I
It was past the mid of a summer night in the Old Jago. The narrow street
was all the blacker for the lurid sky; for there was a fire in a farther
part of Shoreditch, and the welkin was an infernal coppery glare. Below,
the hot, heavy air lay, a rank oppression, on the contorted forms of
those who made for sleep on the pavement: and in it, and through it all,
there rose from the foul earth and the grimed walls a close, mingled
stink--the odour of the Jago.
From where, off Shoreditch High Street, a narrow passage, set across
with posts, gave menacing entrance on one end of Old Jago Street, to
where the other end lost itself in the black beyond Jago Row; from
where Jago Row began south at Meakin Street, to where it ended north at
Honey Lane--there the Jago, for one hundred years the blackest pit in
London, lay and festered; and half-way along Old Jago Street a narrow
archway gave upon Jago Court, the blackest hole in all that pit.
A square of two hundred and fifty yards or less--that was all there was
of the Jago. But in that square the human population swarmed in
thousands. Old Jago Street, New Jago Street, Half Jago Street lay
parallel, east and west: Jago Row at one end and Edge Lane at the other
lay parallel also, stretching north and south: foul ways all. What was
too vile for Kate Street, Seven Dials, and Ratcliff Highway in its worst
day, what was too useless, incapable and corrupt--all that teemed in the
Old Jago.
Old Jago Street lay black and close under the quivering red sky; and
slinking forms, as of great rats, followed one another quickly between
the posts in the gut by the High Street, and scattered over the Jago.
For the crowd about the fire was now small, the police was there in
force, and every safe pocket had been tried. Soon the incursion ceased,
and the sky, flickering and brightening no longer, settled to a sullen
flush. On the pavement some writhed wearily, longing for sleep; others,
despairing of it, sat and lolled, and a few talked. They were not there
for lack of shelter, but because in this weather repose was less
unlikely in the street than within doors: and the lodgings of the few
who nevertheless abode at home were marked here and there by the lights
visible from the windows. For in this place none ever slept without a
light, because of three kinds of vermin that light in some sort keeps at
bay: vermin which added to existence here a terror not to be guessed by
the unafflicted: who object to being told of it. For on them that lay
writhen and gasping on the pavement; on them that sat among them; on
them that rolled and blasphemed in the lighted rooms; on every moving
creature in this, the Old Jago, day and night, sleeping and walking, the
third plague of Egypt, and more, lay unceasing.
The stifling air took a further oppression from the red sky. By the
dark entrance to Jago Court a man rose, flinging out an oath, and sat
with his head bowed in his hands.
'Ah--h--h--h,' he said. 'I wish I was dead: an' kep' a cawfy shop.' He
looked aside from his hands at his neighbours; but Kiddo Cook's ideal of
heaven was no new thing, and the sole answer was a snort from a dozing
man a yard away.
Kiddo Cook felt in his pocket and produced a pipe and a screw of paper.
'This is a bleed'n' unsocial sort o' evenin' party, this is,' he said,
'An' 'ere's the on'y real toff in the mob with ardly 'arf a pipeful
left, an' no lights. D' y' 'ear, me lord'--leaning toward the dozing
neighbour--'got a match?'
'Go t' 'ell!'
'O wot 'orrid langwidge! It's shocking, blimy. Arter that y' ought to
find me a match. Come on.'
'Go t' 'ell!'
A lank, elderly man, who sat with his back to the wall, pushed up a
battered tall hat from his eyes, and, producing a box of matches,
exclaimed 'Hell? And how far's that? You're in it!' He flung abroad a
bony hand, and glanced upward. Over his forehead a greasy black curl
dangled and shook as he shuddered back against the wall. 'My God, there
can be no hell after this!'
'Ah,' Kiddo Cook remarked, as he lit his pipe in the hollow of his
hands, 'that's a comfort, Mr Beveridge, any'ow.' He returned the
matches, and the old man, tilting his hat forward, was silent.
A woman, gripping a shawl about her shoulders, came furtively along from
the posts, with a man walking in her tracks--a little unsteadily. He was
not of the Jago, but a decent young workman, by his dress. The sight
took Kiddo Cook's idle eye, and when the couple had passed, he said
meditatively: 'There's Billy Leary in luck ag'in: 'is missis do pick 'em
up, s'elp me. I'd carry the cosh meself if I'd got a woman like 'er.'
Cosh-carrying was near to being the major industry of the Jago. The cosh
was a foot length of iron rod, with a knob at one end, and a hook (or a
ring) at the other. The craftsman, carrying it in his coat sleeve,
waited about dark staircase corners till his wife (married or not)
brought in a well drunken stranger: when, with a sudden blow behind the
head, the stranger was happily coshed, and whatever was found on him as
he lay insensible was the profit on the transaction. In the hands of
capable practitioners this industry yielded a comfortable subsistence
for no great exertion. Most, of course, depended on the woman: whose
duty it was to keep the other artist going in subjects. There were
legends of surprising ingatherings achieved by wives of especial
diligence: one of a woman who had brought to the cosh some
six-and-twenty on a night of public rejoicing. This was, however, a
story years old, and may have been no more than an exemplary fiction,
designed, like a Sunday School book, to convey a counsel of perfection
to the dutiful matrons of the Old Jago.
The man and woman vanished in a doorway near the Jago Row end, where,
for some reason, dossers were fewer than about the portal of Jago Court.
There conversation flagged, and a broken snore was heard. It was a
quiet night, as quietness was counted in the Jago; for it was too hot
for most to fight in that stifling air--too hot to do more than turn on
the stones and swear. Still the last hoarse yelps of a combat of women
came intermittently from Half Jago Street in the further confines.
In a little while something large and dark was pushed forth from the
door-opening near Jago Row which Billy Leary's spouse had entered. The
thing rolled over, and lay tumbled on the pavement, for a time unnoted.
It might have been yet another would-be sleeper, but for its stillness.
Just such a thing it seemed, belike, to two that lifted their heads and
peered from a few yards off, till they rose on hands and knees and crept
to where it lay: Jago rats both. A man it was; with a thick smear across
his face, and about his head the source of the dark trickle that sought
the gutter deviously over the broken flags. The drab stuff of his
pockets peeped out here and there in a crumpled bunch, and his waistcoat
gaped where the watch-guard had been. Clearly, here was an uncommonly
remunerative cosh--a cosh so good that the boots had been neglected,
and remained on the man's feet. These the kneeling two unlaced deftly,
and, rising, prize in hand, vanished in the deeper shadow of Jago Row.
A small boy, whom they met full tilt at the corner, staggered out to the
gutter and flung a veteran curse after them. He was a slight child, by
whose size you might have judged his age at five. But his face was of
serious and troubled age. One who knew the children of the Jago, and
could tell, might have held him eight, or from that to nine.
He replaced his hands in his trousers pockets, and trudged up the
street. As he brushed by the coshed man he glanced again toward Jago
Row, and, jerking his thumb that way, 'Done 'im for 'is boots,' he
piped. But nobody marked him till he reached Jago Court, when old
Beveridge, pushing back his hat once more, called sweetly and silkily,
'Dicky Perrott!' and beckoned with his finger.
The boy approached, and as he did so the man's skeleton
hand suddenly shot out and gripped him by the collar.
'It--never--does--to--see--too--much!' Beveridge said, in a series of
shouts, close to the boy's ear. 'Now go home,' he added, in a more
ordinary tone, with a push to make his meaning plain: and straightway
relapsed against the wall.
The boy scowled and backed off the pavement. His ragged jacket was
coarsely made from one much larger, and he hitched the collar over his
shoulder as he shrank toward a doorway some few yards on. Front doors
were used merely as firewood in the Old Jago, and most had been burnt
there many years ago. If perchance one could have been found still on
its hinges, it stood ever open and probably would not shut. Thus at
night the Jago doorways were a row of black holes, foul and forbidding.
Dicky Perrott entered his hole with caution, for anywhere, in the
passage and on the stairs, somebody might be lying drunk, against whom
it would be unsafe to stumble. He found nobody, however, and climbed and
reckoned his way up the first stair-flight with the necessary regard
for the treads that one might step through and the rails that had gone
from the side. Then he pushed open the door of the first-floor back and
was at home.
A little heap of guttering grease, not long ago a candle end, stood and
spread on the mantel-piece, and gave irregular light from its drooping
wick. A thin-railed iron bedstead, bent and staggering, stood against a
wall, and on its murky coverings a half-dressed woman sat and neglected
a baby that lay by her, grieving and wheezing. The woman had a long
dolorous face, empty of expression and weak of mouth.
'Where 'a' you bin, Dicky?' she asked, rather complaining than asking.
'It's sich low hours for a boy.'
Dicky glanced about the room. 'Got anythink to eat?' he asked.
'I dunno,' she answered listlessly. 'P'raps there's a bit o' bread in
the cupboard. I don't want nothin', it's so 'ot. An' father ain't bin
'ome since tea-time.'
The boy rummaged and found a crust. Gnawing at this, he crossed to
where the baby lay. ''Ullo, Looey,' he said, bending and patting the
muddy cheek. ''Ullo!'
The baby turned feebly on its back, and set up a thin wail. Its eyes
were large and bright, its tiny face was piteously flea-bitten and
strangely old. 'Wy, she's 'ungry, mother,' said Dicky Perrott, and took
the little thing up.
He sat on a small box, and rocked the baby on his knees, feeding it with
morsels of chewed bread. The mother, dolefully inert, looked on and
said: 'She's that backward I'm quite wore out; more 'n ten months old,
an' don't even crawl yut. It's a never-endin' trouble, is children.'
She sighed, and presently stretched herself on the bed. The boy rose,
and carrying his little sister with care, for she was dozing, essayed to
look through the grimy window. The dull flush still spread overhead, but
Jago Court lay darkling below, with scarce a sign of the ruinous back
yards that edged it on this and the opposite sides, and nothing but
blackness between.
The boy returned to his box, and sat. Then he said: 'I don't s'pose
father's 'avin' a sleep outside, eh?'
The woman sat up with some show of energy. 'Wot?' she said sharply.
'Sleep out in the street like them low Ranns an' Learys? I should 'ope
not. It's bad enough livin' 'ere at all, an' me being used to different
things once, an' all. You ain't seen 'im outside, 'ave ye?'
'No, I ain't seen 'im: I jist looked in the court.' Then, after a pause:
'I 'ope 'e's done a click,' the boy said.
His mother winced. 'I dunno wot you mean, Dicky,' she said, but
falteringly. 'You--you're gittin' that low an' an'--'
'Wy, copped somethink, o' course. Nicked somethink. You know.'
'If you say sich things as that I'll tell 'im wot you say, an' 'e'll pay
you. We ain't that sort o' people, Dicky, you ought to know. I was alwis
kep' respectable an' straight all my life, I'm sure, an'--'
'I know. You said so before, to father--I 'eard: w'en 'e brought 'ome
that there yuller prop--the necktie pin. Wy, where did 'e git that? 'E
ain't 'ad a job for munse and munse: where's the yannups come from wot's
bin for to pay the rent, an' git the toke, an' milk for Looey? Think I
dunno? I ain't a kid. I know.'
'Dicky, Dicky! you mustn't say sich things!' was all the mother could
find to say, with tears in her slack eyes. 'It's wicked an'--an' low.
An' you must alwis be respectable an' straight, Dicky, an'
you'll--you'll git on then.'
'Straight people's fools, _I_ reckon. Kiddo Cook says that, an' 'e's as
wide as Broad Street. W'en I grow up I'm goin' to git toffs' clo'es an'
be in the 'igh mob. They does big clicks.'
'They git put in a dark prison for years an' years, Dicky--an'--an' if
you're sich a wicked low boy, father 'll give you the strap--'ard,' the
mother returned, with what earnestness she might. 'Gimme the baby, an'
you go to bed, go on; 'fore father comes.'
Dicky handed over the baby, whose wizen face was now relaxed in sleep,
and slowly disencumbered himself of the ungainly jacket, staring at the
wall in a brown study. 'It's the mugs wot git took,' he said, absently.
'An' quoddin' ain't so bad.' Then, after a pause, he turned and added
suddenly: 'S'pose father'll be smugged some day, eh, mother?'
His mother made no reply, but bent languidly over the baby, with an
indefinite pretence of settling it in a place on the bed. Soon Dicky
himself, in the short and ragged shirt he had worn under the jacket,
burrowed head first among the dingy coverings at the foot, and
protruding his head at the further side, took his accustomed place
crosswise at the extreme end.
The filthy ceiling lit and darkened by fits as the candle-wick fell and
guttered to its end. He heard his mother rise and find another fragment
of candle to light by its expiring flame, but he lay still wakeful.
After a time he asked: 'Mother, why don't you come to bed?'
'Waitin' for father. Go to sleep.'
He was silent for a little. But brain and eyes were wide awake, and soon
he spoke again. 'Them noo 'uns in the front room,' he said. 'Ain't the
man give 'is wife a 'idin' yut?'
'No.'
'Nor yut the boy--'umpty-backed 'un?'
'No.'
'Seems they're mighty pertickler. Fancy theirselves too good for their
neighbours; I 'eard Pigeony Poll say that; on'y Poll said--'
'You mustn't never listen to Pigeony Poll, Dicky. Ain't you 'eard me say
so? Go to sleep. 'Ere comes father.' There was, indeed, a step on the
stairs, but it passed the landing, and went on to the top floor. Dicky
lay awake, but silent, gazing upward and back through the dirty window
just over his head. It was very hot, and he fidgeted uncomfortably,
fearing to turn or toss lest the baby should wake and cry. There came a
change in the hue of the sky, and he watched the patch within his view,
until the red seemed to gather in spots, and fade a spot at a time. Then
at last there was a tread on the stairs, that stayed at the door; and
father had come home. Dicky lay still, and listened.
'Lor, Josh, where ye bin?' Dicky heard his mother say. 'I'm almost wore
out a-waitin'.'
'Awright, awright'--this in a hoarse grunt, little above a whisper. 'Got
any water up 'ere? Wash this 'ere stick.'
There was a pause, wherein Dicky knew his mother looked about her in
vacant doubt as to whether or not water was in the room. Then a quick,
undertoned scream, and the stick rattled heavily on the floor. 'It's
sticky!' his mother said. 'O my Gawd, Josh, look at that--an' bits o'
'air, too!' The great shadow of an open hand shot up across the ceiling
and fell again. 'O Josh! O my Gawd! You ain't, 'ave ye? Not--not--not
that?'
'Not wot? Gawblimy, not what? Shutcher mouth. If a man fights, you're
got to fight back, ain' cher? Any one 'ud think it was a murder, to look
at ye. I ain't sich a damn fool as that. 'Ere--pull up that board.'
Dicky knew the loose floor-board that was lifted with a slight groaning
jar. It was to the right of the hearth, and he had shammed sleep when it
had been lifted once before. His mother whimpered and cried quietly.
'You'll git in trouble, Josh,' she said. 'I wish you'd git a reg'lar
job, Josh, like what you used--I do--I do.'
The board was shut down again. Dicky Perrott through one opened eye saw
the sky a pale grey above, and hoped the click had been a good one:
hoped also that it might bring bullock's liver for dinner.
* * * * *
Out in the Jago the pale dawn brought a cooler air and the chance of
sleep. From the paving of Old Jago Street sad grey faces, open-mouthed,
looked upward as from the Valley of Dry Bones. Down by Jago Row the
coshed subject, with the blood dry on his face, felt the colder air, and
moved a leg.