ry time they did
so--which, on the average, was about four times every quarter of an
hour--they blowed up quite frightful: for their things had been seized
too, and included in the inventory. There was a little piece of enclosed
dust in front of the house, with a cinder-path leading up to the door,
and an open rain-water butt on one side. A dirty striped curtain, on a
very slack string, hung in the window, and a little triangular bit of
broken looking-glass rested on the sill inside. I suppose it was meant
for the people's use, but their appearance was so wretched, and so
miserable, that I'm certain they never could have plucked up courage to
look themselves in the face a second time, if they survived the fright of
doing so once. There was two or three chairs, that might have been
worth, in their best days, from eightpence to a shilling a-piece; a small
deal table, an old corner cupboard with nothing in it, and one of those
bedsteads which turn up half way, and leave the bottom legs sticking out
for you to knock your head against, or hang your hat upon; no bed, no
bedding. There was an old sack, by way of rug, before the fireplace, and
four or five children were grovelling about, among the sand on the floor.
The execution was only put in, to get 'em out of the house, for there was
nothing to take to pay the expenses; and here I stopped for three days,
though that was a mere form too: for, in course, I knew, and we all knew,
they could never pay the money. In one of the chairs, by the side of the
place where the fire ought to have been, was an old 'ooman--the ugliest
and dirtiest I ever see--who sat rocking herself backwards and forwards,
backwards and forwards, without once stopping, except for an instant now
and then, to clasp together the withered hands which, with these
exceptions, she kept constantly rubbing upon her knees, just raising and
depressing her fingers convulsively, in time to the rocking of the chair.
On the other side sat the mother with an infant in her arms, which cried
till it cried itself to sleep, and when it 'woke, cried till it cried
itself off again. The old 'ooman's voice I never heard: she seemed
completely stupefied; and as to the mother's, it would have been better
if she had been so too, for misery had changed her to a devil. If you
had heard how she cursed the little naked children as was rolling on the
floor, and seen how savagely she struck the infant when it cried with
hunger, you