BORN TO SORROW. CHAP. XXII. "AMONG THIEVES." All betting London was in a ferment of excitement; knots of disreputable men were gathered at the corners of the street, whose vocation no one would be in the slightest degree ignorant of, after a single glance at the cut of their clothes-the white hat and black band, which was once the sign of a Radical, in the palmy days of the madman Henry Hunt; the face under that hat, which seems to have reached the acme of human sharpness and human cunning; the bird's-eye fogle, the closely-cut suit of tweed, and the tight trowsersall that make up the character which I must be forgiven for calling "horsy;" for no other word can express it half as neatly. What a wonderful insight into human character does Charles Dickens possess, when he says that these men seem to have been imbued with the very spirit of the animals they attend to, and when he makes "Rob, the grinder," querulously wonder why horses and dogs and sporting pigeons should do men such harminnocent things like them! 66 Hoarse mysterious whispers are circulated amongst these men, and secret offers of "five to four on 'Paddle your own Canoe,'" or of taking the odds against 'Lord Strathmore's filly," are bandied freely about; for in a few days the greatest race in sporting England will be run, and the mingled fun and misery which make up the great play of the "Derby Day" be enacted. The horse that Grantley had laid so much money on seemed to be in everyone's mouth, in that sporting circle, and men would remove the eternal bit of straw from between their lips to give utterance to the wish "that they might die if they wouldn't back 'Peep o' Day' with Challoner on his back, agin the whole bilin' of 'em at any odds." And the knowing ones winked mysteriously, and hinted that they might have seen him take his gallop, and that nothing on four legs could ever hope to touch him. And clean through the blazing May-day the devoted band remained at their corner, talking still in mysterious confidential whispers, and monotonously giving and taking the odds, while the noble owner of this much-praised animal was amusing himself in the same way in some more aristocratic region. It was getting dusk in the streets of London, when Grantley left his club, and strolled carelessly down Piccadilly, apparently as heedless of the life surging round him as if he saw no one. The pace was getting a very killing one with him now. He couldn't conceal from himself that he had been losing greatly lately, and that he looked forward with feverish anxiety to Peep o' Day's running first to set him all right again. He passed a knot of sporting men, who were reading the latest intelligence, and heard the running fire of whispered remarks that rose as he went by: "He'll make a good thing of it if Peep o' Day does the trick. He has put a most tremendous pot of money on, and, by George, if anything does happen wrong, won't it be a come-down for him?" It was sickening, and this was the reward he was attaining to-to have his name and prospects canvassed by every dirty snob in the street. "Devil's own get the devil's wages," came home forcibly enough to him then, by way of proverb. He strolled on, though, as careless and haughty as the best of his "swell" class, and pursued his way till he reached a small mean-looking house, with an undefinable air of something wrong clinging to it-a house in which the blinds were all down as close as though it held the dead—and gave a gentle tap at the door. London people are very incurious as a class; but even they, as they passed, turned and looked with astonishment at the swell gentleman, and wondered what his business might be in that out-of-the-way spot. The door was opened by a dark Jeweylooking man, with a quantity of Mosaic jewellery in the shape of rings and charms, and whose face, in contrast with the captain's high-bred features, looked ludicrously different. Grantley whispered some talisman and was admitted to an inner sanctum, where were assembled some half-dozen men, who were so intently occupied over a green table that they scarcely raised their heads as Grantley entered; but kept on repeat $ ing, in a monotonous way, such words as "I mark the king," "Your deal," and remarks to the like effect. tracted their fickle allegiance? A good many people used to laugh at that song, and called it overdrawn "all stuff and nonsense;" but I believe it was much more true to life than would be agreeable for some gentlemen who shake the elbow to suppose. It was the old old story of the ruling passion-a passion before which love and honesty, and manly feeling and Christian charity, pale their fires-a passion which makes the votaries to the full, aye more infatuated than were those wretched dupes whom the Horsel Venus held in her fell bondage. It really is too bad. I must apologise for leading my readers into such bad company; but it is no use my concealing the fact that the house was one of the most notorious gambling hells in wicked London, and the men in the room were playing unlimited loo. It is not worth my while to try and do a little bit of word-painting here, in the style of the great novelists, or in the language of that life-like play "Rouge-et-Noir," so you must imagine It might have been the chance recollection of for yourselves the frenzied gestures, the his suffering wife that made Grantley's hand clenched hands, the muttered imprecation, shake, and his nerve weak to-night; but he cer as large sums changed hands, and the ill-tainly played as badly as the merest tyro who concealed cry of joy as a lucky player pocketed might be handling the cards for the first time; his gains. Any ordinary observer who didn't and luck-that Bona Dea of the gambling enjoy the insight into these things that the mysteries-seemed entirely to have deserted novelists aforesaid do, might imagine that the him. And yet the coolness of the man was proceeding was one of the most common every-wonderful. He remained cool and impassive, day kind, for there was certainly nothing of the Maurice d'Arbel sensation here. "Ah! you are come at last, Grantley. Now I'll trouble you to give me my revenge. I feel rather like winning to-night. You know the cards are with me." "As you like, my lord," answered Grantley, calmly," and I think we'll treble the stakes." "Now or never!" thought he, as he sat down with his opponent to begin the " limited." un The good-tempered-looking young nobleman (who had not left Christ-church very long, and was seeing life in this ingenuous way) seemed to have spoken with the spirit of prophecy, for they had not played long before Grantley had to write a cheque of some magnitude. "There, now we will leave off if you like, Grantley," said the mere lad, his adversary; "I havn't now much more than I dropped the other night." It was kindly meant, but fell very short. "The night is very young yet," said Grantley, "and you are surely not afraid "That I shall have to use my latch-key?" laughed the young fellow. "Oh dear me, no. Let us double again, if you like." And the stakes were doubled, and again Grantley lost, with a terrible curse on his ill luck trembling on his lips. "I'll have some brandy before we begin again," he said, hoarsely. "I am off my play to-night, that's certain." And all this time did no compunction cross his mind that he was breaking his plighted word to his wife?-that she was sitting wearily, sadly, waiting his arrival, with the bitter tears which she could not repress falling on her cheek, and the weary heart-wrung moan escaping her lips: "I know he has broken his word and is gambling again"? Does any one of my readers remember a song, by Mr. Henry Russell, which used to be a great favourite with the people once, before the reign of the besotted comic songs, such as "Champagne Charlie" and "Slap Bang," at taking his immense losses in a calm way which Campbell's "stoic of the woods" would have admired immensely. Men came dropping in from the Opera and the House "to finish their night," and he talked to them carelessly and with the utmost nonchalance: "Tietjens was in great form, I suppose, as Lucia-and Gardoni as good as ever? Did Disraeli say anything about the new Reformbill? and was Lowe as savage as ever?" and all that kind of thing, while the passions of hell were raging at his heart, and something very like ruin was staring him in the face, and when other men as luckless as himself were wildly cursing their losses, or drinking brandy furiously to drown all reflection. Would his luck never turn? Was there no chance of his making some great coup yet, and winning something back out of his immense losses? It didn't matter to the young nobleman who was winning his money so much. He was certainly one of the richest peers in the list of those who adorn the pages of the "golden book." A thousand or so would not make any difference in the rent-roll of young Viscount Salford; but to him he couldn't conceal from his mind that this kind of game, if carried on long and equally unfortunate, must end in utter ruin, and the consequences. Even now pictures crossed his mind of the breaking up of his establishment; the seedy half-pay kind of life at obliged to herd amongst the Englishmen who some foreign watering-place, where he would be had been "unfortunate"-that is, had cheated their creditors; and where he would be compelled to exercise the arts of a bird of prey to keep body and soul together. And then the house and furniture in the hands of the greasy villanous Children of Israel, with their long dirty talons, handling and appraising all the sumptuous furniture of the great house in Portmanstreet, where, even now, his wife sat waiting and weeping-through all the weary watches still waiting and weeping, You all remember the old-fashioned story of along, and cursing the whole world-" a terrible the man who played with the strange-looking woman: so hideous, so reckless, so fierce!-a adversary who always kept his foot carefully woman who has been steeped in infamy from * concealed; and who, after winning every earthly | her girlhood!--a woman whose past is a catapossession, kindly offered to play the unfor-logue of crimes, whose future seems a hopeless tunate hero for his soul! It is an absurd fable, hell!-the woman who has never forgotten God, of course-anilis fabella-a mere old-wife's tale; because she has never known Him-who has but still Grantley to-night seemed to be playing never repented, because evil has been her good for no lower stake. His opponent certainly was from childhood." not the devil, but merely a good-humoured, rosy, good-looking young Englishman, with immense breadth in his shoulders, and a smile that showed his white teeth continually, and who, to tell truth, was almost frightened himself at the way in which he was winning from the great Grantley, and rather expected to lose it all before they separated; but I very much question, if the fable before-mentioned were to have become reality, whether Grantley would have hesitated. An evil demon seemed to be continually whispering in his ear: "Go on! You must get your old luck soon!" and he went on doubling and trebling the stakes recklessly, and lost still lost. Such a woman, so admirably photographed by Mr. Kingsley, crosses our path as we move along the deserted street, and we can only shudder as we hear her ribald curses, and wonder if at any time she knew a mother's love, or lisped a prayer at a mother's knee. Down an alley, a festering horrid lane, with heaps of filthy garbage corrupting the air, and bringing cholera and fever in its every breath, and into a small house where, like the other one, the blinds are down, and mystery broods over the neighbourhood. I must make use of the fern-weed to obtain entrance; for those that have not the talismanic herb, or the wooden leg of Asmodeus, a strange hard-sounding pass"This will be a hot night's work for Grant-word is necessary. Inside, a scene that would ley," whispered the men about the table. "As look well painted by Ostade or Teniers, if for Salford, he will be able to get that pair of England possessed such painters, sat three men, ponies he promised Coralie for the Park." each at least from a casual glance-of different nationality. As to the one who sat smoking a short pipe, and drinking spirits out of an apology for a glass, there could be no mistake. Bill Sykes was written in every lineament of the brutal close-shaven face, in the small cruel eyes with murder in every glance of them, in the thick gladiator bull-neck, in the bull-dogwell-set thick form, and arms whose muscles -a man evidently of immense strength, jowl-a the close-fitting canvas jacket did not in the least conceal-a man, in fact, with whom, if Scotch have it, "to crack wi' than fecht wi';" necessity compelled, you would be readier, as the though you would be excessively sorry to do either: when I add that every time he opened his mouth he garnished his hoarse remarks with Here I shall leave him for a moment, and take me with you out of the polluted place into the fresh air of the London street, which seems like a whiff of Paradise after the stifling gambling-room. Enjoy the night-air while you may. Take a good long breath of the balmy May night; for I shall have to take you in doors again with this magic wand of mine, and the change, I am inclined to think, will not be for the better-beautifully calm and quiet after the noise and turmoil and ever-passing stream of life that crowded it during the day. One solitary policeman turns his bull's-eye full upon us, and eyes us suspiciously; then, apparently satisfied, resumes his walk, and muses upon the chances in life which have turned night into day for him. A faint sound of revelry comes from higher up the street, where a knot of drunken clerks are making night hideous by the declaration that they are all "magnificent bricks," and bound to have a spree that night. All very well for that night, perhaps; but not so well when they wake next morning with a head-ache, which makes the small amount of brain that they possess boil like molten lead, and makes their hands shake as they hold the pen, and their eyes stationary in their foolish young heads, like those of a cod-fish. And at the corners of the street, perhaps,.a ghostly figure, in unwomanly attire, with hollow painted cheek, and bold defiant face, yet shivering in this warm night, and huddling herself into the shadow of a door-way as we pass. Not all unwomanly yet, perhaps, though she is homeless and friendless-the despised of the despised the forlorn creature whom Christian charity, in all its rarity, never visits. And further on, some other woman, worse still, reeling the most dreadful allusions to his blood and heart and liver, I shall have completed his por trait. The man who sat near him, and was amusing himself by chaffing him, was evidently an Irishman; there was no mistaking the half-cunning, half-simple expression of his features, which a decided cast in one of his grey eyes only heightened. An air of devil-may-care, reckless drollery characterized his every movement, and served to make the grim surliness of the animal he addressed more striking through comparison. Any sporting man could have told you his sporting name, under which he generally figured in the prize-ring as a promising man in the light-weights, and that would be "The Tipperary Bantam," but any attempt to ascertain his family name (he had probably forgotten it himself) would only lead us into a confused mass of aliases as they figured on the charge-sheets and the "true-bills" of the county-courts, where he had played a prominent part through a little |