Читать книгу Old Convict Times to Gold Digging Days - William Derricourt - Страница 5

Table of Contents

I was born on June 5, 1819, at a house between the Maypole and the Pack Horse Inns, in King's Norton, Worcestershire, England. I was one of a family of four brothers and two sisters. In due course of time I was sent to school, where, if I did not shine at my books, I certainly showed the same turn for mischief and adventure which distinguished my future life, though I can truly say that even in those early days I had a good heart, and was ready to stand up for the weak and oppressed.

The first adventure that I can remember had not anything much to do with those amiable traits. On the occasion to which I refer I had been crowned with the "dunce's cap," the mark of disgrace at the "dame's school" I attended, and had been locked into an empty room, doomed to remain there until the dismissal of the school. I looked about—as I had to do many times afterward—for the means of escape from what I considered undeserved tyranny. Seeing no way out but the chimney, I at once made up my mind to try that. Being of rather stout build for my age I only succeeded in climbing up the flue after much straining and squeezing. When I got to the top of the flue my troubles were not over, as I found the exit was narrowed by the usual chimney-pot, on the presence of which I might have counted. Nothing daunted I forced my head and arm through, but there stuck. In my struggles I unshipped the obstacle, and toppled over with it crash into a bed of onions which were the particular hobby of my good schoolmistress.

This incident had an importance little thought of at the time. Fifty years afterward, however, it was remembered and helped to identify me when, after all my wanderings, I returned home to become party to a Chancery suit. My other youthful adventures, as fights, etc., I will pass over as not so closely foreshadowing my future career, and will turn to a most important event—my apprenticeship.

I was apprenticed early to one Toby Duffell, a gun lock filer, and also a publican, living on the Leas, near the Ranters' Chapel, in Darliston. Here my teaching was so varied that my attention to my proper work was much hindered. My master was an inveterate fancier and breeder of bulldogs and game cocks. Bull-baiting on Monday and cock-fighting on Tuesday was the order of the week. Young as I was, having to stand on a box at the vice while using the file, these sports had a great attraction for me. I lost no opportunity of making myself acquainted with some of my master's dog-breaking tricks. The old story is true that, to prove the tenacity and courage of a bull slut, first one front paw and then the other would be lopped off, and after each operation the unfortunate beast would be tried to see whether it would face the charge of a bull. This barbarity was practised on beasts incapacitated from active service by loss of teeth. If they stood the test they were nursed and tended so as to be fit for breeding purposes. The most promising of a litter of pups had more care than their owner's children. As the pups grew up they were confined in a darkened place and were not allowed to see anyone but my master or myself, or be handled by any other person. So keen was Duffell about dog-fighting, that before a match I have seen him run his tongue all over his opponent's animal to make sure that no bitter aloes, or other drug, had been applied to prevent his dog seizing and holding.

Brought up in this school, and having it always dinned into me that the man who keeps a fighting dog must be a fighting man, it is very little wonder that I got some of the nature of those around me—men and dogs alike. Having shown some fighting qualities, I was frequently backed and forced to take part in what in Darliston was called "French and English."

For French and English two boys were matched to "fight to a finish" in this style: Each boy was perched on the shoulders of a man who held his (the boy's) legs tightly, leaving his arms free. In this position the two boys met in a real ding-dong, hammer and tongs sort of fashion. The boys were unable to get away, being kept up to it by their bearers, and after battering and bruising each other for a time one would have to cry for quarter.

From my many successful engagements in this style I was a great favorite among the fighting people, and was soon fitted to look on at something worse. In a close room where, for the sake of security, pokers and tongs were chained to the grate, a number of rats, bought for the purpose from the rat-catcher, were turned loose, and men with their hands tied behind their backs undertook to worry the beastly creatures, using, of course, only their teeth, as dogs might have done. The men competed for a money prize, or for the honor and glory as to who should kill the greatest number.

A curious Darliston custom to try the pluck of boys was observed at intervals of about six months. About thirty of the toughest youths of Darliston were picked out and matched against a like number of youths from Wilnon, which was a town about a mile distant, the canal from Birmingham to Walsall separating the two places. On the bridge crossing the canal and leading to a field known as The Leisures the parties met, and under the leadership of several captains and officers, endeavored, using no weapons but hands and feet, arms and legs, to force one another back. This was never accomplished without the loss of much blood and skin, and had sometimes resulted in fatal injuries. Boys were bruised and stunned, or fell, or were thrown, over the bridge into the canal, escaping as best they could. Drownings had been known. After the scrimmage the wounded were wheeled to their homes on barrows. On the left-hand side of the road, between Wilnon and the Canal Bridge stood a building known as the Red Barn. A murder had been committed in it, and it was generally supposed to be haunted. A young man from Wilnon, who used to come courting my master's servant, was so afraid of passing this barn after dark that he hit upon the strange notion of always pushing before him, when he started out late, a wheelbarrow with a creaking wheel that could be heard half a mile off. This he seemed to think would frighten the ghost. He was never meddled with anyhow, and brought his courting to a happy end.