Page:Hopkinson Smith--In Dickens's London.djvu/120

IN DICKENS'S LONDON that she would sink before my eyes, until I had her arm within my grasp.

"At the same moment I said 'Martha!'

"She uttered a terrified scream, and struggled with me with such strength that I doubt if I could have held her alone. But a stronger hand than mine was laid upon her; and when she raised her frightened eyes and saw whose it was, she made but one more effort and dropped down between us. We carried her away from the water to where there were some dry stones, and there laid her down, crying and moaning. In a little while she sat among the stones, holding her wretched head with both her hands.

"'Oh, the river!' she cried passionately. 'Oh, the river!'"

All this took place within sight of my sketch beyond Westminster, "and Parliament House is Millbank where is Church Street" (now Dean Stanley Street) "running from the river to St. John's Church, Westminster; that atrociously ill-mannered church of Queen Anne's days, built, it is said, on the line of a footstool overturned in one of that lady's fits of petulant wrath," writes Miltoun.

And then there follows the long search for Emily, Martha promising to help, and last that marvellous scene on the top floor of the house where Emily had found temporary refuge for the night and where, to quote Peggotty, she "stood upon the brink more than I can say or think on," and where Martha "trew to her promise, saved her," answered by that cry of joy from Copperfield when he heard the story of Martha's rescue of Emily drop from Peggotty's lips. 70