2. II
SIXTEEN-STRING JACK
THE `Green Pig' stood in the solitude of the North Road. Its
simple front, its neatly balanced windows, curtained with white,
gave it an air of comfort and tranquillity. The smoke which
curled from its hospitable chimney spoke of warmth and good fare.
To pass it was to spurn the last chance of a bottle for many a
weary mile, and the prudent traveller would always rest an hour
by its ample fireside, or gossip with its fantastic hostess.
Now, the hostess of the little inn was Ellen Roach, friend and
accomplice of Sixteen-String Jack, once the most famous woman in
England, and still after a weary stretch at Botany Bay the
strangest of companions, the most buxom of spinsters. Her beauty
was elusive even in her triumphant youth, and middle-age had
neither softened her traits nor refined her expression. Her
auburn hair, once the glory of Covent Garden, was fading to a
withered grey; she was never tall enough to endure an encroaching
stoutness with equanimity; her dumpy figure made you marvel at
her past success; and hardship had furrowed her candid brow into
wrinkles.
But when she opened her lips she became instantly animated. With
a glass before her on the table, she would prattle frankly and
engagingly of the past. Strange cities had she seen; she had
faced the dangers of an adventurous life with calmness and good
temper. And yet Botany Bay, with its attendant horrors, was
already fading from her memory. In imagination she was still
with her incomparable hero, and it was her solace, after fifteen
years, to sing the praise and echo the perfections of Sixteen—
String Jack.
`How well I remember,' she would murmur, as though
unconscious of her audience, `the unhappy day when Jack Rann was
first arrested. It was May, and he came back travel-stained and
weary in the brilliant dawn. He had stopped a one-horse shay
near the nine-mile stone on the Hounslow Road—every word of his
confession is burnt into my brain—and had taken a watch and a
handful of guineas. I was glad enough of the money, for there
was no penny in the house, and presently I sent the maid-servant
to make the best bargain she could with the watch. But the silly
jade, by the saddest of mishaps, took the trinket straight to the
very man who made it, and he, suspecting a theft, had us both
arrested. Even then Jack might have been safe, had not the devil
prompted me to speak the truth. Dismayed by the magistrate, I
owned, wretched woman that I was, that I had received the watch
from Rann, and in two hours Jack also
was under lock and key. Yet, when we were sent for trial I made
what amends I could. I declared on oath that I had never seen
Sixteen-String Jack in my life; his name came to my lips by
accident; and, hector as they would, the lawyers could not
frighten me to an acknowledgment. Meanwhile Jack's own behaviour
was grand. I was the proudest woman in England as I stood by his
side in the dock. When you compared him with Sir John Fielding,
you did not doubt for an instant which was the finer gentleman.
And what a dandy was my Jack! Though he came there to answer for
his life, he was all ribbons and furbelows. His irons were tied
up with the daintiest blue bows, and in the breast of his coat he
carried a bundle of flowers as large as a birch-broom. His neck
quivered in the noose, yet he was never cowed to civility. `I
know no more of the matter than you do,' he cried indignantly,
`nor half so much neither,' and if the magistrate had not been an
ill-mannered oaf, he would not have dared to disbelieve my true—
hearted Jack. That time we escaped with whole skins; and off we
went, after dinner, to Vauxhall, where Jack was more noticed than
the fiercest of the bloods, and where he filled the heart of
George Barrington with envy. Nor was he idle, despite his recent
escape: he brought away two watches and three purses from the
Garden, so that our necessities were amply supplied. Ah, I
should have been happy in those days if only Jack had been
faithful. But he had a roving eye and a joyous temperament; and
though he loved me better than any of the baggages to whom he
paid court, he would not visit me so often as he should. Why,
once he was hustled off to Bow Street because the watch caught
him climbing in at Doll Frampton's window. And she, the
shameless minx, got him off by declaring in open court that she
would be proud to receive him whenever he would deign to ring at
her bell. That is the penalty of loving a great man: you must
needs share his affection with a set of unworthy wenches. Yet
Jack was always kind to me, and I was the chosen companion of his
pranks.
`Never can I forget the splendid figure he cut that day at
Bagnigge Wells. We had driven down in our coach, and all the
world marvelled at our magnificence. Jack was brave in a scarlet
coat, a tambour waistcoat, and white silk stockings. From the
knees of his breeches streamed the strings (eight at each),
whence he got his name, and as he plucked off his lace-hat the
dinner-table rose at him. That was a moment worth living for,
and when, after his first bottle, Jack rattled the glasses, and
declared himself a highwayman, the whole company shuddered.
“But, my friends,” quoth he, “to-day I am making holiday, so
that you have naught to fear.” When the wine 's in, the wit 's
out, and Jack could never stay his hand from the bottle. The
more he drank, the more he bragged, until, thoroughly fuddled, he
lost a ring from his finger, and charged the miscreants in the
room with stealing it. “However,” hiccupped he, “'tis a mere
nothing, worth a paltry hundred pounds—less than a lazy
evening's work. So I'll let the trifling theft pass.” But the
cowards were not content with Jack's generosity, and seizing upon
him, they thrust him neck and crop through the window. They were
seventeen to one, the craven-hearted loons; and I could but leave
the marks of my nails on the cheek of the foremost, and follow my
hero into the yard, where we took coach, and drove sulkily back
to Covent Garden.
`And yet he was not always in a mad humour; in fact,
Sixteen-String Jack, for all his gaiety, was a proud, melancholy
man. The shadow of the tree was always upon him, and he would
make me miserable by talking of his certain doom. “I have a
hundred pounds in my pocket,” he would say; “I shall spend
that, and then I shan't last long.” And though I never thought
him serious, his prophecy came true enough. Only a few months
before the end we had visited Tyburn together. With his usual
carelessness, he passed the line of constables who were on guard.
“It is very proper,” said he, in his jauntiest tone, “that I
should be a spectator on this melancholy occasion.” And though
none of the dullards took his jest, they instantly made way for
him. For my Jack was always a gentleman, though he was bred to
the stable, and his bitterest enemy could not have denied that he
was handsome. His open countenance was as honest as
the day, and the brown curls over his forehead were more elegant
than the smartest wig. Wherever he went the world did him
honour, and many a time my vanity was sorely wounded. I was a
pretty girl, mind you, though my travels have not improved my
beauty; and I had many admirers before ever I picked up Jack Rann
at a masquerade. Why, there was a Templar, with two thousand a
year, who gave me a carriage and servants while I still lived at
the dressmaker's in Oxford Street, and I was not out of my teens
when the old Jew in St. Mary Axe took me into keeping. But when
Jack was by, I had no chance of admiration. All the eyes were
glued upon him, and his poor doxy had to be content with a
furtive look thrown over a stranger's shoulder. At Barnet races,
the year before they sent me across the sea, we were followed by
a crowd the livelong day; and truly Jack, in his blue satin
waistcoat laced with silver, might have been a peer. At any
rate, he had not his equal on the course, and it is small wonder
that never for a moment were we left to ourselves.
`But happiness does not last for ever; only too often we
were gravelled for lack of money, and Jack, finding his purse
empty, could do naught else than hire a hackney and take to the
road again, while I used to lie awake listening to the watchman's
raucous voice, and praying God to send back my warrior rich and
scatheless. So times grew more and more difficult. Jack would
stay a whole night upon the heath, and come home with an empty
pocket or a beggarly half
crown. And there was nothing, after a shabby coat that he hated
half so much as a sheriff's officer. “Learn a lesson in
politeness,” he said to one of the wretches who dragged him off
to the Marshalsea. “When Sir John Fielding's people come after
me they use me genteelly; they only hold up a finger, beckon me,
and I follow as quietly as a lamb. But you bluster and insult,
as though you had never dealings with gentlemen.” Poor Jack, he
was of a proud stomach, and could not abide interference; yet
they would never let him go free. And he would have been so
happy had he been allowed his own way. To pull out a rusty
pistol now and again, and to take a purse from a traveller—
surely these were innocent pleasures, and he never meant to hurt
a fellow-creature. But for all his kindness of heart, for all
his love of splendour and fine clothes, they took him at last.
`And this time, too, it was a watch which was our ruin.
How often did I warn him: “Jack,” I would say, “take all the
money you can. Guineas tell no tale. But leave the watches in
their owners' fobs.” Alas! he did not heed my words, and the
last man he ever stopped on the road was that pompous rascal, Dr.
Bell, then chaplain to the Princess Amelia. “Give me your
money,” screamed Jack, “and take no notice or I'll blow your
brains out.” And the doctor gave him all that he had, the mean-spirited devil-dodger, and it was no more than eighteenpence.
Now what should a man of courage do with eighteenpence? So poor
Jack was forced to seize the parson's watch and trinkets
as well, and thus it was that a second time we faced the Blind
Beak. When Jack brought home the watch, I was seized with a
shuddering presentiment, and I would have given the world to
throw it out of the window. But I could not bear to see him
pinched with hunger, and he had already tossed the doctor's
eighteenpence to a beggar woman. So I trudged off to the
pawnbroker's, to get what price I could, and I bethought me that
none would know me for what I was so far away as Oxford Street.
But the monster behind the counter had a quick suspicion, though
I swear I looked as innocent as a babe; he discovered the owner
of the watch, and infamously followed me to my house.
`The next day we were both arrested, and once more we
stood in the hot, stifling Court of the Old Bailey. Jack was
radiant as ever, the one spot of colour and gaiety in that close,
sodden atmosphere. When we were taken from Bow Street a thousand
people formed our guard of honour, and for a month we were the
twin wonders of London. The lightest word, the fleetest smile of
the renowned highwayman, threw the world into a fit of
excitement, and a glimpse of Rann was worth a king's ransom. I
could look upon him all day for nothing! And I knew what a fever
of fear throbbed behind his mask of happy contempt. Yet bravely
he played the part unto the very end. If the toasts of London
were determined to gaze at him, he assured them they should have
a proper salve for their eyes. So he dressed
himself as a light-hearted sportsman. His coat and waistcoat
were of pea-green cloth; his buckskin breeches were spotlessly
new, and all tricked out with the famous strings; his hat was
bound round with silver cords; and even the ushers of the Court
were touched to courtesy. He would whisper to me, as we stood in
the dock, “Cheer up, my girl. I have ordered the best supper
that Covent Garden can provide, and we will make merry to-night
when this foolish old judge has done his duty.” The supper was
never eaten. Through the weary afternoon we waited for
acquittal. The autumn sun sank in hopeless gloom. The wretched
lamps twinkled through the jaded air of the court-house. In an
hour I lived a thousand years of misery, and when the sentence
was read, the words carried no sense to my withered brain. It
was only in my cell I realised that I had seen Jack Rann for the
last time; that his pea-green coat would prove a final and
ineffaceable memory.
`Alas! I, who had never been married, was already a hempen
widow; but I was too hopelessly heartbroken for my lover's fate
to think of my own paltry hardship. I never saw him again. They
told me that he suffered at Tyburn like a man, and that he
counted upon a rescue to the very end. They told me (still
bitterer news to hear) that two days before his death he
entertained seven women at supper, and was in the wildest humour.
This almost broke my heart; it was an infidelity committed on the
other side of the grave. But, poor Jack, he was a
good lad, and loved me more than them all, though he never could
be faithful to me.' And thus, bidding the drawer bring fresh
glasses, Ellen Roach would end her story. Though she had told it
a hundred times, at the last words a tear always sparkled in her
eye. She lived without friend and without lover, faithful to the
memory of Sixteen-String Jack, who for her was the only reality
in the world of shades. Her middle-age was as distant as her
youth. The dressmaker's in Oxford Street was as vague a dream as
the inhospitable shore of Botany Bay. So she waited on to a
weary eld, proud of the `Green Pig's' well-ordered comfort,
prouder still that for two years she shared the glory of Jack
Rann, and that she did not desert her hero, even in his
punishment.
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