Jack Sheppard by William Harrison Ainsworth (top romance novels TXT) 📕

CONTENTS.

EPOCH THE FIRST, 1703. JONATHAN WILD.

CHAPTER I. The Widow and her Child
II. The Old Mint
III. The Master of the Mint
IV. The Roof and the Window
V. The Denunciation
VI. The Storm
VII. Old London Bridge


EPOCH THE SECOND, 1715. THAMES DARRELL.

CHAPTER I. The Idle Apprentice
II. Thames Darrell
III. The Jacobite
IV. Mr. Kneebone and his Friends
V. Hawk and Buzzard
VI. The first Step towards the Ladder
VII. Brother and Sister
VIII. Miching Mallecho
IX. Consequences of the Theft
X. Mother and Son
XI. The Mohocks
XII. Saint Giles's Round-house
XIII. The Magdalene
XIV. The Flash Ken
XV. The Robbery in Willesden Church
XVI. Jonathan Wild's House in the Old
Bailey
XVII. The Night-Cellar
XVIII. How Jack Sheppard broke out of
the Cage at Willesden
XIX. Good and Evil


EPOCH THE THIRD, 1724. THE PRISON-BREAKER.

CHAPTER I. The Return
II. The Burglary at Dollis Hill
III. Jack Sheppard's Quarrel with
Jonathan Wild
IV. Jack Sheppard's Escape from the
New Prison
V. The Disguise
VI. Winifred receives two Proposals
VII. Jack Sheppard warns Thames
Darrell
VIII. Old Bedlam
IX. Old Newgate
X. How Jack Sheppard got out of the
Condemned Hold
XI. Dollis Hill revisited
XII. The Well Hole
XIII. The Supper at Mr. Kneebone's
XIV. How Jack Sheppard was again
captured
XV. How Blueskin underwent the Peine
Forte et Dure
XVI. How Jack Sheppard's Portrait was
painted
XVII. The Iron Bar
XVIII. The Bed Room
XIX. The Chapel
XX. The Leads
XXI. What befell Jack Sheppard in the
Turner's House
XXII. Fast and Loose
XXIII. The last Meeting between Jack
Sheppard and his Mother
XXIV. The Pursuit
XXV. How Jack Sheppard got rid of his
Irons
XXVI. How Jack Sheppard attended his
Mother's Funeral
XXVII. How Jack Sheppard was brought
back to Newgate
XXVIII. What happened at Dollis Hill
XXIX. How Jack Sheppard was taken to
Westminster Hall
XXX. How Jonathan Wild's House was
burnt down
XXXI. The Procession to Tyburn
XXXII. The Closing Scene


EPOCH THE FIRST.

1703.

JONATHAN WILD.


CHAPTER I.

The Widow and her Child.


On the night of Friday, the 26th of November, 1703, and at the hour of eleven, the door of a miserable habitation, situated in an obscure quarter of the Borough of Southwark, known as the Old Mint, was opened; and a man, with a lantern in his hand, appeared at the threshold. This person, whose age might be about forty, was attired in a brown double-breasted frieze coat, with very wide skirts, and a very narrow collar; a light drugget waistcoat, with pockets reaching to the knees; black plush breeches; grey worsted hose; and shoes with round toes, wooden heels, and high quarters, fastened by small silver buckles. He wore a three-cornered hat, a sandy-coloured scratch wig, and had a thick woollen wrapper folded round his throat. His clothes had evidently seen some service, and were plentifully begrimed with the dust of the workshop. Still he had a decent look, and decidedly the air of one well-to-do in the world. In stature, he was short and stumpy; in person, corpulent; and in countenance, sleek, snub-nosed, and demure.

Immediately behind this individual, came a pale, poverty-stricken woman, whose forlorn aspect contrasted strongly with his plump and comfortable physiognomy. She was dressed in a tattered black stuff gown, discoloured by various stains, and intended, it would seem, from the remnants of rusty crape with which it was here and there tricked out, to represent the garb of widowhood, and held in her arms a sleeping infant, swathed in the folds of a linsey-woolsey shawl.

Notwithstanding her emaciation, her features still retained something of a pleasing expression, and might have been termed beautiful, had it not been for that repulsive freshness of lip denoting the habitual dram-drinker; a freshness