Jonathan Wild, meanwhile, had quitted the house. He found a coach at
the door, with the blinds carefully drawn up, and ascertained from a
tall, ill-looking, though tawdrily-dressed fellow, who held his horse
by the bridle, and whom he addressed as Quilt Arnold, that the two
boys were safe inside, in the custody of Abraham Mendez, the dwarfish
Jew. As soon as he had delivered his instructions to Quilt, who,
with Abraham, constituted his body-guard, or janizaries, as he termed
them, Jonathan mounted his steed, and rode off at a gallop. Quilt was
not long in following his example. Springing upon the box, he told
the coachman to make the best of his way to Saint Giles's. Stimulated
by the promise of something handsome to drink, the man acquitted
himself to admiration in the management of his lazy cattle. Crack
went the whip, and away floundered the heavy vehicle through the
deep ruts of the ill-kept road, or rather lane, (for it was little
better,) which, then, led across Southampton Fields. Skirting the
noble gardens of Montague House, (now, we need scarcely say, the
British Museum,) the party speedily reached Great Russell Street,--a
quarter described by Strype, in his edition of old Stow's famous
_Survey_, “as being graced with the best buildings in all Bloomsbury,
and the best inhabited by the nobility and gentry, especially the
north side, as having gardens behind the houses, and the prospect of
the pleasant fields up to Hampstead and Highgate; insomuch that
this place, by physicians, is esteemed the most healthful of any in
London.” Neither of the parties outside bestowed much attention upon
these stately and salubriously-situated mansions; indeed, as it was
now not far from ten o'clock, and quite dark, they could scarcely
discern them. But, in spite of his general insensibility to such
matters, Quilt could not help commenting upon the delicious perfume
wafted from the numerous flower-beds past which they were driving.
The coachman answered by a surly grunt, and, plying his whip with
redoubled zeal, shaped his course down Dyot Street; traversed that
part of Holborn, which is now called Broad Street, and where two
ancient alms-houses were, then, standing in the middle of that great
thoroughfare, exactly opposite the opening of Compston Street; and,
diving under a wide gateway on the left, soon reached a more open
space, surrounded by mean habitations, coach-houses and stables,
called Kendrick Yard, at the further end of which Saint Giles's
round-house was situated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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