Satisfied, as he thought, that he had nothing to apprehend, the boy resumed his task, chanting, as he plied his knife with redoubled assiduity, the following—­not inappropriate strains:—­

    THE NEWGATE STONE.

    When Claude Du Val was in Newgate thrown,
    He carved his name on the dungeon stone;
    Quoth a dubsman, who gazed on the shattered wall,
    “You have carved your epitaph, Claude Du Val,
        With your chisel so fine, tra la!”

“This S wants a little deepening,” mused the apprentice, retouching the letter in question; “ay, that’s better.”

    Du Val was hang’d, and the next who came
    On the selfsame stone inscribed his name: 
    “Aha!” quoth the dubsman, with devilish glee,
    “Tom Waters your doom is the triple tree!
        With your chisel so fine, tra la!”

“Tut, tut, tut,” he cried, “what a fool I am to be sure!  I ought to have cut John, not Jack.  However, it don’t signify.  Nobody ever called me John, that I recollect.  So I dare say I was christened Jack.  Deuce take it!  I was very near spelling my name with one P.

    Within that dungeon lay Captain Bew,
    Rumbold and Whitney—­a jolly crew! 
    All carved their names on the stone, and all
    Share the fate of the brave Du Val!
        With their chisels so fine, tra la!

“Save us!” continued the apprentice, “I hope this beam doesn’t resemble the Newgate stone; or I may chance, like the great men the song speaks of, to swing on the Tyburn tree for my pains.  No fear o’ that.—­Though if my name should become as famous as theirs, it wouldn’t much matter.  The prospect of the gallows would never deter me from taking to the road, if I were so inclined.

    Full twenty highwaymen blithe and bold,
    Rattled their chains in that dungeon old;
    Of all that number there ’scaped not one
    Who carved his name on the Newgate Stone.
        With his chisel so fine, tra la!

“There!” cried the boy, leaping from the stool, and drawing back a few paces on the bench to examine his performance,—­“that’ll do.  Claude du Val himself couldn’t have carved it better—­ha! ha!”

The name inscribed upon the beam (of which, as it has been carefully preserved by the subsequent owners of Mr. Wood’s habitation in Wych Street, we are luckily enabled to furnish a facsimile) was

[Illustration:  Jack Sheppard (signature)]

“I’ve half a mind to give old Wood the slip, and turn highwayman,” cried Jack, as he closed the knife, and put it in his pocket.

“The devil you have!” thundered a voice from behind, that filled the apprentice with dismay.  “Come down, sirrah, and I’ll teach you how to deface my walls in future.  Come down, I say, instantly, or I’ll make you.”  Upon which, Mr. Wood caught hold of Jack’s leg, and dragged him off the bench.