A Very Unusual Pursuit Read Online Free PDF

You look like a clever girl to me. Have you no paupers’ schools in your neighbourhood?’
    ‘Yes, but . . .’ Birdie trailed off and glanced at Alfred, who was scowling. ‘The master there can be heavy-handed,’ she finally confessed. ‘He cut me across the face, once. Besides, I ain’t no scholar. I’m a bogler’s girl.’
    Miss Eames didn’t look convinced. But she abandoned the subject, crossing the room to give Alfred his shilling in advance. ‘Tell me where we should meet again, Mr Bunce,’ she requested. ‘Or have you not settled the time and place of your next job of work?’
    ‘Oh, aye,’ said Alfred. ‘I know where that ’ll be.’ Pocketing his money, he went on to explain that two young mudlarks, or ‘grubbers’, had gone missing while foraging for coal and wood on the riverbank. Though one of the boys had been an excellent swimmer, police had ruled that both of them must have drowned.
    ‘It’s a dangerous stretch o’ river, with tides and boats and bogs,’ Alfred related. ‘But there’s a tosher I know, name o’ Crabbe, and he says—’
    ‘I’m sorry, a what?’ Miss Eames had returned to the couch, where she had retrieved her book and pencil. ‘What is a “tosher”, pray?’
    ‘Don’t you know, miss?’ Birdie couldn’t hide her amazement. ‘A tosher is someone as trawls the sewers for a living, in search o’ things to sell.’
    ‘And this tosher were down near the outfall at Shadwell,’ Alfred continued, ‘when he saw a grindylow take a boy, or so he says. By which he means—’
    ‘A Yorkshire water monster!’ Miss Eames exclaimed. ‘Yes, I’ve heard of grindylows. They are a species of nixie or water sprite, associated with bogs, lakes and meres. They’re said to eat children, like Peg Powler or Jenny Greenteeth.’
    Alfred frowned. ‘I know nothing o’ Peg Powler, nor Jenny Greenteeth,’ he rumbled. ‘As for this grindylow, it’s just a bogle by another name.’
    ‘Oh, but there are many kinds of bogle, Mr Bunce.’ Again Miss Eames jumped up, this time heading for a book-cupboard from which she extracted a large, heavy volume bound in calfskin. ‘If you consult the antiquarian texts, you’ll see that there are any number of water monsters scattered throughout England. The question we must ask ourselves is: are they all local versions of the same beast, or are they different monsters entirely, with different habits and characteristics?’
    She thrust the book under Alfred’s nose, so sharply that he recoiled. When Birdie rushed to join him, she saw that the pages had fallen open at a picture of a creature – half hag, half troll – with long, tangled hair and a ragged cloak on its back.
    ‘That don’t look like no bogle I ever saw,’ Birdie commented, cocking her head to one side.
    ‘It is perhaps drawn from a verbal description,’ Miss Eames said delicately, ‘and not from life.’
    ‘A bogle’s a bogle.’ Alfred’s tone was gruff. ‘I don’t care what it looks like, long as I can kill it.’
    ‘Them sewer pipes is thick with bogles,’ Birdie added. ‘Ain’t that right, Mr Bunce?’ To Miss Eames she remarked, ‘It’s very likely me own ma died on account of a bogle. She were a tosher, see, but left me in a drain one day, and no one’s seen her since.’
    ‘But how dreadful!’ Miss Eames looked quite shocked. She set down her book, her brow creased in dismay. ‘Is that why you became a bogler’s apprentice? To revenge yourself on your mother’s killer?’
    ‘Oh, no!’ Birdie assured her cheerfully. ‘I were a tosher too until Mr Bunce heard me sing. You need a sweet voice in this trade.’
    ‘You do?’
    ‘A voice like honey,’ Birdie confirmed. Then she burst into song. ‘ I’d hang the highway robber – hang boys, hang! I’d hang the burglar jobber – hang boys, hang! ’
    All at once the drawing-room door opened again. But this time, instead of admitting Mary the housemaid, it yielded to the pressure of an elderly