‘He repents, Constable,’ pleaded the French gentleman, opening his hands wide now in a gesture of magnanimity.
‘But he admitted the theft!’ roared a man whose stomach was so big that a cat could have rested on it and got a good sleep. ‘Take him away! Lock him up! Whip him soundly! He has confessed the crime!’
The blue shook his head and looked at me. Between his two front teeth were the remains of what I believed to be a stew dinner; just looking at it gave me the revulsions. ‘You are apprehended,’ he informed me then in a serious tone. ‘And you must pay recompense for your abominable crime.’
The crowd cheered in support of their freshly crowned hero and turned as one when the sound of a carriage was heard pulling in behind the French gentleman’s own fleet and, what was it, only the blue’s brougham. My heart sank when I saw another blue at the reins of it and in a trice he was down from his spot and on his feet, unlocking the back doors.
‘Come along, now,’ said the first one in a booming voice for all to hear. ‘And your judge will be waiting for you at the end of our journey, so you may start to tremble in anticipation of his magnificence.’ I swear he should have been a sham-actor on the stage.
The jig was up and I knew it then but I dug my heels in firmly to the gaps between the cobbles nevertheless. For the first time I did sincerely regret my actions but not on the grounds that I had committed an error in my personal morality, such as it was. Rather, because I had committed one too many of the same in the past, and even though this particular blue didn’t know me, there were others as would where I was going and I was only too aware that the punishment might not entirely fit the crime. I had but one recourse left to me.
‘Sir,’ I shouted, turning to the Frenchman, even as the blue started pulling me in the direction of my hearse. ‘Sir, help me, please. Take pity. It was an accident, I swears it. I had too much sugar for my breakfast, that was all, and it gave me ideas.’
He looked at me and I could see that he was thinking about it. On the one hand, he must have been recalling the pleasant conversation we had been engaged in not ten minutes before and my abundant knowledge of the land of China, not to mention my ambitions towards book-writing, of which he was wholly in approval. On the other hand, he had been robbed, plain and simple, and what’s wrong is wrong.
‘Constable, I decline to press the charge,’ he shouted finally and I gave an almighty cheer, such as a Christian might have offered when Caligula, the dirty savage, gave him the thumbs-up in the Coliseum and let him live to fight once more.
‘I am saved!’ I roared, pulling myself loose from the blue for a moment, but he took me back in hand again quick enough.
‘Not a bit of it,’ he said. ‘You were witnessed in the act and must pay or you’ll be left here to rob again.’
‘But, Constable,’ cried the French gentleman, ‘I absolve him of his crime!’
‘And who are you, the Lord Jesus Christ?’ asked the blue, which made the crowd erupt in laughter, and he turned in surprise at their commendation but his eyes lit up, thrilled with himself that they thought him a fine fellow and an entertainer to boot. ‘He’ll be taken to the magistrate and from there to the gaol, I dare say, to pay for the gruesome act, the little deviant.’
‘It’s monstrous—’ came the retort, but the blue was having none of it.
‘If you’ve something to say, then you can say it to the magistrate,’ he offered as a parting shot, walking towards the carriage now and dragging me behind him.
I fell to the ground to make things more difficult for him, but he continued to haul me along the sodden street and I can picture the scene in my own head still, my arse going bumpity-bumpity-bump over the cobbles as I was wrenched in the direction of the carriage doors. It hurt; I didn’t know why in hell I was doing it but I knew that I wouldn’t stand up and make his job any easier. I’d rather have eaten a beetle.
‘Help me, sir,’ I cried as I was thrown inside the carriage and the doors were slammed in my face, so close that they nearly took my nose off. I gripped the bars in front of me and made the most pleading face that I could muster, a picture of innocence disbelieved. ‘Help me and I’ll do whatever it is you ask of me. I’ll wax your boots every day for a month! I’ll polish your buttons till they shine!’
‘Take him off!’ shouted the crowd and some of them even dared to throw rotten vegetables in my direction, the scuts. The horses lifted their hoofs and off we went on our merry way, me in the back wondering what fate awaited me when I met the magistrate, who knew me only too well from past acquaintanceship to show any compassion.
The last thing I saw as we turned the corner was a picture of the French gentleman, stroking his chin as if thinking what to do for the best now that I was in the hands of the law. He lifted his pocket-watch to check the time . . . and what do you think happened next? It only slipped from his grip and fell to the ground below. Easy to see that the glass would smash from the force of it too. I threw up my hands in disgust and settled down to see whether I could find a bit of comfort at the very least on the journey, but there was little to be had in the back of one of those contraptions.
They’re not designed for consolation.
3
SWEET JESUS AND HIS BLESSED mother, if life isn’t difficult enough, the blues made sure to ride the horses over every hole in the ground on the way to the magistrate’s court and the carriage was up and down like a bride’s nightdress from the moment we left Portsmouth. It was all right for them; they had a soft flush of cushion beneath their arses, but what did I have? Nothing but the hard metal that served as a seat for those who have been taken against their will. (And what of the falsely accused? I wondered. Made to suffer such indignities!) I buried myself deeply in the corner of the transport and tried to maintain a grip of the bars in the hope that they might hold me still, for the alternative was to be unable to sit down for the week that followed, but it was no use. They did it to taunt me, I swear they did, the scuts. And finally, when we reached the centre of Portsmouth and I thought this ordeal might be drawing to an end at last, bugger me if the carriage didn’t drive on, directly past the closed doors of justice, and forward on to the lumpy road ahead.
‘Here,’ I cried, banging like good-oh on the ceiling of the carriage. ‘Here, you up top!’
‘Quiet in there or there’ll be a thrashing in it for you,’ shouted the second blue, the one who held the reins, not the one who seized me from my honest bit of thievery that morning.
‘But you’ve driven too far,’ I shouted back at him. ‘You’ve gone right past the courts.’
‘That familiar with them, then, are you?’ he called back, laughing. ‘I might have known you’d have seen the inside of the courthouse on many a past afternoon.’
‘And am I not to see it today?’ I asked and I wasn’t too proud to admit that I started to feel a little nervous when I realized that we were leaving the town entirely. I’d heard stories about boys who had been taken off by the blues and were never seen again; all sorts happened to them. Unspeakable things. But I wasn’t that bad a boy, I thought. I’d done nothing to deserve such a fate. Added to this was my knowledge that Mr Lewis would be expecting me back soon enough with the morning’s spoils, and if I didn’t come there’d be hell to pay.