THE PRISON OF AMERSFORT
The prison of the city of Amersfort stood at the corner of one of its
most ancient streets, and the military portion of it exposed a long
scarped wall to the public, broken only by a single line of small
windows triply barred with iron stanchions of the thickness of a man's
wrist. These windows were only separated from the street by a low wall
and a strong but wide-meshed railing of wrought iron. In the large room
of the jail, where only those prisoners were kept who were detained
for slight offences, or who awaited trial, the unglazed squares of the
window were large enough to admit of a pole and small basket being
protruded, so that it should hang within reach of the passers-by. One
of the inmates was appointed to stand with this curious fishing-rod in
his hand, and the plaintive wail, "Remember the poor prisoners of the
prince!" resounded all day along the ancient thoroughfare.
But Wat was too important a guest to be placed in this common room.
By special direction of the provost-marshal he had a cell assigned to
him in a tower only a few yards above the level of the street. His
apartment had two windows, one of which being in the belly of the tower
looked up and down the thoroughfare. He could see the passengers as
they went to and fro, and if any had cared to stop he might even have
spoken with them.
Wat paid little attention to the street for the first day or two
which he passed in the cell. Mostly he sat on the low pallet bed with
his head sunk deeply in his hands. He gave himself up completely to
melancholy thoughts. During the first day he had expected every hour
to be brought before a military tribunal. But the fact that the day
passed without incident more discomposing than the visits of the
turnkey with his scanty meals informed Wat that he was not to be tried
by any summary method of jurisdiction, though in the angry state of the
feelings of the army against the townsfolk of Amersfort, and especially
smouldering hatred of the provost-marshal's men, this would doubtless
have been Wat's best chance.
But his mortal enemy did not wish to run the risk of seeing his rival
set free with but some slight penalty, and, being in a position of
great influence, he had his will. Day by day passed in the prison, each
wearier and grayer than the other. Finally, Wat took to his barred
windows and watched the stream of traffic. As the poignancy of his
regret dulled to a steady ache, he became deeply interested in the
boys who sported in the gutters and sailed ships of wood and paper in
every spate and thunder-shower. He watched for the rosy-cheeked maids,
with their black, clattering sabots, who paused a moment to adjust
their foot-gear with a swish of pleated skirts and a glimpse of dainty
ankle; and then, having once stopped, stood a long time gossiping with
their plain-visaged, flat-capped, broad-breeched lovers. Above all, Wat
loved the vagrant dogs that wandered lazily about the shady corners and
fought one another like yellow, whirling hoops in the dust.
Often he would leave his meagre meal untouched in order to watch them.
One dog in particular interested him more than all the human beings
in the Street of the Prison. He was a long, thin-bodied beast of a
yellowish-gray color, of no particular ancestry, and certainly without
personal charms of any kind, save as it might be those incident to
phenomenal and unredeemed ugliness.
To this ignoble hound Wat daily devoted a large proportion of his dole
of bread. It amused him to entice the beast each day nearer to the
railings, and then, while other stouter and better-favored animals were
for the moment at a distance, Wat would deftly propel a pellet of bread
to this faithful attendant. At first, the pariah of the Street of the
Prison suspected a trap. For during an eventful life he had on several
occasions been taken in with pepper balls and second-hand mustard
plasters by the brisk young men of the hospitals and of the Netherlands
trading companies.
Now it chanced that while Wat thus played good Samaritan to a cur of
the gutter, two women stood at the outer gate of the prison. It was not
the first occasion they had been there, nor yet the first time they had
been denied entrance.
Maisie and Kate, with women's generosity and swift repentance, still
blaming themselves deeply for their hastiness, had gone to inquire for
Lochinvar early on the morning after he had been put in prison.
But neither by persuasions nor yet with all their little store of
money could they buy even a moment's interview. The jailer's orders
were too imperative. Some one high in authority had given the sternest
injunctions that no one was to be allowed to see the prisoner on any
pretext. Will had accompanied them on one occasion in his new officer's
uniform, and even discovered in the chief turnkey an old comrade of
Groningen. But it was vain. Strict obedience to his instructions was
the keeper's life, as well as his bread and his honor. Simply, he dared
not, he said, permit any to see that particular prisoner.
But, had they known it, there was a way of access to Wat. As they came
out of the prison gates they met Barra. The provost-marshal, with a
gloomy countenance, informed them that the prince took a very serious
view of the affair of their cousin. However, he was in hopes that the
sentence, though severe and exemplary, would not in any case be death.
Probably, however, it might involve a very long period of imprisonment.
"The prince and his council have resolved that an example must be made.
There have been, they say, far too many of these brawls in the army. It
is such occurrences which breed ill-blood betwixt the soldiers and the
townsfolk."
"But in that case," said Maisie, "why not persuade the prince to make
an example of somebody else--not, surely, of our cousin Wat?"
Barra shrugged his shoulders.
"I am afraid," he said, softly, "that we cannot always arrange matters
so that the penalties shall fall on shoulders whose sufferings will
not hurt us. But you, dear ladies, can wholly trust me to use all my
influence, so that your friend may soon find himself again at liberty."
Thus talking, they had turned to the right, and were now walking down
the Street of the Prison. Maisie went a little ahead with her hand on
her husband's arm, thinking that perhaps if Kate were left to herself
she might be able to move the provost-marshal to kindlier purposes.
Barra lingered as much as he could, in order to separate Kate and
himself as widely as possible from the pair in front.
They passed close to Wat's window, and the prisoner watched them go by
with black despair in his heart.
As they reached the gloomy angle of the prison, Barra indicated, with a
wave of his hand, a remarkable gargoyle in the shape of a devil's head,
frowning from the battlements of the gray, beetling tower. Through the
closed bars of his window Wat noticed the gesture, as Barra intended
that he should.
"My God!" he cried aloud, to the deaf walls, "he has brought her this
way to gloat with her over my prison-house!"
And he flew at the bars of his window, striking and shaking them till
his hands were bruised and bleeding.
"Let me get out! God in heaven! Let me get out--that I may kill him!"
he cried, in the madness of agony.
But the bars resisted his utmost endeavor. Not so much as a particle of
mortar stirred, and after spending all his strength in vain, Wat fell
back on his hard pallet utterly exhausted, and lay there for hours in a
vague and dazed unconsciousness.
The sullen, tranced hours verged towards evening, and Wat still lay
motionless.
The keeper had twice been to his cell with food. But finding on the
occasion of his second visit the previous supply of bread and water
untouched, he had merely laid down the small loaf of black bread which
was served out to the prisoners every night, and so departed.
At intervals a low voice seemed to steal into Wat's cell through the
silence of the prison.
"A friend would speak with you--a friend would speak with you."
The words came up from the street beneath. At the third or fourth
repetition Wat rose wearily and, with a dull and hopeless heart, went
to the window whence he was wont to feed the dog with pellets of bread
in the morning. A girl, small and slim of body, plainly attired in a
black dress, stood directly underneath. Wat was about to turn back
again to his couch, thinking that the summons could not have been
intended for him, when the maid eagerly beckoned him to remain.
"Do you not remember me?" she said; "I am the Little Marie. I have
never gone back to the Hostel of the Coronation. I have been very
wicked. I know I have brought you here. I know that you cannot forgive
me; but tell me something--anything that I may do for you?"
"It is not at all your fault that I am here," replied Wat Gordon,
"only that of my own mad folly. Do not reproach yourself, nor trouble
yourself, I pray you. There is nothing at all that you can do for me--"
"No one you love to whom I could carry a message--a letter?" The girl
looked wistfully up at him as she said this. "I would deliver it so
safely, so secretly."
A little before, Wat would gladly, eagerly indeed, have accepted the
offer, and sent her at once to the street of Zaandpoort, in spite of
his dismissal. But now his eyes had seen.
"Nay, Little Marie," he said, smiling sadly. "There is no one whom I
love, no one who cares in the least to hear of me or of my welfare."
The girl stood still, plucking at the lace on her black sleeve, and
looking down.
"Run home now, Little Marie," said Wat, kindly. "I am glad you have
left the Hostel of the Coronation. Do not go back there any more."
The girl stood still in her place beneath the window.
At last she said, without looking up, "There is one whom you do not
love, who cares much that you are in prison and alone!"
"And who may that be, Marie--old Jack Scarlett, mayhap?"
The girl looked up for a moment--a sudden, flashing look through
blinding tears.
"Only bad-hearted Little Marie--that would die for you!" she said,
brokenly.
And without caring even to wipe away her tears, she walked slowly
down the midst of the Street of the Prison, seeing no one at all, and
answering none of the greetings that were showered upon her.