Into the Highways and Hedges Part 54

And Mrs. Thorpe certainly did believe in it.

She was surprised at her own anger; she hardly knew herself in these days. Her indignation was still hot when she reached the tiny room in which she lived, but by that time it had become tinged with anxiety. She feared she had made matters worse for Barnabas by still further embittering his enemy. Yet she could not have let Mr. Sauls help her!

Fortunately, her hands were full of work; she had little time for meditation. She had been seized with a sudden inspiration to take up again one of the few accomplishments of her girlhood, and her efforts had been crowned with unexpected success. She had been clever at modelling and colouring wax fruit; and the sight of her old tools, which had somehow come into Laura's possession, had suggested a possible means of making money.

The sum that her father had left her would have paid for her board and lodging, but she saved every penny she could for the preacher's defence.

She worked hard, allowing herself little rest, and going out only to the prison grating, or for actual necessities. Her room was at the very top of a tall narrow house close to the gaol. Tom had left her there with many misgivings on his part, but with no apparent sinking of courage on hers. She wrote occasionally to him and to her father-in-law, and her letters were always cheerful. "I am taking care of myself beautifully. I am learning all sorts of things," she wrote.

The last sentence was very true. Meg learnt many things during those long months of waiting for the a.s.sizes.

She became a familiar figure in the "prison crowd." Most of the _habitues_ of the outer yard knew her by sight, and many of them knew her story as well (though she could not imagine how it had got about), and they would stare at the "lydy," with amused and generally very kindly curiosity.

At first, the rough crowd rather alarmed her. In the midst of this mighty city, on which she looked from her skylight window, she felt the sense of isolation more deeply than on any mountain top.

For some weeks she did not speak to any one when on her way to or from the gaol; but, by degrees, her sympathy went out to the women who, like herself, were waiting anxiously.

On the first occasion when Barnabas failed to come to the grating, she had, as we have seen, made a fruitless attempt to get into the ward by an appeal to headquarters; but a second failure increased her uneasiness. She was turning from the bars disheartened, when a sc.r.a.p of paper was thrust into her hand by the girl next her, who remarked by the way: "You weren't 'alf spry, lydy. You'd never 'ave got it if it 'adn't been for my Bill and me."

The sc.r.a.p had been wrapped round a bone, and dexterously thrown through the bars. The writing was the preacher's, but so shaky that Meg found it barely legible.

"Ye've no call to be scared, my la.s.s. I've had a bit of a fight, but am all right. Only my face is a sight, and I'd not have you startled by it, so I've kept away--and don't you come for a week or two.

"BARNABAS."

The note brought relief to Meg, who had feared he must be very ill. It was like him to be so afraid of "scaring" her by the sight of bruises: since the day she had come back to him, her husband's fear of frightening her had always been on the alert.

She thanked the girl warmly, who, thereupon, confided to the "lydy" that she was "down on her luck".

She was the same very young so-called "wife" who had attracted Meg's attention on the first visit to Newgate.

She was crying because she had no offering for "Bill". She had never before failed to bring something with her on visiting day. Bill, indeed, lived a great deal better than his poor faithful little pal did, and on the fat of the land. "Sally" kept him supplied in beer, tobacco, and even meat (though she habitually went hungry herself), and he took his detention very comfortably.

Meg offered half the contents of her slender purse for the further delectation of Bill, thereby making to herself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. She gained an immense amount of information, and got her note "pa.s.sed in"; but she also heard details of the row in the prison that made her sick at heart.

"But Bill says not one of 'em 'ull touch 'im now," the girl declared.

"He says he wouldn't 'imself, not if he was paid for it, and the preacher bound 'and and foot; he says it give 'im a turn to see the preacher stand up to 'em agin, when they'd handled him so afore that he was still as weak as a cat. It seemed as if there must be some one behind backing 'im, it were so unnatural like; and it turned Bill all of a tremble, like as if it was something else than a man. His voice wasn't above a whisper 'cos he were so feeble, but they just 'eld their breath to listen to 'im--it's queer, ain't it?"

Meg was trembling too.

"Whose voice? the preacher's? but he is so strong," she said. "What did they do to him?"

"They got 'im down and kicked 'im," said the girl. "You see he'd riled 'em, and there's a good many of 'em in the yard, and it's just the way men's made," added Sally leniently. "If they feel they've got some one under, they just _must_ jump on 'em. I b'lieve they can't 'elp it--and 'is ribs got broke. Lor', don't look so! he's up again anyway, and 'as got the upper 'and of 'em all too! and I'll teach you to make 'im a deal more comfortable than I 'spect _you've_ known how."

But, alas! Meg's preacher would have no "extra" comforts, and sternly forbade the "pa.s.sing in" of food to himself. The gaol allowance was enough to live on, he said, and his la.s.s must keep her money.

Perhaps his abstention added to the awe of him in which he held Newgate, voluntary poverty having always been a mighty power in the world, and especially respected by free livers.

Then came a day when Meg found "Bill's girl" shrieking and stamping with a wild abandonment of grief that had something terribly inhuman in its utter absence of control.

Bill had been put in irons for a playful a.s.sault on a fellow-prisoner with a hot poker, and Sally had bitten the gatekeeper because he wouldn't let her in.

"She doesn't know what she's doing; she's quite mad with pa.s.sion and trouble," said Meg pitifully. And she put her arms round "Bill's girl,"

and pulled her away, and took her home with her and gave her some tea and buns, and consoled her with startling success; for the access of grief being past, Sally's spirits swung to the other extreme, with the wonderful rapidity of her highly emotional cla.s.s.

Meg had not been the preacher's companion for months without imbibing some knowledge of what she had to deal with. Her heart sank rather; but for his sake who never in his life turned from any possibility of helping any one, she did her best for the girl.

It happened after that--she could hardly have told how--that, week by week, she learned more of the women who haunted Newgate.

There was nothing in her room worth stealing, and she had little to give; but "Bill's girl" liked to come late in the evening and sit by watching Meg model, and listening while she sang, for Meg preferred singing to talking.

"Let me stay up here, for I don't want to keep company with any other while Bill's laid by," she said once. "I ain't as bad as some."

So she stayed--and she was not the only one.

The small room would be full sometimes. "But at least there are fewer of them in the streets," Meg said to herself.

She was often struck by her visitors' generosity. They were always ready to give away their last sixpence for the "boys in quod". She pitied them with a pity that made her heart ache.

She seldom preached; and yet, to some of them, the thought of her was a restraining power, a something holy, and not one of them would fight or even swear in her presence.

She took pains to keep her room tidy, but generally bought her food ready cooked, which, if extravagant in one way, saved her time and strength. If Barnabas would have allowed it, she would have lived on buns and tea, and supplied him with meat; but, on that point he remained firm.

So the weeks went by, and the days grew shorter and colder. Meg was determined to be very cheerful, since he had let her stay in London, and would not allow that she felt either cold or depression. She would sit on her bed with her feet tucked under her to keep them tolerably warm, and would thaw her fingers at her candle; but she was anxious that Barnabas should _know_ how happily she was getting on.

There is so little profit in being cheerful for one's own benefit; and she begged hard to see him on the next visiting day; when, alas, in spite of his warnings, she was shocked.

"My dear! I didn't mean ye to ha' come this week,--only, when ye said ye wanted to, I couldn't say no to 'ee," he said. "But ye know, though it ain't at all becoming to ha' one's face divided wi' sticking plaster, it's not dangerous! Come, little la.s.s, Dr. Merrill told me as I was enough to scare a child into a fit, but I said as my wife wasn't a baby."

"It's not that," said Meg, trying to smile. "I shouldn't care in the least what your face looked like; but----Oh, Barnabas, how they must have hurt you!"

It was his evident weakness, the want of strength even in the sound of his voice, and the sight of his hand trembling, that shook her.

"I hope they'll get all they deserve!" cried Meg.

"Hush! Ye doan't know," said the preacher. "Ye doan't know what's been against them, Margaret. If only I can make the moast o' this chance.

Why, my la.s.s, ye needn't be so sorry ower a few bruises. I never was much averse to a fight, an', happen, I gave some too! an' I didn't feel aught so long as I was fighting neither; it was only 'comin to' was a bit painful. Now we've had enough o' that, it ain't worth it. Talk to me about yoursel'!"

And Meg, with an effort, did as he bid her. It was a short interview, for he really wasn't fit to stand, and she found it hard work to talk of herself when she was longing to hear about him. But Barnabas had no desire to tell his wife too much about the inside of Newgate. Why should he give her bad dreams?

Meg told him of her encounter with George Sauls, and about the wonderful prices she had got for her wax fruit, of which she was rather proud, and about "Bill's girl".

"But if you were there, you'd know better what to say to them," she cried. "I want to ask you constantly."

"Poor little la.s.s! Ye've not got Tom either, now," said Barnabas. "Nor dad, who, I believe, allus suited ye best of us all; but I think ye do finely, Margaret."

And Meg went back to finish some flowers and take them to the shop that always received them, and came home with the money in her hand, and sang with her very odd "cla.s.s" in the evening, and sat up to write to her husband's relatives, all the time with the lump in her throat, that the sight of those "few bruises" had brought.

She began to tell Tom how ill the preacher looked, then tore the letter up, and rewrote it.