CHAPTER LIX.
Jacob Gray and His Kind Friends.—The Plunder.—Thieves’ Morality.—The Drive to Hampstead.
When Jacob Gray fell upon the floor in a state of utter insensibility in consequence of the powerful narcotic drug infused into his drink by his two kind and considerate friends, those two gentlemen looked on with the utmost composure for a few moments, and then Bill remarked in a careless voice,—
“I think he’ll do now, Moggs?”
“In course,” responded the other, withdrawing the pipe from his mouth, and knocking out the ashes very deliberately upon the hob of the grate.
“He’s precious green,” remarked Bill.
“Very,” said Mr. Moggs.
“Doesn’t you know who he is?”
“I hasn’t the slightest idea. Never clapped eyes on the fellow in my life before, but to my mind he’s a new hand as has been and done something strong in the murder line for an ample consideration.”
“Very likely—what’s the caper concerning him?”
“Honour, Bill—honour.”
“In course.”
“Vun o’ the rules is, that if a regular out-and-out prig or cracksman comes to vun o’ us, and says, ‘I’m in trouble—the runners are hard on me. Guv us a share.’ Why, then we shares the swag all round equal.”
“Spoke like a oracle.”
“Very good. Another o’ the rules is, ‘If the prig aforesaid,’ as the lawyers say, ‘gammon us, or tries all for to gammon us, as to the exact waley o’ the swag, we takes it all.’”
“Never vos a truer vord spoke,” responded Bill, with a look of intense admiration at his companion.
“Well, if so be as this fellow has but what he said, two hundred, we takes one, and leaves him one.”
“That’s the way.”
“But if so be as he has more we takes it all in course; and I’ll wager my blessed nose off my face that he has a precious sight more.”
Bill nodded knowingly.
“Well then,” continued Mr. Moggs, “in either case we gets the shay-cart, and takes him somewhere far enough off.”
Bill nodded again, and then taking from his pocket a large clasped knife, he knelt down by the side of Gray, and with a neatness and dexterity that were evidently the result of practice, he ripped open every one of his pockets, and in a few brief moments Jacob Gray was despoiled of every guinea of that sum of money he had gone through so much pain, suffering, and crime, to procure.
The sum when collected from all his pockets, was in notes and gold so much larger than the thieves had any idea of finding, that when they had it fairly lying before them on the table, they looked at each other for some moments in mute surprise.
“Bill,” cried the other, “this is a regular set up, it is. I’m blowed if we maydent and must retire from business with all this.”
“Don’t be proud,” said Bill. “You always was ambitious. Take it easy, can’t you. This card will be uncommonly useful. How many a poor fellow has been scragged at the tree for want of a few pounds over the blood money, to give a officer as had a warrant agin him. Tom, what I propose is, for us to take a cool hundred or so only, out o’ all this here, and lay the remainder by for bad times.”
“Bill,” remarked the other, after a pause of intense thought, “you should have been Lord Chancellor, that’s what you should! We’ll do it, my boy. Forty pounds is the blood money for hanging a poor fellow, and it’s very well known a chap never will get taken by the officers so long as he can make it guineas to let him go, except we comes across that d—d Sir Francis Hartleton, and he wouldn’t let a chap go for nothink or the whole world, he wouldn’t. What business has a beak to be poking as he does, instead of sitting quiet in his arm-chair, and leaving the business to be settled ’atween such as us and the receivers? It’ an iniquity, and no good can come of it.”
“Very true,” said Bill. “You hide the money somewheres, while I go and get the cart, for we must start this chap somewhere afore daylight.”
“Bill,” said the other, “you wouldn’t like to cut his throat?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, well. I only mention it. I’m afraid he’s a sneak, but let him do his worst. Get the chaise-cart, and bring it round to the corner by Jem Medbourn’s.”
Bill nodded, and went to execute his errand, and during his absence, the other carefully concealed the money beneath the floor of the room, excepting about two hundred pounds, which he reserved for himself and companion. Then lighting his pipe, he again sat down very composedly by the fire-side.
“Well, well,” he said suddenly, as if he had arrived at some mental conclusion that he could not help, and yet did not like. “Bill may have it his own way, but I would never have let that chap,” nodding at Gray, “have a chance o’ being venomous. He’s cut out for a sneaking lump o’ evidence against others he is, and I shouldn’t a bit wonder if he gets into trouble himself, but he speaks agin us about the money just out o’ a nasty bit o’ revenge.”
He then resumed his smoking as if he had been reasoning upon some very common place affair indeed, and in about ten minutes more Bill made his appearance, saying,—
“It’s all right—they have guved up the search for to-night, and we shall get on famously.”
“Where do you mean to take him?” said he, who had suggested the notion of cutting Gray’s throat.
“I should say somewhere a little way out of town, and shoot him out o’ the cart into some blessed verdant spot,” replied Bill. “He’s rather a queer one, himself, so he’ll find as he’s all right, when he wakes up and finds as he’s amusing the butterflies and daisies.”
“I’m blessed if you ain’t a out and out good un,” replied the other.
“Supposes then,” suggested Bill, “we takes him up to Hampstead. It’s an odd little out o’ the way place enough.”
“Very good,” said the other. “You are quite sure there’s nobody about?”
“Quite.”
“Come along, then.”
As he spoke the man stooped, and lifted Jacob Gray from the ground with as much ease as if he had been an infant, and followed his comrade down stairs with his burthen, which seemed in no way to distress him.
The court they passed out into was one of those kind which now are exceedingly rare in London, but which the wisdom of our ancestors took good care to make very common and infest the town with. At the period of our tale there was an immense wen, as it might be termed, of various pestiferous courts at the back of the Strand, where thieves and vagabonds of all kinds lived in a sort of community of their own, quite undisturbed by the authorities, who then could boast of very little authority indeed. Another mass of such courts was to be found where Regent-street now stands, and the vicinity; another at the bottom of St. Martin’s-lane, and another close to old Fleet-market, so that the city of London was as well provided with haunts of blackguardism and vice as the mouth of the Thames is with mud banks.
Along the narrow court in which was Bill’s mansion, the confederates pursued their way until they came to what any stranger would have supposed a mere doorway, but which was in reality an entrance to another court; into this they dived, and after proceeding for a small distance ascended a flight of wooden steps, at the bottom of which stood a dirty, mean chaise-cart.
Into this vehicle, without the least ceremony or consideration for what bruises he might receive, Jacob Gray was flung. There was nothing at the bottom of the cart but some littered straw, upon which he laid more like a dead body than anything living and breathing.
The two men then climbed into the frail and crazy vehicle, and Bill taking the reins gave a shrill whistle, which the horse seemed perfectly to understand as a signal to go on, for he started immediately at a smart trot.
There were no policemen then promenading the streets, who might have looked with an eye of suspicion upon the proceedings of Bill and his comrade, and the lazy watchmen having just signally exerted themselves by squalling out the hour, with the supplementary information that it was a cold night, betook themselves again to their watchboxes, leaving the community over whose lives and property they were supposed, by a fiction which lasted many years, to watch, to the care of Providence and the mercy of thieves and housebreakers.
The chaise-cart rattled and bounded along through divers very intricate lanes and bye-streets, until at length it emerged into the Strand, near Arundel-street. Then dashing across the wide thoroughfare, it entered a congeries of dirty streets on the other side, and finally emerged in a curious and complicated place close to the British Museum. There were bye-roads across the Pancras-fields, and Bill having dismounted and taken down a bar which impeded his progress, drove across a meadow which now forms part of the ground occupied by that compound of pride, bloated arrogance, and humbug, the London University. Another quarter of an hour passed, and they were rattling up the Hampstead-road, which then had tall tress on either side of it.
Camden Town was then a small village, with not above forty little whitewashed houses in it, with here and there sprinkled a few edifices of somewhat more pretensions, which had been built by well-to-do citizens, who repaired there on a Sunday to see the phenomena of a cabbage growing, and admire the sweet pea blossom as it thrust its pretty leaves in at the windows.
The most famous house of entertainment then in Camden Town, was called the Queen’s Head, and has long been levelled with the dust; it was then even an old-fashioned house, and spoken of as a curiosity. It could boast of but one story, and its projecting sign hung so low that any one riding by quickly, and not aware of it, ran the risk of breaking his own head against the queen’s, with no very agreeable momentum.
The entrance was adorned with oaken carved pillars, to the designs on which a great deal had been added from time to time by bread and cheese knives, rapiers’ penknives, and all sorts of cutting instruments, the door posts of an inn being considered as much public property, and open to defacement, as are wooden seats in Kensington gardens.
To enter the house, you had to descend two steps, which generally at night caused a strange visitor to fall on his nose in the passage, when the hostess would come out, hearing the clatter, and probably a few oaths, and trim a lamp; so that after the mischief was done, you had the pleasure of seeing the steps quite clearly and beautifully.
At this house Bill drew up, and without getting out, called lustily,—“Mother Meadows! Mother Meadows!”
“Well, what now?” said a shrill female voice from the interior.
“A shilling’s worth of brandy,” said Bill, and the coin he threw rattled down the steps.
The liquor was brought to the chaise-cart by a boy, with a head of hair resembling strongly one of the now popular patent chimney sweeping apparatus.
Bill took his half to a nicety, and handed the remainder to his companion, who then bumped the little pewter measure upon the boy’s head till his eyes flashed fire.
Bill whistled to the horse, and with loud laughter, the two ruffians galloped up the Hampstead-road, which was then as innocent of “Cottages of Gentility” as is the Lake of Windermere.
Up the hill they went with but slightly lessened speed, nor stopped till they were quite clear of all the little suburban houses that here and there dotted the road, and within about half a mile of the village of Hampstead itself. They then turned down Haverstock Hill, which was quite free from buildings, and by a route which avoided the village, they came upon the verge of the heath.
“I think this will do,” remarked Bill.
“I think so too,” said the other. “How precious dark it is, to be sure.”
“You may say that. I’m blowed if I can see the horse’s head. Woa! Woa!”
They both now alighted, and led the horse towards a thick hedge, skirting a plantation, near the large house lately occupied by Lady Byron. Then Bill let down the tail-board of the cart, and laying hold of Jacob Gray by the heels, he dragged him out, and letting his head come with a hard bump against the ground, which was by no means likely to improve his faculties.
They then pushed him along with their feet, till he lay completely under the hedge, and could not come to any harm from a chance vehicle or horseman.
“Well,” remarked Bill, “I think we have done that job handsomely.”
“Uncommon,” replied his companion; “I’d give something to see his stare when he wakes up to-morrow.”
“He will look about him a bit, and then, when he finds his money gone, won’t he put up prayers for us in that blessed little old church, as is now striking two.”
Hampstead church was striking two as he spoke, and the echo of the sounds came sweetly and solemnly upon the night air.
Bill whistled to the horse, and, at a rapid pace, the thieves took the road homewards again.