Walk with me, reader, into Whitecross Street. It is Saturday night, the market-night of the poor; also the one evening in the week which the weary toilers of our great city can devote to ease and recreation in the sweet assurance of a morrow unenslaved. Let us see how they spend this “Truce of God;” our opportunities will be of the best in the district we are entering.

As we suddenly turn northwards out of the dim and quiet regions of Barbican, we are at first confused by the glare of lights and the hubbub of cries. Pressing through an ever-moving crowd, we find ourselves in a long and narrow street, forming, from end to end, one busy market. Besides the ordinary shops, amongst which the conspicuous fronts of the butchers’ and the grocers’ predominate, the street is lined along either pavement with rows of stalls and booths, each illuminated with flaring naphtha-lamps, the flames of which shoot up fiercely at each stronger gust of wind, filling the air around with a sickly odour, and throwing a weird light upon the multitudinous faces. Behind the lights stand men, women and children, each hallooing in every variety of intense key — from the shrillest conceivable piping to a thunderous roar, which well-nigh deafens one — the prices and the merits of their wares. The fronts of the houses, as we glance up towards the deep blackness overhead, have a decayed, filthy, often an evil, look; and here and there, on either side, is a low, yawning archway, or a passage some four feet wide, leading presumably to human habitations. Let us press through the throng to the mouth of one of these and look in, as long as the reeking odour will permit us. Straining the eyes into horrible darkness, we behold a blind alley, the unspeakable abominations of which are dimly suggested by a gas-lamp flickering at the further end. Here and there through a window glimmers a reddish light, forcing one to believe that people actually do live here; otherwise the alley is deserted, and the footstep echoes as we tread cautiously up the narrow slum. If we look up, we perceive that strong beams are fixed across between the fronts of the houses — sure sign of the rottenness which everywhere prevails. Listen! That was the shrill screaming of an infant which came from one of the nearest dens. Yes, children are born here, and men and women die. Let us devoutly hope that the deaths exceed the births.

Now back into the street, for already we have become the observed of a little group of evil-looking fellows gathered round the entrance. Let us press once more through the noisy crowd, and inspect the shops and stalls. Here is exposed for sale an astounding variety of goods. Loudest in their cries, and not the least successful in attracting customers, are the butchers, who, with knife and chopper in hand, stand bellowing in stentorian tones the virtues of their meat; now inviting purchasers with their — “Lovely, love-ly, l-ove-ly! Buy! buy buy buy — buy!” now turning to abuse each other with a foul-mouthed virulence surpassing description. See how the foolish artisan’s wife, whose face bears the evident signs of want and whose limbs shiver under her insufficient rags, lays down a little heap of shillings in return for a lump, half gristle, half bone, of questionable meat-ignorant that with half the money she might buy four times the quantity of far more healthy and sustaining food.

But now we come to luxuries. Here is a stall where lie oysters and whelks, ready stripped of their shells, offering an irresistible temptation to the miserable-looking wretches who stand around, sucking in the vinegared and peppered dainties till their stomachs are appeased, or their pockets empty. Next is a larger booth, where all manner of old linen, torn muslin, stained and faded ribbons, draggled trimming, and the like, is exposed for sale, piled up in foul and clammy heaps, which, as the slippery-tongued rogue, with a yard in his hand turns and tumbles it for the benefit of a circle of squalid and shivering women, sends forth a reek stronger than that from the basket of rotten cabbage on the next stall. How the poor wretches ogle the paltry rags, feverishly turn their money in their hands, discuss with each other in greedy whispers the cheapness or otherwise of the wares! Then we have an immense pile of old iron, which to most would appear wholly useless; but see how now and then a grimy-handed workman stops to rummage among it, and maybe finds something of use to him in his labour.

Here again, elevated on a cart, stands a vender of secondhand umbrellas, who, as he holds up the various articles of his stock and bangs them open under the street-lamps that purchasers may bear witness to their solidity, yells out a stream of talk amazing in its mixture of rude wit, coarse humour, and voluble impudence. “Here’s a humbereller!” he cries, “Look at this ’ere; now do! Fit for the Jewk o’ York, the Jewk of Cork, or any other member of the no-bility. As fo my own grace, I hassure yer, I never uses any other! Come, who says ‘alf-a-crownd for this? — No? — Why, then, two bob — one an’-a-tanner — a bob! Gone, and damned cheap too!” This man makes noise enough; but here, close behind him, is an open shop-front with a mingled array of household utensils defying description, the price chalked in large figures on each, and on a stool stands a little lad, clashing incessantly with an enormous hammer upon a tray as tall as himself, and with his piercing young voice doing his utmost to attract hearers. Next we have a stall covered with cheap and trashy ornaments, chipped glass vases of a hundred patterns, picture-frames, lamps, watch-chains, rings; things such as may tempt a few of the hard-earned coppers out of a young wife’s pocket, or induce the working lad to spend a shilling for the delight of some consumptive girl, with the result, perhaps, of leading her to seek in the brothel a relief from the slow death of the factory or the work-room. As we push along we find ourselves clung to by something or other, and, looking down, see a little girl, perhaps four years old, the very image of naked wretchedness, holding up, with shrill, pitiful appeals, a large piece of salt, for which she wants one halfpenny — no more, she assures us, than one half-penny. She clings persistently and will not be shaken off. Poor little thing; most likely failure to sell her salt will involve a brutal beating when she returns to the foul nest which she calls home. We cannot carry the salt, but we give her a copper and she runs off, delighted. Follow her, and we see with some surprise that she runs to a near eating-house, one of many we have observed. Behind the long counter stands a man and a woman, the former busy in frying flat fish over a huge fire, the latter engaged in dipping a ladle into a large vessel which steams profusely; and in front of the counter stands a row of hungry-looking people, devouring eagerly the flakes of fish and the greasy potatoes as fast as they come from the pan, whilst others are served by the woman to little basins of stewed eels from the steaming tureen. But the good people of Whitecross Street are thirsty as well as hungry, and there is no lack of gin-palaces to supply their needs. Open the door and look into one of these. Here a group are wrangling over a disputed toss or bet, here two are coming to blows, there are half-a-dozen young men and women, all half drunk, mauling each other with vile caresses; and all the time, from the lips of the youngest and the oldest, foams forth such a torrent of inanity, abomination, and horrible blasphemy which bespeaks the very depth of human — aye, or of bestial — degradation. And notice how, between these centres and the alleys into which we have peered, shoeless children, slipshod and bareheaded women, tottering old men, are constantly coming and going with cans or jugs in their hands. Well, is it not Saturday night? And how can the week’s wages be better spent than in procuring a few hours’ unconsciousness of the returning Monday.

The crowd that constantly throngs from one end of the street to the other is very miscellaneous, comprehending alike the almost naked wretch who creeps along in the hope of being able to steal a mouthful of garbage, and the respectably clad artisan and his wife, seeing how best they can lay out their money for the ensuing week. The majority are women, some carrying children in their arms, some laden with a basket full of purchases, most with no covering on their heads but the corner of a shawl.

But look at the faces! Here is a young mother with a child sucking at her bare breast, as she chaffers with a man over a pound of potatoes. Suddenly she turns away with reddened cheeks, shrinking before a vile jest which creates bursts of laughter in the by-standers. Pooh! She is evidently new in this quarter, perhaps come up of late from the country. Wait a year, and you will see her joining in the laugh at her own expense, with as much gusto as that young woman behind her, whose features, under more favourable circumstances, might have had, something of beauty, but starvation and dirt and exposure have coarsened the grain and made her teeth grin woefully between her thin lips.

Or look at the woman on the other side, who is laughing till she cries. Does not every line of her face bespeak the baseness of her nature? Cannot one even guess at the vile trade by which she keeps her limbs covered with those layers of gross fat, whilst those around her are so pinched and thin? Her cheeks hang flabbily, and her eyes twinkle with a vicious light. A deep scar marks her forehead, a memento of some recent drunken brawl. When she has laughed her fill, she turns to look after a child which is being dragged through the mud by her skirts, being scarcely yet able to walk, and, bidding it with a cuff and a curse not to leave loose of her, pushes on stoutly through the crowd.

One could find matter for hour-long observation in the infinite variety of vice and misery depicted in the faces around. It must be confessed that the majority do not seem unhappy; they jest with each other amid their squalor; they have an evident pleasure in buying and selling; they would be surprised if they knew you pitied them. And the very fact that they are unconscious of their degradation afflicts one with all the keener pity. We suffer them to become brutes in our midst, and inhabit dens which clean animals would shun, to derive their joys from sources from which a cultivated mind shrinks as from a pestilential vapour. And can we console ourselves with the reflection that they do not feel their misery?

Well, this is the Whitecross Street of today; but it is in this street rather more than twenty years ago that my story opens. There is not much difference between now and then, except that the appearance of the shops is perhaps improved, and the sanitary condition of the neighbourhood a trifle more attended to; the description, on the whole, may remain unaltered.

It was about half-past ten on a Saturday night, towards the close of November. All day long it had been snowing, but the snow had melted as it reached the ground, forming endless puddles of mire, into which the unceasing tramp of the crowd had trodden all manner of refuse from the market-stalls, till the whole street reeked with foul odours. Amid the throng, about half-way up the street, we notice a figure presenting a striking contrast to its surroundings. It is that of a gentleman, apparently some five and thirty years old, wearing the habit of a clergyman, and who, judging from the glances he casts on either side as he with difficulty makes his way through the noisome crowd, is very far from at home amid such sights and sounds. His face, which was smooth-shaven, of very delicate complexion, and handsome almost to effeminacy, was crossed one moment by a look of the profoundest commiseration, the next gave expression of profound disgust and horror, as his eye fell on the objects and persons nearest him; and not unfrequently he moved considerably out of his direct course in order to avoid some spectacle especially repulsive. As he proceeded along the street, he kept glancing at the alleys and narrow lanes branching off on either hand, apparently in search of some particular locality.

At length, having entered a small shop to make inquiries, he crossed the road, and after some hesitation, was turning into a narrow, loathsome alley, which the light of a street lamp showed, bore the name of Adam and Eve Court, when a little girl, suddenly rushing out of the darkness, bumped unawares against him and fell to the ground, breaking to pieces a jug which she held in her hands. She did not begin to cry, but, instantly springing to her feet, proceeded to assail the cause of her accident with a stream of the foulest abuse, which would have been dreadful enough on the lips of a grown-up man, but appeared unutterably so as coming from a child.

“You’ve broke the jug, you have!” screamed the little creature at last, having exhausted her epithets; “you’ve broke the jug, you have; and you’ll ‘ave to pay for it, you will. Come now, pay for the jug, will you, mister?”

“Good God!” exclaimed the gentleman, half to himself, “what a hell I have got into!”

Then, taking a shilling from his pocket, he gave it to the child.

“Will that be enough?”

“Maybe it will.”

“Stop! Can you tell me which is No. 9 in this yard?”

“And what d’yer want with No. 9, eh?” asked the child, biting the coin as she spoke; “I lives there.”

“Then you can show me the house, I suppose?”

“Can if I chooses. What d’yer want with No. 9, eh?”

“Is there anyone named Golding living there?”

The child surveyed her questioner for a few moments with precociously evil eyes, then suddenly exclaimed —

“Last house but two. You’ll have to knock twice.” After which she rushed out into the street and was lost in the crowd.

The inquirer followed the direction indicated, and, picking his steps through the filth as carefully as the darkness allowed, with many an uneasy glance on either side and up at the houses, came at length in front of No. 9. He found the door standing open, but his eyes were unable to pierce a single foot into the dense blackness within. With a shudder, he groped for the knocker, and knocked loudly twice.

He repeated the summons several times before any notice was taken. At length, however, a window was thrown open above, and a shrill woman’s voice cried out —

“What are you wantin’ of? Who is it?”

“Is there a Mr. Golding living here?” asked the visitor, stepping back and endeavouring to catch sight of the speaker.

“There’s one o’ that name dyin’ here, I’m thinkin’,” returned a gruff voice, in a tone meant to be humorous. “What do you want with him, mister? Does he owe yer money? ‘Cos if he do, I’m thinkin’ ye’ll have to look out sharp after it.”

“Would you be so good as. to show me to his room?” cried the visitor. “I particularly wish to see him.”

“Third floor back,” screamed the female voice. “I s’pose yer don’t want showin’ the way up-stairs, do yer?”

The stranger entered the coal-black portal of the house, and, groping with his hands, made his way up-stairs till a door suddenly opened and a woman with a candle in her hand appeared. She seemed half undressed, her face, which was naturally hideous, was grimy with untold layers of dirt, and her whole appearance, lighted by the gleam from the tallow dip, was anything but reassuring. She started slightly when she perceived the elegant figure of the clergyman, and her manner at once became more respectful.

“Mr. Golding’s room’s on the next floor, sir. I doubt you’ll find him in a bad way.”

“Is he seriously ill?”

“Well, sir, my ‘usband thinks him so bad as he’s sent off our Jinny to the parish doctor; but she ain’t come back yet. We’ve done what we could for him, I’m sure sir; but, you see, being that he was so fond of liquor like, and being that he owes us near on a month’s rent a’ready, sir, you see it warn’t to be expected as we could do as much as we might a’ done if he’d been a better lodger, you see, sir. If anythink ‘appens to him, sir (which, and I’m sure, I ‘ope as it won’t), d’ye think, sir, he ‘as any friends as wouldn’t like to see poor people suffer by him, and as ‘ud pay his back rent, and ——”

It was impossible to say how long the woman would have gone on in this manner, for the appearance of the stranger seemed to work strongly upon her, and the fire of greed flashed from her green eyes; but the latter cut her short in the midst of her speech and, with a hurried word or two, stepped quickly up to the next story.

The door stood slightly ajar, and feeble rays of light made their way on to the landing. As his knock met with no reply, the clergyman walked quietly in without invitation. The scene which met his eyes was one of indescribable squalor and misery. The room, which was some ten feet square and about six in height, contained absolutely no furniture save a rude three-legged table. The floor was rugged and sloped from one side down towards the other, as if the foundations of the house were gradually sinking; the walls and ceiling in places showed great spots of moisture, and the small window, in which several panes had been broken and were replaced by brown paper, was sheltered by no blind or curtain, and gave admittance to a draught which swept round the room almost as keenly as the wind in the open air. On the table burned a candle thrust into the broken neck of a bottle, and by its light the visitor was enabled dimly to discern the living occupants of the garret. In one corner, as far removed out of the draught of the window as possible, a few ragged clothes had been spread upon the floor, and on these lay the figure of a man in his trowsers and shirt only, his face hidden in the bundled-up coat which formed his pillow. By his side, his head resting on the man’s arm, lay a little boy, apparently some eight years old. Both were sleeping; the boy with the deep motionless sleep of utter weariness, the man with occasional groans and tosses, and now and then a rattle in his throat, and struggling for breath, which, however, did not awake him.

The clergyman took the candle in his hand and held it down so as to illumine the faces of the sleepers. That of the child was pale, meagre, sickly-looking, but withal pleasant in its natural outlines, particularly the mouth, which seemed to indicate a sweetness of disposition seldom found in these nurslings of misery. His hair, though thick and somewhat matted through neglect, was very fair, and fell naturally in rough curls about the forehead. It was necessary to move the man’s head slightly in order to examine his face, and, as his eyes fell upon the features, the visitor drew back suddenly with a low exclamation of mingled surprise, pity, and disgust. The face itself was not ill-formed, bearing in its lineaments an unmistakable resemblance to the child; but want, sickness and vice had wrought such effects upon it as almost entirely to destroy the agreeable character which the physiognomy must once have possessed. It was the face of a comparatively young man; certainly he could not be more than thirty. The cheeks were sunk in ghastly hollows, the nostrils were unnaturally distended by his hard breathing, the teeth were strongly clenched so that no breath could pass through the lips, the whole face was livid in hue. Death seemed to be even then overcoming him in his sleep.

The visitor set down the candle hastily, and, uttering a low exclamation of horror, moved as if to call assistance. But at once he appeared to alter his purpose, and, returning to the side of the sleeper, shook him by the shoulder, calling, as he did so —

“Golding! Golding!”

The man showed no sign of returning to consciousness, but the disturbance awoke the child, who moved slowly to a sitting position, rubbed his eyes, and at length began to sob quietly, paying no attention whatever to the stranger. The latter persevered for a few minutes in his endeavours to arouse the sick man, but, finding his efforts vain, was on the point of hurrying from the room, when the door opened, and the woman who had accosted him on the stairs came in, holding in her hand a glass of something which smoked.

“The doctor’s a dre’ful long while a comin’, sir,” she said, in a wheedling sort of tone. “I thought as ‘ow a drop of somethink warm ‘ud, may be, do the poor gentleman good. Never mind the hexpense, sir; we likes to do what little good we can in our small way, yer know.”

“He is unconscious,” replied the clergyman, whose name we may at once say was Norman. “I cannot awake him. Are you sure the messenger saw the doctor?”

“Oh, quite sure, sir. Yer know the parish doctor ain’t over pertikler in comin’ just when he’s wanted. But he won’t be long now. Maybe you’d take a drop yerself, sir? No! Well, it don’t suit everybody’s stomach, certainly. So ’ere’s yer very good ‘ealth, sir, an’ th’ ‘ealth of the poor gentleman too.”

As she ceased she poured the warm liquor down her scraggy throat, leered hideously at the clergyman, and left the room.

Mr. Norman began to pace backwards and forwards in the utmost impatience, rubbing his hands together, intertwisting his fingers, and showing every sign of extreme nervousness. In some ten minutes eleven o’clock sounded from the church hard by, and as the tones ceased a slight commotion was evident upon the stairs. At once footsteps began to ascend rapidly, and Mr. Norman, with a sigh of relief, hurried to the door just in time to meet upon the threshold a young, earnest-looking man, whom the clergyman greeted with instinctive confidence. The doctor examined Golding for a few minutes in silence, then turned away from him with a slight shrug of the shoulders.

“Too late,” he said, looking at the clergyman, “much too late. He won’t last an hour.”

“I feared it.”

“Drink, sir, drink, and a dozen other ailments induced by it. I should only be wasting my time here at present, but I will look in about ten tomorrow.”

“You can’t prescribe anything?”

“Quite useless,” replied the doctor, decisively. “You take a special interest in him?”

“He was an old college friend of mine, poor fellow. It is more than eight years since I saw him, but I could not have believed such a change possible.”

The doctor made a few sympathetic remarks, bowed, and ran down stairs as quickly as he had come up. Mr. Norman tried once more to awaken the dying man to consciousness, but with no immediate result. So he turned his attention to the child, who still sat in the same place sobbing quietly.

“Is that your father?” he asked the boy, scanning the haggard features of his face with nervous glances.

The child sobbed out an affirmative reply, but no more. At this moment the sick man stirred slightly, and Mr. Norman saw his eyes slowly open.

“Golding!” he exclaimed, kneeling down by his side. “Do you see me? Do you know me?”

For some minutes no sign of consciousness manifested itself; but then the man made obvious efforts to speak. His face was dreadfully distorted in the struggle for breath, but no sound escaped him save a hollow rattle in his throat. The clergyman bent nearer to him in the hope of hearing a word, and, as he did so, Golding suddenly grasped him by the arm, and with his head and eyes made convulsive motions in the direction of the child. For a moment the grasp of his hands on Mr. Norman’s arm was fearful in its violence, then it all at once relaxed, the perpetual rattle ceased, the eyes became fixed in a steady stare at the ceiling.

The candle had burnt to the socket, and the smoke rising from it in a narrow white column filled the room with its smell. The room was quite dark save for a faint gleam which came from a bedroom window on the opposite side of the court. In the house was absolute silence. The street was too far off for any sound from such buyers and sellers as might still linger there to be heard in the recesses of Adam and Eve Court. As the clergyman stood for a few moments, irresolute in the dark, he heard the voice of a woman screaming from a window opposite, and the laugh of a drunken man reeling into a house hard by. At length he rose to his feet and left the room.

On the first landing the woman again met him with a candle in her hand.

“Has anythink ‘appened, sir?” she asked.

“He is dead,” replied Mr. Norman.

“Eh! poor fellow! You don’t ‘appen to know, sir, if he’s got any friends besides yerself, sir? Maybe there’s somebody, sir, as mightn’t like him to die in this way sir, an’ him owin’ ——”

“I will myself see to all that,” interrupted the clergyman, turning away from the harpy’s hideous face in loathing. “I wanted to tell you that I am going to take away his child with me. I will return in the morning.”

“Oh, very well, sir. I’m sure it’s good of you to take thought of the child. I’ve took a great deal o’ care of him, sir, an’ he’s been a good bit of expense to me one way an’ another. You see the gen’leman would drink, an’ ——”

The clergyman cut short the old hag’s protestations by once more ascending to the garret, having just taken the candle from her hand. He bent down to the boy, and said, in a low voice —

“Come with me, my poor child. Come quietly. You mustn’t wake your father, for he is very poorly.”

The child shook off the speaker’s hands, and took hold of the arm of the corpse as if to prevent himself from being removed by force.

“Why should I go with you?” exclaimed the child, impulsively. “I’m going to stay with father, I am. I’ll wait till he wakes. I don’t know you at all, do I?”

Mr. Norman reflected for a moment, then spoke in a kind, low voice —

“Your father is dead, my poor child. He will never wake.”

The boy stared with terror in the speaker’s face, then sprang to the dead man’s side, and grasped the face in his hands. He seemed to understand that the stranger had told him the truth. He fell upon his face on the floor, sobbing as if his heart would break, and between his sobs, crying —

“Father, father!”

It was vain to endeavour to take him away, and Mr. Norman was ultimately obliged to leave him alone in the garret with the corpse. Making his way down the pitch-black, creaking staircase, he passed into the open air. It was with a sigh of relief that he looked upwards, and in the narrow space, between the tops of the houses, saw a few stars shining, for it had now ceased snowing and the frost had begun to dry the ground. There were still people moving about Whitecross-street when he entered it, but the noise of the market had ceased, and all the lights were extinguished. Not without apprehensive glances at some of the figures which slouched by him in the darkness, Mr. Norman hurried along over the half-formed ice, and the still reeking remnants from the stalls, till at length he reached a more open neighbourhood. Here he soon found an opportunity of taking a cab, and before long reached his hotel in Oxford-street.