On the other side of London Anthony Hope was lost. He was looking around a people walked by. He shook his head putting his heavy bag down and sitting on a bench.
"Where is it?" He asked himself as he pulled out a map.
"Green finch, and linnet bird, Nightingale, blackbird how is it you sing? How can you jubilate sitting in cages never taking wing? Outside the sky waits beckoning! Beckoning! Just beyond the bars...How can you remain staring at the rain maddened by the stars? How is it you sing anything? How is it you sing? Green finch. And linnet bird, nightingale, blackbird. How is it you sing? Whence comes this melody constantly floating? Is it rejoicing or merely aloaming? Are you discussing? Or fussing? Or simply dreaming?" A beautiful sang seizing Anthony's attention. He looked to the direction of the lovely voice to find the most beautiful girl in the world.
She was pale and had long, yellow hair. She wore a blue dress and sat in the window of a huge house. She sang to a bird cage with a soft voice that could easily hit the high notes with ease. She looked down and smiled as Anthony dropped the map and walked towards her.
Judge Turpin walked by her room and paused. Singing again! He checked the hallways and once he knew they were clear he turned to a painting and pulled it off the wall revealing a small peek hole to her room. He watched her.
"Are you crowing? Are you screaming? Ring dove and robinet is it for wages? Singing to be sold? Have you decided it's safer in cages singing when you're told? My cage has many rooms damask and dark...Nothing there sings, not even my lark. Larks never will, you know, when they're captive. Teach me to be more adaptive. Ah...Green Finch, and Linnet Bird, nightingale, blackbird, teach me how to sing. If I cannot fly...Let me sing," she finished off her song staring out in the open sky. She looked down at Anthony and smiled. He felt his heart jump as he smiled back. Then she stood up and abruptly walked away.
Anthony willed her to stop but she never did and he walked back to his bag sitting on the park bench where an old beggar woman in a tattered, green dress and wide hat went up to him.
"Alms, alms for a miserable woman! On a miserable chilly morning," she sang holding her hand out. Anthony regarded her and put some coins in her hands.
"Thank ya, sir!" She turned to walk away but Anthony stopped her.
"Mam, do you know whose house this is?" She looked at the house and gasped.
"That! That's the great Judge Turpin's house, that is."
"And the lady who resides there?"
"Oh her? That's Johanna, his pretty little ward. Keeps her snug he does, all locked up. So don't you go trespassin' there or it's a good whipping for you or any other young man with mischief on his mind," she warned with a hiss and walked off repeating her beggar's song.
Johanna, it was a beautiful name for the most gorgeous girl in the world. He slowly, in a dreamlike state walked back to his bag and picked it up.
"I feel you, Johanna, I feel you. I was half convinced I'd waken, satisfied enough to dream you. Happily I was mistaken, Johanna. I'll steal you, Johanna, I'll steal you," Anthony sang. He had learned how to sing by listening to Todd and Tanya singing on their years on the boat. His voice rang like a bell as he stepped towards the house. Then the door opened to show an older man dressed in expensive clothes and gray hair, Judge Turpin from what the beggar woman said.
"Come in lad, come in." He waved him in. Anthony followed him inside the house and explained what he was looking for.
"You say you're looking for that you say?" Judge Turpin led him into an office looking room with a big desk and lots of books. He motioned for Anthony to sit down and offered him something to drink.
"Yes, sir it's very large on the map but I keep getting lost." He smiled thanks at the shy, female maid that handed him some food.
"Watch yourself," the maid whispered and hurried off. Anthony gave her a quizzical look but remembered he was in the presence of a judge.
"It's embarrassing for a sailor to lose his bearings but there you have it." He looked behind him to see a plump man with a twisted smile staring at him. The Judge looked at him.
"A sailor?" Anthony nodded.
"Yes, sir from The Bountiful." He looked around for the maid as he felt uncomfortable, something wasn't right.
"Sailors must know the ways of the world. Would you say you're practiced boy?" The Judge continued making Anthony regret eating the food and he felt very small.
"I think there's been some kind of mistake," Anthony uttered.
"I think not. I think not," Turpin hissed, "You gandered at my ward, Johanna. Yes sir you gandered!" He was yelling now. Anthony tried to sink farther into the chair to escape the Judge's wrath when he spotted the maid giving him a sympathetic look as if she was about to run out and help him.
"I meant no harm," Anthony begged.
"Your meaning is immaterial. Mark me! If I see your face again on this street, you'll rue the day you were born," he threatened and nodded at his friend, Beadle Bamford who took him out back.
"It's that way, right and left and straight on you ya see," he instructed then hit Anthony on the back of the head with his infamous cane. He continued to hit him as Anthony lay on the ground coughing blood and begging him to stop. Final Beadle did.
"You heard what Judge Turpin said, next time it'll be your pretty little brain lying on the pavement." He grabbed Anthony's bag and threw it back on him then left.
Anthony rolled over groaning spitting the blood out of his mouth. He spotted the maid in one window.
"I told you. Be careful," she mouthed then Turpin appeared and dragged her away.
Anthony sat up and picked up his bag ignoring the pain that pulsed through his body. Then he thought of Johanna and he was certain that they belonged with each other, it made him that much more determined.
"I'll steal you. Do they think that walls can hide you? Even now I'm at your window...I am in the dark beside you, buried sweetly in your yellow hair! I feel you, Johanna! And one day, I'll steal you! 'Til I'm with you then, I'm with you there...sweetly buried in your yellow hair!" He sang with his purpose radiating through his voice. He finished his song then limped away.
Back inside the house Turpin threw the maid into a room yelling, "I heard what you said to him! What on earth is your problem? I save you, you could have died!"
"I think death would be an improvement!" The maid retorted. Turpin took in a deep breath.
"Then why don't you leave?" His eyes held cruelty but the maid had something in her eyes that Turpin wasn't accustomed to… hope. She glared at him then looked away.
"You will get triple your usual work load and you shall watch my ward. If anything happens to her, and that includes that boy, you'll never be seen again. Understand?" The maid nodded and when the door slammed shut she smiled. She had waited a long time to care for his ward.
"Johanna," she said the name to herself.