Free The Newgate Jig by Ann Featherstone Page A

Pilgrim than just an
eccentric dresser. You would realize that he was, in fact, two men in one body,
and that these two men were sometimes opposites. One mild, the other wild. One
reasonable, the other argumentative. One careful in speech, the other given to
cursing. Today they lived quite amicably together, taking it in turns to speak,
but tomorrow they might erupt and disagree.
    'Now
then, Bob,' said gentle Pilgrim, 'here is a thing. Them creatures next door.'
    ('Ah, they. Who are they?' said wild Pilgrim.)
    'Bob Chapman knows them.'
    ('Does he? How is that?')
    'Same
trade. They are Irish, Scotchmen, a Frenchy, a Polick. Men and women. Young
'uns too.'
    ('How should Bob Chapman know them?')
    'Strollers,
you fool. Have you no brain? Mummers. Theatricals. Grubbers.'
    ('Grubbers?')
    'The lowest. Gaff-actors.'
    ('Ah,
there you have it, Bob Chapman. A nest of gaff-actors and all the
kindling-thieves this side of Newgate pouring in of an evening.')
    We
drank our tea in silence, and I wondered what was coming and how I might make
an exit, for I was thinking of the time and being at my place when Pikemartin
opened the Aquarium doors. And, for once, I was not thinking of the Nasty Man
or the boy or any of that business.
    The
candle perched on a book in Pilgrim's bower was only a tuppenny one and
threatened all the time to plunge us into darkness or burn through and keel
over, when we would all go up like a fireship, part and parcel. I shifted on
the history of Macedonia and my two boys, squeezed as tight as three shillings
in a Jew's purse underneath a table of stacked music, started to peel
themselves out. Pilgrim cocked an ear.
    'Hear that?'
    ('I do. What of it?')
    'Banging day and night. They are setting up.'
    ('Call in the peelers.')
    'Not on your life! What? And have my throat cut in
my bed and all my assets, inherited with obligations, cleared out and sold on a
barrow? What kind of a fool do you take me for?'
    ('Bob Chapman is silent on the matter.')
    I
was brushing the cobwebs from my good trousers and trying not to cause an
avalanche of books. But perhaps I didn't need to be so careful, for the
thunderous activity from the empty shop next door was already creating little
tremors in the mountainous regions of print and paper, and ominous clouds of
dust were gathering in the dark and lofty canopy above.
    'Bob
Chapman has his own business to attend to,' Pilgrim replied to himself and
followed us to the door, and then onto the street, where he cast a suspicious
eye at his neighbours.
    There
was activity next door, that could not be denied, and a deal of it, though
whether it was demolition or destruction was difficult to say. Half the
boarding of the front windows had been taken down to let in light, and I could
see the black hump of the old shop counter, half-buried under rubble and
timber. One of the toilers, a burly individual with a broken conk and a hostile
disposition, appeared.
    'Clear
off!' growled he, and he brandished half a brick and a lump hammer to add
weight to his point. 'Private property. No, 'awkers, beggars or religious!'
    'We
are none of those,' piped up Pilgrim, 'but occupy next door.'
    ('Until we are forced otherwise.')
    'Clear
off back there then,' he growled, closing one eye, 'and mind that business, not this one.'
    'You see the problem, Bob Chapman?'
    Well,
I saw boxes and barrels among the bricks and rubble, and a pack of dogs,
muzzled and tied up, with red eyes and scarred noses, and some shifty-looking
coves, trying not to be seen out the back. I saw also that it was time for us
to depart, since the church bell was chiming and, more to the point, the
Growler was still meditating upon whether to clock us with the hammer or the
half brick.
    'Come
back and see whether we are still in our skins, Bob Chapman, or if the savages
have turned us into purses!'
    ('He
will. He is a good friend, is Bob Chapman. And his handsome associates.')
    The
Growler looked at me, and then at my boys, and curled a lip to go with