four feet from the pavement of the yard. The room within was
illuminated by a blaze of gaslight. More policemen were here, keeping
back more inquisitive lodgers. Among the spectators was a man with a
hideous outward squint, holding by the window-bars in a state of
drunken terror. The sergeant looked at him, and beckoned to one of the
policemen. "Take him to the station; I shall have something to say to
Wall-Eyes when he's sober. Now then! stand back all of you, and let's
see what's going on in the kitchen."

He took Amelius by the arm, and led him to the window. Even the sergeant
started when the scene inside met his view. "By God!" he cried, "it's
Mother Sowler herself."

It _was_ Mother Sowler. The horrible woman was tramping round and round
in the middle of the kitchen, like a beast in a cage; raving in the
dreadful drink-madness called delirium tremens. In the farthest corner
of the room, barricaded behind the table, the landlord's wife and
daughter crouched in terror of their lives. The gas, turned full on,
blazed high enough to blacken the ceiling, and showed the heavy bolts
shot at the top and bottom of the solid door. Nothing less than a
battering-ram could have burst that door in from the outer side; an
hour's work with the file would have failed to break a passage through
the bars over the window. "How did she get there?" the sergeant asked.
"Run downstairs, and bolted herself in, while the missus and the young
'un were cooking"--was the answering cry from the people in the yard. As
they spoke, another vain attempt was made to break in the door from
the passage. The noise of the heavy blows redoubled the frenzy of the
terrible creature in the kitchen, still tramping round and round under
the blazing gaslight. Suddenly, she made a dart at the window, and
confronted the men looking in from the yard. Her staring eyes were
bloodshot; a purple-red flush was over her face; her hair waved wildly
about her, torn away in places by her own hands. "Cats!" she screamed,
glaring out of the window, "millions of cats! all their months wide
open spitting at me! Fire! fire to scare away the cats!" She searched
furiously in her pocket, and tore out a handful of loose papers. One of
them escaped, and fluttered downward to a wooden press under the window.
Amelius was nearest, and saw it plainly as it fell, "Good heavens!" he
exclaimed, "it's a bank-note!" "Wall-Eyes' money!" shouted the thieves
in the yard; "She's going to burn