She had stretched her hands up with that higher and
better look, and now she turned again, and folded
them round Lizzie’s neck, and rocked herself
on Lizzie’s breast.
MORE BIRDS OF PREY
Rogue Riderhood dwelt deep and dark in Limehouse Hole,
among the riggers, and the mast, oar and block makers,
and the boat-builders, and the sail-lofts, as in a
kind of ship’s hold stored full of waterside
characters, some no better than himself, some very
much better, and none much worse. The Hole, albeit
in a general way not over nice in its choice of company,
was rather shy in reference to the honour of cultivating
the Rogue’s acquaintance; more frequently giving
him the cold shoulder than the warm hand, and seldom
or never drinking with him unless at his own expense.
A part of the Hole, indeed, contained so much public
spirit and private virtue that not even this strong
leverage could move it to good fellowship with a tainted
accuser. But, there may have been the drawback
on this magnanimous morality, that its exponents held
a true witness before Justice to be the next unneighbourly
and accursed character to a false one.
Had it not been for the daughter whom he often mentioned,
Mr Riderhood might have found the Hole a mere grave
as to any means it would yield him of getting a living.
But Miss Pleasant Riderhood had some little position
and connection in Limehouse Hole. Upon the smallest
of small scales, she was an unlicensed pawnbroker,
keeping what was popularly called a Leaving Shop,
by lending insignificant sums on insignificant articles
of property deposited with her as security. In
her four-and-twentieth year of life, Pleasant was
already in her fifth year of this way of trade.
Her deceased mother had established the business,
and on that parent’s demise she had appropriated
a secret capital of fifteen shillings to establishing
herself in it; the existence of such capital in a
pillow being the last intelligible confidential communication
made to her by the departed, before succumbing to
dropsical conditions of snuff and gin, incompatible
equally with coherence and existence.
Why christened Pleasant, the late Mrs Riderhood might
possibly have been at some time able to explain, and
possibly not. Her daughter had no information
on that point. Pleasant she found herself, and
she couldn’t help it. She had not been
consulted on the question, any more than on the question
of her coming into these terrestrial parts, to want
a name. Similarly, she found herself possessed
of what is colloquially termed a swivel eye (derived
from her father), which she might perhaps have declined
if her sentiments on the subject had been taken.
She was not otherwise positively ill-looking, though
anxious, meagre, of a muddy complexion, and looking
as old again as she really was.
