had one quarter o' a grain o' common-sense, ye'd ha' kept clear of a
place where there's a many too many without ye, an' not room to hear
one's own voice in! There! that's where he is!"
And Meg looked up at the gateway of the great prison, "the worst managed
prison in England,"[1] where the scum and refuse of that human tide
flowed constantly, and where, evil being most rampant, that cross that
was originally raised between outragers of the public safety, was being
raised again now by the hand of the Quaker lady, whom many yet unborn
should call "blessed".
[Footnote 1: See Report of 1850, made three years later, and just before
the erection of the new prison at Holloway.]
They passed under the fortress-like entrance, which Meg was to know
well, in rain and snow, as well as in the autumn sunshine, which first
softened its gloom to her, and stood among the crowd of prisoners'
friends, who, on the whole, were a much more cheerful, not to say jovial
set, than might have been expected.
The gatekeeper was exchanging jokes and winks with a noisy band of
unbonneted girls, who were linked together arm in arm, and had "pals"
inside.
Meg's soft heart warmed to one of them, who looked little more than a
child, and who demanded permission to see her husband, Bill Jenkins,
convicted of shop-lifting, and under sentence of death.
"I hope he will be reprieved," Meg said aloud. "She looks so very young
to have a husband," she added apologetically to Tom, who was not
over-pleased at her speaking to the girl.
There was a shout of laughter when some one who had overheard it
repeated the remark.
"Bless your innocence, we've _all_ got 'usbands, my dear," said one of
the band. But it was not till later that the preacher's wife understood
the meaning of their merriment.
The convicted were supposed to see only their wives, and that but once a
week. "So I've never known a single man among 'em," the gatekeeper
remarked with a grin. "Even the boys is all married,--every one on 'em!"
Meg could hardly have told what she had expected to encounter;--long
stone passages, and a miserable cell, and Barnabas in heavy irons, and
darkness, perhaps! She had been prepared to cheer and encourage him; but
this noisy crew she was not prepared for, and her heart sank when she
found that she was not admitted into the interior of the building; but
could only take her place with the others on one side of a double row of
iron railings, which interposed grimly between the prisoners and their
friends.
Her strongest earliest impressions of a place she was to become familiar
with during three long months were beer and bad language. The smell of
the former assailed her nostrils; the sound of the latter, her ears; the
place seemed reeking with both combined. She looked rather wistfully at
the vendor of beer, who, coming straight from the public-house,
fortunate enough to have secured Newgate's patronage, was greeted with
acclamations, and allowed instant entrance to the wards.
"Eh, my lass, how are ye?" said the well-known voice, whose very
familiarity sounded strange behind those bars. Margaret pressed her face
against the iron, she was not able to reach him--the space between was
too wide for that.
Prison uniform had not been instituted then, and the preacher was still
in his blue jersey, which, however, showed a good many rents,--a fact
which struck Meg at once; for Barnabas kept his clothes carefully mended
as a rule. He looked ill, too, and his hair and beard were untrimmed;
but his hands were unshackled, which was something of a relief to her.
He devoured her with his eyes hungrily, and asked question after
question as to how she was, and how she had been, with an eagerness and
insistence that left her little time to question _him_.
"I wish I could see ye better!" he cried impatiently. "Turn your head to
the light, Margaret. I can't half see you in that thing!"
The straight side of her straw bonnet threw her face into shade, and she
untied the strings, meaning to take it off to please him, remembering,
with a slight tightening of the throat, how her father had proffered the
same request; but Barnabas stopped her hastily.
"No, no. Not here!" he said. "Ye can't uncover your head for all those
fellows to see. Ye hadn't ought to be here at all, wi' me not free to
take care of ye. Where's Tom?"
"He is waiting for me, in the outer yard," said Meg. "Oh, Barnabas, I
_ought_ to have been here before; but I never heard till last night;
indeed, if I had known, I would have come."
"I wasn't blamin' ye," he answered. "But look 'ee here, my lass; time's
nearly up, and I've a deal to say that'll hardly get said now. I'm
thinking this must be my last sight of ye till I'm free, or till----"
"There is no 'or,'" said Meg cheerfully. "Of course, they must set you
free."
But she clung tighter to the rails; her knees felt weak with the long
walk.
The preacher, looking at her, checked the reply that had almost risen to
his lips.
"Till I am free then," he said. "But it's no place for you. Will 'ee go
home wi' Tom? they'll be glad enough to have ye; or, if ye'd rayther,
ye can stay wi' your sister. It's as ye like."
Then, with a sudden burst of longing, that seemed to cut through the
heavy atmosphere, making Meg's heart give a bound; "To think that _I_
can't give ye a roof!" he cried. "It warn't i' the bond that ye should
follow me to Newgate! Ye must forgi'e me this, Margaret!"
Meg lifted her head and looked straight at him.
"I'm not going back to Laura," she said. "What should I do there? Nor to
the farm; what business has your wife in L----shire, when you are here?
Father has left me some money; it will be just enough to keep us
together. I will take a room close to the prison, and come as often as
they will let me. There is a great deal to talk of; there is your
defence to be considered; there is a great deal to be done; and you have
told me nothing yet. I will live on very little--as little as possible;
we shall want every penny, but----"
He shook his head, and her voice changed from would-be cheerful
assurance to entreaty.
"But let me stay!" she cried. "You will find it worth while. No one will
work so hard for you as I will. If _I_ were in prison should you go
comfortably away with Tom to the farm? It is absurd to ask! You don't
need to answer; for, of course, you wouldn't. Don't you want to see me?
I could come three times a week; on all the visiting days--don't you
think that would be something?"
"Something!" said the preacher. He put his hand before his eyes to hide
the sight of her, who, he knew, was only too precious to him.
"The look of ye is more nor meat or drink to me," he said. "An' ye know
it! An' it's just because o' that that there's no reason in comparing
what I'd do wi' what I'd have ye do. Go back wi' Tom, lass. Ay, I knew
ye'd be willin' to bide; I knew ye'd offer to; but I couldn't bear to
see ye standin' here day after day, nor to think o' ye alone in this
hell of a city. I'll do well enough, an' I won't forget ye begged to
stop. Just say 'good-bye' to me, my dear, an' go. Go, my lass!"
Her hands dropped from the bars and she turned away. She was in the
habit of obeying him, and his stronger will nearly always overpowered
hers; but, as she turned she looked back, and, though she did not
understand how or why, something in his weary attitude made her return
quickly, with a little low cry that brought him close to the bars again.
"I want to stay," she said. "Barnabas, don't you see that I want to? You
think I am saying this because I ought--for your sake. It is for my own.
Ah, don't send me away; I _want_ to stay."
He stood a moment silent; then: "Stay then," he said; "and God keep ye
safe. Happen, after all, He knows how to as well as I do."
There was no time for more; she had to go, but the preacher drew a deep
breath, as one amazed; the bolts and bars that divided them had also
brought Margaret nearer to him. He had had need of some consolation.
The Gaol Acts laid down many most excellent rules, which the governors
of Newgate seemed to consider were, like dreams, "to be read by
contraries". Barnabas had found himself flung into an assembly where
tried and untried--the boy accused of stealing a loaf, and the hardened
old vagabond in for the tenth time--were all mixed up together, making a
fine forcing bed for crime.
In the pursuit of his calling the preacher had been oftenest and most
deeply attracted to places where evil was most prevalent; but it was one
thing to attack the foul fiend of his own free will (and it must be
owned Barnabas was seldom backward at assault), and another to be
allowed no escape from the unclean presence by day or by night; no
breathing space alone, even for a moment.
The unbearable sense of eyes always on him, the longing for fresh air,
and, still more, for solitude, if only for five minutes, grew with a
force that took all his strength to keep in bounds.
There had always been something gipsy-like in his restless impatience of
walls and roofs. As a boy he had many a time crept out in order to sleep
by preference with nothing between him and the sky. He held his very
thoughts in check now, and durst not let them dwell on downs or sea,
lest a mad passion for these should seize on him; but he ate with
difficulty, forcing himself to swallow, loathing food, like some wild
animal held in captivity; and sleep forsook him.
It was not till he had been in the gaol for a week that he began to
discover a method in the madness of the prison arrangements; and the
method roused him to protest so vigorous and unpopular as nearly to cost
him his life.
To run atilt against established privileges, to refuse to let sleeping
dogs lie, had always been main characteristics of the preacher; they
never came out more strongly than in Newgate.
There are disadvantages in preaching righteousness while under
accusation of attempted murder, and in attempting to right other
people's grievances while a prisoner oneself; but such considerations
never weighed with Barnabas. Where he saw his enemy, there he would "go"
for him, whatever the situation might be.
On the women's side of the prison, Elizabeth Fry was already bringing
order into disorder, light into the midst of darkness; but, on the
men's side, misrule still ruled supreme.
The old prisoners levied a kind of blackmail on the others; they sold
food, they winked at evil practices, they passed in tobacco and snuff,
and, as wardsmen, their power was despotic.
In their hands was the placing of new arrivals, in their hands the
drawing of briefs; they, practically, could feed or starve, bind or
unbind; and one of the first things Barnabas did was to protest against
the orders of a wardsman!
To do him justice, the preacher, though he had lamentably small sense of
the expedient, was not naturally quarrelsome, and had rubbed shoulders
against too many strange bedfellows to be over fastidious.
The crowded room in which the men slept together anyhow, under filthy
mats on the floor, shocked him much less than it would shock any
respectable member of society now-a-days. He relinquished his share of
the rug, a third share; and stretched himself on the floor, as near to
the window as he could get.
Everything was dirty; the men, the floor, and, not least, the
conversation! Barnabas was glad that there was no glass in the windows,
though not much fresh air seemed to make its way in anyhow. He had a
great capability for abstracting himself from what was going on around
him, and had been in bad places before,--though none, he was constrained
to allow to himself, quite so bad as this. But when the key turned in
the lock, shutting in for the night all these offscourings of the London
streets; then, indeed, began a scene of mad drunken riot, of iniquity
and cruelty, that pierced through his abstraction and forced him to
attend.
He sat up in his corner, looking on with eyes that grew eager with
desire to lift his testimony against the gambling and drinking and
blasphemy that seemed to challenge him; but even he hesitated.
He was disheartened and sickened; he felt his faith low, his power to
speak wanting. A sense of the certainty of failure, for once, deterred
him; the strong impulse that carried other hearts was not present
(possibly because he was physically tired, though this was a reason
which would never have occurred to him), and he held his peace.
Of fear, in the sense of dread of personal harm to himself, he had
little by nature and less by practice; but a deep moral depression and
humility that underlay his boldness, and was less paradoxical than it at
first seemed, sometimes closed his lips.
When the "spirit moved him," he would speak, nothing doubting; but, at
times, he would sit in mental sackcloth, with no consciousness of Divine
inspiration.
In the daytime, want of employment further depressed him; he had been
accustomed all his life to hard exercise; and the comparative
confinement of his London life had begun to tell on his health and
spirits, even before his imprisonment. He would have been thankful for
any form of labour,--a desire which certainly was not common among his
companions. Not that the wards were devoid of amusement; papers and even
books circulated freely, the last of a kind that increased the
preacher's bigoted distaste for "book larning," and that he was,
perhaps, justified in stigmatising as inventions of the devil! Tobacco
and cards were also plentiful; gaming went on without intermission from
morning till night, and of feasting and fighting there was plenty.
Barnabas would probably have come in for rough usage, even without any
aggressive act on his part, had it not been for his size and strength,
that made him so obviously an awkward subject to bully.
The bronzed, fair-bearded man, standing in his corner, "glowering" at a
scene that, certainly, was brutal enough, had an expression in his blue
eyes that looked as if he might be dangerous.
Possibly he was going mad! There was a large proportion of real lunatics
in Newgate, and there were some sham ones, who feigned madness as the
time of their trial approached; and their presence added to the insanely
reckless character of the revels.
During the whole of the first week in prison, Barnabas had stood apart,
silent and grave.
He was anxious about his wife; he was cast down by spiritual depression;
and the sense that he was "forsaken of the Lord" was strong on him.
Moreover,--and this was a thing that had rarely occurred to him,--he was
tormented by uncertainty. It was against his instinct and principle to
betray a confession; he would rather be hanged himself, as he had said
to Margaret, than do that;--but yet, to leave the murderer free to
commit any fresh crime that might be suggested to his depraved nature
might lead to consequences from which even Barnabas, who seldom looked
at consequences, shrank. All these causes, combined with the close
atmosphere and want of sleep, weighed on him; he felt as if unable to
pray, or to command his thoughts; he was "delivered over to Satan".
It was Margaret's visit that broke the spell. The sight of her, stirring
his heart with most human love, roused him, and chased away the
spiritual melancholy which was overpowering him. He became ashamed of
his downheartedness.
He should stand at her side free again, and the sound of her last words
nurtured a hope that he had often found it best not to dwell on
overmuch,--would grim Newgate give him his wife's heart?
Shame on him for his cowardly depression! He deserved no favours,
heavenly or earthly; but he would be depressed no longer. He went back
to the yard after Margaret's visit with fresh spirit. Some of the
prisoners had made a circle round a new-comer, a fair-haired lad of
fifteen, who had the too girlish and refined "prettiness" that some
fair-skinned boys retain so long, and who looked younger than he was.
The chaff and rough horse-play they were indulging in hardly amounted to
actual ill-usage; but the boy looked frightened to death. He was singing
in a high sweet treble, forced thereto by divers threats.
He evidently did not know the words of the song, for one of his
self-constituted teachers kept prompting him, amid roars of laughter. It
was a villainous song, and Barnabas hoped the lad didn't understand it.
He had been brought in the day before, protesting his innocence in eager
childish fashion,--as if it mattered to any one there whether he was
innocent or not! At any rate, if he was when he entered, he hadn't much
chance of being so when he should leave. Barnabas looked on in disgust
for a few minutes, and then turned to a wardsman.
"Surely," he said, "that lad hadn't ought to be here?"
The middle yard in which they stood was supposed to be occupied by the
most abandoned and worst class of criminals, men charged with the most
revolting crimes; but the wardsmen of Newgate were apparently apt to
consider the incorrigible offence, the offence of poverty (indeed, it is
hard of cure) and an inability to pay ward dues, ranked the offender
with the most depraved.
"Oh! you're the Lord Chief Justice in disguise, perhaps!" said the man.
"Or his grace the Archbishop!"
"If I was the judge," said the preacher, "I'd far sooner ha' had that
boy strung up to the nearest lamp post, guilty or no', than ha'
pitchforked him in here, to ruin his body an' soul both! It 'ud ha' been
a deal more merciful."
"Such a 'ighly moral cove as you 'ad better interfere," said the man.
"The parson don't come in 'ere at present; he give up comin' after
Hopping Jack took to assistin' him in 'is duties."
The speaker laughed silently over some hidden joke.
"He comes in just afore the 'angman now to the men as is fixed for
'anging, a sort of last grace before meat," he said. "They ain't so
larky then."
Barnabas had not attended to the last remark; something he had heard or
seen made his hand clench; and he turned on the wardsman hotly.
"Can ye do nothing, man?" he said. "_You_ put that child here, because
he couldn't pay th' ward dues (which be unlawful extortion anyway); he's
only up for a matter o' stealin'; it 'ull lay at your door if those
brutes make him----"
The rest of the sentence remained unfinished. Before he had got to the
end of it, Barnabas had felt the appeal useless: the wardsman was
momentarily staggered by the unprecedented and unbounded impudence of
this new-comer; but, before he had even fully fathomed the whole extent
of it, the preacher sprang into the middle of the ring, and stood by the
boy's side.
There was a moment's absolute silence. Then Barnabas Thorpe's ringing
voice pealed through the yard in a vigorous denunciation; he took the
throng of reprobates so by surprise that he got through a whole sentence
unmolested.
The motley crowd all stood and gaped; the boy clung to his arm.
Some men who were playing at leapfrog stopped, and stared; the dice fell
from Hopping Jack's hand. If a thunder-clap, louder than usual, had
broken out just over their heads, it would have produced just that
effect, stunning and startling them. Then, with a howl of mingled
laughter and anger, they all fell on the preacher at once; and the
wardsman laughed silently again.
Barnabas fought desperately, first for the boy's sake, then in sheer
self-defence; for his blows had enraged and roused the wild beast in
these men. It was no joke now; they meant to punish him.
He set his teeth hard, and held his own for a short minute; but one to
sixty is too heavy odds, and the righteous cause that triumphs in the
end has a way of triumphing only through the blood of its upholders. He
was down first on his knees, then on his face, then they all closed over
him; he had not even taken the precaution to put his back against the
yard wall, and his assailants were on all sides. He was down, and to
kick a man on the ground was excellent sport, and this man had certainly
brought it on himself. The wardsman usually interfered before things
came to quite such a pass; but, on this occasion, he discreetly retired;
the preacher had needed a lesson, and no one was in the least inclined
to forbear.
* * * * *
The surgeon's report mentioned that one of the prisoners had had his
ribs broken, but no further official notice was taken of this little
episode; and the prisoner himself was rather surprised when he woke to
consciousness (a highly disagreeable experience!), and found himself
still alive, and lying in a corner of the ward, albeit without a square
inch free from bruises, and with an odd sensation of having been kicked
inside as well as out, making breathing a matter of pain.
He tried to sit upright, but the effort hurt him, turning him dizzy and
sick; and he desisted.
"He's been shamefully mauled," some one was saying. "His own mother
wouldn't know him. Done in a drunken brawl, I suppose? That's the second
case from the middle yard within a fortnight. I should think you've
about had your fill of fighting, eh? How do you feel?"
"Oncommon sore," said Barnabas; "but what became of th' lad?"
"He'll fare the worse for your interference," said the surgeon. "Keep
still, or I can't fasten this bandage. Well, you've tried football from
the ball's point of view. There's no accounting for tastes! Bless me,
there's more bruise than whole skin about you; one might as well patch a
stocking that's all holes!"
His fingers were not gentler than his words, but it was the latter that
had made Barnabas wince. "What are they doin' wi' that boy? He's not a
lad o' much spirit--I could see that; he'll be like wax in their hands,
if some one don't interfere."
"They'll make it a point of honour to corrupt him as fast as possible
now; you've gained that by interfering," said the surgeon. "But then the
same result would have been reached in any case, sooner or later. If he
wasn't a young blackguard when he came in, which I doubt, he'll take
his degree in iniquity before the Assizes. It's no good struggling to
get up, you can't! And what the devil are you in such a hurry for? You'd
better digest the lesson they've given you."
The surgeon had no sympathy for Methodist preachers; the canting
criminal, to which class he supposed Barnabas belonged, was the kind he
liked least.
He had a cold tolerance for black sheep in general; "they were born bad,
as was clearly proved by the shape of their skulls," he would remark;
and, while he was a great advocate for hanging them for the sake of
society, he neither regarded them with moral indignation, nor
sympathised with the illogical efforts of philanthropists.
"You'll find it enough to occupy you," he added drily. He was struck, in
spite of himself, at the way this man stood pain. "You'll feel that
kicking worse in an hour. I must say it seems to have taken a good
amount of beating to beat you!"
"I'd not say--I was beat--while I was alive," said Barnabas in gasps,
for speaking was painful. "Ay, it's a lesson to me--I've been a bit too
backward--ta'en up wi' my own affairs!--I desarved to fail--but I'll try
again--so soon as I can stand. Beaten! I'm _not_ beaten!"
* * * * *
Barnabas lay in his corner for three days and nights. He ought to have
been put into the infirmary, but the infirmary was just then given up to
certain political prisoners,--gentlemen who were decidedly out of place
in Newgate, but who were made as comfortable as circumstances and the
easy politeness of the governor allowed.
No one paid much heed to the preacher. It was a toss up whether he
lived or died; but his hardy constitution, and, perhaps, his innate
obstinacy, pulled him through. On the fourth day after the surgeon's
visit he sat upright, on the fifth he struggled to his feet. The fifth
day happened to be a Sunday, which, by a time-honoured custom, was a day
set apart and sacred to free fights in the middle yard. Barnabas
steadied himself, with one hand against the wall, and looked around him.
He did not remember ever before to have felt physically weak. The
sensation struck him as very curious.
"You'll not be trying that game again," remarked his enemy, the
wardsman.
Barnabas Thorpe was a gaunt and ghastly sight, standing on his straw
with the blood-stained bandage across his forehead. His face was
whitened by confinement, and lined and hollowed by pain; but the sneer
brought the light of battle into his blue eyes.
"Will I not?" he said grimly. "Wait an' see, man! This time we play to
win."
"We? Who's fool enough to be on your side?" asked the man.
"I am on His," said Barnabas. "He leads!" He made his way along the ward
while he spoke, stumbling more than once, panting from sheer weakness;
and the wardsman followed, grinning.
All the men were out in the yard. Two of them were fighting, the rest
were applauding. The preacher walked through the ring, and put his hands
on the combatants' shoulders.
"Ye'll do that no more," he said. "It is my Master's day, an' He is here
among us; an' to Him shall be the power an' th' glory."
He was so exhausted by the walk that he involuntarily leaned heavily on
the man whose arm he had touched, and who stood and gaped, with
awe-struck face.
In his full strength and vigour the preacher had failed--in his weakness
he conquered.
So long as man is man, he must perforce bow down before the spark of
Divinity that makes him human--when he sees it.
These gaol birds and outcasts "saw it" that day; saw it in the courage
that had nothing to do with the animal and physical side of our nature;
"saw it" in the command given by one whom they had trampled on, and
well-nigh killed, who, knowing what he risked, yet risked it again,
counting death no defeat.
"Let 'im be. You can't hurt such as 'im," one of the men whispered.
"He's got them standin' by him."
CHAPTER VI.
Mr. Sauls returned to town, looking a great deal the worse for his
expedition into the wilds of L----shire.
Had he followed his natural inclination, he would have held his tongue
on the subject of the sensational episode that had led to the preacher's
arrest; but, seeing that the tale must become public property, he took
the initiative himself, spreading the version he wished to be popular.
Mr. Sauls' deserved success in life had always been largely owing to the
fact that he never hesitated to throw a sprat overboard in order to
catch a mackerel. Many people see all the advantages of this proceeding
clearly enough, but haven't courage to sacrifice the sprat; he had.
He was determined on two points, apparently a little difficult of
combination: he was determined to punish his assailant, and, at the same
time, to keep Margaret's name out of the affair. He would rather lose
his case than drag her into it--which was saying a great deal.
He would have preferred, for obvious reasons, that the story about Lydia
Tremnell should remain in merciful obscurity; but, nevertheless, he
brought it to the light of day without flinching; for he knew that, in
laying the stress on that quarrel about the woman who was dead, he
prevented the suspicion that the hot words between himself and Barnabas
Thorpe had had connection with the woman who was alive.
It cost him some vexation of spirit; but, for Meg's sake, he threw the
sprat, and threw it boldly.
Mr. Sauls had fallen low in Meg's estimation. She would have been either
more or less than human if she could have, at the same time, sided with
the preacher, and seen the standpoint of the preacher's enemy. And yet,
if "a man's love" is indeed "the measure of his fitness for good company
here or elsewhere," Mr. Sauls was, perhaps, worthy of a better place
than she guessed.
He had been lunching with the governor of the prison one morning, and
had left that gentleman's house with a bad headache (for he still felt
the effects of the blow), and in no very excellent humour.
For the last month he had been endeavouring to put the image of the
preacher's wife out of his head; and few things are more trying to both
nerves and temper than the constant struggle to prevent a recurring
thought. The disembodied presence haunts the more when we abstain from
clothing it with words, and it usually has its revenge. George "forgot"
Mrs. Thorpe by a most constant and unrelaxing effort.
He pulled some papers out of his pocket, meaning to read them while he
walked; he could have sworn he was deeply engrossed in them, and that he
was thinking of anything rather than of Margaret; and yet, among the
thousand voices of that busy street, curiously enough hers reached his
ear.
He had walked only two yards from the door of the governor's house. He
hesitated for a second, turned round, and retraced his steps. Margaret
was on the threshold, talking to the governor's servant.
"Did that brute keep her hanging about the prison? If so, he deserved a
worse fate than the gallows," thought George.
"You should have gone round to the back. What business have you here?"
said the footman. George could not catch her reply, but her manner had
apparently overawed the man, who was evidently wavering between
insolence and respect.
"Oh, if your business is with the governor--I'll take your card in and
inquire--ma'am."
The "ma'am" was said rather doubtfully, Meg's clothes being shabby.
"I've no card," said she. "Please tell the governor that I should be
much obliged if he would kindly see me. I am the wife of one of the
prisoners in the middle yard, and----"
"Oh, off with you!" cried the footman, his respect vanishing. "The
governor would have enough to do if he saw every blackguard's wife that
came a-begging!" And he slammed the door in her face.
Margaret put her hand on the bell as if half inclined to make another
attempt; then apparently came to the conclusion that it would be of no
avail, and, with a sigh, turned away.
She saw Mr. Sauls when she descended the steps, and would have passed
him without a sign, had he not been assailed by a dogged unreasonable
determination to force her to recognise him.
"You know me, Mrs. Thorpe," he said. His voice sounded a little defiant.
Meg's eyes rested coldly on him. "I know you," she answered gravely.
George reddened. It was the first and last time in his life that a snub
had made him blush.
"But you are too angry to acknowledge me? Well! of course, that is
natural," he said. "Naturally you cannot forgive me for being knocked on
the head by the preacher. I hardly supposed that you would. A woman's
justice is apt to be hard on the sinned against--when the sinner is her
husband. But I--not being a woman--do not quite relish seeing you
refused anything. I'll help you, if I can. The governor is a friend of
mine; I will get you admittance if you like."
"No, thank you," said Margaret. George laughed rather bitterly.
"Are you too proud to accept my help? But you should never refuse a good
offer, even from an enemy." Then his tone changed, for the sight of her
tired face softened him.
"But I am not _your_ enemy, Margaret--Mrs. Thorpe, I mean. You will not
be just to me, that is not to be expected! but you can be generous. Let
me do this thing for you--in all good faith!"
He held out his hand, but Meg drew back angrily. How durst he repeat
this lie about Barnabas in one breath, and in the next offer to help
her? he help her!
"Ah, you hate me too much? But you are very foolish. You are making a
mistake," he began; then stopped short, struck dumb by the flash of
indignant scorn in her eyes.
"I do not hate you, who swear falsehoods about my husband," she said.
"One must have a little respect before one hates! I could not accept any
favour from you. It would be easier," said Meg, determined that he
should press her no more, and clothing her feeling in the most forcible
words she could utter, "it would be easier to take hot burning coals in
my bare hands than to take any help from you now."
George Sauls bit his lip and drew back a step. He wondered why this
woman's words had such power to hurt him. Then he pulled himself
together, and lifted his hat to her.
"Thanks--that was quite plain enough," he said. "I must really have been
very dense to have required that, mustn't I? The Psalmist's hot coals
were reserved for his enemies' heads, not for their hands, Mrs.
Thorpe--but that's a trifle, and I won't press the commodity on you. I
most humbly regret having offered my assistance, and can only give you
my word that nothing on earth shall ever induce me to attempt such a
thing again. Apparently you don't think that my oaths are to be trusted,
as a rule; but you may believe in that one."
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 assizes.
She became a familiar figure in the "prison crowd." Most of the
_habitués_ 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 scrap 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 scrap 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 lass. 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 "passed 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 "passing in" of food to himself. The gaol allowance was
enough to live on, he said, and his lass 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 assault 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 passion 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 class.
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 lass, 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 lass, 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 lass! 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 "class" 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.
"He can do nothing, and it's a shame to make him anxious too," she
reflected. "Why should I? I wish Barnabas were here!"
She had missed his constant care and protection before; but to-night
she jumped up restlessly, unable to sit still, and walked up and down
the room, filled with horrible visions of the scene in the yard when the
men the preacher had "riled" had pulled him down among them.
Barnabas had made her promise that she wouldn't think "overmuch" of
that; and she tried to put the thought away again.
"Ye must forget it! I'm sorry ye were told," he had said. "I'd not have
your thoughts o' me hurt you, my lass. Will 'ee be a bit glad to have me
to do for ye again, eh?"
Would she? All at once Meg fell on her knees with the rush of a new
longing for him sweeping over her with unbearable strength.
"Barnabas, it's you I want--at last--I do want you!" she cried aloud.
"Not what you do, but you yourself! Oh, it does hurt one to want like
this! I want your arms round me, and your voice quite close to me. I
want you so!"
She rose, frightened at the strength of the feeling that had, as it
were, laid hands on her, and went to bed quickly in the dark.
It had come at last, the love that had been so long in coming! But it
was no sweet boy Cupid wreathed in spring flowers, but rather an armed
warrior who took at last what most maids give blithely in the natural
time for courting. Was Nature, who never forgives nor forgets an insult,
indemnifying herself for the very unnatural way in which Meg and the
preacher had put their "earthly affections" out of the reckoning when
they married? Ah, well, she had her revenge, as she always has. "How it
hurts one!" Meg cried again. But Barnabas had known what _that_ ache
meant for nigh two years.
Was it too late now? No; God could not be so cruel. Barnabas would call
that blasphemy. He never said, "God is cruel," whatever happened.
Whatever happened? but why was she so terrified to-night? He would be
set free, and nothing would happen. She would go to sleep and forget.
She did sleep, after a time, and dreamed of a stake with Barnabas tied
to it, like an early "Christian martyr" in Foxe's Book, which she had
studied when a child in Uncle Russelthorpe's library.
George Sauls was in the guise of an executioner, and kept heaping live
coals on the preacher's head with one hand, while he held her back with
the other, saying: "Apparently you don't think my swearing amounts to
much, Mrs. Thorpe; but I hope you believe in _that_".
The horror she felt woke her (one has no sense of humour in a dream).
She had slept only five minutes, though it had seemed hours. She could
not bear to shut her eyes, and encounter that nightmare again. She
lighted her candle, and, sitting up in bed, went on with her modelling,
till daylight, which happily costs nothing, began to lighten the room.
Then she opened her window and looked out. Traffic was already stirring
in the street below, she could see dimly the outline of the gaol through
the London mist. The air was raw, but the horror that had possessed her
fled with the darkness. With the breaking of the day Meg knew that she
had entered into a new kingdom.
CHAPTER VII.
"See
Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly,
"It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,
Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."
--_Browning._
Barnabas Thorpe had been blessed all his life with a physique that was
strong enough to bear the exactions of his spirit. In this respect he
had been remarkably fortunate. But, after all, his body was made of
flesh and blood; and flesh and blood give way at last.
It was a great source of grief to him that he could no longer heal as he
had once healed; that strange power seemed to have, in a large measure,
left him.
"May be it's because I am not fit to ha' it," he said sadly. "One who
hates his brother whom he has seen deserves no power to bring down
healing from the God he has not seen."
The surgeon, who was watching Barnabas dress a wound that had been
inflicted by Bill's poker, laughed impatiently.
"That's nonsense, you know," he remarked; but he no longer said, "That's
cant".
The preacher's surgery was gentler than the doctor's, which was
certainly rough. The man's eye was badly damaged, and the lightest
touch caused agony; he turned over on his face with a groan when
Barnabas had finished.
"I used to be able to lighten pain more," said Barnabas. "I've often
known that, when I've put my hand on one suffering like that, the
torment has been stilled for a bit and he's fallen asleep. But I can't
do it now!"
"Of course you can't," said the doctor. "You had a sort of mesmeric
faculty that you believed miraculous; but your own nervous energy has
been pretty well kicked out of you now, and you are ill and weak; and,
naturally, you can't play those tricks which, let me tell you, are best
left alone at any time. The failure has nothing whatever to do with your
morals, it has to do with your body. If you had been the greatest rogue
unhung, so long as your iniquities hadn't touched your health, you'd
still have possessed that faculty. There was no need to pray about it;
or, if you'd prayed to the devil, it would have come to the same thing;
except, of course, that people prefer the other arrangement--it's the
pleasanter myth of the two."
Barnabas frowned, looking straight in front of him from under his fair
eyebrows.
Scepticism was utterly impossible to him; the doctor's remarks could not
touch the simplicity of his faith; he had rejoiced in his healing power,
but if it had been clearly demonstrated to him a thousand times that his
belief in it was a fallacy, the demonstrator would have left him
practically much where he had been before.
"The same God as makes souls makes the bodies to 'em, I suppose," he
said. "I can't see as it makes the least bit o' difference which the
power comes through, sir. It's only 'through' arter all. I fancied it
went straight fro' my soul to the sick man's; but you are more larned,
and, happen, you know better; happen, as you say, it went fro' my
body--it's no matter, is it, so long as it went? It wasn't fro' the
devil, I know, because it was good and healed; I never heard as he did
that; he destroys both soul and body. I've never prayed to _him_," said
the preacher, giving the doctor's words a literal interpretation that
half amused, half irritated his companion; "but you're wrong when you
say it 'ud ha' come to the same thing."
"Oh, you think that the supernatural supply would have dried up, eh?"
said Dr. Merrill. The preacher's reply took him by surprise.
"No; I'd not say that for sartain," he said, after a moment's
reflection. "If ye mean the power--God doan't stop our breath when we
use it to deny and blaspheme Him. If He did, I'd ha' been dead in my
boyhood, and ye'd not ha' it now. Happen the power would ha' come just
th' same (though I ain't sure about it), like the breath; but it 'ud ha'
made a difference. Ha' ye never seen a man using God's gifts for th'
devil's service? I have. Ay, an' so have ye, an' ye know too, that he'd
_better_ be dead than do it! As for supernatural, I doan't ever
understan' what people mean by that. If it means fro' above--why,
everything is that; I can't see the thing as isn't--unless it's fro'
below," said the preacher, still frowning. "Happen ye can explain it to
me."
The doctor shook his head.
"No," he said, "you're right. There's nothing especially supernatural in
your creed, Thorpe; because, as you say, it's _all_ that; nor in mine,
because it's none of it; so we'll leave the term to the great majority,
who are neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring. Anyhow, you've got a
marvellous knack with your fingers, whether it comes from heaven or
hell, and I suppose you'll swear it must be one or t'other! It's pretty
to see how quickly you bandage. It's not every doctor who would let you
try your hand like this," said the surgeon, who was rather proud of his
liberality. "But I like to see uncommon talent, even in a quack. It's a
pity it's mixed with superstition. Now look here; Hopping Jack's sight
is gone, and no amount of praying can possibly bring it back to this
eye, as I can prove to you in a moment."
The unfortunate Jack swore under his breath, when the surgeon turned his
face to the light again.
"Let him alone, sir," said the preacher quickly. "There's no need to
touch him again. Oh, ay, I've no sort o' doubt ye know a deal more nor I
do; if ye put your power down to th' same source, happen ye'd be a bit
tenderer in your way o' using it; ye say it 'ud come to the same, but
some o' your patients 'ud feel a difference."
The doctor shrugged his shoulders; if any one but Barnabas Thorpe had
commented on his want of feeling, and infliction of pain not always
necessary, he would have snubbed him ruthlessly; but, with the evidence
before him of a disregard to personal injury, that had wrung genuine
admiration from him, he couldn't accuse the preacher of undue and
effeminate softness.
He was not naturally cruel; but a man must be upheld by an uncommonly
high aim if he can work constantly among brutal and debased natures
without either giving way to despair or hardening his heart.
There was a story current in the prison about his having got a man off
hanging on condition of his being allowed to try a new operation on him.
He was no philanthropist, but he was fond of his profession and a great
experimenter; there was not a rogue in Newgate but had a wholesome awe
of the little red-haired surgeon.
Hopping Jack was actually grateful to Barnabas.
"It's a case of 'when the devil was ill,'" Dr. Merrill said. "He won't
listen to you when he can do without your bandaging, Thorpe! He'll be
able to mimic you to the life by the time he's up again--drawl and all."
"But that won't drive me to hold my tongue," said Barnabas smiling.
And, as it happened, the doctor was wrong. Hopping Jack refrained from
caricaturing the preacher, even when he got better.
"It ain't that I couldn't!" he said regretfully to Barnabas. "I _could_
do you now as you wouldn't know which was yourself! you're easy to take
off; and I could twist 'em all round to listen to me--every man Jack of
'em; but I won't."
"Ye'd be playing a scurvy trick," said Barnabas; "an' in Satan's
service. He's a bad paymaster."
Jack winked with the one eye left.
"Gammon! It ain't for that that I don't do it," he said. "Your Master
lets you go to gaol too, don't He? you ain't a bit better off for Him.
No, it ain't for that, nor for the sake of the stuff you talk. I've
heard all that before. But you had a fine chance to pay me out for the
game I started in the yard; and you didn't take it--quite contrariwise;
and _that_ sticks in my throat, for I tell you I felt pretty sick when
the doctor, d----n him, called _you_ in."
"Why, man, what did you suppose I'd do?" said Barnabas. "Ye needn't be
grateful to me for not behaving like a devil."
In his most unregenerate days he could never have revenged himself in
cold blood on a defenceless and suffering creature. The idea was so
utterly abhorrent to him that he felt disgusted at the suggestion, and
even at the gratitude that took for granted that he might have been
tempted in such wise.
Hopping Jack laughed hoarsely, and said he knew what he'd have done if
he'd got a cove who'd broken his ribs under his thumb. But, apparently,
from that hour he looked upon the preacher as belonging to a different
species, and placed in him an implicit trust that was not without
pathos.
When the time of the sessions drew near he became alternately wildly
flighty and deeply despondent,--the former being his ordinary condition,
the latter only occasional.
He was superstitious, and had a deep-seated belief in luck, which had
failed him of late; when the despondent phase was on, he became rather
dangerous both to himself and to others.
Physical pain added largely to his depression, for he still suffered
from the injury to his eye. Barnabas felt the responsibility, that
always drove him to do his utmost, doubly great, because this waggish
scamp, who was the approved "funny man" of Newgate, evinced at times a
strong, almost dog-like affection for him. But Jack was not the only one
among all that miserable crew who appealed strongly to Barnabas Thorpe's
ruling passion to "save".
After all, the reckless licence, the apparently brutal callousness, and
shameful blasphemy that reigned in the wards were heightened and
partially excused by the fact that half these men felt the shadow of the
gallows on them; with such a spectre in the corner they drank deep and
laughed loudly, lest it should grow too plain. "Oh, it ain't come to
that _yet_," one of them said, shuddering, in answer to an entreaty of
the preacher to pause and think. "I ain't got to the thinkin' time."
Yet, on the whole, Barnabas influenced them. The prison chaplain had
given up the press yard as a bad job; but then the chaplain had a good
many interests which were quite as important to him as the "converting"
of sinners. Barnabas was a man of one idea: even where the woman he
loved was concerned, he would have deliberately advised her to lay down
her bodily life, as she had laid down her position and worldly wealth,
if that could, by any possibility, have seemed necessary for the
furtherance of Christ's kingdom; and his extreme singleness of aim told,
as it always must, whether the aim is high or low. It is possible indeed
that his very limitations made him the more effective. The men who see
many sides of a question are chary of spilling their blood. The
liberal-minded philosophers have their place in the world, but they
can't rescue those who are sinking; they can only explain why they
sink--which, no doubt, is equally useful.
Those Newgate sermons were preached with the intense fervour of one who
believed that the "night was soon coming" for many of his hearers. But
the constant strain on mind and body was growing more evident: the
preacher was no longer the man he had been when he had first entered
Newgate, and protested so vigorously against the iniquities of the press
yard; he had grown quite grey in these three months, and his broad
shoulders were bowed.
Dr. Merrill was moved to violent indignation on the subject. It was
sheer waste of the most magnificent constitution he had ever come
across, he said; and Barnabas Thorpe was innocent. Barnabas himself was
not indignant; his was not the sort of nature that turns sour in
adversity. He generally took things simply, with few questionings as to
the why and wherefore; but the hopefulness that had characterised him as
to his own prospects rather failed about this time.
"It's allus afore seemed to me most like that I'd get what I wanted, for
I used to feel somehow that there was such a deal o' pushin' power in
wanting," he said once. "Two months back I hadn't a doubt but what I'd
be proved clear; but I doan't know now. Arter all, when I come to think,
I've never had what I've most set my heart on for my own sake, though
I've been helped in my work. Some people want sunshine, and some are
coarser natured, maybe, and best managed t'other way. Happen I won't be
proved innocent; happen I'm the sort as is best without much
satisfaction. But it seems as if that 'ud be hard on my wife, for she's
quite a different make to me, and a much finer; and I can't somehow
think as _she_ needs sorrow. My poor little lass! she's had enough."
The very tone of the remark showed how the natural buoyant spirit had
been knocked out of him; though his passion for working in season and
out of season was even stronger than before.
He was gentler than he had been; and the most miserable turned to him
with an instinctive hope that the mercy of heaven might possibly, after
all, be as deep as the mercy of this man, even if equally
uncompromising. He saw Margaret seldom now. He often was not fit to
stand at the grating; and, moreover, he feared that these unsatisfactory
meetings were almost more pain than pleasure to his darling.
Early in November, Hopping Jack, together with three accomplices, was
tried, and condemned to death; but while the sentence of hanging was
recorded oftener then than it is at present, there was also a greater
probability of getting off. In nine cases out of ten the sentence was
successfully appealed against; and the tenth man probably suffered the
extreme penalty as an "example," at times when there was a scare about
the especial sin he was condemned for.
Unfortunately for Jack, the crime in which he had been taken red-handed
was rife just then; and the public hot against that class of evil-doers.
The agony of suspense was consequently sharp enough; and Barnabas in his
heart hoped that a juster judge than any earthly one would not hold the
poor wretch guilty for the mad outbreaks that characterised this awful
time of waiting for the result of the appeal. Surely no one had the
right to inflict a six weeks' torture of uncertainty! He succeeded with
much difficulty in getting Jack off an imprisonment in the dark cell. He
felt convinced that the dark would drive the man out of his remaining
senses. After that, he held himself accountable for Jack's vagaries, and
very frequently managed to restrain them. The doctor, at the preacher's
earnest entreaty, declared the culprit an "unfit subject" for solitary
confinement in utter darkness.
"Though, mind you, he's an equally 'unfit subject' for association with
his fellows in the light," he remarked to Barnabas. "They'd much better
put him out of the world as soon and as quickly as possible. He's one of
nature's mistakes, and you had better not have mercy on mistakes,
Thorpe, as you ought to know." A piece of advice that had been given
before, with equal want of effect!
The wardsman liked Barnabas none the better for this second
interference; but it did not at first occur to the preacher that he was
being purposely ill-treated when his food was scantier than it ought to
have been, when his gruel was handed to him in a pail, instead of a
basin, and when he was carefully excluded from a share of the fire.
When he did discover that these paltry revenges were constant and
unremitting, and likely to continue, unless he paid the ward dues, he
took no notice of them. There was, certainly, a strong vein of the
family obstinacy in Barnabas, and he wasn't going to "give in" to an
illegal extortion simply because he was rather colder, hungrier, and
more uncomfortable than need be.
The worst days of Newgate, when a gaoler could actually torture or flog
a rebellious prisoner, were happily past, and he had too much sturdy
pride to complain to the authorities of such mean and petty indignities
as he endured, but they probably affected his broken health; and that
November was bitterly cold.
He had never in his life before suffered from weather; but he suffered
terribly now, both by day and night. The rugs that covered the men were
never washed, and he had resolved to prefer comparative cleanliness and
cold to unmitigated dirt, and was very angry with his own softness for
feeling the frost, "like a woman". Indeed, in his ordinary health it
would have done him no harm; but, unfortunately, his bones had not
recovered from the violent handling they had received, and he lay awake
pretty constantly with racking rheumatic pains in them, and began to
stoop like a man of sixty.
At last, towards the end of the month, his turn came.
The case had roused wide interest, both actors in it having already, in
widely different ways, made a certain amount of sensation in London. The
court was full, and the crowd outside dense.
More than one glance was directed curiously at the preacher's wife, who
stood among the spectators, and was quite unconscious of criticism or
interest, whether kindly or adverse. Margaret stood between Tom Thorpe
and Dr. Merrill; but her whole attention was concentrated on Barnabas.
This sea of upturned faces was nothing to her.
George Sauls, looking over the heads of the crowd, caught a glimpse of
her, and bit his lip with a sensation of sharp pain, and of something
very like envy. He would almost have exchanged places with the prisoner,
if by so doing he could make that one woman look at him thus with all
her soul in her eyes. That which he could not have, that which would
never be his, seemed to him at that moment to loom large and clear, to
be the only reality in a world of shadows. He told himself that he was
mad, quite mad, and that it was lucky for him that his madness could
take no effect. He told himself that this woman was only like other
women; that even if her heart could be turned to him by some magic, if
he could give all his ambitions and all his wealth in exchange for her,
he would wake, when his dream should be over, and regret the bargain. He
told himself that he knew what this was made of; that he had been "in
love" before now. But the odd part of it was that he did _not_ know.
If the wickedness of our own hearts sometimes takes us by surprise, so,
I think, does their goodness. Mr. Sauls had a constitutional dislike to
mysteries, and preferred thinking about what he could understand; but
there were elements in his love for Meg which would astonish him yet.
Meanwhile, this story that the counsel for the prosecution was telling
was not a particularly pleasant one for Mrs. Thorpe to hear; though it
was absolutely necessary that it should be told. George Sauls'
expression grew stolid and impenetrable as he listened. He was already
low in her estimation. Very well: she should have the satisfaction of
knowing that her estimate was right, and _he_ would have the
satisfaction of seeing Barnabas Thorpe hang.
The counsel dwelt on the enmity that had existed between the prosecutor
and the prisoner,--an enmity that he described as being, on the
prisoner's side, passionate and unrestrained, and almost bordering on
monomania. He should call two witnesses to the fact of Barnabas Thorpe's
having already attempted Mr. Sauls' life fifteen years before this last
outrage. He spoke of that scene in the churchyard where not even the
presence of death had availed to quell the prisoner's mad passion.
Neither the futility of such a wild act of vengeance, nor the indecency
of brawling over a newly made grave, had had power to restrain him then:
the same violent impulse had evidently possessed him again in later
life, when no friendly hands were present to hold him back. He went on
to describe how the two men had met again in the hay-field, where the
preacher had denounced Mr. Sauls as "unfit to sit at table with Mrs.
Thorpe," and when Mr. Sauls had suggested that the preacher had better
try to "bring him to repentance" when Mrs. Thorpe was not by. A farm
labourer, who would be called to give evidence, had overheard that
interview.
Then he told how Mr. Sauls had started on his walk to N----town,
following a track that lay across the marshes. This track led only to
Caulderwell Farm, and was little frequented. He was followed by his
enemy. Mr. Sauls openly acknowledged that he had done his best, on this
occasion, to provoke a quarrel. He had demanded an explanation of the
words that the preacher had used in the hay-field, and had asked
tauntingly whether Barnabas Thorpe only preached "when sheltered by
petticoats". Close on this scene followed the tragic and nearly fatal
crime for which Barnabas Thorpe stood arraigned. The preacher and Mr.
Sauls had parted in anger; Mr. Sauls had gone but a short distance when
he was struck to the ground by a blow on the back of his head. Mr. Sauls
did not see his assailant, but the facts of the case spoke for
themselves. Crimes of violence were rare in that part of the country.
Mr. Sauls was a stranger in N----town. He was not aware that any man,
with the exception of the preacher, bore him, or had reason to bear him,
a grudge. Whoever had struck the blow had meant to kill, and had all but
accomplished the fulfilment of his desire. Tom Thorpe, who had found the
prosecutor unconscious and hurt nigh to death, and the doctor who was in
attendance on him, would be called as witnesses.
The prisoner listened to the speech for the prosecution with a curiously
composed air. Once only, when the counsel described the meeting on the
marsh, his brows contracted with momentary anxiety. A minute later he
raised his head and looked hard at George Sauls. He was glad that that
gentleman had had the grace to keep Margaret's name out of the affair.
His eyes met his accuser's, and, oddly enough, for a single moment, in
the midst of this trial, which was for the life of one of them, these
two were of the same mind.
When the witnesses for the prosecution were called, the prisoner's
interest seemed to lapse. He nodded reassuringly to poor old Giles, who
was heartbroken at having to give evidence against him, but otherwise he
paid little heed to what was going on. He was physically exhausted,
which partly accounted for his apathy, and he had made up his mind to
let things take their course. He had absolutely refused to allow
Margaret to employ counsel on his behalf, but he had very little fear as
to the result of the trial. His defence was in "the hands of the Lord";
he would "bide quiet," and leave it there. Meg had found it vain to
attempt to shake this resolution. Barnabas had a prejudice against
lawyers, and his prejudices were not easily removed, but he had also a
more reasonable ground for refusing their aid. He hated half measures,
and felt that there was little use in telling half a story, while he was
bound in honour not to tell the whole. In the absence of counsel, he
made one short and trenchant remark on his own behalf.
"If I had meant to kill Mr. Sauls, there'd ha' been no need for me to
come behind an' hit i' th' dark," he said. "I should ha' done it face to
face, for I was a bit th' stronger o' th' two then; an', if ye ask him,
he'll bear me out there. I'm not generally scared o' fair fighting."
There was a little hastily suppressed murmur in the court at the last
words.
The story of the middle yard had somehow got about. No one doubted the
truth of that last statement. The man's voice was low and his speech as
short as could well be, but his bowed shoulders and whitened hair spoke
for him. Margaret turned to the red-haired doctor with a proud smile on
her white lips.
"They'll _have_ to believe him," she said; and the doctor laughed
grimly. "He had better have all Newgate into the witness box!"
But indeed there was no need for the denizens of Newgate to testify to
the preacher's character. Honest men there were in plenty who were more
than ready with their evidence. Barnabas called three only; but one of
the most distinctive features of the trial was the crowd of would-be
witnesses who clamoured outside the police court, begging, and
sometimes threatening in their eagerness, "to say a word" for the
accused. "I know that the preacher never murdered any one or tried
to--why? 'Cos he cured my baby when it was chokin' with croup; and I've
trudged seven miles to say so," said one draggled, tired-out woman, who
could not be persuaded to see that her baby's life had no possible
connection with the case.
"Ye've tuk oop th' wrong soart, an' I've summat to say to th' judge
abeawt th' preacher. Thae knows he tented me through the black fever
an'----What? ye won't let me in? The judge is a fule man!" cried a
sturdy and irate countryman, who was convinced that his not being
allowed to storm the witness box was a proof of the gross miscarriage of
justice. Men actually fought to get into the already over-crowded court.
The testimony as to the preacher's character from east and west and
north and south was simply overpowering.
Margaret lingered to shake hands with more than one friend of the
preacher's when she left the heated court at the end of the first day of
the trial.
"When my husband is free again, he will thank you himself," she said.
And the men drew back to let her pass, with little murmurs of sympathy.
Tom Thorpe was still on one side of her, and the prison doctor on the
other.
"Ye'd better get out o' this as quick as ye can," Tom cried; but Meg,
who usually shrank from contact with strangers, was in no hurry now. The
shouts for Barnabas and the groans for Mr. Sauls made her blood tingle.
The sharp anxiety at her heart hurt less when she was in the midst of
those excited partisans. She had smiled bravely whenever Barnabas had
looked at her, but the sight of him had awakened a passion of
indignation that she dreaded being alone with. She wished she could
have stayed in the midst of a crowd till the second day's trial should
begin. Tom was excited too; his deep-set eyes were glowing, and he
hurried her on almost roughly.
"Look 'ee," he said, "I'm thinking some o' those lads as came wi' me
'ull mayhap gi'e Mr. Sauls a warm welcome when he comes out; an' I'd
like to see it! Just get clear o' th' scrimmage, an' then I'll go back.
Lord bless ye! I've been too kind to that gentleman; but now I've seen
our lad's face----" His voice choked.
Meg looked first at him, and then at the knot of L----shire men who
stood by the door, and whose "warm welcome" was waiting for George
Sauls. She felt instinctively that it would be of no avail to plead with
Tom. She turned round and caught hold of the doctor; who had, she knew,
been kind to her husband.
"They mean to catch Mr. Sauls when he comes out of court," she said
rapidly. "He'd better get away by another door, if he can."
The doctor nodded. "Mr. Sauls can generally be trusted to take care of
number one," he remarked; "but I'll tell him."
Tom, who heard the words, laughed angrily. For a moment, Dr. Merrill
fancied that the preacher's brother was going forcibly to prevent his
carrying the message. But, indignant as Tom was, he felt responsible to
Barnabas for Margaret, and wouldn't plunge into a row with her hands
clinging to his arm.
"That woman will catch it for having prevented him!" thought the doctor.
"There's no doubt about it, there is a queer temper in that family."
When they were clear of the crowd, Meg broke the silence.
"You are very angry with me," she said.
Tom's anger would have repelled and frightened her once; but just now
she experienced an odd sort of consolation in the intensity of the wrath
and grief he felt for his brother's sake. Tom "cared" as no one else
did.
"I'm not such a good Christian as ye are," he said. His voice sounded
gruff, and he spoke in sharp undertones, turning his head away. He was
so angry that he could not trust himself to look at the fair face his
brother loved, though he held his anger with a tight rein.
"So ye wouldn't ha' the man as has made our lad look like _that_--ay,
and 'ull hang him, if he can,--so much as scratched, eh? Ye sent to warn
him! Good Lord! it's Barnabas' wife as kindly warns Barnabas' murderer!
Ye'll forgi'e the man as 'ud like to kill your husband wi' his lyin'
tongue, till seventy times seven! I've known ye a bit hard on Barnabas
times, but----" He checked himself, and swallowed the rest of that
sentence; but the sharp pull up brought the colour to Meg's pale face.
"Oh, ye are right!" he said, after a silence. "An' uncommonly forgiving
an' a remarkable good Christian lass, as I said afore; ye are
right--only d----n me, if I wouldn't rayther have a sinner for a wife!"
"Ah," said Meg; "but you are giving me credit for more Christianity than
I possess." He did look at her then, struck by something strange in her
tone. Barnabas' wife was altered too. With that too vivid consciousness
of what Barnabas had gone through, burning like fire somewhere at the
bottom of her heart, it struck her as almost ludicrous that Tom should
suppose she had pity on the preacher's enemy.
"I heard Long John swearing that he'd served with you man and boy for
nigh thirty years, and had never in his life seen one of you put out;
that, in fact, your mildness as a family was proverbial!" said
Margaret. She did not speak like herself, she was like another woman
to-day,--older and sterner and less gentle.
"Of course he did," said Tom. "It 'ud ha' been uncommon queer if one o'
the L----shire lads as I've licked into shape wi' my own hands didn't
swear by us."
"It would," said Meg gravely. "But if you and those same lads had caught
and half murdered Mr. Sauls as he left the court, it would be an odd
sort of comment on what we've been hearing, wouldn't it? Perhaps, after
that, they'd hardly believe in the great gentleness of the Thorpe
disposition, or see how unlikely it is that one of you should hit a man
with a bill-hook."
Tom stood still in the middle of the road, and caught her arm with a
grasp which hurt her, though neither of them was the least aware of that
at the moment.
"Ye doan't tell me ye believe he did that?" he said; and she wondered
for a moment what he would have done, if she _had_ believed it.
"No--I know the truth," she said. "And, even if he had not told me, I
should still have known that it would have been impossible for him to
hit unfairly. But it's not in the natural mildness of your temper that I
trust, Tom. Barnabas has something more than that."
Tom gave a despairing grunt. "An' the summat more's just his ruin!" he
said, letting her go again. "There! I hadn't no kind o' business to ha'
spoken rough to 'ee, lass; and Barnabas 'ud not ha' forgi'en me in a
hurry, if he'd heard. I meant to ha' been a help to 'ee; but, I think,
I'm mazed wi' to-day's work. It were seeing him."
"Yes, yes; I know, Tom," said Meg. "Do you think I don't know how it
breaks one's heart to see him like that? But, when we get him safe home
again, we will take such care of him! All the care he ever gave me he
shall have back with interest. He will be obliged to get strong, for we
will nurse him so well." And again the wistful tenderness in her voice
struck Tom as something fresh.
"I wish it were Monday!" she said. "There is no doubt that he will be
acquitted. Oh, no doubt at all! Didn't you hear that red-haired doctor
say so? He said that there was no direct evidence against Barnabas, and
that even Mr. Sauls' cleverness could not make an innocent man guilty.
Barnabas looked as if he weren't attending; I think he feels that what
becomes of him personally is not his business; or else he was too worn
out to listen. On Monday it will be over. I wish it were Monday!"
"Ay! it 'ull be over," said Tom; "but what if it's over the wrong way?
The devil does win sometimes, lass, whatever Barnabas may say."
"It isn't possible," said Meg. Then the soft curves of her lips
straightened. "If the devil wins," she said, "why, then--you may do what
you like. You may tear Mr. Sauls to pieces, Tom, and I will stand by,
and clap my hands and cry 'well done!'"
"Amen!" said Tom, holding out his hand. He knew now what had changed
Barnabas' wife.
They walked on in silence through the darkening street after that,
engrossed by their own thoughts. Tom had got a room in the same house as
his sister-in-law; he nodded "good-night" absently to her when they
reached home. Five minutes later she knocked at his door, and entered
his room with a plate in her hands.
"I've brought you something to eat. Do take it, Tom. You've had nothing
all day," she said gently.
"I haven't the heart to feast," said Tom. "An' I hate to see ye waiting
on me!" But he swallowed the food hastily, seeing that she would take no
denial. Meg's sisterly attentions half touched, half irritated him just
then. Anxiety always made Tom cross.
"Are ye gadding about again?" he asked, glancing at her bonnet.
"Yes, I am going to Commercial Road," said Meg. "Mr. Potter tells me
that he has got some clothes belonging to Barnabas,--a jersey, and a
shirt and a cloth cap. I am going to fetch them and take them to the
prison to-night. They say the ward is terribly cold."
"I'll go for 'ee," said Tom, getting up and stretching himself. "What
way is it, eh?"
"We will both go," said Meg. "I can't sit still." And Tom checked the
remonstrance that was on his lips.
"Come along, lass," he said. "Though it's a wonder ye want my company
any more! Eh, the wind's blowing wi' ice in it. Come along, if ye will."
"I think I was glad you were angry," said Meg, laughing a little
unsteadily, as they went out again.
"It is good to have one of his own people with me. I couldn't have borne
to be with any one but you just now. It is you who belong to him."
"Eh? Times are changed, lass," said Tom. "Barnabas would ha' gi'en his
ears once to ha' heard ye say that."
"He wouldn't have let me say that I'd cry 'well done' if you revenged
yourself on his enemy, though. Tom, I was mad. Forget it, please!"
"Would ye forgive him?" said Tom, looking hard at her. He repeated the
question again presently and more insistingly. "Would ye forgive him--if
he won?"
"No!" she said. "One may forgive one's own enemies, but I could never
forgive those that injure the people I love. It's not in me to be so
good as that--I meant what I said. I should have no pity left for
_him_--for it would all be given," said Meg. She pressed her hands tight
against her breast as she walked, and her steps quickened so that Tom
could hardly keep pace with her. "But, all the same, I would not cry
'well done', and I would do my best to prevent you--for Barnabas' sake."
"Would ye? Ye wouldn't find your preventin' answer twice, my good lass!"
said Tom. "Well, I'm glad ye doan't forgive him. It's more natural like.
Ye aren't so much like snow and moonshine as ye were. It made me sick
when I thought ye were sorry for that man. A woman who can be sorry for
her husband's enemy can't care much. I'm glad ye've some flesh and blood
in the way you're made!"
"Do you think that I care less than you?" said Meg.
"Than me! ay, it stands to reason----" began Tom, then stopped short. "I
wish I'd left that gentleman in the ditch!" he ended with some
irrelevance. "I'll never pick up any one again; there's a deal to answer
for."
"Barnabas wouldn't wish that," said Meg.
"Barnabas!" he cried. "He doesn't know what's good for him! Oh, ay, I
know what ye are going to say. He'll ha' his reward i' the next world;
but what do ye think he'll do wi' it? Why, he'll be miserable in a happy
place. When Barnabas gets to heaven he'll ha' no peace till he's sent to
hell, my dear, nor give the angels peace either. Ay, ye may cry out,
Barnabas' wife, but it's true, an' ye'll see it, if ever ye get to
heaven too."
CHAPTER VIII.
Mr. Sauls took the doctor's hint, and risked no broken bones.
"I might have a remarkable piece of evidence as to the excellence of
that charming family's temper," he remarked; "but it's not worth while
being mobbed for that. I wonder Tom Thorpe is such a fool!"
"Mrs. Thorpe sent you the warning," said the doctor.
"Did she?" said George, rather surprised. "Ah! she saw if Mr. Tom broke
my head afresh, he'd help to damn the preacher."
He opined justly enough. Love and hate had arrived for once at the same
conclusion.
Mrs. Sauls had been in the court, as well as dozens of other ladies not
so immediately concerned, who had stared through opera glasses at the
preacher, and whispered to each other that the slight woman in black
with the pale face and cropped hair was Mrs. Thorpe, "who _was_ Margaret
Deane, you know".
George Sauls made his exit in safety, and went to Hill Street to talk
things over with his mother.
"You won't win, my dear," she said. "He can't prove that he didn't do
it; but you can't prove that he did; and the jury always incline to the
side of poor man _versus_ gentleman. His ragged coat and his rough
accent are decidedly in his favour; he'll get off."
"I've done my little best," said George, throwing himself on the sofa
full length. "That's always a comfort. As you say, he'll possibly escape
through the holes in his shirt. An English jury have a curiously
sentimental leaning to poverty. May I smoke? Thanks! Well, it is some
small satisfaction to reflect that I've given him three months in
Newgate; and I don't think it has agreed with him."
The old lady nodded thoughtfully; she and George always thoroughly
understood each other.
She knew that he liked his cigar, and the warm room, and the soft sofa
the better because Barnabas Thorpe was suffering bodily discomfort; and
it was a very natural source of satisfaction, she considered.
"And there's a further consolation," he went on, after puffing away in
silence for a few minutes. "You see I am resigning myself to the chance
of his not being hung. There's another consolation. If I win, he'll be a
martyr, as sure as I'm a sinner; he'll have such a glorification as will
disguise the fact that he is being punished for a dastardly attempt at
murder. They'll forget that. He'll be 'injured poverty'; and I,
'oppressing opulence'. But, if he gets off for want of sufficient
evidence, then they won't forget. I fancy his preaching won't go down so
well then--there'll always be whispers."
"That's true," said Mrs. Sauls. "It's odd that they have never traced
those diamonds since your pockets were rifled."
"I believe some one must have seen me lying there, before Mr. Tom played
good Samaritan, and must have helped himself. I don't believe the
preacher would have stolen from me, do you?"
He had great faith in his mother's judgment; this time it took him by
surprise.
"If you want my private opinion on the subject--but perhaps you don't?"
she began.
"Oh yes, I do. I always like to hear your private opinions. They are
refreshingly original. Go on."
"Well, my dear, my private opinion is this: A man who is capable of
hitting behind in the dark, is capable of emptying his victim's pockets;
but _that_ man did neither the one nor the other."
George took his cigar from between his lips, and sat upright with a
jerk. His mother was sitting by the fire, her rich silk dress tucked up,
her feet on the fender, her light, cat-like eyes gazing into the red
embers. She nodded again, as if in answer to his movement.
"That is strictly between ourselves, George," she said; "but I am
convinced he didn't do it. He made a shocking poor defence! If he had
been guilty, he might have found more to say. He wasn't attempting to
exonerate himself. My dear, I watched him all the time, and he hardly
took it in when a point was made for and when against him. He knew when
his wife moved, and he was pleased when that fine old clergyman called
him his friend; but he wasn't following the case. He is ill; any one
could see that he could hardly stand. But, if he had been guilty, his
nerves would have been on the rack all the time; and, if he had known
nothing about it, he'd have shown more fight. He knows something, and
has made up his mind that his tongue's tied, and that he will just leave
it to Providence."
"Ah well," said George, "if nothing short of hanging will teach Barnabas
Thorpe that Providence does not go out of its way to dance attendance on
him, I humbly hope he may learn that lesson with a rope round his neck.
I don't feel called on to baulk it. If he is such a fool as to shelter
criminals, let him."
"Certainly," said Mrs. Sauls. "But, if he were your client, my son, he'd
be cleared. If you had been acting for him, you'd have found out, before
now, who the real criminal was, whether Barnabas Thorpe tried to shelter
him or not."
George laughed. "I am too old a bird to be caught by such a bare-faced
compliment, old lady!" said he. "If that rascally saint were my client,
of course I should do my best to whitewash him; but he isn't innocent,
and I shouldn't think him so."
"Shall I tell you what will happen? The diamonds will be found in the
possession of the real culprit," said Mrs. Sauls.
"Oh, of course they will be found," said George; "as soon as the thief
tries to pass them. He'll be afraid to, for weeks yet. I never had any
hope that they were in our pious friend's possession. Pooh! he's greedy
of praise, and he likes pretty women, in conjunction with long prayers;
but I'm bound to own that, if it had been diamonds he was hankering
after, he could have had them without the trouble of knocking me on the
head."
"Oh--could he? that has not come out in court," said Mrs. Sauls, her
sharp old face alight with interest. "You mentioned a locket set with
diamonds among the contents of your pocket; but you, neither of you,
said that you had had any talk about it."
"It belonged to Mrs. Thorpe originally," said George. "It happened to
come into my hands. In fact, I picked it up in a pawn-shop, and tried to
return it to her. Her husband wouldn't let her accept it, which was like
his insolence; but there was no need for either of us to drag her name
into court, and I wasn't going to give all the sweet women who look on
at trials the joy of serving up a bit of scandal about that poor lady.
They are like French cooks--they can concoct a spicy dish out of next
to nothing. Well! what are you cogitating now?"
"You say he likes pretty women," said Mrs. Sauls. "It strikes me he
likes _one_ woman uncommonly well. As for his preaching and praying, it
has cost him so dear, by all accounts, that, though it may be done in
the market-place, I fancy it can hardly be for the praise of men. Cant
doesn't court broken bones, as a rule."
"Ah! women are always taken in by that sort," said George. "I thought
better of you, mother! Even at your age you are not proof against a
preacher."
"My dear, that's no argument," said his mother. "If you take to
platitudes about the sexes I have done. Yes, yes! Women have a
predilection for parsons and preachers, it's well known. I am seventy
years of age and as ugly as sin; but, no doubt, I am sentimental at
heart as any bread-and-butter miss, eh? and your remark quite applies. A
woman's easily blinded by pious pretences, and a man in love with his
neighbour's wife can't hit straight for squinting at her. There's
another generality to cap yours! Not at all to the point either, of
course. It's a foolish manner of talking."
The old lady spoke with a spice of temper; and George laughed, but he
was angry too.
He got up and threw his cigar into the fire. "I am going out for a bit.
I daresay I shan't be in for dinner; don't wait, please," said he. "I am
sick to death of the chatter about this trial. You can talk it over with
Lyddy and the Cohens without my assistance, can't you?"
And he went out, leaving Mrs. Sauls to repent her indiscretion. She lost
the greatest pleasure of the week when her son didn't dine with her on
Saturday. Her tongue was occasionally a match for his, but she was
heavily handicapped by Nature; for, naturally, even so good a son as
George did not find in his mother, as she found in him, the chief joy
and object of existence! George was not in the least quick-tempered as a
rule, however; and their chaff seldom resulted in anything approaching a
huff.
Mrs. Sauls sat on the stool of repentance till dinner time, when she
drank her best champagne--which was produced only when George was
expected--without tasting it, and found no savour in her dinner.
Lyddy, loud and high-coloured, took George's place at the bottom of the
table, and "Uncle Benjamin" was pleased. Benjamin Cohen had snubbed
George in his nephew's youth; now times were changed, and old Benjamin
would have been glad to forget certain by-gones; but, unfortunately,
George had an excellent memory; consequently, the uncle liked Lyddy the
better of the two, though he entertained the greater respect for his
nephew.
They discussed the trial in all its bearings, but Mrs. Sauls sat silent
and heavy. She was as great a talker as her son as a rule; but to-night
she contributed only one observation during the whole of the dinner.
When Benjamin Cohen remarked that he had heard that the defendant's
health had been quite broken down by the rough treatment he had
received, she observed that she had no opinion of preachers, and that no
doubt it served him right.
After dinner, they played cards; and she lost heavily, and took no
pleasure in the game. Usually she was keenly interested; though it was
an understood thing, that when she won, the stakes were merely nominal,
and that when Benjamin won, they were _bonâ fide_. Mr. Benjamin swept
them up very comfortably to-night.
The candles in the heavy gold candlesticks had burnt down pretty low
before the game showed any signs of ending. Lyddy played on the grand
piano at the further end of the big drawing-room; and her aunt, a faded,
gentle, little woman, dozed peacefully in an armchair.
It was close on eleven o'clock when Mrs. Sauls' face visibly brightened;
she had heard George's step on the stairs.
He came in and shook hands with his uncle, and kissed his aunt, to whom
he was always genuinely kind, and then came and leaned on the back of
his mother's chair, and overlooked her cards.
"You are getting shamefully beaten, old lady!" said he. "You can't play
without me to advise you. Uncle Benjamin's more than a match for you."
"I played before you were born, and even before you were thought of, my
dear," said Mrs. Sauls; but she knew, by the tone of his voice, that
George had forgiven the "generality" about neighbours' wives; and she
was her cheerful self again.
He continued to stand there, commenting on her play, in a way that
irritated his uncle, but delighted his mother, who always loved to have
her son near her, and who, presently, became aware that he had some
secret cause of elation, and was very unusually excited.
"Have you been winning to-night?" she asked; and he smiled as he stooped
over her, and touched the card she should play.
"I've held trumps," he said. "The trumps were diamonds. Ah, you are
making a mistake, mother! You should not play hearts; you will give your
adversary a chance if you do that. Yes, I have been in luck to-night.
I've held all the diamonds, and had the game in my hands. Nothing to do
now but to win."
"_You_ didn't give your adversary any chance, I'll be bound," said his
uncle.
"No; I never do, sir," said George.
Mrs. Sauls went on winning steadily now, with her son to back her.
George's luck seemed to infect her, but Benjamin waxed angry.
Mrs. Sauls sent George away at last, unwillingly. "You are disturbing
your uncle, which is not fair. And really, you know, I don't require to
be taught how to suck eggs. Go away!" she cried.
"Does it disturb you to be looked at, Uncle Benjamin? I beg your
pardon," said George politely; and retreated to the other end of the
room to chaff Lyddy, and amuse his gentle little aunt, who never could
understand why any one ever disliked dear George or thought him
sarcastic.
"There!" said Lyddy yawning, when their guests had departed; "I thought
they were never going. Isn't it comical to see what a fuss George always
makes over poor Aunt Lyddy? I declare I believe he'll end by marrying
_that_ kind of simple, meek woman, though he flirts with the go-ahead
ones."
"I wish he would!" said George's mother. "Your Aunt Lyddy is a good
woman--a much better woman than I am; though I must own," she added,
with an inflection of voice that was very like her son's, "that I
believe that's partly because she's too stupid to be anything else. But
George would be very kind to a----"
"To a good little fool!" said Lyddy. "I really think he would. Well, are
you coming to bed?"
"Presently," said Mrs. Sauls. But when Lyddy had gone, she went down to
the smoking room.
"Ah! I thought your curiosity wouldn't keep till the morning!" cried
George, when she opened the door.
"My dear! You've found the diamonds! Where are they?"
He stretched out his hand, the locket lying on his palm face upwards.
"In my hands," he said.
"And where were they, George?"
"In that saint's!" He laughed, and laid it down on the table. "Mother!
you and I were too charitable; we thought he would draw the line at
that."
He told her the whole story then, walking up and down the room while he
talked. He was very triumphant, and slightly flushed; she could have
fancied he had been drinking just enough to elate him, but that George
never drank; and, in spite of the triumph, the old woman's heart ached
for him.
"You remember I told you that I had mislaid some papers?" he said. "I
recollected suddenly that I had left them at the governor's house, so I
went back there this evening; I found them. (I shall begin to say I am
led by the Spirit soon.) On leaving the house, I came upon that fine old
parson from Lupcombe. He wanted to cut me; he thought I had trumped up
the whole story about his pet preacher, out of personal spite, I
believe. He implied as much in the witness box, and I was determined to
have it out with him. Upon my word, mother, though I've small liking for
parsons, I like that one; he's a splendid old specimen. Well, the snow
came down hard on us and shortened our colloquy. He went on his way,
having delivered his mind as boldly as if he were safe in the pulpit,
where no man can answer him; and I was just crossing the road, when a
runaway cart came tearing along. I saw a woman, with a bundle in her
arms, slip as she tried to get out of the way. The roads are in a
fearful state; one might skate from here to the gaol; and the drifts of
snow were whirling up into our eyes. I caught the horse's bridle. The
wheels hadn't gone over the woman, but she was knocked down almost under
the brute's hoofs. I had to pick her up. She wasn't much hurt, I fancy;
only a good deal shaken, and a little bruised."
He paused for a moment. Something in his voice had revealed to his
mother who the woman was.
"You saved the preacher's wife!" she said.
"I felt I ought to apologise for my presumption," said George. "But I
really couldn't help it. I--I didn't see who she was till she lay in my
arms."
He put his head down on his hands for a second as he stood by the
mantelpiece. He could feel her in his arms still in the midst of that
whirling snow, her head on his shoulder for once, her eyes closed.
"Tom Thorpe was with her; he was just a few steps in front. He turned
round when he heard me shout, and he caught the reins on the other side.
I left him to take her home. She is living close to the prison. I think
she hadn't time to realise that I had saved her, which was fortunate;
for she would possibly have preferred being killed. I had picked up the
bundle she was carrying, and had it still in my hand. I considered
whether I would run after them and give it to Tom Thorpe; but then I
thought I'd send it round by a servant to-night, and not force her to
speak to me. Modesty is always my strong point, you know. Besides,
though I am not thin-skinned, she has made me understand that,--what was
it?--that she'd rather take hot coals in her bare hands, than help from
me. So I took the bundle to my rooms, and--(observe the leading of the
Spirit again! I could preach a sermon on that subject to the preacher
now!)--I called Lucas to do up the things tidily, and take them. There
was a jersey, and a woollen shirt, and a cloth cap. I didn't want to
touch them. It was Lucas--not I--who found out. The cap had been torn,
her bundle had gone under the wheel; it was so torn that the lining was
loose. Lucas, bless his tidiness! took it up to brush off the dirt. In
brushing it, he felt something between the cloth and the lining. He put
in his fingers--he is always curious, but I'll allow that his curiosity
was inspired on this occasion--and he pulled out _this_ plum! It had
been lying safely _perdu_ for some time. If that pious man's leading
spirit hadn't rounded on him and taken to leading me instead, he would
have carried those diamonds on his revered head to all his meetings for
the next six months--supposing he got off, of which he had a good
chance. It would hardly have been safe to get rid of them in England;
but, perhaps, he would have had 'a call' to convert the sinners over the
Channel. He generally uncovers when he prays, doesn't he? otherwise, I
should think the diamonds would have touched him as a very 'direct and
sensible blessing,' and would have given great force to his petitions."
"Don't, George!" said Mrs. Sauls quickly. "If the man was a hypocrite,
he'll swing for it; but that's no reason why you should blaspheme."
"I? I am in an unusually religious frame of mind," said George. "Aunt
Lyddy told me to be thankful to Providence for my preservation just now;
and so I am, very. I've got my desire over mine enemy, which is a
Biblical source of congratulation! Barnabas Thorpe always says it's the
'Lord' when he takes what he wants. Let me follow that holy man's
example; if his 'Lord' has given him into my hand, it would be wicked
not to rejoice."
"Do you suppose his wife knew that he had the diamonds?" interrupted
Mrs. Sauls.
"No, I don't," said George. "It _would_ be blasphemy to suppose that."
He was walking up and down again, but that question about the preacher's
wife sobered him a little; and presently he sat down, playing with her
locket in one hand and shading his face with the other.