Bow Bells Be Damned!

Born within the sound of the bells in the 19th century, you're a Cockney. Lower class, poor, dirty, East London trash. You're the subject of ridicule and scorn.

Did Joe Parish care? Not a bit of it. But, what he did care about he wasn't shy in telling all.

"Now, look ye here Lyla, it aint the 'eavy 'aulin' what 'urts the city streets. It's the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer of the 'eavy 'orses 'ooves." Joe Parish was more than a little angry; his life was going wrong. He wanted to hurt someone or smash something. Lyla looked at him as if he were crazy, asking herself how what he had said had anything to do with how they were going to get enough money for something to eat that day.

"C'mon Joe, let's get movin'. There's gotta be somethin' we can do? I'm starvin', aint I? Start talkin' 'bout that if you gotta talk about somethin', never mind the bloody road, aint no concern of ours, is it?"

Pawing at the worn cobblestones with one big, dirty boot he was staring straight ahead. His eyes glazed over as he gazed at the buildings on the other side of the street. He felt like putting his head down and running headlong right into the big, fogged-up window of Brown the Baker and sticking his face into all those freshly baked pork pies.

Lyla, standing like a statue, was gazing off into the distance as though she could see something pretty. A little smile twitched around the corners of her coarse, bright red lips. She mumbled something that Joe couldn't hear, but then he wasn't listening to her anyway, was he?

Looking down, his eyes fell on something in the gutter. Glistening there in filthy sludge it looked like a golden chain. He squatted with a grunt and poked at the thing with a grimy finger. Then he fished it out to have a better look.

"Cor! It's a necklace, innit? The kind them toffs give their little girls." He wondered as he held it up before his bulging eyes. "How much ya think I'd get for a thing like this over to Slimy Sam's? Nuff for a pint or two and could be one a them big plates chock full of bubble and squeak, too. Cor, blimey! What a find! How do I get rid of Lyla?"

"Gotta git goin', Lyla." He said as he straightened up surreptitiously jamming the chain into his pocket. "See ya arter I find m'self summat to do that'll pay enuff to do up our supper on."

Slimy Sam, Samuel Schlicter. The bearded and skull-capped, ancient Jew was busy with his jeweler's loop screwed into one eye, the other covered by a rusty-black patch. Looking up at the anxious face of the trembling Joe Parish he pronounced his verdict, "It's gonna cost me more to sell than it's vorth already and you von't be gettink a ha'penny more if you ask at every other shop in town."

"What about what's inside it? Maybe that'll be worth more than the whole bloody necklace?", said Joe, hoping there was an inside to the little heart-shaped pendant, "It looks like it might open up if yer pressed on that little bit right there."

The scowling Sam reluctantly poked at the little protrusion and the lid popped open. He, instantly, recognized the image and gave a little gasp. Then, in confusion, spluttering saliva into Joe's face he said, "I don't know vhat you tink you got here? I mean . . . it's still nothink . . . vorth nothink."

"I aint never looked inside it, have I?", Joe wondered what the Jew was on about. "Is it worth somethin' or not? That's all I cares about. It's gold, innit? Gimme arf a crown an' be done."

Schlicter hastily unlocked the drawer beneath the counter and pulled out the coin. "Take it!", he said, "And good day to you." He didn't smile and he didn't look at Joe. His eye was fixed on the locket and a wave of wrinkles puckered up his brow.

"Shapiro vill know vhat to do about dis", he muttered as he pulled off his tattered, brown smock and reached for his shabby hat and the key to the shop door, "if he don't know, nobody vill."

Closing up the shop during the day? Unheard of! The old skinflint had never even thought of doing this until now. But, today, his claw-like fingers clutched a golden opportunity, a little golden locket, the possibility of a very large sum of money; more than he could possibly earn buying and selling in a week of Saturday's. Yes, Slimy Sam was open even on the Sabbath. Sam Schlicter was not what you'd call Orthodox. He never went to synagogue and he didn't care if the whole community shunned him. Slimy Schlicter cared about gold.

As he rushed down the dirty street he thought, "Oy! It's da scandal I've got to vorry dem vith, it's like a pot full of night-slop, stinkink to high heaven! I'm tinkink it'll make me rich! Shapiro can tell me who to take it to. Gotta be someone inside, someone in the royal rooms at Buckinkham. A servant who's got the ear of Farmer George's wife, the Quveen, no less."

Farmer George, the Mad King George, the monarch who was presiding over the industrial revolution and the American revolution and the king who ruled for fifty-nine years despite being more than just a little strange. Wonders and visions, the months of recurring sickness, the rantings and ravings. The inner circle at the court knew all about it, but said nothing. The adoring public only saw the king when he wasn't stricken, when he and his queen and their fifteen little princes and princesses were the very picture of health and happiness. But, there was a curse hanging over all of them; an evil that was sure to affect the lives of a least some of his offspring. The brown spots, the terrible headaches, the vomiting that wouldn't stop, the madness. In his saner moments George wondered how many would fall victim. Already, little Georgianna showed the signs. That's why he had had the miniature done. And, why he wore the little gold locket around his royal neck; to remind him that he must find an answer somewhere; that he could not afford to let the future of the empire fall into the hands of another victim like himself. He couldn't let that happen to one of his own, darling children.

He had learned about the old hag in Bow Bells while overhearing two of the chambermaids gossiping about her. 'She was a caution and a wonder, too! She cast spells and made potions that cured all or crucified all and she lived with thirteen, black cats in a filthy tenement near St Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside. Everyone knew about her. Ask anyone, they'll tell you where to find her. But, you had better have something to give her if you went to see her. And, if she gave you something, you had better have a lot or she'd cast a cursing-spell and the medicine would turn to poison when you took it and you'd shrivel up and die right then and there.'

And so, one dark and foggy night, a desperate King George went to Cheapside. He went to the rectory of St Mary-le-Bow. He went in disguise and he went alone. The smirking, sarcastic priest knew about the old woman and after demanding a couple of shillings he told the shabby stranger how to find her.

An hour later he'd seen the witch, and witch was what he'd called her. Mad King George stumbled out into the night and into the street clutching at the part of his torso where she had torn open his shirt and sunk her black and rotting teeth into his skin. Thinking of the pain and the terrible sucking noises as she took a mouthful of his blood and then spat it into a jar, he went down on both knees in the middle of the road and threw up. The smell, the heat, and the words of the hag as she wiped his blood off her shriveled lips and, in a voice like doom foretold his future with a curse, had been too much for him and he had run from the room in terror.

When he stood up, wiping the foulness from his mouth and shirtfront, he must have broken the clasp on the chain and it fell into the gutter. And, the very next day unlucky Joe Parish found it, Slimy Sam bought it for half a crown and now that same Samuel Schlicter was on his way to see Shapiro to find a way to get his gold. To get someone at the palace to give him a big bag full of gold in exchange for the return of the necklace and the locket with the little picture of the little girl's face. The face with all those awful, little, brown spots.

"So! Vhat you vant, Schlicter? Somethink for nothink. Dat I'm sure of." Shapiro was fat and he was lazy, but he knew everything about London and, he knew everyone who mattered.

"I aint lookink for no favours, Shapiro", retorted Sam, "I'll pay you vell for a name. The name of one who can get a written message into the hands of the Quveen."

"Not asking for much, Schlicter", said the smirking Semite, "you know vhat dat's gonna cost you? Ten silver pounds, dat's vhat! You got ten silver pounds and you got a name."

Slimy Sam turned around and opened his shirt. He pulled ten sovereigns from his money belt, closed his shirt and whirling 'round with a crooked smile on his crooked face, banged them down on the table. "Dere's your bloody money you robbing tief! Now, give me the name!"

As soon as he unlocked the door of his shop the panting Schlicter started yelling for the lackey that did all his dirty jobs. The boy came running from the back room and stood in front of Sam; a stupid smile on his dirty face. "Listen carefully boy and don't forget a vord! Take dis note", he said, writing furiously, "and go to the palace gate. Ask the guard to fetch Jamison, Jamison, I write it on da note, see and when she come give her da note and give her dis money, too! You got dat? Goot! Now go quickly, you fool, or it's a beatink!"

The boy ran off on his errand and the sweating, exhausted Sam, licking his fat, blue lips, poured himself some wine, and sat back with a huge sigh of contentment as he thought about his masterful plan.

The old hag had a plan as well. And, after midnight, as she poured the last drop of the bloody concoction into the community well she chanted the words of a magic incantation. "In the well, the blood of the king. In the bodies of the people, blackest, evil sickness bring."

At the palace, next day, the Queen read Schlicter's note. She shook her head and groaned and weakly rose to call for help. But, before she could utter a word a roar, like the sound of a hundred tornadoes, beat upon her ears. At the window she beheld thousands of dirty, ragged, screaming fiends forcing their way through the tall iron gates. The guards were trampled beneath the boots of the crushing mob. They rushed, as one, toward the palace doors. They were insane, foaming at the mouth. And, they wanted blood. The blood of their masters on the throne. The throne of the Mad King George. The throne that a little heart-shaped locket brought to dust.

END