"Back t' robbin' graves direct, like the rest of the ghouls, I suspects," says Charlie, standin' there with his arms folded across his scrawny chest. He fetches a black look from Muck. Charlie looks back at Muck with just as black a look. Charlie, be careful, I thinks to meself. Muck may be stupid, but he's dangerous, too, and remember our motto, Charlie, Keep Yer Head Down and Yer Backside Covered, and ye ain't doin' that, Charlie, ye aint doin' that at all. Yer stickin' yer neck out.
"Shut yer jaw, gallows bait," says Muck, lookin' all dark and threatenin' at Charlie, "or I'll have ye in me barrow before ye thinks maybe it's time."
"Sod off, Muck," says Charlie, and he saunters off down the street to wait for us to finish working the crowd. I'm glad Charlie has left, but I wish he hadn't said those things to Muck.
Muck leans back in his chair and wipes his hands on his coat. The table he sits at has been set up in the street outside the tavern's door to catch the cool of the day. He sucks at his teeth to get the morsels out and sighs in the warmth of the day and allows as how he wishes it were winter 'cause the orphans die more regular in winter, mostly from the cold and not from disgustin' diseases like in summer, diseases which maybe a poor working man could catch from their corpses when he's tossin' 'em in his barrow. Nay, in winter, it's one here and one there, and they're easier to keep 'cause of the coolness. Stack 'em up like cordwood, y' can.
"Sure, and in the summer ye might have a fine pestilence which mows 'em down like wheat in a field, but then ye have too many of 'em at once and the surgeons can't use 'em all and they starts to stenchin' and me meself has to haul 'em out to the lime pits at me own expense, mind ye, and not even a thank ye fer me troubles," he says, all wounded.
It was a warmish winter and the spring was warm and dry, mostly, and the summer has been cool and we orphans ain't dyin' at a clip that pleases Muck and his patrons. Loud and long are Muck's complaints and beatin' of breast. We orphans usually aims to please and promises to die real soon if he'd just give us a penny, but it don't work, it never does. Inside us we're happy with the state of our health, and we pictures in our minds the anatomical surgeons sittin' all sad at their empty tables a'tappin' their knives and askin' the merciful heavens for a fresh orphan and not gettin' one today.
Muck goes around mournful-like, liftin' our shifts and countin' our ribs, which is easy to count 'cause they stands right out for the countin', and he asks if we been havin' the runs and such and looks powerful downcast when we says no.
Polly asks him why the doctors like us orphans better than the grown-up dead people, which they could get all they want from Newgate, and Muck says, "Why bless yer heart, dear, it's 'cause yer so light and small. The good doctor can flip ye over on the table wi' two fingers when he needs t' empty out yer other side, not like a full-growed corpse what weighs maybe fourteen stone. And ye've got the same guts as a grown-up, mostly."
Polly's eyes well up with tears at the thought of her own dear self bein' parceled out on the table. Polly is our best beggar 'cause she's got these huge blue eyes that brim up and spill over at the slightest thought in her lovely head of the meanness or sadness in the world. And she is lovely, too, under all the dirt, with her pink skin and cherry cheeks and cupid lips and loose curls makin' a dirty gold frame for her dirty little face. She's wondrous good, too, at the piteous cryin' and when she puts her hands together like she's a little angel prayin' and lets go the waterworks, she gets me and the other girls all in a fine howl and you'd think it'd all melt the heart of a statue and we'd get tons of money, but we don't. Hearts of stone are all we got round here and they're evil cheap, but if any of us can wring a penny out of 'em, it's Polly. I betcha Charlie don't want her stole, neither.
"And another thing," says Muck, all like a schoolteacher teachin' the young ones about sweetness and light and dancin' around the maypole and such, "another thing the doctors like about orphans aside from their fine compactness is they ain't got no ugly yellow fat to wallow through on their way to the prime organs."
Muck takes his stick and lifts up Judy's shift. "Look at that," he says fondly. "Not an ounce of fat, bless her. See, right there's the edge of her liver, just waiting to be popped out, and this bump here is bound to be her appendimox and..."
Now Judy is cryin', too, and so's Nancy, and I gives up on this street for today and gathers up the girls to head off after Charlie.
"I'd despise it if I had to go back to the actual grave robbin'," Muck says gloomily, puttin' on an air like it's beneath him in his present state of Purveyor to the Holy Order of Anatomical Surgeons.
"It's dirty work and I don't like it," he allows. Plus he knows he'd get hanged for it if he got caught, which would serve the beast right, and I feels that way even though I hates hangings.
Chapter 4
Me immortal soul took a beatin' today as I steals a whole loaf of bread. The beggin's been real bad lately and we ain't et in two days and Nancy is poorly, and I seen the bread come out of the oven and put on the coolin' board outside the bakery and I loses me mind with the smell of it sittin' there all steamin' and callin' out to me, and I grabs it and runs.
I'm runnin' down the street in mortal terror and there's shouts behind me, but I runs faster and I'm seein' the gallows and the rope and Mary Townsend and the hangman jumpin' on me shoulders till me neck snaps and me gullet is stretched, and I'm blind with fear but I keeps on runnin' till me breath is tearin' holes in me chest and finally I lies down in the gutter with me arms wrapped around the bread and waits for them to come and wrap the noose around me neck and haul me up.
But nobody comes with the noose nor without it, so I gets up and heads back to the kip, me breath comin' in gulps and me immortal soul in tatters.
***
The others is already back, as it's gettin' to be dark, and they stare in wonder at the grand loaf, everyone 'cept Charlie, who ain't here. Polly has got a bit of cheese at the beggin' and we're all lookin' forward to a feast, but where's Charlie? We waits but he still don't show.
It's almost pure dark now and Hugh says, "Mary, go out and find 'im. Likely he's down at Lambert's. That's where I saw 'im last."
Out I scrambles, hopin' to find Charlie right off 'cause I know I bought meself some more time in purgatory with the stealin' of that bread and I wants to at least get to the pleasure of eatin' it as some small payback for me poor damned soul. I ain't worried about the bread bein' et while I'm gone, 'cause we have our rules, and I ain't worried about the dark streets 'cause I knows 'em like a rat knows his rat hole, but I am worried about Charlie. He's usually back at the kip to count our heads before dark.
I crosses Earl Street and heads up Water Street and over to Broad, but Charlie ain't at Lambert's and he ain't at The Plow and Stars and he ain't at The Soldier's Joy. I look across the evening sky and there's the dome of Saint Paul's, but I know he ain't off in that direction cause that's Bellycut George and his gang's turf and we never, never go there at night, so I heads across Ludgate to check out Benbow's, but nothin'. I've been lookin' a long time and I'm thinkin' I'll go back to the kip to see if he's come back whilst I was gone, and so I cuts down through Slipburn Alley. It's right dim in there 'cause the buildings come together overhead, and as I'm goin' through I trips over somethin' and sprawls headlong onto the cobbles. There's sticky and gooey stuff all over the cobbles and on me hands and on me knees and on me shift and I don't know what to think, and then I look.
What I tripped over was Charlie, and Charlie's dead.
I lifts up Charlie's head, but the back of it is a bloody mush in me fingers and I know he's gone and the tears well up and I starts makin' high keenin' wails. I hugs him to me and rocks back and forth and say, Ah, Charlie, Charlie, over and over and over. I'm cryin' for poor Charlie dead in me arms, and I puts me face on his and keens some more. Who done ye, Charlie, ah who done ye and who stopped yer dancin' and jokin' and foolin' for good and ever? Not another street kid, 'cause every street kid knew ye and yer shiv and would have taken it after they did ye, but here it is gleamin' all wicked in me hand. Who then, Charlie?
I runs me hand up Charlie's chest and opens each button as I go up. When all the buttons are undone, I pulls off Charlie's vest, sobbin' all the while.
Ah, Charlie, you was a good one, you was. You looked out for us in your way and took care of us in your way and always shared even though you didn't have to and was always happy in spite of all. And takin your clothes is prolly a sin, too, and I don't mean no disrespect, Charlie, hut I got to do it. I got to get away.
I slips Charlie's shirt over his ruined head as gentle as I can and then loosens the cord on his trousers and pulls them off. His legs flop all limp and slide on the stones and I remembers how they used to dance and caper and now they don't do nothin'.
Goodbye, Charlie. I close his dead eyes and kiss his dead cheek. You was my darlin.
Leavin' the alley, I sees a horse trough in the gloom and I commences to washin' Charlie's clothes what was dirtied by his dyin'. After I gets most of the blood and dirt off, I takes off me two shifts and rolls 'em up. I puts Charlie's clothes on wet, grateful it's a warm night. I puts the shiv in next to me ribs like Charlie always done and I sticks me old shifts under me arm and gets ready to head off, but then I hears a noise and jumps back quick in a doorway. I peers out and there's Muck wheelin' his barrow toward the alley and toward all what's left of Rooster Charlie.
How long will it be 'fore it's me that Muck is coming after?
I'm lookin' down through the grate at the shapes below and I counts three, no, four of them huddled down there. Three girls, one boy.
"Psst! Toby!"
The shapes start in alarm. I'm startin' to shiver from the wet clothes, in spite of the warmth of the night. I hisses down through the grating, "It's me, Mary, from Rooster Charlie's gang."
Toby gets up and walks toward me, his face striped white and black from the moonlight and the shadow of the grate. "What's up, then."
"Charlie's been done," I says, as even as I can.
"Wot? The Rooster done! It can't be!" wails one of the girls.
"Who done it?" asks Toby.
"Dunno," says I. "Prolly Muck." Then I tells him what happened at the Bell and Boar and in Slipburn Alley.
Toby lets loose a string of low curses and while he's doin' it I says, "I want you to take over our gang, Toby."
I lets that sink in a bit and then plows on. "I don't want 'em picked up by Scroggs or Jimmy Ducks or Dirty Henry or any of those. I takes you for a decent sort, Toby, the sort'll look after 'em a bit. Like Charlie done."
"I ain't nobody's mother," says Toby. "And I ain't—"
"Our gang lost two today, so there's Judy and Polly and Nancy and Hugh the Grand, with your bunch that makes eight, a good-sized group, and we got a better kip than this. More privatelike, where coves can't piss down on ye like here."
I'm talkin' fast, tryin' to make the deal. "Be right comfy with the bunch of you snugged up in there."
"What about Hugh?"
"He'll follow your lead. He's slow, but he's strong and loyal. You kin be the brains and he'll be the brawn. It worked for Charlie."