Ross Gilfillan - The Edge of the Crowd

‘Strong teeth, you’ll agree, Cap’n?’ He parted the dog’s legs and cupped pendulous testicles in his hands. ‘Two onions in a string bag, eh? He’s all dog, Cap’n, just what you want for the fancy!’

The soldier, applying a flaring Lucifer to his pipe of tobacco, kicked the dog from the table and rested polished boots in its place. He removed the pipe and spat out a shred of tobacco. ‘Teeth and testicles are very well, but many’s the good-looking cur that hasn’t earned his meat when set to it.’ He turned to Hilditch. ‘What say you, sir?’

Henry Hilditch struggled to sort and arrange the loud tumult of strange sights and sounds: the shifting curtain of corduroy, fustian and bombazine; the children appearing with tankards of ale and disappearing with pots and coins; the abnormal number of dogs straining on strings or held in their owners’ arms, or peering out from under coats, whose apparent ancestors – petrified in a full range of aggressive poses – were preserved and displayed in glass cases on shelves above.

The soldier nudged Hilditch. ‘Well, sir, what say you? Which is the top dog tonight?’

‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure,’ said Hilditch, as if he would much rather avoid conversation and be left to himself.

The boy, who had been awaiting a convenient moment to speak, now held out a hand to Hilditch. ‘You’ll feel more yourself with a drink inside you. A gent like you would take some port, I ’spect? Or maybe some French brandy? Give me a bob or two and I’ll see to it.’

The soldier’s moustache brushed Hilditch’s ear. ‘You keep close, is that it? Well, that might be the wisest course.’

The boy was tugging upon Hilditch’s sleeve like a restless puppy. ‘Drink, sir? There’s champagne, I believe.’

‘Champagne, that’s the ticket, eh!’ said the officer. ‘No beer and porter for us, eh, sir?’

‘What will it be, sir, brandy or champagne?’ said the boy, extending again his small hand.

‘No drink,’ said Hilditch. ‘Not while I am about my business.’

‘What’s that? You’ll not take a drink with Jack Ratcliffe of the Life Guards?’

‘No drink, thank you,’ said Hilditch, and in retreating behind his coloured spectacles provoked the soldier to swear and then to rise unsteadily.

‘Rum sort of fellow you are, sir,’ he said and stepped through the frame and into the area beyond, in which someone was ringing a bell. The boy remained at Hilditch’s side and sighed theatrically. ‘It is conventional to take a drink first,’ he declared. ‘You must have the drink, you know.’

‘This has been a mistake,’ Hilditch was saying as the noisy crowds about him pressed into the adjoining chamber. Some peered at him closely as they passed and others laughed at remarks made by the captain which evidently had concerned the newcomer. Even when abroad, Henry Hilditch had never felt such a stranger. He realised that he had been unprepared for such an Odyssey and wished for nothing more than to be safely returned to the West End. When he had first taken in this room, he had been delighted at the abundance of exotic subjects, any one of whom would most likely make a memorable portrait for the Messenger. Thoughts of over-leaping Henry Mayhew had raced through his mind. He saw An Entomology of the Working Classes, by Henry Hilditch. And if just one of these denizens of the streets and alleys of the East End had noticed a strange girl newly come among them … But as quickly as these thoughts fled had come the unsettling fear that he had crossed some invisible line and that his presence here was suspected and unwelcomed by all about.

‘If you will just see me back upon the high road …’ he said to Daniel, but immediately he was swept up by the tide of men and women who were crowding through one room and into the other, where, guided by the boy, he now found himself pushed and pulled until he was pressed hard up against the wooden siding of a circular pit about twelve feet in diameter. The pit was empty, though about its walls men were wedged tightly and behind them were others, pushing, shuffling and arranging themselves into positions of better vantage. The larger part of the audience stood upon furniture, sat upon a billiard table or swung their legs from the sills of high windows. Hilditch, hot about the collar, feeling not only the discomfort of his own strangeness, was nauseous too as he breathed the cloying atmosphere of decaying teeth, poor ale and dogs. As he became more accustomed to the scene he perceived that the only object of any interest at that moment to those other spectators whose pipes and elbows hung over the siding was himself.

‘’E won’t see much with ’is blinkers on!’ commented a stout woman as someone at Hilditch’s back ran a hand over the pile of his coat and observed that it must have cost a bob or two. It was unbearable to be the focus of such attention and to feel like a bug under glass and yet, Hilditch mused, perhaps, in their own way, these people were admiring him. They had already marked him as different. Conceivably, they might think him a princely stranger come among them for a mysterious purpose. Preoccupied in this way, a sudden blow to his shoulder took him unawares.

‘Mind yer back!’

Unnoticed by Hilditch, a man carrying another, larger dog had made his way through the crowd behind and now knocked him roughly as he passed. The dog was offered over the barrier and dropped into the pit.

‘Here’s a capital dog for someone,’ said William Saggers as he stood in the centre of the ring, which was lit from above. He uncoiled a length of rope and threw it over an oak beam, from which depended a great iron fitting with six flaring flames. No sooner was the rope tied off than the animal broke free, leapt into the pit and seized the rope’s end, locking its teeth upon a great knot.

‘That’s the style, Nipper!’

The rope was pulled hard and the dog launched into the air. Flexing the muscles of its neck, it swung from side to side, frantically arranging a better hold for its teeth. These struggles and contortions were observed with keen interest by all about the pit. Saggers stood back and waved a hand at the gyrating animal. ‘Did you ever see a stronger dog? Here’s more muscles than Billingsgate! Who’ll have him? Who’ll make me a decent offer?’

The dog gave out joyous, slobbering growls as it arced wildly, but then, unable to unfix its teeth from thick hemp, it started to choke on its own saliva.

‘He’s had his fill already, Willum,’ observed a man. ‘What’s wanted is a dog with tenacity!’

‘I’ll show you that!’ said the other and before the animal could extricate itself and drop to the floor, William Saggers had taken a guttering candle from a table and slipped it directly beneath the beam. Now whenever the dog passed over the source of heat, it convulsed and thrashed wildly as it tried to remove itself from the source of pain. It swung high but, inevitably, its pendulum course returned it to the flame where it shuddered and flailed with increased violence. The mob cheered with one voice as the squealing dog was scorched again and roundly condemned the soldier Ratcliffe when he stepped into the pit and kicked away the candle. ‘Enough, you half-wit, Saggers, I want some dog left, don’t I?’

‘You’ll ’ave ’im, then, Captain? A reg’lar bargain he is, at five guineas.’

‘You’ll get your money afterwards,’ said Ratcliffe. ‘Anyone can hang on a rope and no doubt some of us will. I’ll see the dog going about his business first.’

The soldier quietened the quaking dog and quit the ring as William Saggers said, ‘Bet now, gentlemen, and remember that this fine dog is for sale arterwards to the highest bidder. Never mind that the captain’s set ‘is expert eye on him.’