The Nether World | Page 8

long and hard
task to be executed by Jane in her absence, when a knocking at the
house-door made itself heard. Clem at once went up to see who the
visitor was.
A woman in a long cloak and a showy bonnet stood on the step,
protecting herself with an umbrella from the bitter sleet which the wind
was now driving through the darkness. She said that she wished to see
Mrs. Hewett.
'Second-floor front,' replied Clem in the offhand, impertinent tone
wherewith she always signified to strangers her position in the house.
The visitor regarded her with a look of lofty contempt, and, having
deliberately closed her umbrella, advanced towards the stairs. Clem
drew into the back regions for a few moments, but as soon as she heard
the closing of a door in the upper part of the house, she too ascended,
going on tip-toe, with a noiselessness which indicated another side of
her character. Having reached the room which the visitor had entered,
she brought her ear close to the keyhole, and remained in that attitude
for a long time--nearly twenty minutes, in fact. Her sudden and swift
return to the foot of the stairs was followed by the descent of the
woman in the showy bonnet.
'Miss Peckover I' cried the latter when she had reached the foot of the

stairs.
'Well, what is it?' asked Clem, seeming to come up from the kitchen.
'Will you 'ave the goodness to go an' speak to Mrs. Hewett for a
hinstant?' said the woman, with much affectation of refined speech.
'All right! I will just now, if I've time.'
The visitor tossed her head and departed, whereupon Clem at once ran
upstairs. In five minutes she was back in the kitchen.
'See 'ere,' she addressed Jane. 'You know where Mr. Kirkwood works
in St. John's Square? You've been before now. Well, you're to go an'
wait at the door till he comes out, and then you're to tell him to come to
Mrs. Hewett at wunst. Understand?--Why ain't these tea-things all
cleared away? All right Wait till you come back, that's all. Now be off,
before I skin you alive!'
On the floor in a corner of the kitchen lay something that had once been
a girl's hat. This Jane at once snatched up and put on her head. Without
other covering, She ran forth upon her errand.

CHAPTER II
A FRIEND IN REQUEST

It was the hour of the unyoking of men. In the highways and byways of
Clerkenwell there was a thronging of released toilers, of young and old,
of male and female. Forth they streamed from factories and workrooms,
anxious to make the most of the few hours during which they might
live for themselves. Great numbers were still bent over their labour, and
would be for hours to come, but the majority had leave to wend
stablewards. Along the main thoroughfares the wheel-track was
clangorous; every omnibus that clattered by was heavily laden with
passengers; tarpaulins gleamed over the knees of those who sat outside.
This way and that the lights were blurred into a misty radiance;
overhead was mere blackness, whence descended the lashing rain.
There was a ceaseless scattering of mud; there were blocks in the traffic,
attended with rough jest or angry curse; there was jostling on the
crowded pavement. Public-houses began to brighten up, to bestir

themselves for the evening's business. Streets that had been hives of
activity since early morning were being abandoned to silence and
darkness and the sweeping wind.
At noon to-day there was sunlight on the Surrey hills; the fields and
lanes were fragrant with the first breath of spring, and from the shelter
of budding copses many a primrose looked tremblingly up to the vision
of blue sky. But of these things Clerkenwell takes no count; here it had
been a day like any other, consisting of so many hours, each
representing a fraction of the weekly wage. Go where you may in
Clerkenwell, on every hand are multiform evidences of toil, intolerable
as a nightmare. It is not as in those parts of London where the main
thoroughfares consist of shops and warehouses and workrooms, whilst
the streets that are hidden away on either hand are devoted in the main
to dwellings Here every alley is thronged with small industries; all but
every door and window exhibits the advertisement of a craft that is
carried on within. Here you may see how men have multiplied toil for
toil's sake, have wrought to devise work superfluous, have worn their
lives away in imagining new forms of weariness. The energy, the
ingenuity daily put forth in these grimy burrows task the brain's power
of wondering. But that those who sit here through the livelong day,
through