Cellarer

“ When a door in the floor was lifted, the whiff of chill, subterranean air that pervaded the whole house was heavily freighted with spirituous odors, and gave token to the meanest intelligence, to the most unobservant inmate, that the still was operated in a cellar, peculiarly immune to suspicion, for a cellar is never an adjunct to the ordinary mountain cabin. Thus the infraction of the revenue law went on securely and continuously beneath the placid, simple, domestic life, with its reverent care for the very aged and its tender nurture of the very young. ”

“ What supports the cellar I never knew, but the cellar supports the family. The cellar is the foundation of domestic comfort. Into its dark, cavernous recesses the child's imagination fearfully goes. Bogies guard the bins of choicest apples. I know not what comical sprites sit astride the cider-barrels ranged along the walls. The feeble flicker of the tallow-candle does not at all dispel, but creates, illusions, and magnifies all the rich possibilities of this underground treasure-house. ”

“ Everything appeared to be in order, and I was on the point of extinguishing my candle, when the thought suggested itself to me to have another glance 'round the cellars. I had not, if I remember rightly, been into them since my hasty search on the evening of the attack.
For, perhaps, the half of a minute, I hesitated. I would have been very willing to forego the task—as, indeed, I am inclined to think any man well might—for of all the great, awe-inspiring rooms in this house, the cellars are the hugest and weirdest. Great, gloomy caverns of places, unlit by any ray of daylight. ”

“ Down into the cellar. . . Back to the brothel. . . We don't need any daughter now . . . don't need her. . . She's become what her mother was. . . God won't have it. . . Back to the cellar. . . Down into the brothel!
Sarah
So you want to go back to the cellar? — Into the cellar, then! Much I care! (Resumes her packing.) He wants to ruin us completely. What has come over the man? (For a moment she is absorbed in reflection.) If you're going to stand there like a lunatic, I'll get busy myself! (Takes off her diamond ear-rings.) I'll go over to Shloyme's and give him my diamond ear-rings. ”

“ There was a large fireplace in the center of the cellar, around which fifty or sixty persons sat, of all ages and of both sexes. The floor was of damp clay, smooth and trodden by the feet of countless thieves, vagabonds, and prostitutes. The corners of the cellar were buried in darkness, while the center of the cavern, near the fireplace, was bright with the flames of a fire of logs, which threw a flickering light on the wooden beams, the broken chairs and stools, the pewter pots in the hands of the lodgers, and on many faces stained with dirt and ploughed up with crime and misery. ”

“ Worldly little devil, I would stand about, musingly fitting my bare feet into cracked bricks and crevices of the damp cellar floor—walking over my grandfather's body, so to speak, into the court full of houses, and selling them for meat and drink, and clothes to wear.
At last a change came down into our cellar. The universal came down even as low as that—so will it mount to any heighten which a human creature can perch—and brought other changes with it. ”

“ The cellars were full of men, for the most part too drunk to realize their danger; but when the flames appeared through the cracks of the walls and began to eat away the beams of the roof, it was a perfect pandemonium of yells and curses, and like bubbling wine in a vat they rose to the surface, and made a rush for our staircase. ”

“ The commotion, rising in a steady crescendo, had risen forte, fortissimo, when bo-o-om! thud! bo-o-om! bombs began to fall on the town. The clamour in the hall died away, sabots dropped from nerveless fingers. Bo-o-om! The cellar? Où est-ce? Some one leads the way, and then, while clamour of another kind seizes the skies, in the icy cellar the mob of half-distraught creatures fall on their knees and chant the Rosary. ”

“ The one was from the cellars by a trap-door opening in the passage. The other through a skylight from the lumber-room, overlooking that very chamber to which the intruder had penetrated. As neither the cellar nor the lumber-room could be entered unless the thief was already within the locked doors, the matter was not of any practical importance, and the dust of cellar and attic assured us that no one had used either one or the other. Finally, we ended as we began, without the slightest clue as to how, why, or by whom the setting of these four jewels had been tampered with. ”

“ The walls bore notices with a black hand pointing downwards to the cellar steps, and the big room echoed eerily to the footsteps of customers, who tramped across the tiled floor and disappeared downstairs to the vaults.
"One shell," the cashier was saying, "fell close outside there," waving a hand up the cellar steps. "Bang! crash! we feel the building shake—so." His hands left their task of counting notes, seized an imaginary person by the lapels of an imaginary coat and shook him violently. ”

“ It must then be something out of the house. What could it be? I thought of the assistant's fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar! There was the end of this tangled clue. Then I made inquiries as to this mysterious assistant, and found that I had to deal with one of the coolest and most daring criminals in London. He was doing something in the cellar—something which took many hours a day for months on end. What could it be, once more? I could think of nothing save that he was running a tunnel to some other building. ”

“ What man is he that would complain of having to bale out his cellar every week, if, on the other hand, that cellar gains thereby a fertility that keeps its floor sheeny, soft, and green—an interior tennis-court—from spring to spring, causing the gladsome click of the lawn-mower to be heard within its walls all through the still watches of [Pg 85] the winter day? I tell you, sir, it is the life to lead, that of our rural brother. I do not believe that in this whole vast city there is a cellar like that—an in-door garden-patch, as it were."
"No," returned the Doctor ”

“ It had been decided that fifty men should leave that night, and fifty the next, the prison clerk being deceived at roll-call by an artifice which had been practised more than once before, that of men leaving one end of the line and regaining the other unseen, to answer to the names of others. But the risk of discovery was too great. Every man wanted to be among the first. It proved impossible to restrain the anxious prisoners.
Down into the cellar passed a long line of descending men, dropping to its floor in rapid succession. Around the mouth of the tunnel a dense crowd gathered. ”

“ I don't mean a cellar with a smooth floor, and coal-bins, and a big furnace, and shelves with jars of nice jam on them and glasses of jelly; I've been in that kind of a cellar too—I like quince jelly the best; it's first rate spread on bread and butter—but I'm talking of another kind of a cellar, one with the house all taken away, and only a big brick chimney left in the centre, with the top knocked off of that, and bricks and pieces of stone and chunks of mortar scattered all round; with berry bushes growing in one corner, and wild vines growing all around the edges. ”

“ It would have looked unfriendly not to accompany him, so they pushed their way together through the cellar door surmounted by the sociable red triangle.
It was a big cellar, but brown uniforms and ruddy faces crowded it from wall to wall. In one corner the men were sitting on packing-boxes at a long table made of boards laid across barrels, the smoky light of little oil lamps reddening their cheeks and deepening the furrows in their white foreheads as they laboured over their correspondence. ”

“ Presently she returned, flying. "I know! Let's have it in the cellar! In the cellar! Oh, it'll be lovely!"
The outer door of the cellar was open, and they proceeded down some steps with their treasure. There was plenty of light; the cellar was high-walled, warm, and dry. They named it an ideal place. Two huge cylindrical furnaces were humming away, one at either end. Overhead the beams detonated with the different emotions which agitated the tea party. ”

“ Then they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work the longer time they will have for their escape. We are at present, doctor—as no doubt you have divined—in the cellar of the city branch of one of the principal London banks. Mr. Merryweather is the chairman of directors, and he will explain to you that there are reasons why the more daring criminals of London should take a considerable interest in this cellar at present. ”

“ Every cellared house—and nearly every house had its cellar—blazed the information abroad. "Cave voutée" (vaulted cellar) , 20 personnes, 50 personnes, 200 personnes, even 500 personnes, indicated shelter in an emergency. In a raid every man's cellar is his neighbour's. Once we harboured some refugees, and that night at dinner the shy member (perhaps I ought to say that the adjective was entirely self-bestowed) , gurgled suddenly. ”

“ You creep part way down the cellar stairs with only the light of a single tallow candle, and behold by its dim glimmer an expanse of dark water, boundless as the sea. On its surface, in dire confusion, float barrels and boxes, butter firkins and washtubs, boards, planks, hoops, and staves without number, interspersed with apples, turnips, and cabbages, while half-drowned rats and mice, scrambling up the stairway for dear life, drive you affrighted back to the kitchen....Now consider the case of one of these old farmhouse cellars that has been in use fifty years or more. ”

“ We would let the men in two at a time, Karasch guiding one, I the other; and lead them each to a different cellar, where we would overpower and bind them. All would be in darkness on the plea that suspicion had been aroused in the house and any light would be dangerous; and as each man entered the cellar he would be seized.
He fetched the men and by the light of the lantern I had a good look at each. ”

“ English didn't like to go back to Mrs. McCarty, so we used to sleep at Mrs. Sullivan's cellar in 'Cut Throat Alley.' And Mrs. Sullivan's cellar was only about twelve feet by twenty, and high enough to stand up in, and wet enough for anything, and so overrun with rats and vermin that we couldn't sleep. There were nine rag-beds in the cellar, which as many as twenty-three would sometimes sleep on, or, if they were not too tipsy, try to sleep on. And folks used to come into the cellar at night, and be found dead in the morning. ”

“ Not to have a cellar is derogatory to the dignity of man. Yet it is notable that, while every petty clerk or budding draper clamours for a bathroom, not one in a thousand will insist upon his wine vault ”

“ Why would any one build a round cellar?”
“So the sand can’t wedge off the corners. You know,” Alf reminded me, “I told you they didn’t build cellars on the cape. Well, they don’t, not regular ones, but that’s the kind they do build. Round, like a well under the kitchen, to keep food cool.”
“Sure,” said the judge, seeing the doubt in my eyes. “All the good houses have them. I’ve got one myself.” ”

“ There was another privy, not in the cellar, which was used by the inmates. The window of the cellar was generally opened about seven o'clock. Remembers an old woman coming to the house, at ten o'clock, on the 19th of August. She was a tall person; but witness did not see her face. She had on a dark stuff gown, a light blue shawl, and a black willow bonnet: her feet were through her stockings, and she wore shoes. Witness, on her first examination, described the shawl to be an old dark one; but upon recollection, knows that the colour was light blue. ”

“ Probably, because the cellar is so very dark, God wants to station a candle there, and has placed you there because you can accomplish a work for Him, and for others, of priceless importance. Where is the light needed so much as on a dark landing or a sunken reef? Go on shining, and you will find some day that God will make that cellar a pedestal out of which your light shall stream over the world; for it was out of his prison cell that John illuminated the age in which his lot was cast, quite as much as from his rock-pulpit beside the Jordan. ”

“ Her name's Jane Clark, and she lives in that cellar I'm speaking of on 2s. 6d. a week she has from the parish. She's a widow, and some of you women know what that means. She pays 1s. 3d. for her share of the cellar, for you know in towns such as I come from, we're building so many factories, and railway sheds, and what not, that we've no room left to live in, so Mrs Clark had to share even her cellar. Many a time when I passed down that dreadful street and hadn't time to go in, I'd just shout down the cellar and she'd have an answer back in no time. ”

“ After working on the night of the 25th, two men were left down in the cellar to cover up all traces of the work during the day, and as soon as it was dark to complete the work—to go into the large sewer, explore it, and have every thing ready by eight or nine o'clock, at which time the bricks would be removed from the hole leading into the cellar, which had to be placed carefully in their original position every night, from the beginning to the completion of the work. ”