It was the apprentice and not Mrs. Canning who attended to Elizabeth and
placed her in the chimney-corner, where she sat exhausted and to all
appearance nearly dead. Her mother's first act on recovering from her
fit was to send, not for the doctor but for the neighbours, and so many
flocked to see the lost girl, that in two minutes the room was full, and
the apprentice had to stand at the door to keep fresh people out. Of
course it was long before anyone thought of putting Elizabeth to bed,
and giving her something to eat or drink; instead they plied her with
questions as to where she had been and what she had been doing, and how
she had got in that dreadful condition. To these she replied, telling
the same tale which she repeated to Alderman Chitty upon oath two days
later.
On the following morning an apothecary was summoned, and attended her
for a week till a doctor was called in, and he for some days thought
very badly of her chance of living.
But weak and ill as she might be, two days after her return home she
'was brought' before Alderman Chitty to tell her story. And this was
what she said:
After her uncle and aunt had left her in Houndsditch, she was passing
along the wall which surrounded the lunatic asylum of Bedlam, into
Moorfields, when she was suddenly attacked by two men who took all her
money from her pocket, and then stripped off her gown and hat. She
struggled and tried to scream, but a handkerchief was quickly thrust
into her mouth, and she was told that if she made any noise they would
kill her. To show that they spoke the truth, one of them did indeed give
a blow on the head, and then they took her under the arms and dragged
her along Bishopsgate till she lost her senses, as she was apt to do
when frightened. She knew no more till she found herself in a strange
place which she had since learned was a house at Enfield Wash, about
eleven miles from Aldermanbury. By this time it was about four in the
morning of January 2.
In the kitchen in which she recovered consciousness were several people,
among them an old woman who asked her if she would stay with her instead
of returning home. To this Elizabeth replied No; she would not, as she
wanted to go back to her mother at once. The old woman looked very angry
at her answer, and pushed her upstairs into a room, where she cut her
stay-laces, and took the stays themselves away. She then told her there
was bread and water for her if she was hungry, but that was all she
would get; adding that the girl had better be quiet, for if she
attempted to scream out, she herself would come in and cut her throat.
Having said this, the old woman went away locking the door behind her,
and that was the last the girl saw of any human creature for four weeks,
except the eye of a person who peeped through the keyhole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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