IV

When Dicky Perrott came running into Jago Row with the Bishop's watch in

his pocket, another boy punched a fist at him, and at the time Dicky was

at a loss to guess the cause--unless it were a simple caprice--but

stayed neither to inquire nor to retaliate. The fact was that the Ranns

and the Learys were coming out, fighting was in the air, and the small

boy, meeting another a trifle smaller, punched on general principles.

The Ranns and the Learys, ever at war or in guarded armistice, were the

great rival families--the Montagues and the Capulets--of the old Jago.

The Learys indeed, scarce pretended to rivalry--rather to factious

opposition. For the Ranns gloried in the style and title of the 'Royal

Family,' and dominated the Jago; but there were mighty fighters, men

and women, among the Learys, and when a combat arose it was a hard one

and an animated. The two families ramified throughout the Jago; and

under the Rann standard, whether by kin or by custom, were the Gullens,

the Fishers, the Spicers, and the Walshes; while in the Leary train came

Dawsons, Greens, and Harnwells. So that near all the Jago was wont to be

on one side or the other, and any of the Jago which was not, was apt to

be the worse for it; for the Ranns drubbed all them that were not of

their faction in the most thorough and most workmanlike manner, and the

Learys held by the same practice; so that neutrality meant double

drubbing. But when the Ranns and Learys combined, and the Old Jago

issued forth in its entire might against Dove Lane, then the battle was

one to go miles to see.

This, however, was but a Rann and Leary fight; and it was but in its

early stages when Dicky Perrott, emerging from Jerry Gullen's back-yard,

made for Shoreditch High Street by way of the 'Posties'--the passage

with posts at the end of Old Jago Street. His purpose was to snatch a

handful of hay from some passing waggon, or of mixed fodder from some

unguarded nosebag, wherewith to reward the sympathy of Jerry Gullen's

canary. But by the 'Posties,' at the Edge Lane corner, Tommy Rann,

capless, and with a purple bump on his forehead, came flying into his

arms, breathless, exultant, a babbling braggart. He had fought Johnny

Leary and Joe Dawson, he said, one after the other, and pretty nigh

broke Johnny Leary's blasted neck; and Joe's Dawson's big brother was

after him now with a bleed'n' shovel. So the two children ran on

together, and sought the seclusion of their own back yard; where the

story of Johnny Rann's prowess, with scowls and the pounding of

imaginary foes, and the story of the Bishop's watch, with suppressions

and improvements, mingled and contended in the thickening dusk. And

Jerry Gullen's canary went forgotten and unrequited.

That night fighting was sporadic and desultory in the Jago. Bob the

Bender was reported to have a smashed nose, and Sam Cash had his head

bandaged at the hospital. At the Bag of Nails in Edge Lane, Snob Spicer

was knocked out of knowledge with a quart pot, and Cocko Harnwell's

missis had a piece bitten off of one ear. As the night wore on, taunts

and defiances were bandied from window to door, and from door to window,

between those who intended to begin fighting to-morrow; and shouts from

divers corners gave notice of isolated scuffles. Once a succession of

piercing screams seemed to betoken that Sally Green had begun. There was

a note in the screams of Sally Green's opposites which the Jago had

learned to recognise. Sally Green, though of the weaker faction, was the

female champion of the Old Jago: an eminence won and kept by fighting

tactics peculiar to herself. For it was her way, reserving teeth and

nails, to wrestle closely with her antagonist, throw her by a dexterous

twist on her face, and fall on her, instantly seizing the victim's nape

in her teeth, gnawing and worrying. The sufferer's screams were audible

afar, and beyond their invariable eccentricity of quality--a quality a

vaguely suggestive of dire surprise--they had mechanical persistence, a

pump-like regularity, that distinguished them, in the accustomed ear,

from other screams.

Josh Perrott had not been home all the evening: probably the Bishop's

watch was in course of transmutation into beer. Dicky, stiff and

domestically inclined, nursed Looey and listened to the noises without

till he fell asleep, in hopeful anticipation of the morrow. For Tommy

Rann had promised him half of a broken iron railing wherewith to fight

the Learys.

V

Sleep in the Jago was at best a thing of intermission, for

reasons--reasons of multitude--already denoted; nevertheless Dicky slept

well enough to be unconscious of his father's homecoming. In the

morning, however, there lay Josh Perrott, snoring thunderously on the

floor, piebald with road-dust. This was not a morning whereon father

would want breakfast--that was plain: he would wake thirsty and savage.

So Dicky made sure of a crust from the cupboard, and betook himself in

search of Tommy Rann. As to washing, he was never especially fond of it,

and in any case there were fifty excellent excuses for neglect. The only

water was that from the little tap in the back yard. The little tap was

usually out of order, or had been stolen bodily by a tenant; and if it

were not, there was no basin there, nor any soap, nor towel; and

anything savouring of moderate cleanliness was resented in the Jago as

an assumption of superiority.

Fighting began early, fast and furious. The Ranns got together soon, and

hunted the Learys up and down, and attacked them in their houses: the

Learys' chances only coming when straggling Ranns were cut off from the

main body. The weapons in use, as was customary, rose in effectiveness

by a swiftly ascending scale. The Learys, assailed with sticks, replied

with sticks torn from old packing-cases, with protruding nails. The two

sides bethought them of coshes simultaneously, and such as had no

coshes--very few--had pokers and iron railings. Ginger Stagg, at bay in

his passage, laid open Pud Palmer's cheek with a chisel; and, knives

thus happily legitimised with the least possible preliminary form,

everybody was free to lay hold of whatever came handy.

In Old Jago Street, half way between Jago Court and Edge Lane, stood the

Feathers, the grimiest and vilest of the four public-houses in the

Jago. Into the Feathers some dozen Learys were driven, and for a while

they held the inner bar and the tap-room against the Ranns, who swarmed

after them, chairs, bottles, and pewter pots flying thick, while Mother

Gapp, the landlady, hung hysterical on the beer-pulls in the bar,

supplicating and blubbering aloud. Then a partition came down with a

crash, bringing shelves and many glasses with it, and the Ranns rushed

over the ruin, beating the Learys down, jumping on them, heaving them

through the back windows. Having thus cleared the house of the intruding

enemy, the Ranns demanded recompense of liquor, and took it, dragging

handles off beer-engines, seizing bottles, breaking into the cellar, and

driving in bungs. Nobody better than Mother Gapp could quell an ordinary

bar riot--even to knocking a man down with a pot; but she knew better

than to attempt interference now. Nothing could have made her swoon, but

she sat limp and helpless, weeping and blaspheming.

The Ranns cleared off, every man with a bottle or so, and scattered, and

this for a while was their undoing. For the Learys rallied and hunted

the Ranns in their turn: a crowd of eighty or a hundred sweeping the

Jago from Honey Lane to Meakin Street. Then they swung back through Edge

Lane to Old Jago Street, and made for Jerry Gullen's--a house full of

Ranns. Jerry Gullen, Bill Rann, and the rest took refuge in the upper

floors and barricaded the stairs. Below, the Learys broke windows and

ravaged the rooms, smashing whatsoever of furniture was to be found.

Above, Pip Walsh, who affected horticulture on his window-sill, hurled

down flower-pots. On the stairs, Billy Leary, scaling the barricade, was

flung from top to bottom, and had to be carried home. And then Pip

Walsh's missis scattered the besiegers on the pavement below with a

kettleful of boiling water.

There was a sudden sortie of Ranns from Jago Court, but it profited

nothing; for the party was small, and, its advent being unexpected,

there was a lack of prompt co-operation from the house. The Learys held

the field.

Down the middle of Old Jago Street came Sally Green: red faced,

stripped to the waist, dancing, hoarse and triumphant. Nail-scores wide

as the finger striped her back, her face, and her throat, and she had a

black eye; but in one great hand she dangled a long bunch of clotted

hair, as she whooped defiance to the Jago. It was a trophy newly rent

from the scalp of Norah Walsh, champion of the Rann womankind, who had

crawled away to hide her blighted head, and be restored with gin. None

answered Sally's challenge, and, staying but to fling a brickbat at Pip

Walsh's window, she carried her dance and her trophy into Edge Lane.

The scrimmage on Jerry Gullen's stairs was thundering anew, and parties

of Learys were making for other houses in the street, when there came a

volley of yells from Jago Row, heralding a scudding mob of Ranns. The

defeated sortie-party from Jago Court, driven back, had gained New Jago

Street by way of the house-passages behind the Court, and set to

gathering the scattered faction. Now the Ranns came, drunk, semi-drunk,

and otherwise, and the Learys, leaving Jerry Gullen's, rushed to meet

them. There was a great shock, hats flew, sticks and heads made a wooden

rattle, and instantly the two mobs were broken into an uproarious

confusion of tangled groups, howling and grappling. Here a man crawled

into a passage to nurse a broken head; there a knot gathered to kick a

sprawling foe. So the fight thinned out and spread, resolving into many

independent combats, with concerted rushes of less and less frequency,

till once again all through the Jago each fought for his own hand. Kiddo

Cook, always humorous, ran hilariously through the streets, brandishing

a long roll of twisted paper, wherewith he smacked the heads of Learys

all and sundry, who realised too late that the paper was twisted round a

lodging-house poker.

Now, of the few neutral Jagos: most lay low. Josh Perrott, however, hard

as nails and respected for it, feared neither Rann nor Leary, and

leaving a little money with his missis, carried his morning mouth in

search of beer. Pigeony Poll, harlot and outcast, despised for that she

neither fought nor kept a cosh-carrier, like a respectable married

woman, slunk and trembled in corners and yards, and wept at the sight of

bleeding heads. As for old Beveridge, the affair so grossly excited him

that he neglected business (he cadged and wrote begging screeves) and

stayed in the Jago, where he strode wildly about the streets, lank and

rusty, stabbing the air with a carving knife, and incoherently defying

'all the lot' to come near him. Nobody did.

Dicky Perrott and Tommy Rann found a snug fastness in Jago Row. For

there was a fence with a loose board, which, pushed aside, revealed a

hole where-through a very small boy might squeeze; and within were

stored many barrows and shallows, mostly broken, and of these one,

tilted forward and bottom up, made a hut or den, screened about with

fence and barrows. Here they hid while the Learys swept the Jago, and

hence they issued from time to time to pound such youngsters of the

other side as might come in sight. The bits of iron railing made

imposing weapons, but were a trifle too big and heavy for rapid use in

their puny hands. Still, Dicky managed to double up little Billy Leary

with a timely lunge in the stomach, and Tommy Rann made Bobby Harnwell's

nose bleed very satisfactorily. On the other hand, the bump on Tommy

Rann's forehead was widened by the visitation of a stick, and Dicky

Perrott sustained a very hopeful punch in the eye, which he cherished

enthusiastically with a view to an honourable blackness. In the snuggery

intervals they explained their prowess one to another, and Dicky alluded

to his intention, when he was a man, to buy a very long sword wherewith

to cut off the Learys' heads: Tommy Rann inclining, however, to a gun,

with which one might also shoot birds.

The battle flagged a little toward mid-day, but waxed lively again as

the afternoon began. It was then that Dicky Perrott, venturing some way

from the retreat, found himself in a scrimmage, and a man snatched away

his piece of iron and floored a Leary with it. Gratifying as was the

distinction of aiding in the exploit, Dicky mourned the loss of the

weapon almost unto tears, and Tommy Rann would not go turn-about with

the other, but kept it wholly for himself; so Dicky was fain to hunt

sorrowfully for a mere stick. Even a disengaged stick was not easy to

find just then. So Dicky, emerging from the Jago, tried Meakin Street,

where there were shops, but unsuccessfully, and so came round by Luck

Row, a narrow way from Meakin Street by Walker's cook shop, up through

the Jago.

* * * * *

Dicky's mother, left with the baby, fastened the door as well as she

might, and trembled. Indeed she had reason. The time of Josh Perrott's

return was a matter of doubt, but when he did come he would want

something to eat; it was for that he had left the money. But Dicky was

out, and there was nothing in the cupboard. From the window she saw

divers fights in Jago Court; and a man lay for near two hours on the

stones with a cut on his temple. As for herself, she was no favourite in

the neighbourhood at any time. For one thing, her husband did not carry

the cosh. Then she was an alien who had never entirely fallen into Jago

ways; she had soon grown sluttish and dirty, but she was never drunk,

she never quarrelled, she did not gossip freely. Also her husband beat

her but rarely, and then not with a chair nor a poker. Justly irritated

by such superiorities as these, the women of the Jago were ill-disposed

to brook another: which was, that Hannah Perrott had been married in

church. For these reasons she was timid at the most peaceful of times,

but now, with Ranns and Learys on the war-path, and herself obnoxious to

both, she trembled. She wished Dicky would come and do her errand. But

there was no sign of him, and mid-day wore into afternoon. It was late

for Josh as it was, and he would be sure to come home irritable: it was

his way when a bad head from overnight struggled with morning beer. If

he found nothing to eat there would be trouble.

At length she resolved to go herself. There was a lull in the outer din,

and what there was seemed to come from the farther parts of Honey Lane

and Jago Row. She would slip across by Luck Row to Meakin Street and be

back in five minutes. She took up little Looey and went.

And as Dicky, stickless, turned into Luck Row, there arose a loud shriek

and then another, and then in a changed voice a succession of long

screams with a regular breath-pause. Sally Green again! He ran, turned

into Old Jago Street, and saw.

Sprawled on her face in the foul road lay a writhing woman and screamed;

while squeezed under her arm was a baby with mud in its eyes and a cut

cheek, crying weakly; and spread over all, clutching her prey by hair

and wrist, Sally Green hung on the nape like a terrier, jaws clenched,

head shaking.

Thus Dicky saw it in a flash, and in an instant he had flung himself on

Sally Green, kicking, striking, biting and crying, for he had seen his

mother and Looey. The kicks wasted themselves among the woman's

petticoats, and the blows were feeble; but the sharp teeth were meeting

in the shoulder-flesh, when help came.

Norah Walsh, vanquished champion, now somewhat recovered, looked from a

window, saw her enemy vulnerable, and ran out armed with a bottle. She

stopped at the kerb to knock the bottom off the bottle, and then, with

an exultant shout, seized Sally Green by the hair and stabbed her about

the face with the jagged points. Blinded with blood, Sally released her

hold on Mrs Perrott and rolled on her back, struggling fiercely; but to

no end, for Norah Walsh, kneeling on her breast, stabbed and stabbed

again, till pieces of the bottle broke away. Sally's yells and plunges

ceased, and a man pulled Norah off. On him she turned, and he was fain

to run, while certain Learys found a truck which might carry Sally to

the hospital.

* * * * *

Hannah Perrott was gone indoors, hysterical and helpless. She had scarce

crossed the street on her errand when she had met Sally Green in quest

of female Ranns. Mrs Perrott was not a Rann, but she was not a Leary, so

it came to the same thing. Moreover, there was her general

obnoxiousness. She had tried to run, but that was useless; and now,

sobbing and bleeding, she was merely conscious of being gently led,

almost carried, indoors and upstairs. She was laid back on the bed, and

somebody loosened her hair and wiped her face and neck, giving her

hoarse, comforting words. Then she saw the face--scared though coarse

and pitted, and red about the eyes--that bent over her. It was Pigeony

Poll's.

Dicky had followed her in, no longer the hero of the Jago Row retreat,

but with his face tearful and distorted, carrying the baby in his arms,

and wiping the mud from her eyes. Now he sat on the little box and

continued his ministrations, with fear in his looks as he glanced at his

mother on the bed.

* * * * *

Without, the fight rallied once more. The Learys ran to avenge Sally

Green, and the Ranns met them with a will. Down by the Bag of Nails a

party of Ranns was driven between the posts and through the gut into

Shoreditch High Street, where a stand was made until Fag Dawson dropped,

with a shoemaker's knife sticking under his arm-pit. Then the Ranns

left, with most of the Learys after them, and Fag Dawson was carried to

a chemist's by the police, never to floor a Rann again. For he was

chived in the left lung.

Thus the fight ended. For a faction fight in the Jago, with a few broken

heads and ribs and an odd knife wound here and there--even with a death

in the hospital from kicks or what not--was all very well; but when it

came to homicide in the open High Street, the police drew the line, and

entered the Jago in force. Ordinarily, a peep now and again from a

couple of policemen between the 'Posties' was all the supervision the

Jago had, although three policemen had been seen to walk the length of

Old Jago Street together, and there were raids in force for special

captures. There was a raid in force now, and the turmoil ceased. Nothing

would have pleased both Ranns and Learys better than to knock over two

or three policemen, for kicking-practice; but there were too many for

the sport, and for hours they patrolled the Jago's closest passages. Of

course nobody knew who chived Fag Dawson. No inquiring policeman ever

found anybody in the Old Jago who knew anything, even to the harm of

his bitterest foe. It was the sole commandment that ran there:--'Thou

shalt not nark.'

That night it was known that there would be a fight between Josh Perrott

and Billy Leary, once the latter grew well. For Josh Perrott came home,

saw his wife, and turned Rann on the spot. But for the police in the

Jago that night, there would have been many a sore head, if no worse,

among the Learys, by visitation of Josh Perrott. Sally Green's husband

had fled years ago, and Billy Leary, her brother, was the obvious mark

for Josh's vengeance. He was near as eminent a fighter among the men as

his sister among the women, and a charming scrap was anticipated. It

would come off, of course, in Jago Court one Sunday morning, as all

fights of distinction did; and perhaps somebody in the High Mob would

put up stakes.