Whisper To Me of Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

that plan? Instead of becoming housebreakers or highwaymen, why can’t we become farmers, as you originally wanted us to do?”
    Jacko closed his eyes in pain and muttered wretchedly, “Because the dimber-damber won’t let me.”
    An appalled silence met his words. “Won’t let you?” Pip repeated dumbly. “What do you mean?”
    Rubbing his hand wearily over his face, Jacko replied dully, “I thought of us leaving a week after Mother ...” His throat closed up painfully, and while he struggled to regain his composure, Pip and Ben both felt the sting of tears at the corners of their eyes, Jane’s death still a distressful subject for her children. Bringing his emotions under control, Jacko finally said dispiritedly, “I hadn’t quite made up my mind how to accomplish our leaving here or where we would go when I accidentally k-k-killed that gentleman. The dimber-damber had been with me when it happened, and it was just luck that the watch didn’t nab him too; at least I think it was luck.... I had talked to him the previous day about us leaving the knot and St. Giles. I told him that we wanted to turn respectable.” Jacko swallowed painfully, not looking at either of the other two. “He laughed at me at first. Then when he saw that I was serious, he grew quite angry and swore that no one left his knot alive. Said we owed him our loyalty, that we owed him for seeing to it that Mother hadn’t had to be a whore up until the day she died, that we owed him for every piece of bread we ate and for the very roof over our heads. I thought that he was just raving and that once he considered it, he wouldn’t be so set against our leaving.”
    Ben gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, did you? When we are his best thieves? When we three bring him more fancy trinkets than just about all the others of the knot combined? You didn’t think he might object? Even I know better than that! Jesus! You should never have told him what you had in mind! We should have just disappeared.”
    Miserably Jacko agreed. “I know that now, but I didn’t then! He and Mother seemed to share a special relationship, and I guess that I thought he’d be glad to see her children well out of it. I was wrong.” His voice growing thick, Jacko continued, “I saw him a few days after the killing and he told me to put all thoughts of leaving St. Giles out of my mind, that if I tried to leave, he would inform the watch on me and lead them to me. He swore that if I defied him and tried to run, he’d find me, no matter where I went, and set the runners on me. I cannot disobey him or my life is forfeit!”
    With fear and anger in their eyes, Pip and Ben stared at their oldest brother. Neither doubted the truth of his words, and neither doubted that if the dimber-damber had sworn to find Jacko, that he would. The dimber-damber had tentacles everywhere; there was not one corner of England that escaped his notice, and no matter where Jacko ran to, eventually the dimber-damber would have word of him and his fate would be sealed.
    Giving his shoulders a shake, Ben said with forced cheer, “Well, then, I guess we shall become housebreakers, as he wants.”
    â€œAnd bloody damn good ones!” Pip chimed in fiercely.
    â€œDon’t be fools!” Jacko said sharply. “He may have me in his grasp, but there is no reason for both of you to sacrifice your lives for me. There is nothing to stop you escaping from this miserable existence.”
    Pip and Ben exchanged glances, then almost in unison they turned to stare at their eldest brother, the stubborn expression on both young faces almost identical. Even before the words were spoken, Jacko knew what they would be. “We’re not leaving you!” Ben declared forthrightly. “Do you really think that Pip and me could ever find any peace or happiness knowing you were caught in the toils of the