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- 7197
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.842Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7122
- text
- these three days, with nothing to eat;—that I know myself.”
“She desarves it,” said an old hag, who was just placing on her crooked
shoulders her bag of pickings, and who was turning to totter off, “that
Betsy Jennings desarves it—was she ever married? tell me that.”
Leaving Launcelott’s-Hey, I turned into a more frequented street; and
soon meeting a policeman, told him of the condition of the woman and
the girls.
“It’s none of my business, Jack,” said he. “I don’t belong to that
street.”
“Who does then?”
“I don’t know. But what business is it of yours? Are you not a Yankee?”
“Yes,” said I, “but come, I will help you remove that woman, if you say
so.”
“There, now, Jack, go on board your ship and stick to it; and leave
these matters to the town.”
I accosted two more policemen, but with no better success; they would
not even go with me to the place. The truth was, it was out of the way,
in a silent, secluded spot; and the misery of the three outcasts,
hiding away in the ground, did not obtrude upon any one.
Returning to them, I again stamped to attract their attention; but this
time, none of the three looked up, or even stirred. While I yet stood
irresolute, a voice called to me from a high, iron-shuttered window in
a loft over the way; and asked what I was about. I beckoned to the man,
a sort of porter, to come down, which he did; when I pointed down into
the vault.
“Well,” said he, “what of it?”
“Can’t we get them out?” said I, “haven’t you some place in your
warehouse where you can put them? have you nothing for them to eat?”
“You’re crazy, boy,” said he; “do you suppose, that Parkins and Wood
want their warehouse turned into a hospital?”
I then went to my boarding-house, and told Handsome Mary of what I had
seen; asking her if she could not do something to get the woman and
girls removed; or if she could not do that, let me have some food for
them. But though a kind person in the main, Mary replied that she gave
away enough to beggars in her own street (which was true enough)
without looking after the whole neighborhood.
Going into the kitchen, I accosted the cook, a little shriveled-up old
Welshwoman, with a saucy tongue, whom the sailors called _Brandy-Nan;_
and begged her to give me some cold victuals, if she had nothing
better, to take to the vault. But she broke out in a storm of swearing
at the miserable occupants of the vault, and refused. I then stepped
into the room where our dinner was being spread; and waiting till the
girl had gone out, I snatched some bread and cheese from a stand, and
thrusting it into the bosom of my frock, left the house. Hurrying to
the lane, I dropped the food down into the vault. One of the girls
caught at it convulsively, but fell back, apparently fainting; the
sister pushed the other’s arm aside, and took the bread in her hand;
but with a weak uncertain grasp like an infant’s. She placed it to her
mouth; but letting it fall again, murmuring faintly something like
“water.” The woman did not stir; her head was bowed over, just as I had
first seen her.
Seeing how it was, I ran down toward the docks to a mean little sailor
tavern, and begged for a pitcher; but the cross old man who kept it
refused, unless I would pay for it. But I had no money. So as my
boarding-house was some way off, and it would be lost time to run to
the ship for my big iron pot; under the impulse of the moment, I
hurried to one of the Boodle Hydrants, which I remembered having seen
running near the scene of a still smoldering fire in an old rag house;
and taking off a new tarpaulin hat, which had been loaned me that day,
filled it with water.
- title
- Chunk 2