The Edge of the Crowd. Ross Gilfillan
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boy frowned and rejoined Hilditch. Cutting between the premises of a tallow chandler and a sponge merchant they plunged once more into backstreets and alleys. ‘That’s put us behind and I’m sorry for it,’ the boy said. ‘But I was ’opin to get the loan of a good dog. A nice little dog might have put my old man in a ’menable mood. But no money no dog, says he. Well, such is life. And now we’ll have to be double quick.’
‘It must be after eleven now,’ Hilditch said. ‘Are we not too late already?’
‘Wiv luck we ain’t, sir. They don’t like to start until arter the drinkin when the folks is more free with their money.’
The boy now fairly clipped along, leaping foul gutters and pulling Hilditch through murky alleys which seemed to him a succession of convergences, where buildings staggered ever closer together and each street was narrower and meaner and darker than the last. Black shapes glanced by with rustles of petticoats or rough imprecations. Unbidden, the mind of Hilditch flashed with the memory of a reported murder of a young girl in just such a place and of what perils might beset not only himself but another who might be lost upon these very streets. ‘Daniel!’ he called out, failing to master a tremor in his voice. ‘Where am I?’
Small fingers squeezed his own. ‘You’re all right, sir. Not far now.’ Hilditch took a deep breath and kept the boy’s hand as they crossed the entrance to a malodorous court and splashed through water or nightsoil before coming upon a broader and less gloomy street and then a gap in a crumbling brick wall. ‘Here we are, safe and sarn!’ said the boy and then snatched at Hilditch’s sleeve. ‘Stop, sir, stop! Mind the steps or you’ll break your neck!’
Hilditch took a careful step forwards and discovered that beyond the gap and lit faintly by lights he could not see was a long and precipitous flight of wooden stairs, connecting the road above with a deep railway cutting below. He caught his breath and let the boy go down first. When Hilditch had descended with measured tread to the first of two small landings, he found himself a little above the first-floor windows of a ramshackle and venerable building which was supported on two sides by stout oak buttresses, like a collapsing drunk held up by constables. Below the first-storey windows, from which gaslight glared and illuminated men busy at some work, depended a heavy wooden sign on which might faintly be discerned the image of a grey swan. Under this, two lean men stood behind stacked barrels. These men were engaged in earnest argument with a fatter, much larger third, who was shaking his head vigorously. The exchange was heated and voices raised sufficiently for Hilditch to comprehend.
‘There it is. It’s a fair offer. You won’t do better tonight,’ the fat man was saying.
‘The agreed price was two guinea. I can’t take less’n that, Villum!’
The fat man spat and yanked a string from the other’s hand, winding in a large, stocky dog.
‘Ten bob’s your lot, you thieving gypsy. And you’ll still be turning a handsome profit, I’ve no doubt.’
The man cursed but was dissuaded from further remonstration by the whispered advice of his friend. He pocketed a handful of coins and started up the stairs, querying Hilditch with a glance before disappearing into the gloom. Below, the fat man was stooping to inspect his purchase when he saw the boy, immobile in a pool of sickly window-light.
‘Just in time, Dan’l,’ he said. ‘Now let’s be having the money. I’m lucky tonight, I know it!’
The boy made some reply too faint for Hilditch’s ears.
‘What? You done what?’ the fat man roared. ‘My ears is bad, Dan’l, you’ll have to repeat that ’un for me!’
But without awaiting the reply, he seized at ragged clothing and severely shook the boy’s flimsy frame. The fat man looked about him, as if seeking some place to dispose of unwanted rubbish. ‘Wait, wait!’ the boy cried, but the man was already hurling him off his feet, smashing him against the door post of the inn and causing a big man in an apron to look out from the doorway. ‘There’ll be time to knock some respect into the villain later, Bill,’ he said. ‘They’re wanting you up my two pair of stairs now.’
But the fat man picked up the boy and struck the side of his head with sufficient force to send him reeling backwards where he lost his balance and tumbled noisily over an empty barrel. Now Hilditch could hear the boy as he protested to his antagonist. ‘It weren’t my fault, guv’nor! I tole you them rich folk wan’t to be trusted!’
The man snatched up the boy and pressed his own fist against a hollow cheek. Hilditch heard a low and menacing rumble like the approach of a distant train.
‘Trusted?’ the fat man snarled. ‘You gets a place hard by the Shibition itself and can’t make no money? Don’t give me that barrikin. And where’s the silver I told you to bone? Don’t tell me nothing stuck to you? You’re either the laziest boy in London or a stunning imbecile. Look at this – I’ve got Carver’s dog at last and nothing to bet. Curse you, the only money I’ll make on it tonight is when I sell it!’ He seized a stave of wood and hoisted it above his head.
The boy looked about wildly for some defence and at the same moment footsteps on creaking stairs alerted his assailant to Hilditch’s approach. ‘Who’s that?’ the fat man hissed and laid down the wood. He lifted the boy to his feet. ‘Is ’e with you, Dan’l?’
The boy nodded and passed a sixpence to the man. ‘And he give me this jest fer walking him across town.’
The man looked more carefully at the stranger. ‘Did ’e truly? Well, well, that was handsome.’ He appraised Hilditch with a top to toe glance, threw him a quick smile and ducked inside the public house.
Hilditch descended the last few steps and regarded the boy. ‘I suppose you are hurt?’
The boy dusted off his thin clothes and shrugged. ‘That wasn’t hardly nothing. I’ve had wuss’n that. It’s all over anywise. I won’t remember this once it starts upstairs.’
They pushed past the men at the doorway and others who lined a cramped corridor and entered a packed bar room in which was a crush of bodies and a fug of tobacco smoke, stale beer and unwashed linen. Glasses toppled from slops-laden tables as Henry Hilditch was drawn through a mangle of sandy corduroy, scarlet uniform and spittle conversations.
‘Is this the singular spectacle we have come far to see? These people, this pandemonium?’ Hilditch shouted, for the bar room was loud with cursing and laughter, soldiers’ songs and the insistent barking of dogs.
‘Just you foller me and you’ll see,’ the boy called back as he held open a door.
They mounted a narrow staircase and entered an upper chamber whose area had been greatly enlarged by the removal of a central wall, which arrangement obliged those passing the length of the room to step nimbly through the surviving uprights of a timber frame. Old doors and timbers mounted upon barrels served as tables, and on rough-hewn chairs and makeshift settles were already installed some thirty-five or forty patrons all contributing to a bedlam of chatter and contention. Beyond the timber wall-frame was a room in which more men were grouped about a cleared area of better illumination.
The boy showed Hilditch to a table where an army officer in an unbuttoned tunic sat already and on which there seemed little room for anything more than the Staffordshire bull terrier which stood upon it. The soldier, prising open its jaws so that its saliva pooled on the table, acknowledged Hilditch’s arrival with a curt nod as he conversed with a smock-coated man who held his hat doffed beneath his arm.
‘Strong teeth, you’ll agree, Cap’n?’ He parted the dog’s legs and cupped pendulous testicles in his hands. ‘Two onions in a string bag, eh? He’s all dog, Cap’n, just what you want for the fancy!’
The soldier, applying a flaring Lucifer to his pipe of tobacco, kicked the dog from the table and rested polished boots in its place. He removed the pipe and spat out a shred of tobacco. ‘Teeth and testicles are very well, but many’s the good-looking cur