IFFORD.

CHAPTER I.

Say, ye oppressed by some fantastic woes, Some jarring nerve that
baffles your repose, Who press the downy couch while slaves advance With
timid eye to read the distant glance, Who with sad prayers the weary
doctor tease To name the nameless, ever-new disease, Who with mock
patience dire complaints endure, Which real pain and that alone can
cure, How would you bear in real pain to lie Despised, neglected, left
alone to die? How would you bear to draw your latest breath Where all
that's wretched paves the way to death?--Crabbe.

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at
occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind
which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies),
rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame
of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. Through one of the
obscurest quarters of London, and among haunts little loved by the
gentlemen of the police, a man, evidently of the lowest orders, was
wending his solitary way. He stopped twice or thrice at different shops
and houses of a description correspondent with the appearance of the
quartier in which they were situated, and tended inquiry for some
article or another which did not seem easily to be met with. All the
answers he received were couched in the negative; and as he turned from
each door he muttered to himself, in no very elegant phraseology, his
disappointment and discontent. At length, at one house, the landlord, a
sturdy butcher, after rendering the same reply the inquirer had hitherto
received, added, "But if this vill do as vell, Dummie, it is quite at
your sarvice!" Pausing reflectively for a moment, Dummie responded that
he thought the thing proffered might do as well; and thrusting it into
his ample pocket, he strode away with as rapid a motion as the wind and
the rain would allow. He soon came to a nest of low and dingy buildings,
at the entrance to which, in half-effaced characters, was written
"Thames Court." Halting at the most conspicuous of these buildings, an
inn or alehouse, through the half-closed windows of which blazed out in
ruddy comfort the beams of the hospitable hearth, he knocked hastily at
the door. He was admitted by a lady of a certain age, and endowed with a
comely rotundity of face and person.

"Hast got it, Dummie?" said she, quickly, as she closed the door on the
guest.

"Noa, noa! not exactl