JACK SHEPPARD MILLS A QUOD OR TWO

I had as much wit as four folks –

Two fools, a madman

and a gull on the Gregorian tree soon to be toes up.

It was no odds of mine to polish the King’s iron.

By cock and pie, I’m not fretting my giblets!

I’ve made plans for my palls, don’t you know.

As soon as I kick the clouds, they will cut me down

And take my body to an ale house in Long Acre

Before the death-hunter can put me in the eternity-box

And thence to bed with a shovel.

Instead of me being the fruit of the gibbet,

Their intended is to open a vein to fig me up to life. 

Ha!  It’s quite simple, really.  You just need faith.

Beside, to snuff the candle at twenty-three, pshaw!

‘Tis too tender in the prime and pride of a popinjay.

Snug’s the word, but I loved Elizabeth Lyon with a cream-pot love:

As long as I can buy milk, I shall not keep a cow.

But Edgworth Bess and I did dab it up together -

She was my warming-pan, not my leg-shackle.

An easy mort with bene dumplings, as good as ever twanged.

Bess or betty is a burglar’s tool, a picklock; and that she was. 

First she was my fence at the Black Lion ale-house,

Situate in Drury Lane; that was my beat.

Then she became my mistress of sorts.

When she was rubbed to St Giles roundhouse,

I tipped the beadle a settler and drew claret

With a click in the gob and two chops to the noggin,

Broke open the door and ravished her like a true Trojan,

Much to the glee of jilted covesses everywhere,

But in partickler the kittle-kattle vestals of Drury Lane.

That’s the beauty of it:

                 to offend yet cut a caper and fun the traps.

As God is my witness, my profession was nuts and honey.

Nay, not a chips; that was a mere cover,

Where I could ease the cove of the ken of silver clanks and feeders

Or condiddle bolts of fustian for piece-makers.

You see, a carpenter is known for his chips,

But a jolly cracksman is famed for his quips

And is nimble as a eel wriggling in the mud,
More nous than a prentice flue-faker with a burned bum.

Aye, I was a jackanapes, a dog in a doublet

With fast forks and dukes to undub the wickedest of locks.

I wasn’t always a sneaking budge.  Edgworth Bess, me and my brother,

We broke into a linen-draper’s ken within a spit and stride of Newgate.

Where I have guts in my brains, Tom has more hair than wit,

Half flash and half polish.

Even peached against me to save his own skin, not kin.

He was burned in the hand for entering into the merits of stripping kens.

When Bess and your humble servant were boned for cracking cribs,

She did me proud and passed for my moiety,

So we lodged in chummage in Newgate Ward,

That louse-house with a downy flea-pasture for snooze,

Visited by a cry of family people that slipped me more files

Than an adept finger-smith could use.

So I put my pickers to work:

   faked my fetters,

                                made a chink in the wall like Brother Hod

                                            took out bars from the glaze

   knotted a blanket and sheet

      lowered myself into the yard

        swung up locks and bolts on the massive gate

   dropped over the outer wall

            and shook my trotters

By jingo, I like to keep my fives going, even in quod!

My last escape from Whittington took some eight hours. 

Cooped in the Castle, a strong-room,

I was wearing the king’s plate, as was my habit:

shanks shackled   

loaded with heavy irons

screwed down to the floor by staple and bolt

jailers’ squinters bored upon me

Escape seemed thundering impossible when

                                                                                    BANG
                                found a nail close by  
                      reached the great horse padlock stretching from chain to staple   

    picked the padlock

                                            freely gandered about my room   

        napped in the barracks

                                                                    and locked myself up again

             my own dubsman and keeper

         I had no tools but my own stealers

And was not eel enough to squeeze up the chimney.

I looked like mumchance that was hanged for saying nothing.

Alack, my liberty at leisure was discovered.

The squires thought it best for further security

To treat me to a durable pair of iron mittens.

With a great flood of tears, I begged and beseeched that culver-pate,

Mr Kneebone, whose crib I had broke into, to spare me the bracelets. 

A culver should be gull for the rook, as ‘twere.

But though teary too, the fid-fad refused to oblige.

How I was scorny of my guardians!

They pounded they were as safe as crows in the gutter.

I could have loosened the manacles with my molars

                                     - had I so wished!

The turnkey and Mr Kneebone had scarce scuttled

When I had jiggered off my handbinders.

Lest they returned, I fell a-foxing,

Put them on again and chafed the skin to bleed,

A leech unto myself.

Which irritation drew much sighing and shaking of noddles

And shiners of silver and gold from the audience of nobs. 

Alas, no crow and chisel, file or saw.

Now that I showed in public, I made of my face a fiddle.

Will Jonathan Wild’s scrag be nipped by the squeezer?

Such was the noise in sizes that my guardians were distracted.

Now I’d been peached on account of Mr Wild.

Nay, sentenced to death!  In the condemned hold at Newgate,

I had the wit to saw off a spike on the visitors’ hatch,

Make myself a streak of pump-water,

Squeeze through the hole and tip my rags the gallop.  Wild,

A known blood and master fence from the Wood Street compter,

Rubbed with all manner of rogues and knew a trick worth two of that.

Crew’s captain of thieves in the racket of stolen booty,

He’d let the best dog leap over the stile at Tyburn Fair.

At about three o’clock in the afternoon, I got down to work:

                   eased off my handbinders

                              bent a small iron link of the chain between my legs

                                           slipped off my stockings

                    fastened the clinkers up my calves with my garters

                              made a chink in the chimney of the Castle with broken links

                                            broke off an iron bar from the chimney

                                                    found myself in the Red Room over the Castle

                     got the nut off the lock to open the door

                                    picked up a large nail

                                                scrabbled away some bricks in the wall

                                                                        shook the bolt from the other side

                      clambered over the iron spikes of the Chapel

                                                broke off one of the spikes

                                                                        opened the door to the leads

                      pried the nut off the strong lock with the nail and spike

                                                            knocked the box off the lock

                                       battered the fillet of the middle door bolted and barred

                      broke the box off the lock and the main post

                                                             opened the door to the higher leads

                                       up and over the wall into lighted streets

                          went arse about to the Castle for my blanket to avoid injury

             back to the outer wall to fix the blanket with the chapel spike
                             dropped on

         to the turner’s leads next to the prison

                             stole through the garret door

                                                                              and down

               two pair of stairs

Dancing the darby roll from wearing shackles exceeding long.

As lieve do that than the Paddington frisk.

By the jumping Moses, the company heard the clink of my irons!

Flabbergasted in a funk, they stowed their gab.

I caught cold at that and beat a hasty retreat to the turner’s garret

And couched my hogshead for two hours.

Then trod nimble as a cat on a hot backstone to the entry

  and out the street door.

I am not a buck with bronze for nothing.

I passed directly by St Sepulchre’s watch -

Nay, I am not afeared of the bone-baster,

But clubs are trumps where traps are concerned -

Covering my irons as best I could.  They are as blind as Chloe.

Bade them a cheery good morrow, flashed the ivories

And hoofed to rug in the fields by Tottenham Court.

‘Twas fine as a cow turd stuck with primroses.

My gams were swelled and bruised.  Egad, I was fit as a flea!

Darkmans I went to a blind chandler’s ken for the necessaries

And washed the cobwebs out of my throat.  I dozed till six.

Then battered the basils of the clinkers with a stone

Into a ring large enough to force my crabs through.

          I am one such that tends to go before my mare to market

And like as not end up at the sheriff’s ball.

But sink me if I don’t enjoy a close scrape!

A mistress of my affections pleaded with me to take to my heels

And bolt abroad, but I said neither buff nor baff.

Aye, I should have gone by the string rather than by the bow.

My foolosophy is to hold a serpent by the tail;

Instead we took a turn in love lane in a hackney coach

And passed under Akerman’s Hotel viz. Newgate itself!

Then my canary brought along a friend, pert as a pear-monger,

A merry-bit with a pretty pair of Cupid’s kettledrums

That lies backwards and lets out her fore-rooms.

Merry with high grubbing, we tucked up a bottle or two of brandy

And mopped up many a glass of divers liquors,

Till I was fuddled and flushed with a cup too much,

Too fogged to draw my pistols.

Will they mark I have more sail than ballast?

I own my spirits begin to fail me . . .

cannot die game . . .

Westward . . . facing the rising sun . . . the noose at my chest . . .

O cease this dammed clanging of bells . . .

my head ringing, my ears . . . for God’s sake . . .

Uproar, press of leary people . . . yonder the triple tree . . .

On the rise . . . comes on apace . . . nigh . . . and nearer yet . . .

Cross-beams . . . ladder . . .  to bed . . . dear God . . .

                        lo, the crap merchant . . . all in black . . .

This day was to occasion my most sensational trick -

                        and might yet, by the grace of God! -

D’you see, I had hid the keenest chivey to chiv the cords

That held my arms.  Hard by Little Turnstile I’d fling myself

From the cart on to the good graces of the crowd -

Some five and twenty thousand of ‘em to pay their respects -

Then make a dash through the narrow lane,

Impossible for the sheriff’s men on horse to follow.

Strike me blind!  Before our file quitted the press-yard,

One of the traps frisked my pockets . . . cut himself bloody . . .

Now, at last, it falls

                        to this . . . dread . . .

                   Tyburn

My last glimpse of this too too sorry world . . .

In a gad he will place the white hood . . . tight the noose . . .

We halt . . . facing the ladder . . .

Have mercy upon me, O God,

                according to thy lovingkindness:

                    according unto the multitude of thy

                         tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

                            Wash me throughly from mine iniquity,

                                and cleanse me from my sin.

                                    For I acknowledge my transgressions:

                                         and my sin is ever before me . . .

                                                Behold, I was shapen in iniquity;

                                                     and in my sin did my mother conceive me . . .

            Michael Small                                           February 10-17, 2006