“Nothing could save him,” cried the girl. “If I told others what I have told you,and led to their being taken, he would be sure to die. He is the boldest, and has been so cruel!”
“Is it possible,” cried Rose, “that for such a man as this, you can resign every future hope, and the certainty of immediate rescue?It is madness.”
“I don’t know what it is,” answered the girl; “I only know that it is so, and not with me alone,but with hundreds of others as bad and wretched as myself. I must go back.Whether it is God’s wrath for the wrong I have done, I do not know;but I am drawn back to him through every suffering and ill usage; and I should be, I believe,if I knew that I was to die by his hand at last.”
“What am I to do?” said Rose. “I should not let you depart from me thus.”
“You should, lady, and I know you will,” rejoined the girl, rising.“You will not stop my going because I have trusted in your goodness,and forced no promise from you, as I might have done.”
“Of what use, then, is the communication you have made?” said Rose. “This mystery must be investigated, or how will its disclosure to me, benefit Oliver, whom you are anxious to serve?”
“You must have some kind gentleman about you that will hear it as a secret,and advise you what to do,” rejoined the girl.
“But where can I find you again when it is necessary?” asked Rose. “I do not seek to know where these dreadful people live,but where will you be walking or passing at any settled period from this time?”
“Will you promise me that you will have my secret strictly kept, and come alone,or with the only other person that knows it; and that I shall not be watched or followed?” asked the girl.
“I promise you solemnly,” answered Rose.
“Every Sunday night, from eleven until the clock strikes twelve,” said the girl without hesitation,“I will walk on London Bridge if I am alive.”
“Stay another moment,” interposed Rose, as the girl moved hurriedly towards the door.“Think once again on your own condition, and the opportunity you have of escaping from it.You have a claim on me: not only as the voluntary bearer of this intelligence,but as a woman lost almost beyond redemption. Will you return to this gang of robbers,and to this man, when a word can save you?What fascination is it that can take you back, and make you cling to wickedness and misery?Oh!is there no chord in your heart that I can touch!Is there nothing left, to which I can appeal against this terrible infatuation!”
“When ladies as young, and good, and beautiful as you are,” replied the girl steadily,“give away your hearts, love will carry you all lengths—even such as you, who have home, friends,other admirers, everything, to fill them. When such as I,who have no certain roof but the coffinlid,and no friend in sickness or death but the hospital nurse, set our rotten hearts on any man,and let him fill the place that has been a blank through all our wretched lives, who can hope to cure us?Pity us, lady—pity us for having only one feeling of the woman left, and for having that turned,by a heavy judgment, from a comfort and a pride, into a new means of violence and suffering.”
“You will,” said Rose, after a pause, “take some money from me,which may enable you to live without dishonesty—at all events until we meet again?”
“Not a penny,” replied the girl, waving her hand.
“Do not close your heart against all my efforts to help you,” said Rose, stepping gently forward. “I wish to serve you indeed.”
“You would serve me best, lady,” replied the girl, wringing her hands,“if you could take my life at once; for I have felt more grief to think of what I am, tonight,than I ever did before, and it would be something not to die in the hell in which I have lived.God bless you, sweet lady, and send as much happiness on your head as I have brought shame on mine!”
Thus speaking, and sobbing aloud, the unhappy creature turned away; while Rose Maylie,overpowered by this extraordinary interview,which had more the semblance of a rapid dream than an actual occurrence, sank into a chair,and endeavoured to collect her wandering thoughts.
CHAPTER XLI. CONTAINING FRESH DISCOVERIES, AND SHOWING THAT SUPRISES, LIKE MISFORTUNES, SELDOM COME ALONE
Her situation was, indeed, one of no common trial and difficulty.While she felt the most eager and burning desire to penetrate the mystery in which Oliver’s history was enveloped,she could not but hold sacred the confidence which the miserable woman with whom she had just conversed,had reposed in her, as a young and guileless girl.Her words and manner had touched Rose Maylie’s heart; and,mingled with her love for her young charge, and scarcely less intense in its truth and fervour,was her fond wish to win the outcast back to repentance and hope.
They purposed remaining in London only three days,prior to departing for some weeks to a distant part of the coast.It was now midnight of the first day. What course of action could she determine upon,which could be adopted in eight-and-forty hours?Or how could she postpone the journey without exciting suspicion?
Mr. Losberne was with them, and would be for the next two days;but Rose was too well acquainted with the excellent gentleman’s impetuosity,and foresaw too clearly the wrath with which, in the first explosion of his indignation,he would regard the instrument of Oliver’s recapture, to trust him with the secret,when her representations in the girl’s behalf could be seconded by no experienced person.These were all reasons for the greatest caution and most circumspect behaviour in communicating it to Mrs.Maylie, whose first impulse would infallibly be to hold a conference with the worthy doctor on the subject.As to resorting to any legal adviser, even if she had known how to do so,it was scarcely to be thought of, for the same reason.Once the thought occurred to her of seeking assistance from Harry;but this awakened the recollection of their last parting,and it seemed unworthy of her to call him back,when—the tears rose to her eyes as she pursued this train of reflection—he might have by this time learnt to forget her, and to be happier away.
Disturbed by these different reflections; inclining now to one course and then to another,and again recoiling from all, as each successive consideration presented itself to her mind;Rose passed a sleepless and anxious night. After more communing with herself next day,she arrived at the desperate conclusion of consulting Harry.
“If it be painful to him,” she thought, “to come back here, how painful it will be to me!But perhaps he will not come; he may write, or he may come himself,and studiously abstain from meeting me—he did when he went away. I hardly thought he would;but it was better for us both.” And here Rose dropped the pen, and turned away,as though the very paper which was to be her messenger should not see her weep.
She had taken up the same pen, and laid it down again fifty times,and had considered and reconsidered the first line of her letter without writing the first word,when Oliver, who had been walking in the streets, with Mr. Giles for a body-guard,entered the room in such breathless haste and violent agitation,as seemed to betoken some new cause of alarm.
“What makes you look so flurried?” asked Rose, advancing to meet him.
“I hardly know how; I feel as if I should be choked,” replied the boy. “Oh dear!To think that I should see him at last, and you should be able to know that I have told you the truth!”
“I never thought you had told us anything but the truth,” said Rose, soothing him. “But what is this?—of whom do you speak?”
“I have seen the gentleman,” replied Oliver, scarcely able to articulate,“the gentleman who was so good to me—Mr. Brownlow, that we have so often talked about.”
“Where?” asked Rose.
“Getting out of a coach,” replied Oliver, shedding tears of delight, “and going into a house.I didn’t speak to him—I couldn’t speak to him, for he didn’t see me, and I trembled so,that I was not able to go up to him. But Giles asked, for me, whether he lived there,and they said he did. Look here,” said Oliver, opening a scrap of paper, “here it is;here’s where he lives—I’m going there directly!Oh, dear me, dear me!What shall I do when I come to see him and hear him speak again!”
With her attention not a little distracted by these and a great many other incoherent exclamations of joy,Rose read the address, which was Craven Street, in the Strand.She very soon determined upon turning the discovery to account.
“Quick!” she said. “Tell them to fetch a hackney-coach, and be ready to go with me.I will take you there directly, without a minute’s loss of time.I will only tell my aunt that we are going out for an hour, and be ready as soon as you are.”
Oliver needed no prompting to despatch, and in little more than five minutes they were on their way to Craven Street.When they arrived there, Rose left Oliver in the coach,under pretence of preparing the old gentleman to receive him;and sending up her card by the servant, requested to see Mr. Brownlow on very pressing business.The servant soon returned, to beg that she would walk upstairs;and following him into an upper room, Miss Maylie was presented to an elderly gentleman of benevolent appearance,in a bottle-green coat. At no great distance from whom, was seated another old gentleman,in nankeen breeches and gaiters; who did not look particularly benevolent,and who was sitting with his hands clasped on the top of a thick stick, and his chin propped thereupon.
“Dear me,” said the gentleman, in the bottle-green coat, hastily rising with great politeness,“I beg your pardon, young lady—I imagined it was some importunate person who—I beg you will excuse me. Be seated, pray.”
“Mr. Brownlow, I believe, sir?” said Rose, glancing from the other gentleman to the one who had spoken.
“That is my name,” said the old gentleman. “This is my friend, Mr. Grimwig. Grimwig, will you leave us for a few minutes?”
“I believe,” interposed Miss Maylie, “that at this period of our interview,I need not give that gentleman the trouble of going away. If I am correctly informed,he is cognizant of the business on which I wish to speak to you.”
Mr. Brownlow inclined his head. Mr. Grimwig, who had made one very stiff bow,and risen from his chair, made another very stiff bow, and dropped into it again.
“I shall surprise you very much, I have no doubt,” said Rose, naturally embarrassed;“but you once showed great benevolence and goodness to a very dear young friend of mine,and I am sure you will take an interest in hearing of him again.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Brownlow.
“Oliver Twist you knew him as,” replied Rose.
The words no sooner escaped her lips, than Mr. Grimwig,who had been affecting to dip into a large book that lay on the table, upset it with a great crash,and falling back in his chair, discharged from his features every expression but one of unmitigated wonder,and indulged in a prolonged and vacant stare; then,as if ashamed of having betrayed so much emotion, he jerked himself, as it were,by a convulsion into his former attitude,and looking out straight before him emitted a long deep whistle, which seemed, at last,not to be discharged on empty air, but to die away in the innermost recesses of his stomach.
Mr. Browlow was no less surprised, although his astonishment was not expressed in the same eccentric manner.He drew his chair nearer to Miss Maylie’s, and said,
“Do me the favour, my dear young lady, to leave entirely out of the question that goodness and benevolence of which you speak,and of which nobody else knows anything;and if you have it in your power to produce any evidence which will alter the unfavourable opinion I was once induced to entertain of that poor child,in Heaven’s name put me in possession of it.”
“A bad one!I’ll eat my head if he is not a bad one,” growled Mr. Grimwig, speaking by some ventriloquial power, without moving a muscle of his face.
“He is a child of a noble nature and a warm heart,” said Rose, colouring;“and that Power which has thought fit to try him beyond his years,has planted in his breast affections and feelings which would do honour to many who have numbered his days six times over. ”
“I’m only sixty-one,” said Mr. Grimwig, with the same rigid face. “And,as the devil’s in it if this Oliver is not twelve years old at least,I don’t see the application of that remark.”
“Do not heed my friend, Miss Maylie,” said Mr. Brownlow; “he does not mean what he says.”
“Yes, he does,” growled Mr. Grimwig.
“No, he does not,” said Mr. Brownlow, obviously rising in wrath as he spoke.
“He’ll eat his head, if he doesn’t,” growled Mr. Grimwig.
“He would deserve to have it knocked off, if he does,” said Mr. Brownlow.
“And he’d uncommonly like to see any man offer to do it,” responded Mr. Grimwig, knocking his stick upon the floor.
Having gone thus far, the two old gentlemen severally took snuff, and afterwards shook hands, according to their invariable custom.
“Now, Miss Maylie,” said Mr. Brownlow, “to return to the subject in which your humanity is so much interested.Will you let me know what intelligence you have of this poor child:allowing me to promise that I exhausted every means in my power of discovering him,and that since I have been absent from this country,my first impression that he had imposed upon me,and had been persuaded by his former associates to rob me, has been considerably shaken.”
Rose, who had had time to collect her thoughts, at once related, in a few natural words,all that had befallen Oliver since he left Mr. Brownlow’s house;reserving Nancy’s information for that gentleman’s private ear,and concluding with the assurance that his only sorrow, for some months past,had been not being able to meet with his former benefactor and friend.
“Thank God!” said the old gentleman. “This is great happiness to me, great happiness.But you have not told me where he is now, Miss Maylie. You must pardon my finding fault with you, —but why not have brought him?”
“He is waiting in a coach at the door,” replied Rose.
“At this door!” cried the old gentleman. With which he hurried out of the room, down the stairs,up the coachsteps, and into the coach, without another word.
When the room-door closed behind him, Mr. Grimwig lifted up his head,and converting one of the hind legs of his chair into a pivot,described three distinct circles with the assistance of his stick and the table;sitting in it all the time. After performing this evolution,he rose and limped as fast as he could up and down the room at least a dozen times,and then stopping suddenly before Rose, kissed her without the slightest preface.
“Hush!” he said, as the young lady rose in some alarm at this unusual proceeding. “Don’t be afraid.I’m old enough to be your grandfather. You’re a sweet girl. I like you. Here they are!”
In fact, as he threw himself at one dexterous dive into his former seat, Mr. Brownlow returned,accompanied by Oliver, whom Mr. Grimwig received very graciously;and if the gratification of that moment had been the only reward for all her anxiety and care in Oliver’s behalf,Rose Maylie would have been well repaid.
“There is somebody else who should not be forgotten, by the bye,” said Mr. Brownlow,ringing the bell. “Send Mrs. Bedwin here, if you please.”
The old housekeeper answered the summons with all dispatch; and dropping a curtsey at the door, waited for orders.
“Why, you get blinder every day, Bedwin,” said Mr. Brownlow, rather testily.
“Well, that I do, sir,” replied the old lady. “People’s eyes, at my time of life, don’t improve with age, sir.”
“I could have told you that,” rejoined Mr. Brownlow; “but put on your glasses,and see if you can’t find out what you were wanted for, will you?”
The old lady began to rummage in her pocket for her spectacles.But Oliver’s patience was not proof against this new trial; and yielding to his first impulse, he sprang into her arms.
“God be good to me!” cried the old lady, embracing him; “it is my innocent boy!”
“My dear old nurse!” cried Oliver.
“He would come back—I knew he would,” said the old lady, holding him in her arms.“How well he looks, and how like a gentleman’s son he is dressed again!Where have you been, this long, long while?Ah!the same sweet face, but not so pale; the same soft eye, but not so sad.I have never forgotten them or his quiet smile, but have seen them every day,side by side with those of my own dear children,dead and gone since I was a lightsome young creature.” Running on thus,and now holding Oliver from her to mark how he had grown,now clasping him to her and passing her fingers fondly through his hair,the good soul laughed and wept upon his neck by turns.
Leaving her and Oliver to compare notes at leisure, Mr. Brownlow led the way into another room;and there, heard from Rose a full narration of her interview with Nancy,which occasioned him no little surprise and perplexity.Rose also explained her reasons for not confiding in her friend Mr. Losberne in the first instance.The old gentleman considered that she had acted prudently,and readily undertook to hold solemn conference with the worthy doctor himself.To afford him an early opportunity for the execution of this design,it was arranged that he should call at the hotel at eight o’clock that evening,and that in the meantime Mrs. Maylie should be cautiously informed of all that had occurred.These preliminaries adjusted, Rose and Oliver returned home.
Rose had by no means overrated the measure of the good doctor’s wrath.Nancy’s history was no sooner unfolded to him,than he poured forth a shower of mingled threats and execrations;threatened to make her the first victim of the combined ingenuity of Messrs. Blathers and Duff;and actually put on his hat preparatory to sallying forth to obtain the assistance of those worthies.And, doubtless, he would, in this first outbreak,have carried the intention into effect without a moment’s consideration of the consequences,if he had not been restrained, in part, by corresponding violence on the side of Mr. Brownlow,who was himself of an irascible temperament,and partly by such arguments and representations as seemed best calculated to dissuade him from his hotbrained purpose.
“Then what the devil is to be done?” said the impetuous doctor, when they had rejoined the two ladies.“Are we to pass a vote of thanks to all these vagabonds, male and female,and beg them to accept a hundred pounds, or so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our esteem,and some slight acknowledgment of their kindness to Oliver?”
“Not exactly that,” rejoined Mr. Brownlow, laughing;“but we must proceed gently and with great care.”
“Gentleness and care,” exclaimed the doctor. “I’d send them one and all to—”
“Never mind where,” interposed Mr. Brownlow.“But reflect whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view.”
“What object?” asked the doctor.
“Simply, the discovery of Oliver’s parentage, and regaining for him the inheritance of which,if this story be true, he has been fraudulently deprived.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Losberne, cooling himself with his pocket-handkerchief; “I almost forgot that.”
“You see,” pursued Mr. Brownlow; “placing this poor girl entirely out of the question,and supposing it were possible to bring these scoundrels to justice without compromising her safety, what good should we bring about?”
“Hanging a few of them at least, in all probability,” suggested the doctor, “and transporting the rest.”
“Very good,” replied Mr. Brownlow, smiling;“but no doubt they will bring that about for themselves in the fulness of time,and if we step in to forestall them, it seems to me that we shall be performing a very Quixotic act,in direct opposition to our own interest—or at least to Oliver’s, which is the same thing.”
“How?” inquired the doctor.
“Thus. It is quite clear that we shall have extreme difficulty in getting to the bottom of this mystery,unless we can bring this man, Monks, upon his knees. That can only be done by stratagem,and by catching him when he is not surrounded by these people. For, suppose he were apprehended,we have no proof against him. He is not even (so far as we know,or as the facts appear to us) concerned with the gang in any of their robberies.If he were not discharged, it is very unlikely that he could receive any further punishment than being committed to prison as a rogue and vagabond;and of course ever afterwards his mouth would be so obstinately closed that he might as well,for our purposes, be deaf, dumb, blind, and an idiot.”
“Then,” said the doctor impetuously, “I put it to you again,whether you think it reasonable that this promise to the girl should be considered binding;a promise made with the best and kindest intentions, but really—”
“Do not discuss the point, my dear young lady, pray,” said Mr. Brownlow,interrupting Rose as she was about to speak. “The promise shall be kept. I don’t think it will,in the slightest degree, interfere with our proceedings. But,before we can resolve upon any precise course of action, it will be necessary to see the girl;to ascertain from her whether she will point out this Monks,on the understanding that he is to be dealt with by us, and not by the law; or, if she will not,or cannot do that, to procure from her such an account of his haunts and description of his person,as will enable us to identify him. She cannot be seen until next Sunday night; this is Tuesday.I would suggest that in the meantime, we remain perfectly quiet,and keep these matters secret even from Oliver himself.”
Although Mr. Losberne received with many wry faces a proposal involving a delay of five whole days,he was fain to admit that no better course occurred to him just then; and as both Rose and Mrs.Maylie sided very strongly with Mr. Brownlow, that gentleman’s proposition was carried unanimously.
“I should like,” he said, “to call in the aid of my friend Grimwig. He is a strange creature,but a shrewd one, and might prove of material assistance to us;I should say that he was bred a lawyer,and quitted the Bar in disgust because he had only one brief and a motion of course,in twenty years, though whether that is recommendation or not, you must determine for yourselves.”
“I have no objection to your calling in your friend if I may call in mine,” said the doctor.
“We must put it to the vote,” replied Mr. Brownlow, “who may he be?”
“That lady’s son, and this young lady’s—very old friend,” said the doctor, motioning towards Mrs.Maylie, and concluding with an expressive glance at her niece.
Rose blushed deeply, but she did not make any audible objection to this motion (possibly she felt in a hopeless minority);and Harry Maylie and Mr. Grimwig were accordingly added to the committee.
“We stay in town, of course,” said Mrs. Maylie,“while there remains the slightest prospect of prosecuting this inquiry with a chance of success.I will spare neither trouble nor expense in behalf of the object in which we are all so deeply interested,and I am content to remain here, if it be for twelve months,so long as you assure me that any hope remains.”
“Good!” rejoined Mr. Brownlow. “And as I see on the faces about me,a disposition to inquire how it happened that I was not in the way to corroborate Oliver’s tale,and had so suddenly left the kingdom, let me stipulate that I shall be asked no questions until such time as I may deem it expedient to forestall them by telling my own story. Believe me, I make this request with good reason, for I might otherwise excite hopes destined never to be realised, and only increase difficulties and disappointments already quite numerous enough. Come!Supper has been announced, and young Oliver, who is all alone in the next room,will have begun to think, by this time, that we have wearied of his company,and entered into some dark conspiracy to thrust him forth upon the world.”
With these words, the old gentleman gave his hand to Mrs. Maylie,and escorted her into the supper-room. Mr. Losberne followed, leading Rose; and the council was, for the present, effectually broken up.
CHAPTER XLII. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE OF OLIVER’S, EXHIBITING DECIDED MARKS OF GENIUS,BECOMES A PUBLIC CHARACTER IN THE METROPOLIS
Upon the night when Nancy, having lulled Mr. Sikes to sleep,hurried on her self-imposed mission to Rose Maylie, there advanced towards London,by the Great North Road, two persons, upon whom it is expedient that this history should bestow some attention.
They were a man and woman; or perhaps they would be better described as a male and female:for the former was one of those long-limbed, knock-kneed, shambling, bony people,to whom it is difficult to assign any precise age,—looking as they do, when they are yet boys,like undergrown men, and when they are almost men, like overgrown boys. The woman was young,but of a robust and hardy make, as she need have been to bear the weight of the heavy bundle which was strapped to her back.Her companion was not encumbered with much luggage,as there merely dangled from a stick which he carried over his shoulder,a small parcel wrapped in a common handkerchief, and apparently light enough. This circumstance,added to the length of his legs, which were of unusual extent,enabled him with much ease to keep some half-dozen paces in advance of his companion,to whom he occasionally turned with an impatient jerk of the head: as if reproaching her tardiness, and urging her to greater exertion.
Thus, they had toiled along the dusty road, taking little heed of any object within sight,save when they stepped aside to allow a wider passage for the mail-coaches which were whirling out of town,until they passed through Highgate archway;when the foremost traveller stopped and called impatiently to his companion,
“Come on, can’t yer?What a lazybones yer are, Charlotte.”
“It’s a heavy load, I can tell you,” said the female, coming up, almost breathless with fatigue.
“Heavy!What are yer talking about?What are yer made for?” rejoined the male traveller, changing his own little bundle as he spoke, to the other shoulder. “Oh, there yer are, resting again!Well, if yer ain’t enough to tire anybody’s patience out, I don’t know what is!”
“Is it much farther?” asked the woman, resting herself against a bank,and looking up with the perspiration streaming from her face.
“Much farther!Yer as good as there,” said the long-legged tramper, pointing out before him. “Look there!Those are the lights of London.”
“They’re a good two mile off, at least,” said the woman despondingly.
“Never mind whether they’re two mile off, or twenty,” said Noah Claypole; for he it was;“but get up and come on, or I’ll kick yer, and so I give yer notice.”
As Noah’s red nose grew redder with anger, and as he crossed the road while speaking,as if fully prepared to put his threat into execution, the woman rose without any further remark, and trudged onward by his side.
“Where do you mean to stop for the night, Noah?” she asked, after they had walked a few hundred yards.
“How should I know?” replied Noah, whose temper had been considerably impaired by walking.
“Near, I hope,” said Charlotte.
“No, not near,” replied Mr. Claypole. “There!Not near; so don’t think it.”
“Why not?”
“When I tell yer that I don’t mean to do a thing, that’s enough, without any why or because either, ” replied Mr. Claypole with dignity.
“Well, you needn’t be so cross,” said his companion.
“A pretty thing it would be, wouldn’t it to go and stop at the very first public-house outside the town,so that Sowerberry, if he come up after us, might poke in his old nose,and have us taken back in a cart with handcuffs on,” said Mr. Claypole in a jeering tone. “No!I shall go and lose myself among the narrowest streets I can find,and not stop till we come to the very out-of-the-wayest house I can set eyes on. Cod,yer may thanks yer stars I’ve got a head; for if we hadn’t gone, at first,the wrong road a purpose, and come back across country,yer’d have been locked up hard and fast a week ago, my lady. And serve yer right for being a fool.”
“I know I ain’t as cunning as you are,” replied Charlotte; “but don’t put all the blame on me,and say I should have been locked up. You would have been if I had been, any way.”
“Yer took the money from the till, yer know yer did,” said Mr. Claypole.
“I took it for you, Noah, dear,” rejoined Charlotte.
“Did I keep it?” asked Mr. Claypole.
“No; you trusted in me, and let me carry it like a dear, and so you are,” said the lady,chucking him under the chin, and drawing her arm through his.
This was indeed the case; but as it was not Mr.Claypole’s habit to repose a blind and foolish confidence in anybody, it should be observed,in justice to that gentleman, that he had trusted Charlotte to this extent, in order that,if they were pursued, the money might be found on her:which would leave him an opportunity of asserting his innocence of any theft,and would greatly facilitate his chances of escape. Of course, he entered at this juncture,into no explanation of his motives, and they walked on very lovingly together.
In pursuance of this cautious plan, Mr. Claypole went on, without halting,until he arrived at the Angel at Islington, where he wisely judged,from the crowd of passengers and numbers of vehicles, that London began in earnest.Just pausing to observe which appeared the most crowded streets,and consequently the most to be avoided, he crossed into Saint John’s Road,and was soon deep in the obscurity of the intricate and dirty ways, which,lying between Gray’s Inn Lane and Smithfield,render that part of the town one of the lowest and worst that improvement has left in the midst of London.