South of Darkness

by John Marsden

  At any rate, the upshot of my musings was that later the same day I found myself in Tallent Street, approaching the shop of Messrs Sanderson and Trott, Purveyors of Fine Articles for the Gentry. Mr Sanderson had not been sighted for many years and was most probably dead. Mr Trott on the other hand was very much alive and was well known among the boys of Hell for his rigorous referral of anyone who stole from him to the Bow-Street Runners. Yet I had never heard of him taking the law into his own hands, and after my experiences at the hand of the servant who flogged me, and with Mr Weekes, I had a distinct preference for the slow-grinding processes of the law.

  I entered the premises of Messrs Sanderson and Trott as surreptitiously as possible, because I knew my way was likely to be barred by any vigilant assistant who saw me. They were all busy with customers, however, so I had no difficulty there. I went down the left-hand side of the shop, which I judged to be the least busy. It was also the darkest. My path took me to the hairbrush counter. I had reason to believe that these hairbrushes were Mr Trott’s pride and joy. They were always exhibited in the window, and a large sign outside proclaimed that Sanderson and Trott were the only London merchants to stock brushes made by the French company Les Brosses Réputés.

  I stood there gazing down at the display. The brushes were spread across the counter in a sequence from the cheapest to the most expensive. I chose the middle one, as being four shillings and sixpence and therefore within the range the Ferret had specified: too cheap to get me a sentence of death, but too expensive for the courts to ignore. I looked around, trying to appear furtive, trying to look like a boy who was there for a felonious purpose. Then I picked up a brush and boldly put it in my pocket. It made quite a bulge and the handle stuck out at the top. Good enough, I thought, and began the long terrifying walk towards the door, a walk that I fully expected would lead me all the way to New South Wales.

  No one shouted at me, no one came running across to intercept me. As I approached the door I thought that they must be waiting until I got outside, for some boys held the belief that you could not be arrested for theft until you had left a premises. I reached the door, pushed it open, and passed out into the street, where I found myself standing on the pavement without a voice raised against me.

  I was completely disconcerted. It seemed that I had gained a hairbrush from France, of the finest quality but of no use to me whatsoever. I had no idea where I could sell such an item. I had never stolen anything other than food and money before, and certainly Mr Weekes was no longer in contention as a client for my ill-gotten goods. I walked on, and when I had gone a block or so I threw the brush into a gutter, under a culvert.

  An hour later, after giving myself a severe talking-to, and thereby strengthening my resolve once more, I entered the premises of Mr Jonathan Usborne, Stationers to the Nobility, in South Street. There did not seem to be any nobles inside, just an old lady dressed in black, who had a Scottish accent so dense that it took me some moments to realise that she was speaking in my native tongue – more or less.

  She was not of course talking to me but to a shop assistant, a middle-aged man who, I was disappointed to note, appeared to be the only person behind the counter. I went and stood just along from the old lady, inspecting the pens. When the assistant went out to the storeroom to fetch a quarter-pint bottle of ink, I boldly picked up a fountain pen worth four shillings and dropped it into my pocket. I then looked along at the lady. She had observed me all right. Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth, to call, I was sure, for the assistant. I steeled myself for the ordeal that awaited. The lady came close to me and touched me on the elbow. ‘You poor wee lad,’ she said, pronouncing ‘poor’ as ‘purr’ and ‘lad’ as ‘lud’. ‘I ken how it is with ye. I saw ye take the pen. I ken how hard it is fer ye wee bairns without a place to be resting yer head, nae doot. Be putting the pen back nae, and take this instead, and try not to give in to temptation. Be putting your trust in the Lord Jesus, for He is the Great Redeemer for our sins.’

  She pressed a whole shilling into my hand. I was so ashamed that I blushed and blushed, and mumbled, ‘Thank you, ma’am. I’m sorry, ma’am,’ replaced the pen on the counter and left the shop as quickly as my feet could carry me.

  Disheartened by my failures, I did not make my third attempt until early the next morning. This time I went to a grog shop right across the road from the Old Bailey. I thought I would save them the trouble of carting me any great distance to court. I took a bottle of gin, hid it inside my shirt in such a way that the neck was sticking out and made my departure. Not a cry could be heard as I left; not a voice was raised in protest. I stood out the front of the shop wondering if I should throw the bottle straight through their fancy window.

  I disposed of the gin for fourpence to an old woman selling flowers on the corner, then wandered down Spensley Street to the Billingsgate fish markets. I loved this place. The smell was strong, too strong for some. I remembered coming here with the Ferret once, and him being sick when the smells overwhelmed him, and then being so embarrassed afterwards that he denied it had ever happened, threatening me with dire consequences should I ever hint at his weakness to anyone.

  The smells didn’t bother me overly. Not as much as the butchers outside the Tower of London. What I liked at Billingsgate was the beautiful fish laid out on their platters, in all their different shapes and sizes and colours. Already much of the day’s supply had been sold, but there was still plenty enough left to interest a boy like me. I didn’t know the names of most, but it was a marvellous thing to see the array of creatures that lived in God’s ocean. You could understand God saying to Job about how great He was to create the wonders in the world when you saw how many varieties there were and how every type of fish differed from every other type. Some were as long as Quentin was tall, and lay there shimmering, their eyes so bright they could have still been alive. Others, the sardines for instance, were not much bigger than my middle finger, and their eyes merely black dots, but no doubt they could see out of them just the same. It was a marvellous sight to behold, and marvellous to think about. The other thing was how smooth they were. You could tell by looking at them that they would have sped through the water like a swallow through air. There was nothing to slow them down.

  And the crabs! Still alive, tied up, but their legs quietly seething, keeping in practice mayhap. They were so monstrous looking, and what you might call ancient. And the claws! I shuddered to look at them. Quentin and I used to grab each other in fear at the sight of them and try to outdo each other in finding the biggest crab there. We’d speculate on how you’d get the bugger off if it sunk its claws into you. Just being stupid, the way boys can be, but you wouldn’t have caught me going near one of them. Not within cooee, as they say in this country.

  We’d go to see the lobsters too, but for some reason the men who sold them were a snarly bunch, foul-tempered the lot of them, as savage as the beasts they sold. They’d chase us off as soon as look at us. The only time we could get a real look was when they had lots of customers and were too busy to be bothered with the likes of us.

  I wandered down in the direction of the lobsters, stopping to look at a couple of squid on the way. They were the most evil creatures I ever did see, although eels weren’t much better. I didn’t understand how squid could swim, but maybe they just skulked around on the ocean floor. I knew I wouldn’t want one of them latching on to my arm. Mostly the squid appeared at the fish market during Lent. Christian folk could eat them then, because they have no blood, or so people say.

  I was approximately halfway through the market when I heard a bit of commotion behind me. I stopped and looked around. You could see a surge through the crowd, like the waves a big boat makes when it’s on its way down the Thames. The waves go rolling to the left and to the right, and if they’re too big you’d best get out of the way. Suddenly the surge parted though, and there right in front of me was its cause: a boy a little younger than
me, a desperate look on his face, going like the clappers, and somewhere behind him half-a-dozen people in pursuit. Then I heard the cry that was all too familiar in my part of London: ‘Stop! Thief!’

  At the same moment the boy flung something away from him. It landed almost at my feet, and looking down I saw it was a purse. He swerved to the right and, running like a whippet, went into the little lane opposite the sign for St Jude’s Church. He ran three steps then dove into the pile of rubbish that’s always there and burrowed down into it so that in an instant he was lost to sight.

  I was dumbfounded but I didn’t hesitate. Only a couple of people had seen what had happened, and if they were like the general run of Londoners there was a good chance they wouldn’t involve themselves in other people’s affairs. I bent down, grabbed the purse and hightailed it down the street, making myself the target of the chase. I ran through the lobster area, but not at full speed. I was anxious to be caught. The cry of ‘Stop! Thief!’ ran out again, and all of a sudden a big burly man with forearms bigger around than my waist stepped into my path. I couldn’t help myself, couldn’t stop in time. I cannoned into him. He was that solid I went sprawling backwards onto the ground, banging the back of my head.

  He picked me up like I was a fish and held me at arm’s length. The chasers arrived a moment later, panting, shouting, and crowding around me. A fat little man, puffing as though his lungs were fit to burst, plucked the purse out of my shaking hand and cuffed me across the head. To my surprise the man who had grabbed me, one of the bad-tempered lobster sellers, said: ‘Don’t ill-use the lad. He’s in enough trouble already.’

  The fat man just growled, stepped backwards and opened the purse to check the contents. I looked hard, trying to see how much money was in there. To my relief I could see only a few coins.

  Just a couple of minutes later two Bow-Street Runners arrived. Immediately the owner of the purse became animated, waving his arms and shouting in indignation at the outrage I had perpetrated upon him. He spoke in bursts, leaving out all the unimportant words. ‘Money for ribbons . . . my daughter’s birthday . . . four shillings . . . mongrels . . . scourge on the streets . . . they’d stick you with a knife as soon as pick your pocket . . .’ And then to me: ‘Where’s my watch, you little piece of filth?’

  Watch? I hadn’t seen a watch. Maybe the boy still had it, or maybe he’d thrown it away earlier in the chase and someone else had picked it up, or maybe it was lying in a gutter somewhere.

  ‘I never touched your watch,’ I said with as much fury as I could muster. I knew I needed to talk down the value of his losses, because four shillings and a watch added up to a picture of the gallows looming over me. He hit me again. I cowered away, but the lobster seller told him: ‘Don’t hit him again or I’ll give you a thump that’ll take you into next week.’

  ‘That’s right,’ one of the Redbreasts said; then, to the fat gentleman: ‘Now, sir, what’s the value of your losses to this wretch?’

  ‘Told you already . . . Four shillings in my purse . . . watch, gold, paid forty guineas . . . just last December.’

  ‘Forty guineas,’ the Runner said, and there were whistles from the crowd, and much respectful muttering at the thought of a watch worth such a sum.

  ‘We’ll take him along,’ the other Runner said. ‘You’ll be coming with us, sir? Without you, there’ll be no prosecution.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ the man said, huffing and puffing with excitement. And so I was led away.

  Chapter 17

  The irony of the situation was not lost on me. If I had somehow obtained the watch as well as the purse, and if I had run a little faster, I would have had a substantial deposit on the money I needed to repay Mr Weekes. Say I fenced the watch for fifteen pounds, that, combined with the coins still remaining from selling the counterfeit banknotes would have at least bought me time. I felt the grim satisfaction of knowing that my understanding of the mysterious workings of the Creator was being borne out by my experiences. The capricious way in which God had dealt with Job was being reflected in my life yet again.

  In the magistrates’ court I found myself facing the fat gentleman familiar from my previous visit, Sir Bennett Cousins. I had no difficulty remembering the character given him by the three arsonists with whom I had shared a cell. Their assessment seemed by way of being fair, if a trifle generous to the honourable gentleman. ‘Everyone is guilty as far as he’s concerned,’ they had said.

  His first words in my case were to the Bow-Street Runners: ‘Well, what’s this young reprobate done? He looks a bad ’un and no mistake.’

  I had no answer to the charges, except to say that I had never seen or touched the watch. Sir Bennett Cousins wasted no time in committing me to trial, mentioning in passing that he trusted the Lord would spare him long enough to grant him the pleasure of seeing me hanging from the gibbet outside Newgate.

  I awaited the next stage of the process with trepidation, not knowing to which prison I would be transferred after the magistrate’s hearing. I made the grim discovery soon enough, and by the end of the day found myself entering through the gates of the infamous Newgate Prison.

  I suppose it is public knowledge that those who can afford it can live moderately well in His Majesty’s Prisons of the United Kingdom. Indeed, there are those who take themselves in and out of prison as though it were a convenient hotel: those blackguards, for example, who have their debts discharged by going into prison as bankrupts and emerging with a smile to begin a new round of swindles. For the rest of us however, all prisons are places of horror and degradation, and in this respect Newgate is outstanding.

  The keeper did not waste his time asking me if I had any money for the master’s side. He took one look at me and assigned me to the commons. He didn’t even bother to ask for garnish, and as for taking my clothes in lieu, as he was entitled to do, I’m afraid he showed scant respect for my garb by ignoring the potential of that penalty too.

  I do not know the current conditions at Newgate, except from hearsay, for I understand it has been much modified again since my residency came to its end. I can only say that far from being altered it should have been burned down and the ruins buried forever. Its very existence is a blight on the name of British justice, and I say that as a loyal subject of the Crown, and an Englishman.

  The commons occupied thirteen rooms, and I was taken to the westernmost one, shackled by my kindly keeper, and left to my own devices. The room held, on the day I entered it, some thirty souls in different degrees of torment, from the madman walking around in strange patterns comprehensible only to himself, to the young curate awaiting trial for stabbing three inmates of the workhouse to death because he believed they were possessed by Satan; from the mother nursing a baby which looked shrunken and grey and prematurely aged, to the old deaf woman accused by her neighbour of having stolen two cloaks and a petticoat, and who sat against the wall sobbing piteously. If justice had a heart, that heart would be broken by the sight of that old lady, if it had not already been shattered by the imprisonment in the penitentiary of the innocent babe, and the inconsolable weeping of its mother who could find no milk to give the child, but who said justice has a heart? Ask Job if God’s justice had a heart. Why should Man attempt to do any more than emulate his Maker and Master? Would it not be blasphemy for him to aspire to a higher standard than He who made us?

  I hoped that I could scuttle into a corner and stay there until my trial, unnoticed and inconspicuous. No doubt many entered the commons at Newgate with a similar ambition. However, mixed in with the innocent and the pure of heart (who, it may surprise the public to know, can surely be found there) are the evil and corrupt, the wicked and intransigent. And there is a power possessed by such as them which is unknown to others. The wild animal dominates the tame. The wolf is stronger than the dog, the lion than the lamb. The savagery that runs in their veins seems to give them a special ferocity.

 
; The commons was governed by a fearful man known to all and sundry as Lord Blood. He seemed to relish the name. As the discerning reader might well surmise, he was no lord according to the British nobility, and his family tree is unlikely to be found in Mr Amon’s The New Peerage, but in his commanding manner and ruthless domination of his little estate in Newgate he was a lord indeed. He swaggered around as though the place had been in the title of his family since William the Conqueror. He had been arrested for armed robbery and manslaughter, and surely the gallows awaited him, but somehow he had been able to put off his dreaded appointment for a long time, for when I arrived in Newgate he had spent seven months there already and was not even brought to trial yet.

  He noticed me within ten minutes of my arrival. He came towards me with a look that I can only call ravenous. He was dressed like a dandy, but like most of us in there was shackled. Unlike us others however he wore his shackles as though they were pieces of jewellery, and he moved as quickly as anyone in the place. I stood as he approached, for there was something so menacing about him that I did not dare remain huddled in my corner. He wasted no time with words but grabbed me under the armpits and lifted me so that our faces were at a level. His eyes were bloodshot and wild; even in my terror I wondered if he were some sort of looking glass, and I was seeing the reflection of the man I would become if I stayed in this place long enough. He smelled of beer, which I soon became aware was easily purchased by prisoners from passers-by, through the grilles in the wall. Leering at me, he said: ‘You’re a juicy piece of meat now. How would you like to be gutted and bled and baked over that fire over there?’

  ‘I . . . I wouldn’t like it at all, sir,’ I stammered.

  ‘Well if I gets hungry enough, that’s what I do, see?’