The System of the World

The Stone Anvil, the High Hall,
Newgate Prison

“I HAVE FOUND GOD!” Jack Shaftoe announces.

“What, here!?” says his interlocutor, a heavy-set chap in a black leather hood.

They are standing in a queue in the High Hall. Or rather Jack Shaftoe is, and the hooded man has come up to him, the better to inspect Jack’s Hanging-Suit.

The High Hall might be a bit of a grand name for it. It is simply the biggest room in the gaol, outside of the Chapel, and so it is where fitness-conscious felons come to toddle around, in an endless ragged procession. The center of their orbit is a block of stone set in the middle of the floor, and equipped with a few basic smithy-tools. Normally they are a wordy bunch, the Hall a hurricanoe of profanity, a Vortex of Execration. Today they are gagged by their own amazement. All stare inwards toward the two most famous Jacks in London: Shaftoe and Ketch, exchanging civilities like Addison and Steele. There is no sound except for the scraping of their chains on the floor, and the organized chants of the Mobb outside.

Then an ear-splitting clang sounds from the stone anvil. Another prisoner has just had his ankle-fetters struck off. The only restraint upon him now is a length of cord with which Ketch has lately bound his elbows together behind his back.

“The communion-bread, you know, is in the shape of coins,” Shaftoe remarks.

Then he thinks better of it, for Ketch thinks it’s funny, and forgets himself, and exposes his empty tooth-sockets, as well as a few that are soon to be empty. For the hood unfortunately stops at the level of his nose. Somewhere, Ketch must have a whole foot-locker filled with false teeth, as no man in London is in a better position to collect them; but he has not worn any today.

“But how richer a treasure are those coins of bread, than ones of gold!” Shaftoe exclaims. “For gold and silver may buy admission to a Clubb, or other place of debauchery. But coins of bread have bought me admission to the Kingdom of Heaven. Assuming I can manage a few things in the next couple of hours.”

Ketch has utterly lost interest. How many times has he heard this identical speech from a client? He excuses himself very civilly, jumps to the head of the queue, and devotes a few moments to pinioning the next prisoner’s elbows with another length of cord.

When Ketch comes back, it is evident he has been thinking about Jack’s Hanging-Suit. “After this,” he remarks, “it will not be possible for you to change clothes.”

“Oh, you are a subtile one, Jack Ketch!” Shaftoe remarks.

“It is just that-according to some who style themselves in the know-you are destitute.”

“You think I borrowed this suit!? Fie on all such gossip-mongers, Mr. Ketch, you know better than to pay heed to them. This suit is every bit as much my own property, as that handsome hood is yours.”

Another clang. Ketch excuses himself again and binds up the bloke who’s directly in front of Jack. While he is doing so, he sniffles once or twice, juicily, as if the air in the High Hall does not agree with him. But of all men in London, Ketch must be the least sensitive to miasmas, damps, and vapours.

When Ketch turns back round, Shaftoe’s startled, and even a bit alarmed, to see, below the fringe of the hood, a teardrop trickling down his cheek. Ketch steps close to Shaftoe, close enough that Shaftoe, craning his neck (for Ketch is a head taller) can resolve individual cavities in Ketch’s last remaining incisor. “You can’t imagine what this means to me, Mr. Shaftoe.”

“No, I cannot, Mr. Ketch. What does it mean to you?”

“I’m in debt, Mr. Shaftoe, deep in debt.”

“You don’t say!”

“My Betty-the missus-can’t stop having little ones. Every year for the last eight.”

“You have eight little Ketches? How remarkable, that a man in your line of work should be such a fount of new life.”

“After the last hanging, one of my creditors tried to arrest me in the street! I’ve never been so ashamed.”

“Indeed! For a man in such a respectable profession, to be accosted in a public place, and accused of indebtedness, that is a grave humiliation!”

“What would my boys think of me if I wound up here, in Newgate?”

“You have wound up here in Newgate, Mr. Ketch. But never mind, I take your meaning.”

“They’d have to come and live with me. Here.”

“It is not the best environment for raising small children,” Shaftoe allowed.

“That’s why-excuse me-” Ketch steps behind Shaftoe, draws out another length of cord, and strings it between the latter’s elbows. Ketch makes a sliding knot, and begins to draw it tighter, bringing Shaftoe’s elbows closer together-but only a bit.

“It would be a shame to wrinkle the Hanging-Suit,” Shaftoe remarks.

“A great shame, Mr. Shaftoe, but more important to me is your comfort.”

Shaftoe smiles in spite of himself at this polite evasion. And with that smile on his face, he steps forward, raises a knee, and places one immaculate polished shoe on the stone anvil. “Do have a care with that hammer, my good man,” he says to the smith-a pox-ravaged prisoner who looks like he has been in Newgate since the Fire. “These clothes mean nothing to me, but they will soon be inherited by my good friend Mr. Ketch here. For he is not only my friend, and my sole heir, but the executor of my will. By the immemorial traditions of this Realm, all that I wear upon my person, and the contents of its pockets, are his at the moment of my expiration. In those pockets reside several coins of diverse denominations. If you go about your work soberly, and leave my shoes unmarked, Mr. Ketch may choose to reach into one of my pockets and fish out a rather large coin for your Civility Money; but if you ruin them, Mr. Ketch may have to recoup his losses by giving you nothing.”

In consequence of this, the smith spends more time getting Jack’s chains off than all the other condemnees put together. But get them off he does, and for his pains receives a handsome shilling from Shaftoe’s pocket and Ketch’s hand.