courts. Apart from us there are not many who venture into those places and speak to the unfortunates who live there. Lord Allington is a patron of the mission and his office at Exeter Hall helps the school here with food and other necessities. After my brush with Bow Street I bethought myself of him and brought the matter to his attention.’
‘What do the people in the courts and rookeries make of you, Mr Dearlove?’
‘They know me now. The children come to the school. At first most simply see it as somewhere they may get some food and shelter, but they are learning too. At Seven Dials it has taken longer.’
‘There are some streets both here and there that I would think twice about venturing into,’ said Blake.
‘I have had my fair share of tribulations. But it does not deter me.’
‘What kind of tribulations, if I might ask?’ I said curiously.
‘Oh, I have been spat at, thrown downstairs, had ordure emptied over my head. But, as I say, it does not stop me. It is nothing compared to the sacrifices of our Lord.’
‘And in Holywell Street? They know you there?’
‘They do. I walk through on my way to Exeter Hall and I persevere among the street sellers.’
‘Do you know Matty Horner?’ I said.
‘Her brother Pen comes sometimes to the school, but he is a wild and wayward child. She found Wedderburn’s body. It must have been a dreadful shock for her.’
‘Does she come to you for instruction?’ I said.
‘No, like many older children round here, she denies herself that her brother might reap the benefits of education.’
Drury Lane, famous for its theatre, had a shabby and disreputable air. We had barely set foot upon it when, with no warning, Blake slipped between two tall buildings into a dark lane barely wider than our shoulders and exceedingly muddy.
‘Stay close and mind your feet,’ he called back at me, ‘if you want to keep those boots shiny.’
‘Where do we go?’ I asked.
‘To see a man who knows the lie of the land,’ he said. ‘Trap shut now, William, and follow briskly.’
After a distance of perhaps fifty yards we turned left into a wider, more crowded thoroughfare, from which three further lanes led off. Blake took the rightmost. It was dirty, odiferous, piled with debris and thick with life, though I should say the poorest, meanest, dirtiest, and bleakest I had seen in England – far worse than Holywell Street. The despairing, the cunning, the dangerously vigorous: all pressed in upon each other. We strode on through a maze of mean lanes, divided in the middle by an open trench down which pure effluent flowed. Had I not been with Blake I should have immediately been lost. As it was, I felt as if I had entered another city, and I was glad now of the rough clothes; in my own attire I should have feared for myself. Lines of ragged grey laundry fluttered enervatedly above the lanes. Below, livestock snuffled. Old women wrapped in dirty shawls, their faces masks of ill use, sat against damp walls in the mud. Hard-faced urchins minded swaddled infants and played at knucklebones. Pinched-looking men in greasy corduroys lolled aimlessly. Down the middle of the lane a knot of bulky, ill-meaning youths in tight trousers, loudly patterned calico waistcoats and over-oiled curls and whiskers barged into whomsoever they liked, the threat of violence in every noisy laugh. The buildings were crammed in like nothing I had ever seen. Doors swung off hinges, broken windows were packed with straw and old clothes. On one side a small beaten-down premises advertised itself as a skinner’s: ‘Good money paid for dogs and cats’.
‘Don’t look so avidly,’ Blake muttered, seizing me by the cuff and dragging me forward.
We stopped at last before a ramshackle public-house, ‘The Cocko’ the Hoop’ by name, before which more degraded humanity was carousing.
The interior could not have been more different from the Crown and Anchor. It was a crush of bleary-eyed men, women,
‘What do the people in the courts and rookeries make of you, Mr Dearlove?’
‘They know me now. The children come to the school. At first most simply see it as somewhere they may get some food and shelter, but they are learning too. At Seven Dials it has taken longer.’
‘There are some streets both here and there that I would think twice about venturing into,’ said Blake.
‘I have had my fair share of tribulations. But it does not deter me.’
‘What kind of tribulations, if I might ask?’ I said curiously.
‘Oh, I have been spat at, thrown downstairs, had ordure emptied over my head. But, as I say, it does not stop me. It is nothing compared to the sacrifices of our Lord.’
‘And in Holywell Street? They know you there?’
‘They do. I walk through on my way to Exeter Hall and I persevere among the street sellers.’
‘Do you know Matty Horner?’ I said.
‘Her brother Pen comes sometimes to the school, but he is a wild and wayward child. She found Wedderburn’s body. It must have been a dreadful shock for her.’
‘Does she come to you for instruction?’ I said.
‘No, like many older children round here, she denies herself that her brother might reap the benefits of education.’
Drury Lane, famous for its theatre, had a shabby and disreputable air. We had barely set foot upon it when, with no warning, Blake slipped between two tall buildings into a dark lane barely wider than our shoulders and exceedingly muddy.
‘Stay close and mind your feet,’ he called back at me, ‘if you want to keep those boots shiny.’
‘Where do we go?’ I asked.
‘To see a man who knows the lie of the land,’ he said. ‘Trap shut now, William, and follow briskly.’
After a distance of perhaps fifty yards we turned left into a wider, more crowded thoroughfare, from which three further lanes led off. Blake took the rightmost. It was dirty, odiferous, piled with debris and thick with life, though I should say the poorest, meanest, dirtiest, and bleakest I had seen in England – far worse than Holywell Street. The despairing, the cunning, the dangerously vigorous: all pressed in upon each other. We strode on through a maze of mean lanes, divided in the middle by an open trench down which pure effluent flowed. Had I not been with Blake I should have immediately been lost. As it was, I felt as if I had entered another city, and I was glad now of the rough clothes; in my own attire I should have feared for myself. Lines of ragged grey laundry fluttered enervatedly above the lanes. Below, livestock snuffled. Old women wrapped in dirty shawls, their faces masks of ill use, sat against damp walls in the mud. Hard-faced urchins minded swaddled infants and played at knucklebones. Pinched-looking men in greasy corduroys lolled aimlessly. Down the middle of the lane a knot of bulky, ill-meaning youths in tight trousers, loudly patterned calico waistcoats and over-oiled curls and whiskers barged into whomsoever they liked, the threat of violence in every noisy laugh. The buildings were crammed in like nothing I had ever seen. Doors swung off hinges, broken windows were packed with straw and old clothes. On one side a small beaten-down premises advertised itself as a skinner’s: ‘Good money paid for dogs and cats’.
‘Don’t look so avidly,’ Blake muttered, seizing me by the cuff and dragging me forward.
We stopped at last before a ramshackle public-house, ‘The Cocko’ the Hoop’ by name, before which more degraded humanity was carousing.
The interior could not have been more different from the Crown and Anchor. It was a crush of bleary-eyed men, women,
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