Tales of the Old London Slum – Complete Series. Morrison Arthur

Perrott sat pale and wistful, with the baby on her knees. Through the morning she had sat so, wretched and helpless, sometimes putting her face in her hands, sometimes breaking out hopelessly:—‘Don’t, Josh, don’t—good Gawd, Josh, I wish you wouldn’t!’ or ‘Josh, Josh, I wish I was dead!’ Josh had fought before, it was true, and more than once, but then she had learned of the matter afterward. This preparation and long waiting were another thing. Once she had even exclaimed that she would go with him—though she meant nothing.

      Now, as Josh went out at the door, she bent over Looey and hid her face again. ‘Good luck, father,’ called Dicky, ‘go it!’ Though the words would hardly pass his throat, and he struggled to believe that he had no fear for his father.

      No sooner was the door shut than he rushed to the window, though Josh could not appear in Jago Court for three or four minutes yet. The sash-line was broken, and the window had been propped open with a stick. In his excitement Dicky dislodged the stick, and the sash came down on his head, but he scarce felt the blow, and readjusted the stick with trembling hands, regardless of the bruise rising under his hair.

      ‘Aincher goin’ to look, mother?’ he asked. ‘Wontcher ‘old up Looey?’

      But his mother would not look. As for Looey, she looked at nothing. She had been taken to the dispensary once again, and now lay drowsy and dull, with little more movement than a general shudder and a twitching of the face at long intervals. The little face itself was thinner and older than ever: horribly flea-bitten still, but bloodlessly pale. Mrs Perrott had begun to think Looey was ailing for something; thought it might be measles or whooping-cough coming, and complained that children were a continual worry.

      Dicky hung head and shoulders out of the window, clinging to the broken sill and scraping feverishly at the wall with his toes. Jago Court was fuller than ever. The tossing went on, though now with more haste, that most might be made of the remaining time. A scuffle still persisted in one corner. Some stood to gaze at the High Mob, who, to the number of eight or ten, stood in an exalted group over against the back fences of New Jago Street; but the thickest knot was about Cocko Harnwell’s doorstep, whereon sat Billy Leary, his head just visible through the press about him, waiting to keep his appointment.

      Then a close group appeared at the archway, and pushed into the crowd, which made way at its touch, the disturbed tossers pocketing their coppers, but the others busily persisting, with no more than a glance aside between the spins. Josh Perrott’s cropped head and bare shoulders marked the centre of the group, and as it came, another group moved out from Cocko Harnwell’s doorstep, with Billy Leary’s tall bulk shining pink and hairy in its midst.

      ”E’s in the court, mother,’ called Dicky, scraping faster with his toes.

      The High Mobsmen moved up toward the middle of the court, and some from the two groups spread and pushed back the crowd. Still half a dozen couples, remote by the walls, tossed and tossed faster than ever, moving this way and that as the crowd pressed.

      Now there was an irregular space of bare cobble stones and house refuse, five or six yards across, in the middle of Jago Court, and all round it the shouting crowd was packed tight, those at the back standing on sills and hanging to fences. Every window was a clump of heads, and women yelled savagely or cheerily down and across. The two groups were merged in the press at each side of the space, Billy Leary and Josh Perrott in front of each, with his seconds.

      ‘Naa then, any more ‘fore they begin?’ bawled a High Mobsman, turning about among his fellows. ‘Three to one on the big ‘un—three to one! ‘Ere, I’ll give fours—four to one on Leary! Fourer one! Fourer one!’

      But they shook their heads; they would wait a little. Leary and Perrott stepped out. The last of the tossers stuffed away his coppers, and sought for a hold on the fence.

      ‘They’re a-sparrin’, mother!’ cried Dicky, pale and staring, elbows and legs a-work, till he was like to pitch out of window. From his mother there but jerked a whimpering sob, which he did not hear.

      The sparring was not long. There was little of subtlety in the milling of the Jago: mostly no more than a rough application of the main hits and guards, with much rushing and ruffianing. What there was of condition in the two men was Josh’s: smaller and shorter, he had a certain hard brownness of hide that Leary, in his heavy opulence of flesh, lacked; and there was a horny quality in his face and hands that reminded the company of his boast of invulnerability to anything milder than steel. Also his breadth of chest was great. Nevertheless all odds seemed against him, by reason of Billy Leary’s size, reach, and fighting record.

      The men rushed together, and Josh was forced back by weight. Leary’s great fists, left and right, shot into his face with smacking reports, but left no mark on the leathery skin, and Josh, fighting for the body, drove his knuckles into the other’s ribs with a force that jerked a thick grunt from Billy’s lips at each blow.

      There was a roar of shouts. ‘Go it, father! Fa—ther! Fa—ther!’ Dicky screamed from the window, till his voice broke in his throat and he coughed himself livid. The men were at holds, and swaying this way and that over the uneven stones. Blood ran copiously from Billy Leary’s nose over his mouth and chin, and, as they turned, Dicky saw his father spit away a tooth over Leary’s shoulder. They clipped and hauled to and fro, each striving to break the other’s foothold. Then Perrott stumbled at a hole, lost his feet, and went down, with Leary on top.

      Cheers and yells rent the air, as each man was taken to his own side by his seconds. Dicky let go the sill and turned to his mother, wild of eye, breathless with broken chatter.

      ‘Father ‘it ‘im on the nose, mother, like that—‘is ribs is goin’ black where father pasted ‘em—‘e was out o’ breath fust—there’ blood all over ‘is face, mother—father would ‘a’ chucked ‘im over if ‘e ‘adn’t tumbled in a ‘ole—father ‘it ‘im twice on the jore—‘e—O!’

      Dicky was back again on the sill, kicking and shouting, for time was called, and the two men rushed again into a tangled knot. But the close strife was short. Josh had but closed to spoil his man’s wind, and, leaving his head to take care of itself, stayed till he had driven left and right on the mark, and then got back. Leary came after him, gasping and blowing already, and Josh feinted a lead and avoided, bringing Leary round on his heel and off again in chase. Once more Josh met him, drove at his ribs, and got away out of reach. Leary’s wind was going fast, and his partisans howled savagely at Josh—perceiving his tactics—taunting him with running away, daring him to stand and fight. ‘I’ll take that four to one,’ called a High Mobsman to him who had offered the odds in the beginning. ‘I’ll stand a quid on Perrott!’

      ‘Not with me you won’t,’ the other answered. ‘Evens, if you like.’

      ‘Right. Done at evens, a quid.’

      Perrott, stung at length by the shouts from Leary’s corner, turned on Billy and met him at full dash. He was himself puffing by this, though much less than his adversary, and, at the cost of a heavy blow (which he took on his forehead), he visited Billy’s ribs once more.

      Both men were grunting and gasping now, and the sound of blows was as of the confused beating of carpets. Dicky, who had been afflicted to heart-burst by his father’s dodging and running, which he mistook for simple flight, now broke into excited speech once more:—

      ‘Father’s ‘it ‘im on the jore ag’in—‘is eye’s a-bungin’ up—Go it, father, bash ‘i-i-i-m! Father’s landin’ ‘im—‘e—’

      Hannah Perrott crept to the window and looked. She saw the foul Jago mob, swaying and bellowing about the shifting edge of an open patch, in the midst whereof her husband and Billy Leary, bruised, bloody and gasping, fought and battered infuriately; and she crept back to the bed and bent her face on Looey’s unclean little frock; till a fit of tense shuddering took the child, and the mother looked up again.

      Without, the round ended. For a full minute the men took and gave knock for knock, and then Leary, wincing from another body-blow, swung his right desperately on Perrott’s