The Orange Girl Part 39

A company of men with whom were a good many women and a few boys, were besieging the dark and deserted Black Jack. They were a company apart acting by themselves without any a.s.sistance from the crowd, which looked on approvingly and applauded. They neither asked for, nor would they accept, a.s.sistance. If any man from the outside offered to join them, he was roughly ordered back. 'It is their revenge, Will,' said Jenny. 'They will have no one with them to join in their own business.' Their resolution and the quiet way with which they acted--for the roars and shouting we heard did not proceed from the company of revenge but from the crowd that followed them--struck one with terror as if we were contemplating the irresistible decrees of Fate. They battered at the doors: as no one answered, they broke in the doors; but first with a volley of stones they broke every window in the house.

'Poor mother!' said Jenny. "Twould break her heart. But she will lose nothing. I bought her out. It is the landlord who will suffer. Now they have found candles: they light up; see, they are going all over the house in search of the landlady.' We saw lights in the rooms one after the other. 'They will not find her: nor her money: nor anything that is valuable. It is all gone, gentlemen: all provided for and stowed away in a safer place. This is not a house where a woman who values her throat should be found, after to-day's work. See--now, they have made up their minds that no one is left in the house. What next? Will they set fire to it?'

No: they did not set fire to the house. They proceeded to break up everything: all the furniture: the beds, chairs and tables and to throw fragments out of windows into the open s.p.a.ce below where some of them collected everything and made a bonfire. When the house was emptied they began to bring out the bottles and to haul up the casks out of the cellars: upon this there was a rush of the crowd from the outside: strange as it may appear the company of revenge were going to break the bottles and to set the casks running. But the mob rushed in: there was fighting for a few minutes: someone blew a whistle and the rioters drew apart, and stood together before the house. Then one of them; their leader, spoke.

'This is the revenge of St. Giles's on the landlady of the Black Jack.

Drink up all her casks and all her bottles, and be d.a.m.ned to ye!'

The people that rushed upon the casks were like ravenous beasts of prey: you would have thought that they had never had their fill of strong drink before: indeed for such people it is impossible to have their fill of strong drink unless insensibility means satiety. They set the casks running: they made cups of their hands: they drank with their mouths from the taps: they filled empty bottles: they fought for the full bottles: the place was covered with broken gla.s.s: their faces were bleeding with cuts from broken bottles: the bonfire lifted its fierce flame hissing and roaring: at the open windows of houses hard-by women looked on, shrieking and applauding: some, within the railings of the Church, looked on as from a place of safety: as the flames lit up their pale faces, they might have been the ghosts of the dead, called out of their quiet graves to see what was going on.

'It is not their intention to burn down the Black Jack,' said Jenny.

'Then there will be a new landlady, and the Thieves' Kitchen will go on again.'

The leader of the Company blew his whistle, and the men fell into some kind of line.

'My turn now,' said Jenny. 'Let us fly, Will. Let us fly back again.'

We ran down Denmark Street into the quiet, dark Hog's Lane before the Company reached the place. We ran through the garden door and locked it.

Then we went back to the house. The old woman was half drunk by this time and half asleep. Doll was sitting upright, waiting. Jack stood by the door.

'They are coming,' said Jenny. 'They have sacked the Black Jack, Doll.

They would have murdered you had you been in the house: they have broken all the furniture and made a bonfire of it: and they have brought out all the liquor. The people are drinking it up now--beer and rum and gin--and wine. Well, you have lost nothing, Doll--nothing at all. Now they are coming here.' She rang the bell, and called the servants. There were six of them. 'There is a mob on their way to this house,' she told them. 'They are going to wreck the place and to murder me, if they can.

You had better get out of the house as soon as you can. Put together all that you can carry, and go out of the back way. You can go to one of the inns in Holborn for the night: if any of you have the courage to venture through the streets of Soho, you might go to the Horse Guards and call the soldiers to save the house. Now be quick. To-morrow I will pay you your wages.'

The women looked astonished, as well they might. What sort of company was Madame keeping? There was the old woman bemused with drink: there was the young country man: who were they? What did it mean?

'The mob are coming to-night, Madame?'

'They are coming now. They will be here in a few minutes. If you would escape, go put your things together and fly by the garden door.'

They looked at each other: without a word they retired: and I suppose they got away immediately, because we saw no more of them.

And then we heard a steady tramp of feet along Sutton Street.

'They are here,' said Jenny.

We heard the feet, but there was no shouting. They marched in a silence which was more threatening than any noise. I closed the wooden shutters of the room. It was as well not to show any lights.

'I suppose,' said Doll, 'that you will give us time to escape. Otherwise we shall all four have our throats cut, and perhaps this gentleman too, for whom you've taken all this trouble--and him with a wife of his own.

He'd better go back to her.'

'Yes, Doll,' Jenny replied meekly, without replying to the suggestion.

'You shall have time to escape.'

They drew up, apparently in very good order before the house, without any shouting, because most of the crowd that had followed them to the Black Jack were still on the spot drinking what they could get in the general scramble. There were some, however, who came with them and hung outside and behind the company of revenge who began to a.s.semble and to shout 'Huzzah' after the way of the Londoners. But I believe they knew not what was intended save that it was revenge of some kind: there would most certainly be the breaking of windows and the smas.h.i.+ng of doors: there would be the pleasant spectacle of revenge with more bonfires of broken furniture: perhaps more casks and bottles of strong drink: in all probability women would be turned out into the street with every kind of insult and ill-usage, as had happened, indeed, only a week before in the Strand when a company of sailors wrecked a house and turned the women out of doors with blows and curses.

First they knocked loudly at the door, shouting for the door to be opened or it would be the worse for everybody inside. Then they pushed the door which yielded not.

'They will not force the door easily,' said Jenny. 'Who will run downstairs and see that the area door is secure?'

I volunteered for this duty. The kitchen windows were provided with strong iron bars which would keep the people off for a time: the area door was strong and was barred within: for further precaution I locked and barred the kitchen door and a strong door at the head of the staircase: we should thus gain time.

Crash--smash--cras.h.!.+ Were you ever in a house while the mob outside were breaking the windows? Perhaps not. 'Tis like a field of battle with the rattle of musquetry. At one moment half the windows in the house were broken: at the next moment the other half went: and still crash--crash--the stones flew into the windows tearing out what little gla.s.s remained.

Then there was silence again.

'Our time is nearly up,' said Jenny. 'Doll, wake up mother. Tie her hat under her chin, wrap her handkerchief round her neck--so. What will they do next? Jack, are you afraid to reconnoitre? Go up to the first floor, and look out of window.'

I went with him. The stones were still flying thickly through the windows. We made our way along the wall till we came to the window. Then we went on hands and knees and crept to the window. I wrapped one hand in a curtain and held it before my face while I looked out.

They were lighting torches and conferring together. By the torchlight I could make out their faces. They were of the type which I had had a recent opportunity of studying in Newgate: the type which means both the hunter and the hunted. It is a cruel and hard type: a relentless type: the faces all had the same expression--it meant 'Revenge.' 'We have been betrayed,' said the faces, 'by our friends, by the very people we trusted: we will have revenge. As we have sacked the Black Jack, so we will sack the a.s.sembly Rooms. As we would have killed the landlady of the Black Jack: so we will kill her daughter, the Orange Girl, if we find her.' That is what the faces seemed to say.

They were conferring what to do next. One of them I could see, advocated breaking down the iron railings: but they had no instruments: another wanted to use a battering ram against the front door but they had no battering-ram: a third proposed a ladder and entering by the first floor windows. But they had no ladder.

While they were thus debating a man came into the Square who brought a ladder for them. There was no further hesitation. 'Come, Jack,' I said.

'There is no time to be lost: we must get away as quickly as possible.'

'You go on,' said Jack, 'I will follow.'

He waited. The ladder was raised to the window at which he watched. A fellow ran up quickly. Jack sprang to his feet, threw up the sash and hurled him headlong off the ladder. The poor wretch fell on the spikes.

He groaned but only once. He was killed. There was silence for a moment.

Then there arose a mighty scream--I say it was like the screaming of a woman. The mob had tasted blood. It was their own--but it was blood.

They yelled and roared. Some of them ran to hold the ladder while a dozen men ran up. Jack prudently retired, but locked the door behind him.

'I believe I have killed him,' he said quickly. 'The one who ran up the ladder. I think he fell on the spikes.'

'Come,' said Jenny. 'We must go at once if we mean to go at all. Wake up mother again, Doll. Farewell to my greatness. Will, I grudge not any cost--remember--whatever it is. Take me with you, to your own home for awhile, till I am able to look round again. These devils! they are overhead, I hear them falling over the furniture. Pray that they break their s.h.i.+ns. Come, everybody.'

She blew out the candles and led the way. The old woman half awake was led out by Jack and Doll. I followed last. As we pa.s.sed out into the garden, we could hear the cursing of the fellows overhead and the smas.h.i.+ng of the door which Jack had locked.

In Sutton Street, over the garden wall, everything seemed quiet: that is, there were no footsteps as of a crowd. Yet in the Square the crowd roared and yelled, and from St. Giles's was still heard the clamour of the people fighting over the drink. We looked out of the garden door cautiously. No one was in Hog Lane, which was as deserted as a city in the Desert. We closed the door and turned to the right, and so making our way by streets which I knew well, either by day or by night, we got to St. Martin's Lane and then to Charing Cross where we found a hackney coach.

'Jenny,' I said in the coach, taking her hand. 'The evening spoils the day. All this you have suffered for my sake. What can I say? What can I feel?'

'Oh! Will, what are a few sticks of furniture and curtains compared to your safety and to Alice's happiness? I care not a straw. I am ruined, it is true; but--for the first time in my life, I am thankful for it--I am a married woman. My debts will all be transferred to Matthew. Will!

Think of it! The first effect of the victory will be to make Matthew a bankrupt at once. After what he owned in Court, after he receives the news of my debts: there can be no delay. Henceforth, my dear Will, you will be safe from Mr. Probus.'

I was, indeed, to be safe from him, but in a way which she could not expect.

'Meantime,' she added, with a sigh, 'they have not done with me, yet.'

'Why, what further harm can they do you?'

'I know not. You asked the same question before. There is no end to the ways of a revengeful spirit. They will murder me, perhaps: or they will contrive some other way.'

'Then go out of their reach.'

'The only place of safety for me is with my own folks. I should be safe in a gipsy camp. They have their camps everywhere, but I do not want to live with them. No, Will. I shall remain. After all, the revenge of people like these soon pa.s.ses away. They will wreck my house to-night.

That very likely will seem to them enough. I should have thought so, but for the things that mother saw in the coals. She is a witch, indeed. I say, mother, you are a proper witch.' But the good lady was fast asleep.