Printer's Devil (9780316167826) (2 page)

I should explain that, by that summer when I was twelve, when all the things happened that I’m going to tell you about, I
was very well used to looking after myself. I never had a mother and father looking after me, and I don’t really know much
about what happened to them, except that my Ma died in a big ship on a voyage from India, from the effort of giving birth
to me, and I had to live in an orphanage for the first few years of my life. I don’t know much more. Since I ran away from
the orphanage I’d worked for Cramplock, and in return for a chunk of the wages he paid me he let me sleep in an upstairs room
in the printing shop. It wasn’t very big or very comfortable, but it had most of what I needed — a bed for me and a basket
for Lash, a table and a jug of water for washing, and a little cupboard for my things — and it was the closest thing to a
home I’d ever had.

If it weren’t for Cramplock I don’t really know what I’d have done. Become a thief, maybe, like lots of the other kids who
grew up around here. A couple of streets away lay the massive prison with its high wall, behind which someone else would disappear
every so
often when they’d been caught stealing or doing something wicked. People would gather to watch the big iron gates swing open,
admit the cart, then close. No one ever seemed to come out. They said the only way out of the jail was to be carried out in
a box. They died in there. I used to be able to see the men burying them in the fields outside.

But, just occasionally, one of them found a quicker way out.

I nipped through the alleyways, with Lash getting in the way at my ankles. The late spring sky was a deep heat-soaked blue
above us, but in some places it seemed like nighttime, because the houses on either side of the lanes leaned inwards at the
top until they almost touched, so the sunlight could hardly get through. To get to the Doll’s Head we had to go past Cow Cross,
where there was always a lot of dirt lying around from the cattle which were driven through there twice a day. If the presses
weren’t making a noise, Cramplock and I could often hear their mooing protests in the morning and afternoon as they clomped
through the streets getting in the way of the traffic. It was always smelly at Cow Cross, and if it was raining you could
hardly move for the dirt, trodden into a paste a foot thick by the cows’ hooves. Still, I preferred that to the smell of the
Fleet, which ran between the backs of the nearby houses. People said it
used to be a river, once upon a time, when you could see the green fields from the back windows of the houses there. But
you wouldn’t call the Fleet a river now: it was more a sort of sticky black ditch which little kids used to get scolded for
going near, on account of the dirt and all the rats. Especially during the summer, when you had to breathe through your mouth
if you were anywhere near it, so as not to catch the smell. The cows didn’t smell half as bad as that — and since it was mainly
people’s filth which made the Fleet stink, the only conclusion I could come to was that people smell a good deal worse than
cattle.

And here was the Doll’s Head, with its big wooden pole propping up the top of the house to stop it from toppling into the
street. You had to duck under the pole to get in through a little door, whereupon you found yourself in a tiny taproom, all
higgledy-piggledy, as though it had been built by a man whose eyes looked in two different directions.

There was nobody in the room this evening — except Tassie, the landlady, of course. Lash gave a good-natured whimper of recognition
when he spotted her plump face behind the bar.

“Tassie,” I said, “Cramplock’s hungry, and so’s Lash, and so am I.”

“Tell me when you’s never
not
hungry, Maaster Mog,” Tassie said, reaching over the bar to wipe a
smudge of ink off my face with her fat thumb. The Doll’s Head had been built a very long time ago — in Queen Elizabeth’s
time, someone said — and I suppose I assumed that Tassie had been there ever since then. She was usually cheerful, except
on very wet days when the rainwater used to leak down through the timbers of the house and drip onto the back of her neck
from a crack just above where she stood. She always called me “Maaster Mog,” and when she was cross with me she elongated
it even more, so it came out as “Maaaaaster Moooooog.” I used to slink about and keep out of her way on those days. But usually
she made me into quite an attraction if there was anyone else in the room: she’d tell them, “Well just look who it is, it’s
Maaster Mog,” and she might come over and blow the dust out of my hair and rub my face just like she did today, and she’d
say, “He’s one of my regulars, ain’t you, Maaster Mog?” and she’d laugh heartily at it as though she’d just told a good joke
or sung a particularly fine song.

“What can you spare us to eat, Tassie?” I asked her, “along with your middling ale?”

She put her tongue in her cheek, which made it a good deal plumper than it already was. “Well now,” she said, “provided you
can show me the right connidge” — she meant money — “what if I was to tell you there’s a big pink ham under my larder table?”

Lash reacted before I did, with a gruff
woof
of approval.

“I’d say,” I said, “that ham would do nice. And bread would do nice, too.”

“What if I was to tell you,” she said, “there’s floury bread an’ all? And what if I was to tell you there’s ham and bread
both, Maaster Mog?”

My eyes shone at her over the bar and she roared with laughter. “Don’t that make your eyes shine, Maaster Mog?” she said;
and, as if she were talking to someone else, “just look at the lad’s big handsome eyes, me making his face light up like an
angel’s face, I declare. You’ve got such eyes as a woman would die for, Maaster Mog, that you has. ‘Taint fair that a young
man should have such eyes, when there’s ladies young and old would die for eyes that big and lovely.” I was quite used to
hearing this, because she said it virtually every time I went to see her and, although I always made faces pretending I was
bored of her compliments, I actually liked it. This piece of flattery about my eyes was nearly always followed up by another
comment which she obviously thought rather clever; and, sure enough, she trotted it out again today. “Printer’s devil, they
calls you,” she said, “but sometimes I have a hard time deciding if you’re devil or angel, Maaster Mog. Devil or angel!” And
she went off into the back room, chuckling, to get the food.

I sat down to wait, and Lash spread himself out under a table. I watched Tassie moving briskly about behind the two great
big polished pump handles where she pulled the beer. She always kept a cloth by them so that, whenever they got too grubby
from all that pulling, she could wipe them down and they’d be as shiny as ever. “The shiniest taaps in Clerkenwell,” she always
claimed, “and if you can show me shinier in all London, well I’d like to see ’em. See your face in ’em, you can, and it’ll
never be otherwise, not while I’m on this good earth.” You certainly
could
see your face in them, but they were such a funny shape that when you looked in them your face appeared extraordinarily long
and bendy, as if someone had taken you by the topmost hairs on your head and yanked until you were stretched out like a piece
of dough.

“I’ve been making a poster,” I told Tassie as she cut me some rich pink ham off a waxy joint, “about a Cockburn.”

“Lovely,” she said, “only what if I was to tell you, Maaster Mog, I ain’t sure as I know what a Cockburn might be.”

“Cockburn’s a —“ I lowered my voice in case the empty room might be harboring unwanted ears. “Cockburn’s the name of a convict!”
I hissed, feeling pleased with myself. “Fellow’s escaped from the New Prison and he’s on the loose. Horrible ugly man! Eyes
like — like a rat,” I said, watching a pink little nose push its way into the taproom through a hole near a chair-leg, take
one look at Lash, and promptly whisk itself back into the dark again.

“I’ll know ’im,” said Tassie, “everyone says Tassie’s the best judge of character in Clerkenwell. If he comes into this ‘stablishment
he’ll soon know he’s made a mistake.” The flour from the bread she was wrapping up made her sneeze, and a cloud of flour-dust
flew up and settled gradually on her polished taps, causing her to swear under her breath and reach for the cloth to wipe
them. “What’s he done anyway, to get himself in jail to start with?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “but he’s Very Dangerous. It says so on the poster. It’s got a picture of his face on, all ugly and
mean. Mr. Cramplock reckons he’s murderous.”

“Well, I hope he don’t murder us,” Tassie said through a mouthful of ham, “or who’ll keep the Doll’s Head noddin’ and the
print shop printin’? It’s more work the pair of us do, Maaster Mog, than any other body in this city, and if we was to go
there’d be a fair ewe and cry.” She popped another wedge of ham into her mouth.

“Here, don’t eat our ham,” I told her.

“‘Taint your ham yet, it’s mine, till you’ve paid for it,” she countered, “and I’ll do what I likes with me own ham, Maaster
Mog. I ain’t no thief, Maaster Mog,
and you’ll never catch me in the New Prison, not this year nor any other. More likely to be in there yourself afore you’ve
growed up, barrel of mischief that you are.” I didn’t feel it was quite fair of her to call me a barrel. Most of the time
she was going on about how I was all skin and bone, and how no one could see me when I turned sideways. “Here,” she said,
“seen as you’re a growin’ lad, you drink this here and then take some back with you for old Clamprock.”

“Cramplock,” I corrected her, taking the glass she passed me.

“Oh, full of argument you are tonight,” she said. “Too big for your little boots, some might say, Maaster Mog. Oh, he’s terrible
clever, that printer’s lad. Well he’d better pipe down because there’s plenty cleverer than he is, and if he don’t watch out
—“

I stopped listening to her and lowered my head to the glass, full to the brim with cool frothy ale the color of strong tea.
I took a long sip, then licked my lips and opened my eyes wide as the sour aftertaste welled forward over my tongue. I’d sometimes
heard men making unkind remarks about Tassie’s ale behind her back, but it always seemed all right to me; and anyone who ever
tried to taste the water that came out of the pump in the square, straight from the murky depths of the Fleet, would soon
agree that even the poorest ale was a better bet.

Tassie was wiping her taps vigorously, and still mumbling on, as I put my empty glass back up on the counter.

“Thank you, Tassie,” I said, and I must have looked suitably humble because she stopped moaning and produced a big parcel
she’d made up. “Do you good, that will,” she said. “And I’ve put some bone in there, wrapped up separate, just for Lash. Now,
that’s fourpence ha’penny, and don’t go getting murdered on your way back to Clamprock.” I said I wouldn’t, and picked up
the tempting brown parcel full of fat slices of bread, good ham, and thick brown bottles of ale. I heard the chink of coins
as she tipped my money into a sack under the bar. And Lash and I were out of the door.

The houses veered into my path and fell back again, as I rounded the wobbly little corners on the way back to the shop. Someone
gave a low laugh as I passed by a window, and I took hold of Lash’s collar nervously. The beer I’d drunk so quickly had made
me feel a bit unsteady, and the lane looked narrower than usual. Flies buzzed up suddenly from a lump a dog had left on the
cobbles, and I had to pull Lash hard to stop him going over to investigate it.

I was taking Tassie’s advice seriously. Carrying a parcel of food through streets like these could have made me a target for
any hungry villain who might be
lurking on my route, and there were some who’d think nothing of murdering a child of twelve in return for a decent meal.
It was reassuring to have Lash with me but, deep down, I knew there were desperate characters around who wouldn’t have found
Lash much of an obstacle to getting what they wanted. I ran the rest of the way to the shop and, with Lash scampering alongside,
I could treat it like a game; but I was thankful when we reached the little door crouching in the shadow of the big old priory
gate.

Cramplock was still there, busily working the squeaky press on which he was doing the theatre bills. He looked up as he heard
me opening the door. “Ah, Mog,” he said, letting go of the lever and coming towards me rubbing his cheek, “bringer of good
things!” I handed him the parcel, which he placed on the table on top of my Cockburn poster. “Ham!” he said, unwrapping the
brown paper, “and lots of bread!” He chuckled to himself, wedging some of the ham between two slices of bread. Lash’s muzzle
snuffled expectantly up over the edge of the table and Cramplock indulgently slipped him a small slice of ham. “Did you spot
any murderers on your journey, eh?” He cackled, thinking he’d made a splendid joke. I didn’t laugh.

“Mmm,” he said, chewing the bread and ham vigorously, “this handbill’s almost finished. But then …”
he swallowed, “I have to go and see someone.” He swallowed some beer from the neck of his bottle, and blinked and coughed
several times. “I’d like you to run a quick errand for me,” he said, and took another large bite of bread and ham. “I’ve got
a bill for Mister Flethick at Corporation Row,” he mumbled; only it was so muffled by his mouthful of food it came out as
“Mff ffrff bngg, mff-tff Flfff-Corff-ffrmmmm.”

“What?” I said.

He swallowed, and coughed. Damp pieces of bread sailed out of his mouth and landed on a freshly-inked roller. He closed his
eyes, swallowed again, and then opened them in relief as though he’d been afraid he might not survive the effort of swallowing.
“Mr. Flethick,” he said again, “at Corporation Row. But before you go —“ he pointed at me with a greasy middle finger “—you
can finish those.” And, although he was gesturing down at the ham on the table, I knew he meant the poster which lay beneath
it.

A hundred posters I had to make. After we’d finished eating, I sent Lash back to his basket and set to work. A hundred Cockburns.
Every time I pulled a fresh poster out of the press I was shocked by the convict’s face and the stark black legend of his
name. The face seemed to get uglier and more muscly every time. The duplicate Cockburns mounted on top of one another on the
table.