It is Gilbert Penmore. He has promised
the poor prisoner within those walls that he
would pass outside them in the course of the
night, but at some time which should not be
specified; for she had said that it would be a
comfort to her, if she were awake and fearful,
to think that, perhaps at that very moment, he
was near her, and praying for her in his heart
of hearts.

AGAINST THE GRAIN.

Against the grain we went in search of the
low Betting-Men, and against the grain we found
them. After earnest consultations with persons
learned in their crooked ways; after studying
their literature, and hearing many a story of
their nefarious cunning; after holding
commune with experienced members of the
metropolitan force, and learning from all sources
that personal contact and face to face
intercourse were essential to the comprehension of
their evil natures and corrupt pursuits; our
distasteful explorations were inaugurated by a
trip to "the Ruins." Not the picturesque
ruins of abbey or castle; not a spot familiar to
pic-nic parties and beloved of artists; not a
crumbling old mansion, with haunted chamber and
ghost-walk, with traditions of murder and dreary
look of desolation; but a large blank space, like
an exaggerated pound, in which the noble sportsmen
of Whitechapel and Seven Dials were daily
congregated. These were the creatures we had
decided on looking for;—these were the
creatures we found against the grain. For, after
infesting for years the vast area of waste ground
between the Farringdon-road and Saffron-hill;
after impudently vaunting their superiority to
the law, and their right to make bets in public;
the disreputable crew of small book-makers,
touts, thieves, and tipsters who gave the ground
an unholy fame, and made it, as "the Ruins,"
familiar to the lower grade of turf followers all
over the kingdom, have been "moved on" to a
narrow thoroughfare behind one of the great
London breweries, and here they bet, and lie,
and shuffle, in an atmosphere pleasantly laden
with the flavour of malt and hops, and with the
aromatic grain heaped above and behind them in
great profusion.

Wonderful were the stories concerning the
impotence of the police; and profound was the
belief in "the Ruins" as a stronghold. The
commercial prejudices of the narrow-minded
dwellers in Bride-lane, City, had certainly
triumphed over the lovers of sport; and out of a
mistaken deference to the petty interests of
trade, these patrons of the turf had been forcibly
removed. But here, at "the Ruins," who had
a right to interfere? Not the authorities of
the Refuge for the Homeless Poor just opposite,
nor those of the Metropolitan Railway station,
nearer still; nor the Italian handicraftsmen,
organ-keepers, plate-glass polishers, monkey and
marmozct boys, who form the population on the
western side. Field-lane even, though denuded
of its festoons of purloined handkerchiefs, and
now steadily aiming at respectability, could
not decently make a protest. Saffron-hill did
not understand its rights, and would not exercise
them if it did; and "the Ruins," flanked
and surrounded as it is by such localities, was
clearly designed as an oasis in the cold desert
of London, upon and from which lovers of the
turf and those interested in the preservation
of the manly sport of betting, might flourish
and hold forth. Quiet wayfarers passed with a
shudder, or meekly crossed the road. Knowing
omnibus-drivers pointed to the shouting
disreputable crowd with a sportsman-like jerk of
the whip-hand; newspaper essayists described
the foul spot and its customs; argumentative
reasoners quoted the act of parliament, and
made it clear that the words "house or place"
could not apply to "the Ruins"; and the public
and the authorities seemed to concur in the
notion that here bets could be booked, and lists
kept, and fools swindled, in spite of special
enactments, and in defiance of the law. Now and
again some troublesome nobody would take
exception to this condition of things, and an
indignant letter would find its way into the papers;
but the rule seemed to be that policemen and
magistrates, beadles and moralists, should wink
at what they knew to be wrong, but which, by
some strange freak of parliamentary wisdom,
could not be boldly grappled with and put down.

All this came to an end a few weeks ago.
"The Ruins" were enclosed by a hoarding instead
of posts and rails, and all trespassers warned off
under legal penalties, by the authorities of the
city of London. Attempting to meet on the
adjacent pavement and roadway, they were
summarily cautioned against causing an obstruction,
and if recalcitrant, were taken into custody by
the metropolitan police. A double jurisdiction
obtains in this district; and while the City
constables had power over the list-keepers who
ventured in the enclosure, Sir Richard Mayne's
merry men pounced upon them if they presumed
to pitch their tents in the street. It seems but
a prosaic ending to such a grandiloquent and
apparently successful protest against
conventionality, but neither difficulty nor delay
attended the rout when it was once determined
on; and after one or two feeble attempts at
self-assertion, the frouzy blackguards, to whom
"the Ruins" had seemed a privileged Alsatia,
slunk away into congenial holes and corners,
and were no more seen. So, at least, thought
the reformers. But, as if in obedience to the
physical law which declares that nothing shall be
destroyed, and that what we call destruction is
only another name for change of condition, the
nuisance was transferred, and now flourishes in
rank luxuriance against the brewery grain.

Starting from a police-station in a long
flagged court in St. Giles's—a police-
station so modestly retiring that it seems to be
playing at hide-and-seek with its customers,
and to have won the game—the first evidence
we have of the contiguity of the noble sportsmen
is furnished by a gentleman who comes to