The Edge of the Crowd. Ross Gilfillan

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СКАЧАТЬ the style, Nipper!’

      The rope was pulled hard and the dog launched into the air. Flexing the muscles of its neck, it swung from side to side, frantically arranging a better hold for its teeth. These struggles and contortions were observed with keen interest by all about the pit. Saggers stood back and waved a hand at the gyrating animal. ‘Did you ever see a stronger dog? Here’s more muscles than Billingsgate! Who’ll have him? Who’ll make me a decent offer?’

      The dog gave out joyous, slobbering growls as it arced wildly, but then, unable to unfix its teeth from thick hemp, it started to choke on its own saliva.

      ‘He’s had his fill already, Willum,’ observed a man. ‘What’s wanted is a dog with tenacity!’

      ‘I’ll show you that!’ said the other and before the animal could extricate itself and drop to the floor, William Saggers had taken a guttering candle from a table and slipped it directly beneath the beam. Now whenever the dog passed over the source of heat, it convulsed and thrashed wildly as it tried to remove itself from the source of pain. It swung high but, inevitably, its pendulum course returned it to the flame where it shuddered and flailed with increased violence. The mob cheered with one voice as the squealing dog was scorched again and roundly condemned the soldier Ratcliffe when he stepped into the pit and kicked away the candle. ‘Enough, you half-wit, Saggers, I want some dog left, don’t I?’

      ‘You’ll ’ave ’im, then, Captain? A reg’lar bargain he is, at five guineas.’

      ‘You’ll get your money afterwards,’ said Ratcliffe. ‘Anyone can hang on a rope and no doubt some of us will. I’ll see the dog going about his business first.’

      The soldier quietened the quaking dog and quit the ring as William Saggers said, ‘Bet now, gentlemen, and remember that this fine dog is for sale arterwards to the highest bidder. Never mind that the captain’s set ‘is expert eye on him.’

      Saggers climbed from the pit and stepped up to his chair, an old Windsor carver which was elevated upon some unseen dais and situated at one side of Hilditch. Thus enthroned, he began taking money, giving change and marking slips of paper presented by those about. A shadowy figure without the inn, the ring of gas flames above showed Saggers to be a figure worthy of more particular notice. His face was jowly, his eyes squinty and the line of his mouth thin. Beneath his eyes, below his forehead and lip, shadows had formed that exaggerated the lines of his middle age and his foreshortened visage looked as if it had been sat upon and crumpled, like a mislaid hat. His head weighed upon his shoulders like a cannon ball on a soft cushion, folding into his flabby blue-chinned neck which was squeezed so tightly into its collar that folds of flesh spilled over the top. Neither his waistcoat nor his overcoat were buttoned and nor did it seem possible that the two sides of his apparel could ever be caused to meet.

      With the attentions of all fastened upon this individual, Hilditch allowed his terror to subside and to become interested himself. This singularly repulsive specimen was worthy of further study. He would relish introducing him into the well-upholstered homes of the Morning Messenger’s readers. The subject of Hilditch’s meditations spat and called out, impatiently, ‘All finished, jintlemin? Then let’s have ’em in, Jack!’

      Heavy boots clomped upon the stairs and the crowd parted to allow the passage of a sharp-nosed, wiry man who carried some heavy burden. As he came closer, Hilditch saw that it was a cage and within the mesh a dark mass appeared to move. For an instant Hilditch thought that here was some small caged bear but then flaring gas sparked in a hundred tiny eyes and as the cage was jolted against the pit wall, the amorphous shape split apart and rearranged itself at either end and upon the roof of the cage. Tails flicked from the grill like the tongues of lizards; Hilditch heard now the squealing and saw that in the cage was a great mass of brown rats. The man deposited the cage on the floor of the pit. He bent to tie two pieces of string about the bottoms of his trousers, observing that he ‘could do wivart rats up there!’ and untwisted the loop of wire that fastened the cage.

      II

      The cage door being let open, the rats – so quick do they move that Hilditch can only roughly estimate that their number is around fifty – pour out on the boards and scatter this way and that, around and about the pit, nosing in crevices and searching for an egress, of which there is none. By Hilditch’s side, Captain Ratcliffe struggles to hold back the salivating and growling terrier as it strains and fights to be let go. The rats, sensing extreme danger, pile themselves at the opposing side of the pit, scrambling one upon the other in pyramids of fur and whiskers, screeching and tearing at each other, the topmost jumping hopelessly for the rim of the pit, where a man flashes an amber-toothed grin as he swipes at them with a club.

      ‘All ready, sirs?’ calls the wiry man as he shakes free a rat that has fixed itself upon the cloth of his trousers. He climbs from the pit and winks at Ratcliffe. ‘Then we’ll let the fancy commence!’

      The soldier leans forward and drops the dog into the pit. It pauses a moment to size up the situation and then plunges into the largest pile of rodents, snuffling deep among the shrieking, squirming pile until it extracts a fat brown rat on which it fixes its teeth so hard that dark specks of blood appear on the rat’s neck. The dog shakes its prey as violently as it was itself shaken upon the rope. It bites harder, forcing more blood from the throat of its victim and then throws the rat upon the floor, where it lies convulsing in its death throes.

      The dog darts again at the pile and pulls out another, smaller rat and, making an excited misjudgement, crushes the head in its jaws. It spits out the mutilated animal and despatches three more rats with greater efficiency. Now it has the measure of the job in hand it wags its tail and takes its time, plucking a rat from here, a rat from there; it is content to allow others to race between its legs as it breaks another small neck. So complacent is the dog that an unexpected reversal is all the more alarming.

      Once more rushing a number of rats, the dog suddenly withdraws its snout, throws back its head and yelps. A rat hangs heavily from the dog’s jowls, its teeth firmly fixed in the soft skin. The dog attempts to shake free the rat and in so doing tears its own flesh. It squeals and backs away from the pain. Injured and confused, the dog turns on the remaining rats with renewed vigour and, loudly encouraged by the spectators who hang over the pit sides and sometimes beat the rats from the walls with sticks, kills one after another in quick succession. The number of dead steadily grows until more are laid stopped upon the floor than are still scattering about the ring.

      A man close to Hilditch points to his pocket-watch. ‘I count thirty-eight dead or dying. Another twelve in three minutes, my beauty, another twelve!’

      ‘Don’t reckon your pot yet,’ Captain Ratcliffe says. ‘That dog is tiring of the game.’

      No sooner has the other replied, ‘Says the expert?’ than he too sees that the dog’s attention is wavering. The gash in its cheek still bleeds and though the number of scuttling rats continues to drop, the dog is dealing out death in a most desultory fashion. The rats themselves appear to sense the change and are becoming bolder. One sits on its hind legs, rubbing its whiskers with tiny paws. Small black eyes glint in the gaslight and Hilditch is seduced by the absurd idea that the thing is praying to him, as some omnipotence holding the gift of life or death, when the dog flies at it, pinning its torso to the floor with sharp claws as it tears off the head with its teeth.

      This final violence has thoroughly sated the dog and, pausing to cock its leg and piss against the pile of matted fur near the centre, it sees its present owner and jumps its paws on to the rim of the pit, where its ears are scratched. Unmolested, the last few rats traverse the floor without purpose.

      The match СКАЧАТЬ