CHAPTER I.
A THRALL OF THRALLS.

In the troubled twilight of a March evening ten years ago, an old man, whose equipment and bearing suggested that he was fresh from travel, walked slowly across Clerkenwell Green, and by the graveyard of St. James's Church stood for a moment looking about him. His age could not be far from seventy, but, despite the stoop of his shoulders, he gave little sign of failing under the burden of years; his sober step indicated gravity of character rather than bodily feebleness, and his grasp of a stout stick was not such as bespeaks need of support. His attire was neither that of a man of leisure, nor of the kind usually worn by English

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mechanics. Instead of coat and waistcoat, he wore a garment something like a fisherman's guernsey, and over this a coarse short cloak, picturesque in appearance as it was buffeted by the wind. His trousers were of moleskin; his boots reached almost to his knees; for head-covering he had the cheapest kind of undyed felt, its form exactly that of the old petasus. To say that his aspect was venerable would serve to present him in a measure, yet would not be wholly accurate, for there was too much of past struggle and present anxiety in his countenance to permit full expression of the natural dignity of the features. It was a fine face, and might have been distinctly noble, but circumstances had marred the purpose of Nature; you perceived that his cares had too often been of the kind which are created by ignoble necessities, such as leave to most men of his standing a bare humanity of visage. He had long thin white hair; his beard was short and merely grizzled. In his left hand he carried a bundle, which probably contained clothing.

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The burial-ground by which he had paused was as little restful to the eye as are most of those discoverable in the byways of London. The small trees that grew about it shivered in their leaflessness; the rank grass was wan under the failing day; most of the stones leaned this way or that, emblems of neglect, (they were very white at the top, and darkened downwards till the damp soil made them black), and certain cats and dogs were prowling or sporting among the graves. At this corner the east wind blew with malice such as it never puts forth save where there are poorly clad people to be pierced; it swept before it thin clouds of unsavoury dust, mingled with the light refuse of the streets. Above the shapeless houses night was signalling a murky approach; the sky---if sky it could be called---gave threatening of sleet, perchance of snow. And on every side was the rumble of traffic, the voiceful evidence of toil and of poverty; hawkers were crying their goods; the inevitable organ was clanging before a public-house hard by;

"Oh, your name's Jane Snowdon, is it?" said the barman. "Well, you're just three minutes an' three-quarters too late. P'r'aps it's a fortune a runnin' after you. He was a rum old party as inquired. Never mind; it's all in a life. There's fortunes lost every week by a good deal less than three minutes when it's 'orses-eh, Mr. Squibbs?"

Mr. Squibbs swore with emphasis.

The little girl took her jug of beer and was turning away.

"Hollo!" cried the barman. "Where's the money, Jane?---if you don't mind."

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She turned again in increased confusion, and laid coppers on the counter. Thereupon the man asked her where she lived; she named a house in Clerkenwell Close, near at hand.

"Father live there?"

She shook her head.

"Mother?"

"I haven't got one, sir."

"Who is it as you live with, then?"

"Mrs. Peckover, sir."

"Well, as I was sayin', he was a queer old joker as arsted for the name of Snowdon. Shouldn't wonder if you see him goin' round."

And he added a pretty full description of this old man, to which the girl listened closely. Then she went thoughtfully---a little sadly---on her way.

In the street, all but dark by this time, she cast anxious glances onwards and behind, but no old man in an odd hat and cloak and with white hair was discoverable. Linger she might not. She reached a house of which the front-door stood open; it looked

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black and cavernous within, but she advanced with the step of familiarity and went downstairs to a front-kitchen. Through the half-open door came a strong odour and a hissing sound, plainly due to the frying of sausages. Before Jane could enter, she was greeted sharply in a voice which was young and that of a female, but had no other quality of graciousness.

"You've taken your time, my lady! All right! just wait till I've 'ad my tea, that's all! Me an' you'll settle accounts to-night, see if we don't. Mother told me as she owed you a lickin', an' I'll pay it off, with a little on my own account too. Only wait till I've 'ad my tea, that's all. What are you standin' there for, like a fool? Bring that beer 'ere, an' let's see 'ow much you've drank."

"I haven't put my lips near it, miss; indeed I haven't," pleaded the child, whose face of dread proved both natural timidity and the constant apprehension of ill-usage.

"Little liar! that's what you always was, an' always will be.---Take that!"

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The speaker was a girl of sixteen, tall, rather bony, rudely handsome; the hand with which she struck was large and coarsefibred, the muscles that impelled it vigorous. Her dress was that of a work-girl, unsubstantial, ill-fitting, but of ambitious cut; her hair was very abundant, and rose upon the back of her head in thick coils, an elegant fringe depending in front. The fire had made her face scarlet, and in the lamplight her large eyes glistened with many joys.

First and foremost, Miss Clementina Peckover rejoiced because she had left work much earlier than usual, and was about to enjoy what she would have described as a "blow out." Secondly, she rejoiced because her mother, the landlady of the house, was absent for the night, and consequently she would exercise sole authority over the domestic slave, Jane Snowdon, that is to say, would indulge to the uttermost her instincts of cruelty in tormenting a defenceless creature. Finally---a cause of happiness antecedent to

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the others, but less vivid in her mind at this moment---in the next room lay awaiting burial the corpse of Mrs. Peckover's mother-in-law, whose death six days ago had plunged mother and daughter into profound delight, partly because they were relieved at length from making pretence of humanity to a bed-ridden old woman, partly owing to the fact that the deceased had left behind her a sum of seventy-five pounds, exclusive of moneys due from a burial-club.

"Ah!" exclaimed Miss Peckover (who was affectionately known to her intimates as "Clem"), as she watched Jane stagger back from the blow and hide her face in silent endurance of pain. "That's just a morsel to stay your appetite, my lady! You didn't expect me back 'ome at this time, did you? You thought as you was goin' to 'ave the kitchen to yourself when mother went. Ha ha! ho ho!---These sausages is done; now you clean that fryin'-pan; and if I can find a speck of dirt in it as big as 'arf a farden, I'll take you by the 'air of

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the 'ed an' clean it with your face, that's what I'll do! Understand? Oh, I mean what I say, my lady! Me an' you's a-goin' to spend a evenin' together, there's no two ways about that. Ho ho! he he!"

The frankness of Clem's brutality went far towards redeeming her character. The exquisite satisfaction with which she viewed Jane's present misery, the broad joviality with which she gloated over the prospect of cruelties shortly to be inflicted, put her at once on a par with the noble savage running wild in woods. Civilisation could bring no charge against this young woman; it and she had no common criterion. Who knows but this lust of hers for sanguinary domination was the natural enough issue of the brutalising serfdom of her predecessors in the family line of the Peckovers? A thrall suddenly endowed with authority will assuredly make bitter work for the luckless creature in the next degree of thraldom.

A cloth was already spread across one end of the deal table, with such other preparations

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