The Road to Paris Part 23

"I thank you for the rescue," said d.i.c.k to the stalwart leader of the victorious party, as that leader held up a lantern before d.i.c.k's face.

"You may call it a rescue, if you like," growled the leader, "but some would rather die in a street brawl than swing at Tyburn. Edward Lawson, otherwise known as Captain Ted," and the man, who had p.r.o.nounced these names in an official manner, waited as if for d.i.c.k to answer to them.

"If you mean that you take me for a person of that name," said d.i.c.k, "I have to tell you that you are disappointed."

"Oho!" was the answer. "That game ain't worthy of you, captain! But if you wish to play it out, you can play it out in Bow Street, and at the Old Bailey after that. I arrest you, Edward Lawson, commonly called Captain Ted, on a charge of highway robbery. Here's the warrant, which G.o.d knows I've carried around long enough! You know the usual formality, captain."

And at this the bewildered d.i.c.k unresistingly saw himself seized by his arms, while another of the constables--for constables these were--adorned him with a pair of handcuffs. He was then marched back to Fleet Street--for it appeared he was no common prisoner, for the nearest roundhouse--and thence, by way of the Strand and other familiar thoroughfares, to a building in Bow Street, celebrated for the fact that Fielding wrote "Tom Jones" therein.

But another Fielding presided there now. d.i.c.k received free lodging till morning, and then he was escorted to the court-room close at hand, to take his turn as one among a crowd of anxious wretches of both s.e.xes, who stood in a railed enclosure at one side of a vacant s.p.a.ce, before the table at which sat the grave magistrate in all the vestments and solemnity of his office. To d.i.c.k's amazement, he beheld in an opposite railed s.p.a.ce certain faces with which he was acquainted,--those of his George Street landlady's son, the Monmouth Street shopman to whom he had sold the clothes, and the Vauxhall girl. d.i.c.k wondered what the whole business meant, and what it would lead to. At last his turn came.

The magistrate glanced at him indifferently, and addressed him coldly, in a few words whose meaning d.i.c.k did not take pains to gather. Then a clerk at the table read monotonously a long doc.u.ment, wherein it appeared that a number of people had sworn to certain occurrences, which, as far as d.i.c.k could see, did not concern him in the least; namely, that Moreton Charteris, gentleman, of Bloomsbury Square, had been robbed of money, valuables, and wardrobe, early in the previous February, by a highwayman who had stopped his coach near Turnham Green; that a woman who had quarrelled at Reading with one Edward Lawson, known as Captain Ted, knew the said Lawson to have been the robber of Mr.

Charteris, and, on her threatening to inform against him, to have fled towards Bath in one of the stolen suits of clothes; and that Mr.

Charteris's servant had, in June, recognized one of the stolen suits in a Monmouth Street shop.

And now the shopkeeper in the witness box identified that suit as the one so recognized, and d.i.c.k as the man who had sold it; and from further testimony d.i.c.k could infer that the servant's discovery had sent Bow Street runners to the shopman, who had referred them for information regarding d.i.c.k's whereabouts to the landlady's son, who in turn had sent them to the Vauxhall girl; and that through her treachery they had learned his place of lodging. In fact, that grateful creature had stood in wait with the constables at the head of Breakneck Stairs, and announced, when his first a.s.sailants' lantern had lit up his features, that he was the man the constables wanted. She had, though, kept out of his sight, from a greater sense of shame than many of her cla.s.s would have shown. As for the attack by the Delahenty party, it had been as great a surprise to the waiting constables as to d.i.c.k.

And now d.i.c.k was hastily identified by two bold-looking women, as the aforesaid Edward Lawson, otherwise Captain Ted. He remembered that the whimsical gentleman met at Taunton had resembled him, and he perceived now, considering the danger of being betrayed by the woman quarrelled with, and of being far sought by the Bow Street men, why that gentleman had taken the caprice of exchanging good clothes for bad. In putting this and that together, as he stood in the dock, d.i.c.k lost track of the court's proceedings, and it came like a sudden blow when he saw Sir John Fielding gaze hard upon him, and heard Sir John Fielding commit him, as Edward Lawson, to the jail of Newgate, there to be kept in custody until he should be brought forth to stand his trial!

To Newgate, to await trial for highway robbery, the penalty of which was death by hanging; readily identified as the guilty man by those who would stick to their oath; unable to prove by any person in England that he was not that man, for all his acquaintances had been made since the exchange of clothes,--a pleasant series of thoughts to keep the adventurous Master d.i.c.k company in the hackney coach that rattled him swiftly away from the Bow Street court to the great, vile, many-chambered stone cage where such gallows-birds as Master Jack Sheppard and Monsieur Claude Duval had lodged before him! And if those thoughts were not enough, there was that of the cart-ride out Holborn to Tyburn tree, a picturesque ending for a journey over so many hills and so far away!

CHAPTER XIV.

"FAIR STOOD THE WIND FOR FRANCE."

Was it worth being saved from murder at the hands of Lord Alderby's hirelings on Breakneck Stairs, to swing a few months later at Tyburn?

d.i.c.k asked himself this question in the first few hours during which he either sat listless in the dim-lit cell shared by him with a half-dozen foul-mouthed and outwardly reckless rascals, or paced the courtyard upon which his and other cells opened.

It was not so much the confinement that crushed him, though that was a terribly galling thing; he had endured closer confinement in Boston, and on the _Adamant_. But never had he been surrounded by so vile a herd of beings. He accustomed himself, though, in time, to their crime-stamped faces, their disgusting talk, and the sodden drunkenness they were enabled to maintain by means of the liquor smuggled to them by visitors,--for the courtyard and the cells thronged every day with visitors of either s.e.x, and of quality similar to that of the prisoners themselves. d.i.c.k was presently able to discriminate among his jail-mates, and so he found one or two of more gentle stuff.

One of these was a young Frenchman awaiting trial for an a.s.sault of which he declared that he had been the victim and that the complainant had been the aggressor. In order to converse with this one refined companion without being understood by their coa.r.s.e a.s.sociates, d.i.c.k resumed, with him, the study of French, and, as he now had plenty of time, he made rapid progress. There were several French books brought by this tutor's visitors, from which to learn the written language, and there was the tutor's own speech from which to acquire the p.r.o.nunciation.

It will be seen, thus, that d.i.c.k had plucked up heart, as it was his nature to do. He steadfastly refrained from looking into the future, and he made no provision in regard thereto. A grinning attorney had benevolently b.u.t.tonholed him on his first day of imprisonment, and had proposed to take his case in hand, but, on learning how little money d.i.c.k would have for the luxury of a defence, this person had gone away, minus grin and benevolence.

d.i.c.k had more money than he had offered the shark of the law, but he needed it in order to pay for quarters and food of a grade above that which had to be endured by those miserable prisoners who could pay nothing and who had to live on a penny loaf a day. The court in which d.i.c.k abode was neither the best nor the worst in Newgate; but the best, where those dwelt who paid most, was loathsome enough as to the company.

To follow the example set by Wetheral himself in his memoirs, and to make swift work of his Newgate life,--for only in the "Beggar's Opera"

is Newgate life a merry thing to contemplate,--let it be said at once that a true bill was duly found against him by the grand jury, and that his trial was set for the September sessions at the Old Bailey Sessions House, next door to Newgate Prison. As d.i.c.k surveyed the long list of witnesses who would be called for the Crown, and bethought him that he was without witness or counsel, the vision of Tyburn gallows was for a moment or two exceedingly vivid before his mind's eye.

It was now about the middle of August, and that same day there came to d.i.c.k another piece of news brought in by visitors,--that on the fourth day of July the American rebels, in the State House in Philadelphia, had declared the colonies to be free and independent States. A thrill of joy and pride brought the tears to d.i.c.k's eyes, and the apparition of Tyburn, the very sense of the Newgate walls and herd around him, gave way to visions of things far over seas, of people rejoicing in the cities he had pa.s.sed through towards Cambridge, of his father rubbing hands and crying "Well done!" over the news, at home in the Pennsylvania valley; of the cheers of Washington's men, and the sage comments of old Tom MacAlister. When he awoke to Newgate and the Tyburn phantom, he brought his teeth hard together and fretted at fate.

Early in September, sitting idly on a bench at an end of the court, his ears p.r.i.c.ked up at the words, "American prisoner," uttered in course of talk by a woman who was making a visit to an imprisoned waterman accused of robbing a pa.s.senger.

"They say as 'ow, afore 'e was picked up, off the Lizard, by the ship as brought 'im 'ere," she went on, "the rebel 'ad got out o' jug, by jumpink on a 'orse in Pendennis Castle, and rid.i.n.k away in broad daylight, afore a mult.i.tood o' people."

A prisoner escaped from Pendennis Castle on horseback! d.i.c.k instantly joined in the conversation. "You say a ship picked the man up, off the Lizard," he put in. "How did they know he was the man who had escaped on the horse?"

"By 'is clothes, in course," said the woman, "and by the descriptions as was sent everywhere."

"But you say the ship has brought him to London?"

"Yes. 'E was picked up in a small boat, far hout to sea, a-trying for to make the French coast. The ship's captain, having put out of Plymouth on a long voyage,--for this 'appened last February,--'ad no mind to turn back, and so he took the fellow all the way to the Barbados, and then brought him 'ome to London. So now he lies at St. Catherine's, on shipboard, while the Government is making up its mind what to do with 'im."

And thus had fate treated Edward Lawson, otherwise Captain Ted, d.i.c.k's whimsical gentleman of Taunton! To think that a fugitive, in exchanging himself out of an incriminating suit of clothes to avoid detection, should exchange himself into the clothes of another fugitive, and be caught as the latter! d.i.c.k laughed to himself, even as he went to beg a turnkey to inform the governor that he, d.i.c.k, had an important disclosure to make.

The turnkey carried the message, for a consideration, and d.i.c.k was summoned to the governor's room, where it was finally got into the head of that functionary that d.i.c.k claimed to be the American prisoner for whom the other man had been taken. d.i.c.k was sent back to his court, with no satisfaction; but the next day he was led again into the governor's room, and confronted with the whimsical gentleman himself, who looked decidedly the worse for wear. It appeared that the highwayman was glad to be known, even in his true colors, rather than as a rebel prisoner who might be charged with treason.

The two were taken by hackney coach to Bow Street, and there the whimsical gentleman, much to his relief, was identified as Captain Ted, by the very ladies who had identified d.i.c.k as the same person, Justice Fielding subsequently observing that the resemblance between the two men was so great as to leave no ground for a charge of perjury against the identifiers. Captain Ted was then promptly committed to Newgate, on the evidence of the woman who had first laid information against him. With a friendly smile and courteous bow to d.i.c.k, he was led away.

And now d.i.c.k, relieved of the oft-recurring Tyburn vision, was to learn what disposition was to be made of himself. Standing out from the prisoners' pen, and in the vacant s.p.a.ce before the magistrate's table, he was addressed at some length by Sir John Fielding. It appeared that his story, as related to the governor of Newgate the previous day, having tallied with certain statements made by the other prisoner, had been considered by no less a personage than the Secretary of State. If he was one of the American prisoners who had been confined at Pendennis Castle, the justice said, his treatment ordinarily would have been the same as theirs,--that is to say, he would have been taken aboard the _Solebay_ frigate on the 8th of January, and sent back to America as a prisoner of war, subject to exchange (this was d.i.c.k's first intimation of what had befallen Allen and the others). But he had broken from custody while he still regarded it as likely that he would be proceeded against for high treason, and he was therefore to be considered as having admitted his guilt of high treason. However, it was the desire of the King to exhibit great clemency to his rebellious American subjects, even in the most aggravated cases; hence the justice dared presume that the Crown would not move against the prisoner on the charge of treason (d.i.c.k afterward guessed that the real reason for this self-denial on the Crown's part lay in the difficulty and expense of getting witnesses to the alleged treason). The prisoner had, however, been shown to have sold a stolen suit of clothes; he ought to have known, by the circ.u.mstances in which he had acquired the clothes, even if those circ.u.mstances were as he alleged, that the clothes had been stolen; his not so knowing was a fault, yet was the fault of no one other than him, hence must be his fault. The justice was, therefore, compelled, on information sworn by the Monmouth Street dealer and by Mr. Charteris's servant, to commit the prisoner for trial on this new charge.

So back to Newgate went d.i.c.k, wondering whether matters were improved, after all. At the September sessions he was haled, upon indictment, before the bewigged judges and the stolid jury in the Old Bailey; pleaded not guilty, was tried with great expedition, convicted without delay, and sentenced (at the end of a solemn speech in which he thought at first the judge was driving at nothing less than death by hanging with the next Tyburn batch) to hard labor for three years on the river Thames. It appeared that the prisoner's general honesty, to which his George Street landlady's son voluntarily testified, influenced the judge against a capital sentence. Well, what is three years' hard labor to a man who has seriously contemplated a gibbet for several weeks past?

The vessel on which d.i.c.k found himself, in consequence of this manifestation of British justice,--which in those benighted days was almost as dangerous for an honest man to come in contact with as New York City justice is to-day,--resembled an ordinary lighter, though of broader gunwale on the larboard side. A floor about three feet wide ran along the starboard side, for the men to work on, and their duty was to raise ballast, of which the vessel's capacity was twenty-seven tons, by means of windla.s.s and davits. The convicts slept aft, where the vessel was decked in, and the overseer had a cabin in the forecastle.

The men were chained together in pairs, and d.i.c.k, to his surprise, recognized his own comrade as none other than the body-s.n.a.t.c.her through whom he had accidentally come to try his card tricks in London taverns.

This amiable person had been caught while conveying a pauper's body, wrapped in a sack, by hackney coach, from Sh.o.r.editch to St. George's hospital, for the use of surgeons. He belonged to a gang that worked for the Resurrectionist, an inhabitant of the Borough, who was a famous trader to the surgeons.

d.i.c.k had to work all day, and to eat nothing but ox-cheek, legs and shins of beef, and equally coa.r.s.e food; to drink only water or small beer, and to wear a mean uniform, which, as autumn wore into winter, ill protected him from the cold. Yet the hard work kept his blood going by day, gave him appet.i.te for the food, and made sleep a pleasure. The fatigues of the day left the convicts no inclination to talk at night.

One day was like another, and the monotony of uninteresting toil was endurable only for the prospect of freedom at the end of the three years. d.i.c.k had no mind to attempt an escape, for on receiving sentence he had been told that his term might be abridged for good behavior, that it would certainly be doubled on a first attempt to escape, and that on a such second attempt he would be liable to suffer death. So when, in the fifth month of his durance, he was awakened one night by the grave-robber, and a general plot to break away was cautiously broached to him, he resolutely refused to take part or to hear more, and went to sleep again. He observed, the next few days, that he was narrowly watched by the other convicts, who doubtless feared he might inform the overseer; but he had no such intention.

One night in February,--it was between Sunday and Monday,--when the vessel was moored off Woolwich, d.i.c.k was violently awakened by a kind of tugging at his leg. Throwing out his hand in the darkness to investigate, he heard a threatening whisper, "If you move or call out, I'll blow your head off with this pistol! Bill the Blacksmith is taking off our irons. You can join us if you like, or you can stay here, but you'll keep quiet!"

The voice was that of the body-stealer, to whom d.i.c.k was chained. In releasing the former, the Blacksmith, working in the darkness, had necessarily disturbed the chain attached to d.i.c.k. Bill the Blacksmith was a person unknown to d.i.c.k. As afterward appeared, he was one of a rescue party that had come on this dark night to free those prisoners who were in the plot. Some of the party had got aboard, crawled unseen within a few feet of the guards, reached the sleeping-place of the convicts, supplied some of these with weapons, and were now at work removing their irons.

d.i.c.k lay perfectly still. Presently the grave-robber stood up, unshackled. The chain was still fastened to d.i.c.k's leg.

"Well," whispered the grave-robber, "will you stay as you are, or will you join us?"

To be shortly free of the chafing fetters, able to use his whole body in a dash for liberty; to seize now what would not be offered to him for two long and miserable years! The temptation was too strong. "I'll join," whispered d.i.c.k.

"This one, too, Bill," said the grave-robber, and the Blacksmith went to work on d.i.c.k's fetters.

Other skilful hands were employed at the same time on the shackles of other convicts. The operations went on in the utmost silence. Now and then, at some sound from without, they would stop for a while. It was only after he had been awake some time, that d.i.c.k could distinguish the dark forms of the artisans working over the prostrate forms of the prisoners. Never had he seen such a combination of skill, patience, persistence, and noiselessness. Pick-locks, burglars, jail-breakers, all, exercising their abilities this time to free their comrades, were the men at work; yet d.i.c.k could not but admire the manner in which they went about their business. Doubtless there was a large reward to be earned, perhaps from some employer of certain of these convicts,--some such great man as the Resurrectionist, of the Borough, or as Gipsy George, leader of smugglers; for any one of these rescuers would as soon turn King's evidence against a comrade as liberate him.

At last all irons were off. Instantly, with the grave-robber at the head, there was a general rush to the platform on which the men worked.

The surprised guards were either shot at, struck, intimidated, or swept into the hold, by the advancing convicts. The latter scrambled over the vessel's side, some dropping into a boat that suddenly unmasked two lanterns. Another boat, also belonging to the rescue party, now showed a light a little farther off. For this boat d.i.c.k swam, with many others who had plunged at once into the water, and presently he was hauled aboard like a hooked shark.

Some of the convicts, as if fearing there would not be room for them on the boats, struck out for the sh.o.r.e. d.i.c.k never knew what became of them, or of those who crowded into the first boat. The craft in which he found himself was speedily filled, whereupon the men at the oars, aided by convicts who had found other oars waiting, pulled rapidly down the river, the boat's lantern again being darkened. By this time those in charge of the convict vessel had recovered their senses and begun firing shots of alarm. d.i.c.k made up his mind to get away from his villainous company at the first opportunity.

Presently the men at the oars were relieved by another force, which included d.i.c.k. Thus, aided by the river's current, and thanks to their system of alternating at the oars, as well as to the strength derived from fear of recapture, the desperate crew made incredible speed. As dawn began to show itself, d.i.c.k saw, on the southern bank of the Thames, a considerable town against a hillside, environed by meadows and fields, pleasure grounds and country-seats. A high hill near by was crowned by a windmill. Vessels of every size lay in the harbor. d.i.c.k learned from the talk in the boat that this was Gravesend.

The men rowed straight for a certain sloop, which, it appeared from their conversation, was engaged in the business of conveying stolen horses to Dunkirk and other Continental ports. d.i.c.k inwardly determined to follow the fortunes of this rascal boat's crew no longer. Once alongside the sloop, the convicts proceeded to board it, each man for himself. The stern of the boat drifted several feet away from the sloop.

d.i.c.k, pretending he would leap in his turn, across the intervening s.p.a.ce, purposely missed hold of the sloop, and sank into the water.

Diving some distance, he came up at a spot far from where the attention of his erstwhile comrades was directed. He then struck out for the outskirts of Gravesend, and landed a little east of the town, in the gray of the morning.