed, Heaven—infinite both in mercy and in power—raised up as by a miracle some earthly instrument to save him.
The court was one vast sea of eager faces; for, to the spectators, this trial was as a great game of chance, which the counsel for the prosecution, the judge, and the jury, played against the prisoner and his advocate, and at which the prisoner staked his life.
There was but one opinion in that vast assemblage; and that was, that the accused would lose in this dreadful game, and that he well deserved to lose.
There had been betting in Slopperton on the result of this awful hazard. For the theory of chances is to certain minds so delightful, that the range of subjects for a wager may ascend from a maggot-race to a trial for murder. Some adventurous spirits had taken desperate odds against the outsider “Acquittal;” and many enterprising gentlemen had made what they considered “good books,” by putting heavy sums on the decided favourite, “Found Guilty.” As, however, there might be a commutation of the sentence of death to transportation for life, some speculators had bet upon the chance of the prisoner being found guilty, but not executed; or, as it had been forcibly expressed, had backed “Penal Servitude” against “Gallows.”
So there were private interests, as well as a public interest, among that swelling ocean of men and women; and Richard had but very few backers in the great and terrible game that was being played.
In a corner of the gallery of the court, high up over the heads of the multitude, there was a little spot railed off
