His small lipless mouth and receding chin were partially hidden by a ragged, nicotine-stained moustache and beard. Through the tangled hair, two big uneven front teeth could be glimpsed.
Over his short, thin but powerful frame, the Conk was wearing baggy canvas trousers held up by a pair of suspenders, a filthy shirt with a red cravat, and a bizarre blue surtout with epaulettes, which may well have been a relic from Admiral Nelson's day.
"29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields," he grunted. "One flue, narrow. We'll take a goose, just in case."
Swinburne stifled a yawn. He'd experienced three days of exhausting work. His hands were cut and blistered. His pores were clogged with soot.
"Ain't you finished yet?"
"Yes," answered the poet. "All packed."
"So shove it in the wagon and 'itch up the 'orse. Do I 'ave to tell yer everything?"
Swinburne went out into the yard and did as directed. His buttocks were burning from the beating he'd taken. He would have whistled happily were he not so tired.
A little later, he and the Conk, wrapped in overcoats and with their caps pulled down tightly, were seated at the front of the wagon and heading northwestward across Whitchapel. As the vehicle rumbled over the cobbles, its bumps and jolts sent pain lancing up through the poet's sensitised backside.
"Heavenly!" he muttered gleefully.
"What's that?" grunted the Conk.
"Nothing, sir," Swinburne replied. "I was just thinking about the job."
"Think about steering this old nag. There'll be time to think about the bleedin' job when we get there."
It was half past four. Spots of rain began to fall. The weather, unpredictable as ever, was taking a turn for the worse but it could never rain hard enough to wash away the stench of the East End. After three days, Swinburne's nose was becoming attuned to it, blocking out the mephitic stink. There were always surprises, though; areas where the putrid gases threatened to overpower him and bring up what little he had in his stomach.
The sights, too, were sickening. The streets were crowded with the worst dregs of humanity, most of them shuffling, slumping, or sprawling aimlessly, their eyes desolate, their poverty having pushed them into an animalalmost vegetative-state. Others moved about, seeking a pocket to pick, a mug to rob, or a mark to swindle. There were beggars, prostitutes, pimps, drug addicts, and drunkards in profusion; children, too, playing desultory games in puddles of filth; and, occasionally, the white bonnets of the Sisterhood of Noble Benevolence could be seen bobbing through the mob; the women travelling in threes, trying to do good-distributing gruel and roughly woven blankets-managing to move through this destitute hell without being harmed; how, no one knew, though some claimed they possessed a supernatural grace which protected them.
There were labourers, too: hawkers, costermongers, carpenters, and coopers, tanners, slaughterhouse workers, and builders. There were publicans, of course, and pawnbrokers, betting touts, and undertakers; but the majority of the employed were invisible, locked away in the workhouses and factories where they slaved backbreaking hour after backbreaking hour in return for a short sleep on a hard bed and a daily bowl of slop.
Through this milling throng, the wagon passed. Swinburne steered it along tight lanes bordered by rookeries whose gables leaned precariously inward, threatening to topple into each other, burying anyone on the cobbles beneath. Grimy water dripped onto him from strings of hanging garments.
The sweep and his apprentice stopped and picked up a goose from a poulterer's, pushing it into a sack that the Conk kept squeezed between his legs as they continued their journey.
"It's a struggler," he noted, approvingly.
Ten minutes or so later they reached the Truman Brewery and turned into Hanbury Street, drawing up outside number 29. The premises was a large building with many rooms and an ironmonger's shop at the front. A notice in the window announced: "Rooms to Let. Apply Within only if Respectable. Strictly No Foreigners."
"'Obble the 'orse and unload the 'quipment," ordered Sneed, jumping down to the pavement. With the sack in his hand, he went into the shop while Swinburne chained the horse's ankles together.
The poet dragged the heavy holdall from the back of the wagon and waited. A moment later Sneed emerged and gestured to a second door.
"This way," he grunted, pushing it open.
Swinburne followed his master down a passageway and through a second door which opened onto a backyard; a patchwork of stone, grass, and dirt. It was surrounded by a high wooden fence and contained a small shed and a privy. Three steps rose to a back door, which the Conk knocked on. It was opened by an elderly crinoline-clad woman, her hair in curlpapers, who gestured for them to enter.
They moved through a scullery and kitchen into a short hallway then passed through a door to the right and found themselves in a small parlour.
"All right, ma'am-you can leave us to it," said Sneed.
"Mind you don't chip me china," advised the old lady as she departed.
Swinburne looked around but couldn't see any china. The room smelled musty and damp.
"Jump to it!" snapped the Conk. "Lay out the sacking."
He sat on a shabby armchair and pulled the bottle of moonshine from his pocket, taking swigs, watching Swinburne work, and giving the sack between his knees an occasional slap.
Swinburne soon had the floor and furniture, what there was of it, covered.
The master sweep slipped the bottle back into his jacket, slid off the chair, and poked his head into the fireplace, looking up.
"Nope," he grunted. "You'll not get up there. Why the Beetle 'ad to send me a hulking great helephant like you I don't know."
Swinburne grinned. He'd been called many things in his time but "hulking great helephant" was a first.
The Conk twisted, shot out a hand, and slapped the poet's face. Swinburne gasped.
"You can wipe that smile off yet ugly mug!" snarled the Conk. "You've got too much hattitude, you 'ave."
They returned to the wagon outside and Swinburne untied the ropes that secured the ladder. Sneed slid it off-it was too heavy for Swinburne-and heaved it up until its top rested against the side of the roof, its topmost rung just below the eaves.
"Get up there and drop down the rope, an' be quick about it!"
"Yes, sir," said the poet, whose face was stinging pleasantly.
While the Conk returned to the room behind the shop, Swinburne wound a long length of rope around his little shoulders then scrambled up the ladder. He now faced his most dangerous task: he had to cross the sloping roof to the chimney pot, a sloping roof whose tiles were slick from the spitting rain.
Lifting himself off the top rung and over the eaves, he lay on his right hip and pressed the sides of his boots against the wet surface. With his palms flat against the tiles, he began to push himself up. Bit by bit, he advanced over the shingles toward the ridge.
It took nearly ten painstaking minutes but he made it without slipping and, with a sigh of relief, stood and braced himself against the chimney. He unravelled the rope and lowered it into the flue.
"About bleedin' time, you lazy bugger," came a hollow voice from below.
The rope jumped and jerked as the Conk tied its end around the goose's legs. Swinburne could hear the bird honking in distress.
"All right, up with 'er," came Sneed's command.
Swinburne started to haul the unfortunate-and very heavy-goose up the shaft. Its panicked flapping and cries echoed up the flue.
This was the method they used to loosen the caked soot from the inside of the chimney when the space was too narrow for Swinburne to climb up and do it himself. Though he felt sympathy for the traumatised bird, the poet preferred it this way, for climbing a flue was an intensely difficult and dangerous affair, as the bruises and grazes on his knees, elbows, shoulders, and hands testified.