a walk through as many obscure and filthy wynds and lanes and
alleys and courts as ever were threaded by some humble fugitive from
justice, the patient Morris came to a sort of court, situated among the
miserable hovels in the vicinity of the Tower. He paused wonderingly at
a dwelling in which every window was broken, and where the tiles, torn
from the roof, lay scattered in forlorn confusion beside the door; where
the dingy bricks looked crumbling away, from very age and rottenness,
and the fabric, which was of great antiquity, seemed so rocking and
infirm that the eye looked upon its distorted and overhanging position
with a sensation of pain and dread; where the very rats had deserted
their loathsome cells from the insecurity of their tenure, and the
ragged mothers of the abject neighbourhood forbade their brawling
children to wander under the threatening walls, lest they should keep
the promise of their mouldering aspect, and, falling, bare to the
obstructed and sickly day the secrets of their prison-house. Girt with
the foul and reeking lairs of that extreme destitution which necessity
urges irresistibly into guilt, and excluded, by filthy alleys and an
eternal atmosphere of smoke and rank vapour, from the blessed sun and
the pure air of heaven, the miserable mansion seemed set apart for every
disease to couch within,--too perilous even for the hunted criminal;
too dreary even for the beggar to prefer it to the bare hedge, or the
inhospitable porch, beneath whose mockery of shelter the frost of winter
had so often numbed him into sleep.

Thrice did the heavy and silver-headed cane of Mr. Brown resound upon
the door, over which was a curious carving of a lion dormant, and a
date, of which only the two numbers 15 were discernable. Roused by a
note so unusual, and an apparition so unwontedly smug as the worthy
Morris, a whole legion of dingy and smoke-dried brats, came trooping
from the surrounding huts, and with many an elvish cry, and strange
oath, and cabalistic word, which thrilled the respectable marrow of Mr.
Brown, they collected in a gaping, and, to his alarmed eye, a menacing
group, as near to the house as their fears and parents would permit
them.

"It is very dangerous," thought Mr. Brown, looking shiveringly up at the
hanging and tottering roof, "and very appalling," as he turned to the
ragged crowd of infant reprobates which began with every moment to
increase. At last he summoned courage, and inquired,