The Blind Beak

by Ernest Dudley

  And so, caught in the swirling eddies of the crowds, Nick and his companions had been deflected through Lincoln’s Inn Fields until now they were proceeding along the Strand, Temple Bar ahead and Fleet Street beyond. ‘Where are we going?’ Rambling Rose was screaming, ‘to plunder the Bank?’ An answering shout of laughter and then suddenly above the guffaws Babylon’s roar.

  ‘That is it. We are for the Bank and all its gold.’

  Whereupon Rose shrieked with delight, flung her arms first round the shoemaker’s bull-like neck then hung upon Nick, screaming: ‘To the Bank. The Bank and all its lovely gold.’

  As they neared Temple Bar, sudden and sinister sounds — the rattle of musketry — momentarily quietened the exultant shouting. Now occurred a tumult above which arose the screams and groans of those wounded by that first volley. As the mob recoiled from this first sign of authority to be encountered, Nick saw the line of soldiers drawn up across the street. A servingman carrying a plate of oysters scuttled across and with a pained glance at the smoking muskets disappeared through a tavern door. An ensign bawled to the crowd to turn back or they would receive another volley. The rioters, shouting imprecations and shaking fists, hesitated, then Babylon leapt forward brandishing his pitchfork. ‘To Newgate, then. The Bank will come later.’

  ‘To Newgate,’ and, shouting and huzzaing, the mob swung into the side-streets, streaming back into Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Nick paused with Rose and one or two others to help the less badly hurt to scramble to their feet; those seriously wounded, together with several dead men and women, one of the latter with a moaning babe at her breast, were left for the soldiers to attend to.

  Nick was of little mind to find himself once more in the vicinity of the grim walls he had not long since quitted, but there was nothing for it; free from the Stone Jug and the noose, he found himself a prisoner of the mob, from which he dare not, even if he might succeed in the attempt, turn aside, for fear of exciting suspicion concerning his identity or that he was some Papist sympathizer.

  Through the streets between Fetter Lane and Gough Square he, the shoemaker and the girl with their followers swarmed and proceeded apace until they emerged at Holborn Hill. There they encountered more rioters engaged in destroying the Old Black Swan distillery. Already furniture had been dragged out of the place, heaped into bonfires and set ablaze, while casks of unrectified spirits and liquor from the vaults were being broached by yelling men and women. In a moment great sheets of flame and clouds of smoke ascended as the gushing liquor caught fire. Men and women, children and mothers with babes in their arms, emerging from the noisome courts and surrounding blind-alleys, found themselves suddenly caught in the inferno, while others, recklessly hurling more and more furniture from neighbouring houses, added fuel to the flames.

  Some completely berserk creatures were wallowing in the pools of spirits, lapping it up from the gutters and then shrieking insensately, reeling and staggering into the flames, to be roasted alive in blazing rum and gin. Nick observed a man leaning from one of the windows of a nearby coffee-house from which hung blue streamers, bellowing: ‘No Popery. Burn the Catholics,’ and throwing coins to encourage those scrambling for them in their orgy of destruction. Black flakes from the inferno floated in a vast cloud above, then there was a sudden tremendous roar and great flames spouted heavenwards from the heart of the conflagration in columns of fire which must have been seen for miles around.

  Rose, who had been clutching Nick’s arm, fascinated by the ghastly spectacles, screamed aloud at this new devastation. ‘The vats have caught fire,’ Nick told her grimly. At that moment he caught sight of two fire-engines which had been brought with the purpose of protecting neighbouring property. He saw the firemen working their engines and the flames shoot up more fiercely than before. ‘The wells be full more of spirit than water,’ he shouted, to halt the firemen from adding fuel to the flames. Then, Rose clinging to him and accompanied by Babylon, he was swept onwards to the direction of Snow Hill.

  Passing a tavern-yard, he perceived a sturdy fellow whom he had noticed by the fire-engines now pumping away at a pump which was producing not water but gin from the distillery cellars, doling the stuff out at a penny a mugful, or as much as could be carried in a hat to the miscreants quickly gathering round him. Then the shoemaker was guffawing with delight, Rose uttering shrill peals, and Nick could not forbear a thin smile of amusement as they passed a reverend gentleman pushed against a house by a trio of footpads, coolly relieving him of his gold watch and purse.

  Passing a French silk-merchant’s house in the hands of despoilers, Rose rushed forward to snatch a cage of canaries, about to be added to the bonfire of furniture already blazing, from a virago with matted hair and gin-bleared eyes. ‘They are Popish birds and should burn with the rest of this Popish house.’ The harridan would have cast the cage into the flames had not Nick wrenched it free, presently handing the prize over to a woman companion to decorate it with a blue cockade.

  Now Newgate, looming up beyond the house of a Mr. Rainsforth, the king’s tallow-chandler, came in sight, from which flames and smoke belched and the roadway aglisten with melted tallow. Nick and the rest edged their way past, holding their noses against the choking fumes, to push their way through the great concourse assembled outside the prison, its grim walls silhouetted black against the night sky clouded with banks of smoke from the numerous fires dotted about London, lit up at intervals by the reflection of the flames.

  Nick, together with Rose and Babylon, found himself urged by their followers, who themselves were pressed forward by other crowds converging upon the scene, into the threatening gathering outside the prison-gates howling for the release of the rioters. ‘Deliver us our friends,’ demanded some. ‘You are holding good Protestant prisoners.’

  Presently Nick observed a side-door in the prison-gate open and Mr. Ackerman, pompous of bearing as ever, faced the sarcastic huzzas and yells, at length contriving to make himself heard.

  ‘Get you back to your homes,’ he replied imperiously. ‘Your fellows will be justly dealt with.’ He had barely finished speaking and his obduracy greeted with howling execrations when from within the prison itself arose an echoing:

  ‘No Popery, no Popery.’

  Inflamed by the voices of the prisoners, their friends without grew more threatening. ‘Hand them over,’ they roared, ‘or we will come and get them ourselves.’

  For a moment Nick believed Mr. Ackerman would stand his ground, then a hail of stones smashed about the gate, some missing him narrowly, and he turned and dodged through the sidedoor, which slammed behind him. Stones smashed the prison windows, pickaxes and sledge-hammers beat against the gates, ladders appeared as if from nowhere, up which the rioters scaled the great walls.

  Within a few moments a window of Mr. Ackerman’s private dwelling was completely shattered from inside, the head of a triumphantly grinning rioter appeared, shouting encouragements to his followers below. There ensued the usual spectacle of furniture and household goods being hurled from every window and set alight in a heap against the prison-gates, which in turn caught fire.

  Mr. Ackerman reappeared, surrounded by a group of officials who began forcing a way through the mob, belaying any in their path with their cudgels. The last sight Nick had of Mr. Ackerman was as the encircling crowd turned upon his escort, snatching their cudgels to belabour them until they, and he himself, sank beneath the waves of beating fists and infuriated shouts.

  At this moment occurred a diversion. To the accompaniment of wild cheering a coach, dragged by some fifty crazed-looking fellows, came in view, atop which sat a young man looking more agitated than pleased by the frenzied scene. Nick realized this must be Lord George Gordon himself, the impetuous leader of the anti-Papists, who, as the coach made its way through the multitude, was making efforts to speak, at last obtaining some sort of silence. ‘For God’s sake, go home. While you behave in this unpeace-able way, nothing can come of our cause. The Go
vernment will never listen — ’

  He was howled down by his followers’ battle-cry; even his appeal went unheeded. In any case few of the vast multitude could have heard his exhortation; to the rest the uproar of those near their leader led them to imagine the latter was encouraging their destructive lust, and they renewed their attack upon the gaol with increased ferocity.

  Not a stick of Mr. Ackerman’s furniture had not been heaped upon the bonfire, and, the prison-gates already ablaze, firebrands and flaming pieces of tow were hurled over the massive walls and through smashed windows, while wines and liquor of all kinds were being carried in pails, jugs and hats from the governor’s cellars, to be drunk in great glee.

  Nick was among the first inside the prison. Pandemonium reigned, the women especially screaming in fear of being roasted alive in the fires flaring up, while others clamoured to be released. One such imploring voice came from the Condemned Hold itself where, as Nick learned of several overjoyed men and women dashing past him to freedom, four wretches had been thrown that day after he had taken his leave.

  Nick led the rush to the cell and, seizing a sledge-hammer from a drunken rioter, battered at the door, aided in his efforts by a score of axes and crowbars. In a few moments four dazed-looking creatures, one a pitiful old crone, another a thin boy of no more than fifteen summers, his ribs showing through his rags like a washerwoman’s basket, were lugged out triumphantly.

  ‘A clear way, a clear run,’ Nick shouted at the boy, whose teeth were chattering with fear and bewilderment mingled, ‘to the sweetest music in the world, the clank of broken fetters.’ The other flew off, swift as an arrow from a Tartar’s bow.

  By now, parts of the gaol walls were red-hot, so those rushing out through clouds of black smoke and gushing flames would scream with agony as they encountered the searing stone. To Nick the wild forms careering past had the appearance of demons capering madly about some unearthly inferno; above, smoke clouded the sky, luridly tinged by the fork-tongued flames licking the disintegrating walls.

  Sickened by the sight of the mob’s unabated destructiveness Nick, with Babylon and Rose, whose clothes had been ripped off to the waist, her round breasts smudged black and half her hair singed away, joined a stream of the crowd which was dispersing at the news that a detachment of Light Dragoons, together with both foot and horseguards, had been despatched to the gaol, while other reports were to the effect that cannon were being brought up to reinforce the military.

  Some were off to see the lunatics from Bedlam released, to gibber and prance through the streets, other bold spirits were for hunting lions rumoured to have been freed from the Tower. Then arose from several desperados, their eyebrows burned off, smoke-begrimed, the cry, ‘On to Bow Street,’ which new battlefront was taken up on either side:

  ‘To the Police Court, Bow Street ahoy,’ was shouted now. ‘Burn it down,’ a ruffian yelled in Nick’s ear, then, more ominously: ‘The Blind Beak, death to him,’ from some other drunken throat and echoed by a bloodthirsty roar. ‘Death to the Blind Beak. On to Bow Street. Kill. Burn. Destroy.’

  29.

  They swung into Drury lane, Nick, Rambling Rose and Babylon in the van of the mob. The girl, stumbling along the street, littered with the scorched remains of a burned-out house, fell over a sprawled, blackened shape in the gutter. At first she took it to be some bedding — broken and blazing furniture lay strewn in all directions — when Nick, helping her to her feet, found himself staring into what was left of a once-familiar face. His glance shifted, the wooden stump had been burnt off.

  A half-tipsy individual lurching from the doorway of the plundered house vouchsafed: ‘Would have called the soldiers, he would, to save the police office from burning down. Papist traitor,’ spurning the thing in the gutter with a drunken kick, ‘was for rescuing the Blind Beak.’ He described how the frenzied crowd, suspecting Shadow’s purpose, had caught him, set fire to his wooden leg; then someone emptying a bucket of spirits over him, he had gone up in a sheet of flame.

  ‘And so should all spies be served,’ Babylon grunted. ‘Burn, pox on you, burn,’ and speared the charred corpse upon his pitchfork with a gruesome, crackling sound and hurled it into a nearby bonfire. Rose uttered a horrified shriek which broke off as Nick, sick to the stomach, struck the shoemaker in the face.

  The squat figure teetered on his heels, blood pouring from his mouth, then collapsed with a moan of pain, his pitchfork clattering to the ground. Shrieking abuse at him, Rose lunged to attack Nick, who thrust her brutally aside so that she fell where Shadow had lain. At once the rest of the mob growled he was no true anti-Papist, then a shout brought everyone’s head round. ‘Bow Street is burning. The police court is afire.’

  At the bestial roar that greeted the news Nick, of a sudden, experienced a tremendous release of hidden springs of action, instinctively he knew he must irrevocably free himself from the bonds of his past, or be for ever doomed. ‘It is you who are destroying yourself.’ The words came back to him, ringing in his brain like a clarion-call above the tumult around him. Now, amidst this night of insensate destruction, of crazed terror, his innermost soul was illumined with the knowledge that of a certainty no longer could he remain prisoner of the dim half-world whence he had, like Lucifer to hell, returned. It must be freedom of his spirit now: to exist and yet be damned was no longer tolerable. He who had cracked the Stone Jug, had trod the tight-rope of deadly danger, who had escaped the noose about his very neck, beheld in a blinding flash of truth that escape in death were better than life on the abyss-edge.

  For the second time in his strange history every nerve and fibre of his being, the very warp and woof of his character, the complex fabric of his philosophy underwent a shattering metamorphosis: involuntarily there passed before his mind’s eye that moment past seven years since when he had stood in his dishonour and degradation beside Casanova at Bow Street and had encountered Chagrin’s gaze. Then had he suddenly felt a sickening to his soul. Then had he known himself for what he truly was, the depths to which he must inevitably sink.

  Once more he was faced with the knowledge he had come to a nadir of his career and vicissitude. And in a thunderbolt shock of self-revelation he was transformed by the upsurging unconquerable will to lift himself out of the mire and foul rottenness that had near dragged him under. Lift himself up by his own bootstraps, he would, and once more he experienced that tremendous elevation of the spirit as he grappled with the decision.

  His thoughts sped to the Blind Beak in his extremity, galvanizing him to attempt, at whatever the cost, if it be his own skin, to wrest from the dread fate the rioters intended for him, that fat sightless hulk who, whatever else he may have thought best done in the line of his duty as he saw it, had given him his first chance to enlist himself in a future of service not without merit.

  Animated by a grim determination, his narrowed eyes gleaming jets of resolution, he swung away from the menace of those before him and sped through a gap that had opened out in the throng. Presently, he saw the police court, from which smoke was already rising, accompanied by the smashing of windows and the chanting of: ‘Down with Bow Street. Death to the Blind Beak. Burn. Kill. Destroy.’

  He fought his way nearer and witnessed several police officers emerge, overpowered and cuffed and belaboured. Among them was Mr. Bond, spectacles caught on one ear, and all dishevelled, his expression distraught. ‘Where are the soldiers?’ he cried. ‘Sir John will be burned to death.’ Jostled and buffeted, the clerk passed within arm’s length of Nick. ‘Save Sir John. The soldiers? Sir John Fielding will perish,’ his cries lost in a storm of jeers as he and his companions were roughly jostled out of sight.

  Nick glanced up as a window of Sir John Fielding’s sitting room shattered and a chair hurtled to the pavement. The window next it suffered similarly, a table crashing down, and from the splintered glass and wood demoniacal faces grinned. More furniture, a mass of documents and papers, books and ornaments, pictures, even
the curtains wrenched away and cast to the flames below. A wild-looking creature leaned out, oblivious of the jagged glass, shouting: ‘The Blind Beak himself be here. Do we throw him out, too?’

  There was a roar of assent, and then another desperate individual appeared above, alongside the first. ‘Throw him out?’ he bellowed, ‘or let him burn?’

  Nick had gained the police court doorway, his blood running cold as all about him took up the challenge, some shouting for Sir John to be thrown to them, others urging he be left to burn. Keeping to the wall he fought his way along the crowded, smokefilled passage towards the stairs to the Blind Beak’s sitting room. ‘Let him burn,’ came the shouts predominating now. ‘Leave the Blind Beak to burn.’

  Sparks flew from torches held by yelling rioters and, choking, Nick doggedly continued his way. He could hear more crashing of glass from above and then a mighty rending of wood as the sitting room door was torn from its hinges, to be hurled into the street. Of a sudden behind him arose screams and shouts of alarm. One side of the passage had caught alight and escape from the stairs was being cut off. A concerted rush from the building, a blazing torch falling in the mad dash to get out, and the staircase-foot burst into flames. Several remaining with him half-way up the stairs, plunging wildly downwards, Nick was left alone.

  He reached the sitting room and from the doorway took in the scene of devastation, his gaze immediately fastening on the huge figure sprawled in an armchair, curtain-cords knotted round him, chin sunk on his chest, his black bandage awry. About him reeled three men still seeking any object on which to lay their hands, while two of their companions sagged helplessly in a corner, drunk on the wine from the smashed bottles and decanters scattered round the room. One of the trio still on their feet was attacking the wall-panelling with a crowbar, the other pair tackling a heavy table, one hacking at it with an axe while the other wrenched at one of the legs with bare hands.