The Skull and the Nightingale. Michael Irwin

      Where shall we be? No man can say.

      If we drink, if we fight, if we whore while we’re here,

      Then sooner or later the devil’s to pay.

      So sing through the night,

      Sing while we may,

      Till a new dawn reminds us to live for the day.

       Crocker lowered his great rump amid much cheering and stamping of feet. By now the room was very warm and we were all in a tipsy sweat. Invited by our host to perform, I offered ‘The soaring lark salutes the morn’. When I had concluded, Crocker and I were persuaded to sing an indecorous duet:

      A tippler’s throat is a conduit pipe:

      Pour, landlord, pour.

      We drink to piss, and piss our drink, and drink to piss once more.

      A man don’t leak till a man has drunk,

      So let the liquor flow:

      We take it in and shake it down, and then we let it go.

       The assembled tipplers sang with us till the windows shook and our ears rang.

       It seems to be the custom at these gatherings to drink and talk at large until Crocker takes the lead in some way. When the singing was done the former general carousal was resumed. Voices rose and laughter rang out. Somewhat elevated myself, I noticed the prudent Latimer slip away. I was sitting with Horn, who was by now very loud, at one point laughing so hard that he fell to the floor.

       At length Crocker again forced himself upright.

       ‘Gentlemen!’ he cried, ‘there is work to be done. Let us withdraw.’

       I confess that, owing to the influence of wine, my recollections of what followed are less than distinct. Crocker’s table was pulled aside, and he stalked ponderously from the room. The rest of us rose – with a crashing of chairs, bottles and glasses – and followed him into the night air. Crocker ensconced himself in what was apparently his private chair, to be borne away by four men, with the company trooping at their heels. I wondered if we were to be plunged into some violence of the Mohock kind – though in truth I had never heard that Crocker was associated with such doings. We made a strange procession: an obese, chair-borne Achilles followed by a rabble of drunken Myrmidons. There was no show of provocation or aggression, although I fancy anyone standing in our way might have been thrown aside. Perhaps Crocker himself and Pike, who stayed close to his chair, were the only individuals among us still in a condition to think clearly. At some point we turned from the main thoroughfare and followed a link-boy through a maze of unlighted alleys.

       At length we were motioned to a halt. The moon, emerging from a cloud, showed us to be standing beside a long wall. It seemed an unpromising destination. I was aware of Crocker alighting from his chariot and, through the agency of Pike, getting us, his foot soldiers, positioned at short intervals along the wall. He himself took a central place. His stentorian command, ringing through the night air, enjoined us to set our shoulders to the brickwork and then push rhythmically against it in response to his further shouts, as though trying to budge a great wagon. All concerned fell uncomplainingly to this apparently futile task. We strained in unison, strained repeatedly – and strained to no effect. But after a number of such lunges there seemed, to my surprise, to be some slight sense of motion in the brickwork. We maintained our efforts till a distinct swaying ensued and eventually, to the accompaniment of a ragged cheer, an indeterminate length of the wall gave way completely, collapsing inwards with a rumbling crash.

       Like many others, I went down with the wall, and had to stumble to my feet among broken bricks. There was a confusion of curses and a loud barking of dogs. The moon was now hidden by a cloud of dust. All present hastily dispersed as best they could, given the darkness, their drunken state and the shock of the fall. I found my way to Cathcart Street I know not how, my clothes filthy, my wig full of dirt, and one stocking soaked with blood.

       Next morning I wondered at the course the evening had taken, and asked myself whose wall we had destroyed, and why. I also felt some astonishment that the wall had indeed collapsed. My uncertain conclusion was that the cause had to do with vibration, the faint movement communicated to the brickwork engendering a counter-movement.

       Why Crocker should have organized this assault I cannot imagine. He appeared to be fairly sober throughout the evening, his freakish size perhaps rendering him resistant to the inebriating power of punch. Nor would I take him to be a belligerent man. I look forward to finding out more about him, and about the strange doings of the past night.

       Yours, &c.

      This escapade had left me rather the worse for wear. Not until the afternoon was I washed, dressed and restored to rights. A feeble explanation to Mrs Deacon concerning the state of my laundry – I had suffered an ‘unfortunate mishap’ – was received civilly, but with the hint of amusement that it deserved. It would not do for me to appear ridiculous again. I wished my landlady to think me a spirited gentleman of fashion, not a lout.

      After taking a dish of tea I felt a little better. It seemed to me that the doings of the previous night, discreetly edited, might entertain my godfather. Lacking the energy to go out of doors, I settled down to compose what eventually became the letter here transcribed.

      While doing so I conceived the idea of keeping a record of my entire correspondence with Mr Gilbert. My recollections being already somewhat misty, it seemed important that I should at least be clear as to what I had reported. I could not risk falling into self-contradiction. Fortunately I had preserved fragmentary drafts of my earlier epistles; now I pieced them together and re-wrote them as fair copies. Henceforward I would keep this archive up to date, as constituting my official memory.

      Latimer and I had tacitly chosen to consider our pursuit of Kitty Brindley and Jane Page a joint enterprise. We returned to the theatre to see again the interlude that had pleased us and afterwards to dine once more with the principal performers. I enjoyed the little pastoral as much as before – in fact more, given my interest in the young shepherdess. There ensued, however, a distraction that I could not have foreseen.

      We stayed to see the comedy that followed the interlude. In the course of it I happened to look from our box above the stage towards the audience at large, and noticed, in the second row, Sarah Ogden, sitting beside a man I could only assume to be her husband. I leaned back, out of their line of vision, but could not resist further glances in their direction. The top quarter of Ogden – all that was visible – suggested a thick-set, impassive man. Sarah was more responsive to the performance, but to me there seemed some constraint in her manner. I wondered if she had seen me and was discomfited by my proximity.

      Our engagement after the performance – at which, as it seemed to me, Kitty was once more encouraging and Jane Page once more elusive – pushed this episode to the back of my mind. The following morning, however, it returned with vexing vividness. I found myself recalling my warmest interlude with Sarah, nearly three years previously, when she had been visibly stirred, perhaps even drawn a few steps along the path toward capitulation. Could the dull Ogden elicit such responses? I resolved that at some future time I would indeed resume my pursuit of her. The affair with Kitty Brindley I was willing to expose to my godfather’s curiosity. Here was a second narrative, a private one, of which I would tell him nothing.

       My dear Godfather,

       I continue pertinacious in the pursuit of pleasure. This afternoon I took tea with Miss Brindley, tête-à-tête, at her lodgings in Rose Street.

       It seems to me that in the negotiation that ensued we were both to be commended for the art with which we translated