The Orange Girl Part 30

'I thought not, by the look of you. Well, there's the master's side next; the fee for admission is only thirteen and sixpence: irons, half a guinea: the rent of a bed or part of a bed half a crown, and as for your food, what you like to order and pay for. No credit at this tavern, which is the sign of the Clinking Iron. Will that suit you?'

'No, I can pay nothing.'

'Then why waste time asking questions? There's the common side; you've got to go into that, and very grateful you ought to be that there is a common side at all for such a filthy Beast as you.'

My choice must needs be the last because I had no money at all: not a single solitary shilling--my obliging friends when they put their purse into my pocket as a proof of the alleged robbery, abstracted my own--which no doubt the worthy Professor of Sacred Theology had in his pocket while he was explaining the nature of the attack to the Constable.

The turnkey while he grumbled about waste of time--a prisoner ought to say at once if he had no money: officers of the Prison were not paid to tell stories to every ragged, filthy footpad; the common side was as good as any other on the way to Tyburn: what could a ragam.u.f.fin covered with blood and filth expect?--picked out a pair of irons: they were the rustiest and the heaviest that he could find: as he hammered them on he said that for half a crown he would drive the rivet into my heel only that he would rob his friend Jack Ketch of the pleasure of turning off a poor whining devil who came into Newgate without a copper. 'Damme!' he cried, as he finished his work, 'if I believe you ever tried to rob anyone!'

'I did not,' I replied. At which he laughed, recovering his good temper, and opening a door shoved me through and shut it behind me.

The common side of Newgate is a place which, though I was in it no more than two hours or so, remains fixed in my memory and will stay there as long as life remains. The yard was filled to overflowing with a company of the vilest, the filthiest, and the most shameless that it is possible to imagine. They were pickpockets, footpads, shoplifters, robbers of every kind; they were in rags; they were unwashed and unshaven; some of them were drunk; some of them were emaciated by insufficient food--a penny loaf a day was doled out to those who had no money and no friends: that was actually all that the poor wretches had to keep body and soul together: the place was crowded not only with the prisoners, but with their friends and relations of both s.e.xes; the noise, the cursings, the ribald laugh; the drunken song; the fighting and quarrelling can never be imagined. And, in the narrow s.p.a.ce of the yard which is like the bottom of a deep well, there is no air moving, so that the stench is enough, at first, to make a horse sick.

I can liken it to nothing but a sty too narrow for the swine that crowded it; so full of unclean beasts was it, so full of noise and pushing and quarrelling: so full of pa.s.sions, jealousies, and suspicions ungoverned, was it. Or I would liken it to a chamber in h.e.l.l when the sharp agony of physical suffering is for a while changed for the equal pains of such companionship and such discourse as those of the common side. I stood near the door as the turnkey had pushed me in, staring stupidly about. Some sat on the stone bench with tobacco-pipes and pots of beer: some played cards on the bench: some walked about: there were women visitors, but not one whose face showed shame or sorrow. To such people as these Newgate is like an occasional attack of sickness; a whipping is but one symptom of the disease: imprisonment is the natural cure of the disease; hanging is only the natural common and inevitable end when the disease is incurable, just as death in his bed happens to a man with fever.

While I looked about me, a man stepped out of the crowd. 'Garnish!' he cried, holding out his hand. Then they all crowded round, crying 'Garnish! garnish!' I held up my hands: I a.s.sured them that I was penniless. The man who had first spoken waved back the others with his hand. 'Friend,' he said, 'if you have no money, off with your coat.'

Then, I know not what happened, because I think I must have fallen into a kind of fit. When I recovered I was lying along the stone bench: my coat was gone: my waistcoat was gone; my shirt was in rags; my shoes--on which were silver buckles, were gone; and my stockings, which were of black silk. My head was in a woman's lap.

'Well done,' she said, 'I thought you'd come round. 'Twas the touching of the wound on your head. Brutes and beasts you are, all of you! all of you! One comfort is you'll all be hanged, and that very soon. It'll be a happy world without you.'

'Come, Nan,' one of the men said, 'you know it's the rule. If a gentleman won't pay his garnish he must give up his coat.'

'Give up his coat! You've stripped him to the skin. And him with an open wound in his head bleeding again like a pig!'

The people melted away: they offered no further apology; but the coat and the rest of the things were not returned.

My good Samaritan, to judge by her dress and appearance, was one of the commonest of common women--the wife or the mistress of a Gaol-bird; the companion of thieves; the accomplice of villains. Yet there was left on her still, whatever the habit of her life, this touch of human kindness that made her come to the a.s.sistance of a helpless stranger. No Christian could have done more. 'Forasmuch,' said Christ, 'as you did it unto one of these you did it unto Me.' When I read these words I think of this poor woman, and I pray for her.

'Lie still a minute,' she said, 'I will stanch the bleeding with a little gin,' she pulled out a flat bottle. 'It is good gin. I will pour a little on the wound. That can't hurt--so.' But it did hurt. 'Now, my pretty gentleman, for you are a gentleman, though maybe only a gentleman rider and woundily in want of a wash. Take a sip for yourself, don't be afraid. Take a long sip. I brought it here for my man, but he's dead. He died in the night after a fight in the yard here. He got a knife between his ribs,' she spoke of this occurrence as if such a conclusion to a fight was quite in the common way. 'Look here, sir, you've no business in this place. Haven't you got any friends to pay for the Master's side?

Now you're easier, and the bleeding has stopped. Can you stand, do you think?'

I made a shift to get to my feet, shivering in the cold damp November air. She had a bundle laying on the bench. "Tis my man's clothes,' she said. 'Take his coat and shoes. You must. Else with nothing but the boards to sleep upon you'll be starved to death. Now I must go and tell his friends that my man is dead. Well--he won't be hanged. I never did like to think that I should be the widow of a Tyburn bird.'

She put on me the warm thick coat that had been her husband's; she put on his shoes. I was still stupid and dull of understanding. But I tried to thank her.

Some weeks afterwards, when I was at length released, I ventured back into the prison in hopes of finding the name and the residence of the woman--Samaritan, if ever there was one. The turnkeys could tell me nothing. The gaol was full of women, they said. My friend was named Nan.

They were all Nans. She was the wife of a prisoner who died in the place. They were always dying on the common side. That was nothing. They all know each other by name; but it was six weeks ago; prisoners change every day; they are brought in; they are sent out to be hanged, pilloried, whipped or transported. In a word they knew nothing and would not take the trouble to inquire. What did it matter to these men made callous by intimacy with suffering, that a woman of the lower kind had done a kind and charitable action? Nevertheless, we have Christ's own a.s.surance--His words--His promise. The woman's action will be remembered on the day when her sins shall be pa.s.sed before a merciful Judge. Her sins! Alas! she was what she was brought up to be; her sins lie upon the head of those who suffer her, and those like to her, to grow up without religion, or virtue, or example, or admonition.

By this time I was growing faint with hunger as well as with loss of blood and fatigue. I had taken nothing for fourteen hours; namely, since supper the evening before the attack. The first effect of hunger is to stop the power of thought. There fell upon me a feeling of carelessness as if nothing mattered: the night in the watch-house: the appearance before the magistrate: my reception on the common side: all pa.s.sed across my brain as if they belonged to someone else. I rose with difficulty, but staggered and fell back upon the bench. My head was light: I seemed strangely happy. This lightness of head was quickly followed by a drowsiness which became stupor. How long I lay there I know not. I remember nothing until a heavy hand was laid on my shoulder.

'Come,' it was the voice of a turnkey. 'This is not the kind of place for an afternoon nap in November. Come this way. A lady wants to see you.'

He led me to the door of the common side: and threw it open: in the waiting-room was none other than Jenny herself. How had she learned what had happened?

'Oh! my poor Will!' she cried, the tears running down her cheeks. 'This is even worse than I expected. But first you must be made comfortable.

Here, you fellow,' she called the turnkey. 'Take him away. I will pay for everything. Let him be washed and get his wound dressed; give him a clean shirt and get him at once new clothes.'

'If your ladyship pleases--'

'Change these rusty irons for the lightest you have. Put him into the best cell that you have on the State side. Get a dinner for him: anything that is quickest--cold beef--ham--bread--a bottle of Madeira.

Go--quick.' She stamped her foot with authority; she put into the man's hand enough money to pay for half a dozen prisoners on the State side.

'Now, fly--don't crawl--fly!--one would think you were all asleep. A pretty place this is to sleep in!'

The man knocked off my heavy irons and subst.i.tuted a pair of lighter ones, highly polished and even ornamental. He took me away and washed me; it was in the turnkeys' room on the right hand of the entrance; he also with some dexterity dressed my wound, dressed and cleaned my hair--it was filled with clotted blood; he fitted me with new clothes, and in less time than one would think possible, I was taken back looking once more like a respectable person, even a gentleman if I chose to consider myself ent.i.tled to claim that empty rank. I found Jenny waiting for me in the best cell that Newgate could offer on the State side: a meal was spread for me, with a bottle of wine.

'Before we say a word, Will, sit down and eat. Heavens! You have had nothing since our supper last night.'

I checked an impulse to thank her: I drove back the swelling in my heart. Reader--I was too hungry for these emotions: I had first to satisfy starving nature. While I ate and drank Jenny talked.

'You shall tell me the whole story presently, Will. Meantime, go on with your dinner. You must want it, my poor friend. Now let me tell you why I am here. You know I was uneasy about the conspiracy that was hatching. I feared it might be meant for you. So great was my uneasiness that I bade my sister to keep watching and listening: this morning about one o'clock I went to the Black Jack myself to learn if she had discovered anything.

'Well, she had discovered everything. She said that at eleven o'clock this morning the two fellows called the Bishop and the Captain, whom I had taken out of the King's Bench, came to the Black Jack, laughing and very merry: they called for a mug of purl and a pack of cards: that while they played they talked out loud because there was no one in the house except themselves. Doll they disregarded as they always do, because Doll is generally occupied with her slate and her scores, which she adds up as wrong as she can. They said that it was as good as a play to see the Attorney playing the indignant friend of the family, and how their own evidence could not possibly be set aside, and the case was as good as finished and done with; that the fellow went off to Newgate as dumb as an ox to the shambles; and the poor devil had no money and no friends, and must needs swing, and the whole job was as clean and creditable piece of work as had ever been turned out. It must be hanging: n.o.body could get him off. Then they fell to wondering as well, what Mr. Probus had done it for; and what he would get by it; and whether (a speculation which pleased them most) he had not put himself into Mr. Merridew's power, in which case they might have the holy joy of seeing the attorney himself, when his rope was out, sitting in the cart.

And they congratulated each other on their own share in the job; ten guineas apiece, down, and a promise of more when the man was out of the way: with a long extension of time.' I condense Jenny's narrative which was long, and I alter the language which was wandering.

'When Doll told me all this,' she concluded, 'I had no longer any doubt that the man whom they had succeeded in placing in Newgate was none other than yourself, my poor Will--so I took a coach and drove here.'

I then told her exactly how everything had happened.

'I hope,' she said, 'that Matthew, if he is in the conspiracy, does not know what has been done. Besides, the chief gainer will be Probus, not Matthew. Remember, Will, it is just a race; if he can compa.s.s your death before Matthew becomes bankrupt, then he will get back all his money--all his money. Think of that: if not, he will lose the whole.

Well, Will, he thinks n.o.body knows except himself. He is mistaken. We shall see--we shall see.' So she fell to considering again.

'If there is a loophole of escape,' she went on, 'he will wriggle out.

Let us think. What do we know?'

'We only know through Ramage,' I replied. 'Is that enough to prove the conspiracy? I know what those two men are who are the leading witnesses--how can I prove it? I know that they were suborned by Probus and that they are in the power of Merridew. How can I prove it? I know that Probus has talked to my cousin about my possible death, but what does that prove? I know that he will benefit by my death to the amount of many thousands, but how can I prove it? My mouth will be closed.

Where are my witnesses?'

'You can't prove anything, Will. And therefore you had better not try.'

'Jenny.' The tears came to my unmanly eyes. 'Leave me. Go, break the news to Alice, and prepare her mind to see me die.'

'I will break the news to Alice, but I will not prepare her mind to see you die. For, my dear cousin, you shall not die.' She spoke with a.s.surance. She was standing up and she brought her hand down upon the table with a slap which with her flashing eyes and coloured cheek inspired confidence for the moment. 'You shall not die by the conspiracy of these villains.'

'How to prevent them?'

'It would be easy if their friends would bear evidence against them.

But they will not. They will sit in the Court and admire the tragic perjuries of the witnesses. There is one rule among my people which is never broken; no one must peach on his brother. Shall dog bite dog? If that rule is broken it is never forgiven--never--so long as the offender lives.'

'Then, what can we do?'

'The short way would be to buy them. But in this respect they cannot be bought. They will rob or murder or perjure themselves with cheerfulness, but they will not peach on their brother. Money will not tempt them.

Jealousy might, but there are no women in this case. Revenge might, but there is here no private quarrel. Besides, they are all in the hands of the man Merridew. To thwart him would bring certain destruction on their heads. And if there was any other reason, they are naturally anxious to avoid a Court of Justice. They would rather see their own children hanged than go into a court to give evidence, true or false.'

'Then I must suffer, Jenny.'

'Nay, Will, I said not so much--I was only putting the case before myself. I see many difficulties but there is always a way out--always an end.'

'Always an end.' I repeated. 'Oh! Jenny. What an end!'