The Newgate Jig

For
Holly,

the
best of friends

Prologue: Going to See a Man Hanged

There
is nothing more dreadful, surely, than seeing one's own father hung.

All
the horrors of this world, the wars and famines, plagues and pestilences,
cannot compare with the sight of one's father upon the scaffold and the rope
around his neck. It arouses the most extraordinary sensations - of awe, at the
enormity of the event, and despair at one's utter helplessness in the face of
it. One might be forgiven, at the very moment the hangman pulls the bolt, for
going quite mad, tearing at one's hair and crying through the streets. Oh, yes
indeed, quite mad.

Thus
muses aloud, to no one in particular, an elegant gentleman, glass in hand
(though the hour is still early), comfortably established in the upstairs open
window of a tavern. There is much to see, such variety of humanity in the
gathering crowd below: the blind beggar and his attempts to escape the
thieving attentions of a bully, the brightly gowned young woman and her
companion debating whether to purchase a 'Last Confession' from a
street-seller, and a thin, pale-faced boy, perhaps nine or ten years old, whose
clothes were once good ones (a serviceable jacket and trousers, a shirt and
neckerchief), but which are now worn and shabby, in animated
conversation
with an older man. Leaning out of the window, the elegant gentleman can catch
it all if he so desires, for the boy's voice rises and falls like birdsong
above the din.

'You should come away
now, Barney, before it begins. This is no place for you,' the man is saying
with warmth, taking the boy's arm and turning him about. 'Look. That crowd
which is coming and going and looking as though it has daily business in any
shop or counting house, is here for only one reason. That crowd intends to be
amused, and you should not be part of it.'

'I'm not amused,' says
Barney defensively, shaking himself free. '
I've
not come to
laugh.'

'But you'll be standing
cheek and shoulder with those who have,' returns the other, 'with the followers
of the Drop, and those who take pleasure in the misery of their fellows.'

At this, the boy winces
and works his mouth around as if he is about to retaliate, and rubs his red
eyes vigorously with his two fists until the tears, which are threatening to
spring forth in a flood, retreat.

'I
know all about them,' he says, finally, 'and Pa did too.'

'Yes, and that is why
he is here, and why you would do well
not
to be! Your
father was foolish. He should have known better.'

'Someone told lies
about him!' cries Barney. 'Pa said it was all lies.'

'Aye, maybe it was, but
it has still marched him to the gallows!'

Once again, the boy is
moved to reply, and again rubs his eyes until dirt and tears are smeared across
his cheeks.

'Pa has a friend who
will not betray him. A clever fellow.' He swallows hard. 'Pa said he wrote a
letter and gave it to him and he would send it to the Queen and the Lord Mayor
of London.'

Like he is repeating a
prayer so often uttered that the words have become only sounds, his voice
trails away.

'He has it,' says the
other, quietly. 'He has the letter. But go now, while you can.'

Barney shakes his head,
turns about and joins the army of humanity as it tramps on, whilst the older
man debates whether to follow him, watches him out of sight and then, hunching
his shoulders against the cold, posts himself through the next tavern door.

Although the hour is
still early, the crowd is growing by the minute around the platform, which
crouches dark and square and ready against the grey stone of Newgate. All is
grey. Especially the sky which, like a sodden rag, wrings out of itself a dirty
mist, soaking the crowds which flood towards the prison walls. Wrapped tight
against the early morning cold, they are still cheerful, calling to each other
across the foggy streets and pressing into the square. Since before the murky
dawn, the taverns and hotels, butchers' shops and coffee houses have already
had their full quota of paying spectators: every window and doorway that offers
a view of the square is occupied. Now, anxious not to miss a moment's pleasure,
they have climbed trees and posts and walls. A slight young man, with a shock
of orange hair like a human pipe-cleaner, has shinned up a drainpipe onto the
roof of a private house and, despite the best efforts of the owner to get him
down, is perched with his back against the chimney-stack, perished with cold
but determined not to miss a trick.

Barney sees all of this.
And nothing. Allowing himself to be swept along by the crowd, he plunges into
the mass of bodies, determined to get close to the front. Square shoulders rise
up in front of him like a bastion, however, and though he wriggles and squirms
through a forest of legs, and endures hard cuffs and elbows and kicks, he has
eventually to be content with being wedged between a tall man in city-black
(perhaps an undertaker's assistant) and a chimney-sweep, also in dusky attire,
just on his way to work. Thankfully, neither is inclined to conversation and
both are so studiously determined to keep their places that, in so doing, they
allow Barney to keep his. And they are in stark contrast to the wild carnival
crowd pressing around him, hallooing and cheering and so merry that the pie man
and the gingerbread-seller hardly need to call out their 'Here's all 'ot!' or
'Nuts and dolls, my maids!'

But this is no country
fair, and even Toby Rackstraw, up from the country to try the humours of the
city, could not mistake the roars of
this
crowd for
good-natured festivity. No, this is something quite other. Here is a
congregation gathered to worship not some whey-faced saint, but the noose and
the gallows, and as the human tide fills the square and laps the streets
around, there rises from it a murmur of voices like a catechism, telling the
moments as the hour hands of neighbouring church clocks move on.

There is activity
around the scaffold. Policemen push back the crowd and patrol the perimeter,
keeping their eyes peeled for pickpockets and ignoring the taunts of the boys
who, five deep, form the first line of spectators. The rumble of carriages
(for the gates of the prison are close by) signal the arrival of officials, and
the crowd lurches forward to catch a glimpse. A ripple of information - 'It's
the sheriff!' 'It's the judge!' 'Not the clergyman, for he will have been
attending him for the past hour!' - is passed from one to another.

Past
seven o'clock now, the bells ringing out the moments and cheering the spirits
of the crowd which, despite the heavy rain, is still in a holiday mood and
surges to and fro, ripples of laughter rising and falling. The boy is sensible
of the mighty crush behind him and glances anxiously over his shoulder, but his
stalwart companions (who have been silent for almost two hours, the
chimney-sweep chewing slowly upon a piece of bacon fat and only once taking a
long draught from a stone bottle in his bag) stand firm.

At
last, the clock strikes eight, and the boy's unblinking gaze is trained upon the
door.

Such a little door.

When
it opens, such a change comes over the holiday crowd! Jocularity trembles, good
humour shrinks, and there rises an ugly murmur of satisfaction as the platform
fills, until the last, much-anticipated figure appears, when a terrible silence
falls. He is small and slight and, staggering slightly, is supported by one of
his attendants to whom he turns and thanks, only realizing at the last moment
that the gentleman who steadies him so gently, and looks for all the world like
a linen-draper, will shortly assist him into the next world. With a hand under
his elbow, the linen-draper directs him to the great chain dripping black from
the beam and, from that singular position, the loneliest place in all the
world, the man turns to face the crowd. He does not see any single faces, but
his gaze ranges across the expectant mass all turned and fixed upon him. With a
gasp, the boy raises himself up on his toes and sets his face, like a beacon,
towards the figure, as if trying to arrest his look. But the man is stubborn
and will not see him, and the boy mutters something beneath his breath, at
which the undertaker's assistant glances sharply and seems inclined to speak.

'I will serve him out!'
Barney whispers, and then with increasing noise and urgency, as the tears
spring to his eyes, 'I will serve him out! I will serve him out! I will serve
him out!'

The linen-draper is
poised with the hood, the clergyman is done for the day. Even the rain has
stopped. Suddenly the man on the scaffold hears the boy's cry rising above the
humming silence, turns his head madly back and forth, searching the crowd, and
even trying to stumble forward, though the linen-draper prevents him. The boy
continues to call, and the chimney-sweep and the undertaker's assistant, though
a little discomfited, say nothing. But someone must. The congregation is
hungry for the spectacle, and from deep within the throng a voice roars, 'Get
on with it!', and another, 'Murderer!', and finally, 'Stretch his neck!' In an
instant, that general appeal is taken up, whilst on the scaffold the man
unpicks the crowd, frowning in his effort to find one face in ten thousand
until, like a moment of revelation, it is there. The man's ashen face tightens
and the boy, desperate with misery, still cries, 'I will serve him out! I will
serve him out!'

Sturdy leather straps
have been produced, the linen-draper securing the man as quickly as a knot in a
reel of cotton.

The
man struggles.

'No, Barney, no! Let it
be,' he cries, his face broken by grief and fear, and if anyone cared to
listen, they would have heard him cry, 'My son! Barney! My son!'

But this crowd does not
hear. And besides, this crowd needs to have its parties attired in black or white,
needs to be partisan, so that, finding it does not know who, or even what, to
support, it begins instead to bay, at which the linen-draper, with one swift
action, pulls the hood over the man's head and in two steps reaches the post
and draws the bolts. The crowd roars with one voice, but the boy, as if he is
trying to ensure that
his
voice is the last sound the man hears, soars above theirs,
over and over.

'Pa! Pa! Pa!'

Really, it is
remarkable how quickly the streets empty and everything returns to normal
almost immediately the rope ceases twitching. Crowds simply melt away down the
dripping streets. With a clatter of slates, the slight young man releases his
grip upon the chimney pot, slithers down the roof and the drainpipe, winds his
muffler about his neck with all the nonchalance of a circus acrobat, and joins
the departing throng. Now windows are closed, doors fastened against the wicked
weather, and the line of carriages (for the wealthy love nothing better than 'a
good hanging') disappears into the mist, which has dropped again like
transformation scenery. And alone on that stage is the boy. His companions,
having enquired after his well-being (for they are decent enough men and will
tell their wives how they stood next to the boy "oose father was 'ung this
morning' and how he cried out) and pressed a sixpence each into his cold hands,
have gone to their work. He is rooted to the stones, oblivious to the biting
wind which tugs at his short coat and paints his nose and hands the same
scarlet colour as his eyes. His tears have dried into pale veins upon his
cheeks, his lips are dry and chapped. But still he stands.