The Orange Girl

It is a most terrible thing for a man of sensibility to stand in the dock of the Old Bailey before the awful array of Judges, Lord Mayor, Sheriffs and Aldermen. I know very well...

'Consider, Madame,' he urged earnestly, 'you will stand before a Court already prepossessed by the knowledge of your history, in your favour. There will be no pressure of points...

A man must be made of brass or wrought-iron who can enter the gloomy portals of Newgate as a prisoner without a trembling of the limbs and a sinking of the heart. Not even consc...

'And now,' she said, 'I will take you to the very place where I was born. You shall see for yourself the house, and my mother and my sister and the company among whom I was brou...

'You now know, Will,' said Jenny, when I called next day, 'why I have been interested in you, since I first saw you. Not on account of your good looks, Sir, though I confess you...

And now, indeed, began the time of endurance and suspense. To the bravest of women came moments of depression--what else could be expected when her days and nights were spent in...

In the evening when I left the prison, it was with emotions strange and bewildering. Jenny, who was to have received a free pardon, was sent, a self-accused convict, to the plan...

I commenced my duties in the music gallery on one of the nights devoted to the amusement called the Masquerade. It was an amusement new to me and to all except those who can aff...

The joy of the acquittal and the release was certainly dashed by the wild revenge of the mob in the evening. The wreck of the great house with all its costly fittings and decora...

On a certain afternoon in May, about four or five of the clock, I was standing at the open window of my room in that Palace to which Fortune leads her choicest favourites--the C...

As soon as we had once more found the means of keeping ourselves we went back to our former abode under the shadow of Lambeth Church on the Bank looking over the river on one si...

The case was over--I stepped out of the Dock: I was free: everybody, including Mr. Caterham, K.C., was shaking my hand: the Lord Mayor sent for me to the Bench and shook my hand...

While he spoke there came alongside the ship a dozen boats or more laden with the passengers for whose sake the good ship was about to cross the Atlantic. There were, I remember...

We were married without delay. Why should we wait? I should be no richer for waiting and time would be passing. We were married, therefore. It was impossible from time to time w...

'Go for a few days into hiding. They will come here in search of you. Cross the river--seek a lodging somewhere about Aldgate, which is on the other side of the river. They will...

I hastened on my errand, taking a boat to Westminster, whence it is a short walk across the Parks to Curzon Street, where my Lord Brockenhurst had his town house. It was about t...

The town has notoriously a short memory, yet I doubt if there be any still living who remember the year 1760 and have forgotten the case of Jenny Wilmot. For, indeed, no one for...

In the year 1760 or thereabouts, everybody knew the name of Sir Peter Halliday, Merchant. The House in which Sir Peter was the Senior Partner possessed a fleet of West Indiamen...

My way home lay through Dean Street as far as St. Ann's Church: then I passed across Leicester Fields: and through Green Street at the south-east angle of the Fields into St. Ma...

At this juncture the question of money became pressing. For three months I had been out of a place. Jenny's money, of which she was so prodigal, was coming to an end; and althou...

It was far from my intention to witness the reception of my friends in Pillory from the sympathizing mob. I was, however, reminded that the day had arrived by finding in my morn...

You need not be told how I lived for the next three or four years. I took what came. Pride remained in pocket. I fiddled a wedding-party to church and home again. I fiddled the...

'My master fell down in a fit last night, coming home from the Company's feast. They carried him home and put him to bed. But in the night he died.'

Thus I passed that weary and anxious imprisonment. The way of getting through the day was always the same. Soon after daylight, I went out and walked in the yards for half an ho...

You know how, sometimes, one hears things in a mysterious way which one could not hear under ordinary circumstances. I was standing in the outer counting-house in the room assig...

The time--the awful time--the day of Fate--drew nearer. Despite the assurances both of Jenny and of her attorney there were moments when anticipation and doubt caused agonies un...

You have heard how my old friend David Camlet, musical instrument maker, of Dowgate Street, presented me--or my wife--on our marriage, with a handsome harpsichord. Shortly after...

My last recollection of the counting-house is that of Matthew lying in a heap and shaking his fist, at me, while, behind, my uncle's face looks out amazed upon the spectacle fro...

One morning, about six weeks after the funeral, I was sitting at the harpsichord, picking out an anthem of my own composition. The theme was one of thanksgiving and praise, and...

So I was free. For twenty-four hours I was like a boy on the first day of his holidays. I exulted in my liberty: I ran about the meadows and along the Embankment: I got into a b...

You have read how a certain lady came to the Prison: how she spoke with two prisoners of the baser sort in a manner familiar and yet scornful: and how she addressed me and appea...

At that very moment, while we were trying to find words befitting the occasion which would not admit of grief yet demanded the respect due to Death, arrived the news so long exp...

The trial of our four friends for conspiracy took place in the middle of January. For my own part, I had to relate in open Court the whole history with which you are already acq...

Let me return to the wretched man who had caused this trouble. I learned that, although his two fellow-prisoners declared openly that Mr. Merridew's power was gone and that he w...

After this plain warning: after knowing the nature of the design against me: after the savage threats of the man Probus: I ought to have hesitated no longer: I should have taken...

'I assure you, Sir,' he said with feeling, 'that we know generally beforehand what will happen, and we'd quite made up our minds as to your case, spite of Madame's interest. The...

I think that Tom Shirley was the most good-natured man in the whole world: the most ready to do anything he could for anybody: always cheerful: always happy: partly, I suppose,...