MAKES KNOWN THE EXCELLENT QUALITIES OF JAIL LIFE.
Captain Hawthorn had been duly apprised of Thomas's misfortune, but was
unable to do anything directly to help him. Because of his obnoxious
opinions Hawthorn was not a justice of the peace; and he felt that any
attempt on his part to appear as the labourer's champion might only end
in making the poor fellow's sentence all the heavier. Since the Reform
Bill and the Chartist agitations had alarmed the landholders, they had
shown less disposition than ever to admit such a nondescript radical as
Hawthorn into their society; and his interference in local affairs was
so prominently resented on several occasions that he had almost ceased
to attempt any. He had even some difficulty in obtaining access to
Wanless in jail; but ultimately succeeded, by the help of a little
judicious bribery, and the friendly assistance of a mountebank drunken
parson, who was in jail for debt during six days of the week, but got
bailed out on Sundays, so that he might edify his flock and keep down
expenses.
The old man's first greeting to Wanless was in his customary rough
form.
"Well, Tom, a nice ass you have made of yourself. Why the devil hadn't
you more sense, man? Eh? D--n it, you might have taken some of my
rabbits, my boy, and never a keeper would have said you nay."
This was true enough, for Hawthorn had now no keeper, and, for that
matter, little game. He allowed his tenants to do as they pleased, and
one of the deepest grievances his neighbours had against him, was that
these tenants thinned their game wherever their lands marched with his.
To this sally Thomas, however, made no answer beyond a smothered groan.
The man's spirit was too much broken to bear rough comfort of this kind,
as his visitor instantly perceived. Changing his tone at once, the
Captain bent over the bench where the prisoner sat hanging his head, and
laying his hand on Thomas's shoulder, added--
"Come, come, Tom, my boy; bless my life! don't lose heart because you've
been a fool. I'll see that the chicks don't starve, and you'll soon be
out of this, and a man again."
The kind tones of Hawthorn's voice affected Tom more even than the
promise. He tried to speak, but his voice broke in sobs.
"Tut, tut. 'Pon my life, don't, Tom, d--n it, man, don't," spluttered
the Captain; but, as Tom did not stop, he grasped his hand suddenly and
gave it a hearty grip. Then he turned and fled, afraid probably of
himself betraying his feelings.
His visit did Thomas much good, and he bore his trials more patiently
henceforth, though the bitterness of his heart at times nearly maddened
him. I can never forget the description which he gave me in after days
of the agonies suffered by him during those horrible six months. We were
seated together in his little garden one September evening, the sun was
far down in the west, the ruddy glow of a calm, bright autumn evening
fell athwart Wanless's grey, worn face, lighting it with a sober
brilliance that fitted well the fixed look of sadness that sat on it as
he then told me of that dark time. His voice was calm for the most part,
although full of subdued passion; and the impression his narrative made
on me was so deep that I can almost give you his very words.
"At first," said he, "I felt like a caged wild beast, and could do
nothing but chafe. The night in the keeper's out-house, where the
villain kept me to save himself trouble, with both hands and feet
cruelly tied, had been bad enough; and the nights and days in Leamington
lock-up were hard to bear, but a kind of hope sustained me, and I did
not fully comprehend what loss of liberty was till I lay in Warwick
Jail. For three nights after I entered that hell upon earth I did not
sleep a wink. The very air I breathed seemed to choke me. Sometimes I
felt so mad that I could hardly keep from dashing my head against the
walls of the cell. Had I been alone perhaps I might have done it, but
there were five beside myself cooped up in a den not much bigger than my
kitchen, and in the darkness I was for a time horribly afraid lest one
or other of these men should do me an injury. Though in one sense eager
for death, I did not like being killed; and when not raging I was
trembling with fear. It was nervousness, no doubt, but you can hardly
wonder when I tell you what my neighbours were. One was a burglar from
Birmingham, sentenced to transportation for stealing a coat from
somebody's hall; two were miners from Dudley way, "doing" sixty days for
kicking a chum and breaking his leg, another was a wild, brutish-like
day labourer, who had got six months at last Assizes for cutting his
wife's throat, not quite to the death, and the last was a poor, hungry
youth of a tailor's apprentice, who had got the same sentence for
stealing some cloth. We were a strange lot, and I feared these men in
the darkness. If one moved, my heart leapt to my mouth; and the horrible
language in which some of them indulged, made my flesh creep. That wild
labourer especially terrified me. What if the murderous frenzy was to
come upon him, and he should try to throttle me in the dark.
"After a few nights, exhausted nature asserted herself, and I slept.
Then other thoughts arose in my heart that were still worse to
bear--thoughts about my wife and family. Sarah had been allowed to speak
to me for a minute or two before I was removed from the Leamington
Courthouse to jail, and she then told me that Jack and Fanny caught cold
_that_ night, and threatened dropsy. Lucy, also, had had a relapse of
the fever. Poor woman, she looked so broken-hearted and worn-out like,
and I could say nothing, still less do anything now. 'Oh, Tummas,
Tummas, that it should a' coom to this' she cried, and wept bitterly
behind her thin old shawl. It was the shawl I married her in, sir; and
I thought on the past and the future till I, too, broke down and cried
like a child. But what good was that to her; to either of us? Well; I
couldn't help it.
"Then she picked up a bit, and tried to cheer me, as women will when the
worst comes. She told me that Mrs. Robins was very kind, and had come to
look after the children for her that day, having none of her own, and no
fear of the infection, and she was sure that the neighbours would never
see her want. That was some comfort at the time; but once I came to
myself in jail the thought that I was now helpless, that my family might
be dying and I unable to reach them, raised anew the agony in my mind. I
saw them gathered round our Sally's bed weeping for their absent father.
My wife's weary looks and thin white face haunted me in the night
seasons far worse than the wife mutilator. What could neighbours do for
her in such a strait; what could I do now? The thought of my
helplessness came over me with waves of agonising self-abasement and
disgust, till my nerves seemed to crack and my brain spin round. Often
did I stuff my sleeve into my mouth to stop myself from crying out as I
lay tossing on the floor of the den. I would beat my head with my
clenched hands till the sparks danced in my eyes, and groan till my
neighbours muttered curses through their sleep. Oh, I thought, if I
could but get an hour with my little ones, to see wee Sally and the baby
in their bed, to watch poor Jack and Fan, and help the worn out mother.
An hour! nay, half an hour, only five minutes! God, it was unbearable;
it was hell to be caged like this!
"And what had I done to be thus torn from my wife and children, and made
to consort with brutal criminals? What had I done? Killed three rabbits,
vermin that curse God's earth and devour the bread of the poor. They
belonged to nobody any more'n rats or mice or weasels, and did nobody
good in this world. Why, the man that had nearly killed his wife was not
harder treated than me. What then was my crime? Was I indeed a criminal?
I asked myself again and again, and the answer came--'No, Tom Wanless,
but you were worse; you were a fool. You knew the power of the
landlords; you knew that to them the rabbit was a sacred animal, and
that they could punish you if they caught you. You were a fool ever to
put yourself in their clutches.' Ah yes, there was the sting of it. How
could I hope to escape doom when all the world except the labourers were
on one side.
"But though I saw I had been a fool; that made me no better in my mind;
rather worse; for, as I tossed and raved in my heart, I took to cursing
squire and parson: I cursed, too, the land of my birth, and ended by
cursing the God who made me. Ay, that did I. In the darkness I mocked at
Him, I swore at Him, and told Him that I wouldn't believe there was a
God at all. Why, if He lived, did he suffer scoundrels to call
themselves His chosen people, and mock Him by their chattering prayers
and mumblings all the time that they lived only to oppress the poor.
Life was a curse if that was right.
"Well," Thomas continued, after a short pause, during which he leant
back and watched the changing tints of gold flitting across the western
sky, "well, that mood also passed, and after the old captain had been to
see me I got a little quieter. But the jailers did not make life easy
for me, I can tell you. Because I was silent, speaking little, eating
little, and hardly fit for the task they set me upon that weary
treadmill, they gave me a taste of the whip many a time, and abused me
for a sullen gallows bird, but I paid no heed.
"Within a fortnight after my punishment began, little Tom brought me
word that two of my children, Jack and Lucy, were dead, and that Fanny
was not expected to live. When I heard this news I laughed a bitter
laugh, and said, 'Thank God, some good has been done. The squires won't
imprison them, anyway!' My boy looked terrified for a moment, and then
fell a-weeping bitterly. The sight of him crouching at my feet, and
quivering in passionate grief, brought me a bit to. A vision of my dear
little ones, of my dying wee Fan, swept over me; my heart yearned for
them, and I mingled my tears with my son's. I charged him to be kind to
mother, and tried to comfort him. Poor lad, poor lad! He is in Australia
now, and has a farm of his own. The sorrow of that time is past for him
long ago."
Here my old friend paused, wiping the tears from his eyes furtively, and
sighing softly to himself. The dying glow of the sunset was now on his
face, gleaming in his silvery hair, and making his sad but animated
features shine with a soft glory. I sat still and gazed at him with
feelings too strong for speech. After a little he turned to me with a
smile, and said:--
"Yes, my friend, that's all passed, and many sorrows beside, nor do I
now curse God as I look back upon them. But I cannot tell you more
to-night. I didn't think that I should have been moved so much by
recalling that old story. Let us go indoors, the night is growing
chilly."
Future conversations gave me most of the particulars of that time, but I
cannot harrow the reader's feelings with a full recital of all that
Thomas Wanless felt and suffered in these six months of misery. Three of
his children died while he chafed and toiled in Warwick Jail. The
heart-stricken mother alone received their dying words, heard their last
farewell. Kind neighbours tried to comfort her. The parson's wife even
called, and said, "Poor woman, I'm afraid you've had too many children
to bring up. I'll see if the vicar can spare you a few shillings from
the poor box;" but the shillings never came, much to Thomas's
satisfaction in after days. Perhaps Codling thought the family
altogether too reprobate for his charity.
It would have gone hard indeed with Mrs. Wanless and the little ones
spared to her but for old Captain Hawthorn. Though verging on seventy,
and by no means strong, no single week elapsed all that winter when his
cheery voice was not heard in the cottage. Often he came twice a week,
but never with any ostentation of charity. On the contrary, he went so
far the other way as to pretend to take a bond over the cottage for
money, professedly lent to the family, and without which they must have
gone into the workhouse. He never, perhaps, felt so like a hypocrite in
his life as he did when he took this bond to the jail for Thomas to
sign. Young Tom was put back to his work on the home farm, and his wages
raised on some pretence or other to six shillings a week. The dry, old
man, so hard and repellant, had, after all, a human heart in him that my
Lord Bishop of Worcester might have envied had he ever experienced any
desire for such an organ. More true sympathy with distress was shown by
this hardened old Voltarian since this family had attracted his notice
than by all the squires of the district and the parsons to boot. It had
not yet become fashionable for the latter to rehearse deeds of
philanthropy in pedantic garments. Hawthorn's fault was not want of
heart or of sympathy, but a self-centredness which prevented him from
seeing his duty, except when, as in this instance, it was forced upon
him. Yet, after all, what could he have done to help the poor around him
that would not in some way have redounded to their hurt? Charity doles
would have demoralised them more than their hard lot did; and any
opening of the door for them to help themselves would have brought
hatred, contumely, and perhaps real injury to them and him. He could not
raise wages by his fiat, nor could he break up his land and distribute
it to the people. All the laws of the country, as well as the prejudices
of "society," were against him, if he had ever thought of so wild a
project; which I do not suppose he ever did. He sat apart and mocked at
a world with which he had no sympathy; whose hollowness, self-seeking,
and cruelty, hid beneath infinite hypocrisies, he thoroughly
understood.
And this good, at least, has to be recorded of him, that he saved the
family of Thomas Wanless from want, by consequence, also, in all
probability, saving Thomas himself from becoming an abandoned
Ishmaelite. The sight of his family beggared, homeless, and in the
workhouse, either would have driven him reckless or broken his heart.
From that sight, at least, he was saved; and Thomas has often told me
that the conduct of the old squire during these six months did more to
revive hope in his heart and keep him from losing all faith in God or
man, than any other single event of his life. Yet had his heart
bitterness enough.
"I remember," he said, one night as we conversed together; "I remember
the morning I left jail. It was a warm, May morning, and the air was so
fresh and sweet that the first breath of it made me feel quite giddy
with joy. 'Free! free! I am free!' I whispered softly to myself, and
with difficulty refrained from capering about the road like a madman, as
the joyous thought surged through my heart. It lasted only for a few
moments. Pain took hold of the heels of my joy as usual. I was a man
disgraced. Why should I be glad to get out of jail? Were not its
forbidding, gloomy walls the best shelter left for one like me? Why
should I be glad? The law of the land had branded me a criminal; let the
law makers enjoy paying for their work.
"Ah, no; disgraced as I was, filled with bitter passionate hate of those
above me as my heart might be, I was not yet ready to stoop to
deliberate crime as a mode of revenge. The memory of my lost children
and my lonely, heart-broken wife stole into my heart and brought the
tears to my eyes. The four that were left to me would be waiting on this
May morning for my home coming. I would go home.
"So I started; but when I reached the castle bridge my heart again
failed me. I was weak through long confinement, ill-usage, and want of
food, for the messes served to us in that jail were often worse than I
would have given to my pig. The very thought of meeting a village
neighbour terrified me. My limbs shook, and I crept through a gap in the
fence, resolved to hide till night and steal home in the darkness. For a
little while I sat behind a bush at the water's edge, feeling a coward,
but wholly unable to scold myself for it. Then I crept along the bank of
the Avon towards Grimscote, till I reached a clump of osiers, into which
I plunged. The ground was very damp, and here and there almost swampy;
but presently I found a dry mound, and there I lay down, buried from all
eyes. How long I lay I cannot tell, for I paid no heed to time, though I
gradually became calmer. Once again I was in contact with nature. The
air was full of the music of birds, and the chirp of insects among the
grass sounded almost like the movement of life in the very ground
itself. A sweet smell of hawthorn blossom came to me from some old trees
close by, and now and then I heard the plash of oars on the river, and
voices came to me sweet and clear off the water. Gradually I became more
hopeful. Life was all around me; the bushes themselves seemed moved by
it as I lay beneath their shade. Behind me the traffic of the high road
made a constant rattle, and beyond the river I heard the bleating of
lambs. And life somehow came back to me also. I arose with new hopes in
my breast. All could not yet be lost to me, I somehow felt; and, at any
rate, I would go home, for I began to be very hungry.
"I often stopped on the way with weariness and faint-heartedness, but
did not again turn back, and by two o'clock in the afternoon I reached
my own cottage. My wife welcomed me with a burst of crying. I learnt
from her that she had begun to dread that I had done something rash. She
and the little ones had gone to meet me in the morning as far as the
castle bridge, which they must have reached soon after I lay down among
the willows. There they sat for a while hoping that I would come, but
seeing nothing of me they crept back again with hearts sad enough, you
may be sure. I was not long behind them, and my wife soon brightened
enough to be able to eat some dinner with me; but my heart smote me for
being so selfish and unkind as to go and hide as if no one had to be
considered but myself."
Such in faint outline was Thomas's account of his release from prison.
His meeting with his family was sad beyond description. In the short six
months of his absence three of his little ones had been put under the
sod. Out of a family of eight in all he had now but four left. A great
mercy that it was so, some will say; and possibly they may be right. The
world's goods are so ill distributed that death is for many the only
blessing left. Nevertheless, I question if the sorrow of the labourer
at the loss of his children was not keener than that of many who need
not fear a want of bread for their offspring. He had toiled and suffered
for all the eight, and the love that grows up in the heart through such
discipline as his is akin to the deepest and holiest passion known to
man. Thomas and his wife mourned for their dead to their own life's end,
because the little ones had been part of their life. Is it so with you,
pert censor of the miserable poor?
Though sorrowing, Thomas had yet no time to nurse his sorrow. The world
had to be faced again, and work to be found. For sentimental griefs and
morbid wailings in the world's ear the Wanlesses had no time. At first
Thomas got some jobs from Mr. Hawthorn, but he soon saw that they were
jobs mostly created on purpose for him, and he could not bear the
thought of living on charity, no matter how disguised. Therefore, he
began to hunt about for odd work in the neighbourhood, and found much
difficulty in getting it. His recent imprisonment told against him
everywhere, if not in keeping work from his hands, at all events in low
pay for the work. The farmers had now got their feet on his neck, and
took it out of him, as they alone knew how; for the brutalised slave is
always the cruellest of slave-drivers. But Thomas fought on, and for the
best part of a year contrived to exist with the help that young Tom's
wages gave. He did no more; nay, not always so much; for he and his wife
sometimes wanted their own dinners that their children might have
enough. Still he existed; lived through the year somehow and was
thankful, notwithstanding the fact that he had made no progress in
paying off his debt to the old Captain. "He can take the cottage,
Thomas," said his wife. "Someone will pay him rent enough for it, though
we can't; but we can get a hovel somewhere."
He was spared this last sacrifice, for about this time old Hawthorn
died, and a sealed packet addressed to Thomas Wanless was found among
his papers. When the labourer came to open this, he found that it
contained his bond with the signature torn off, a receipt in full for
the money advanced, and a L20 note. On a slip of paper was written in
the Captain's scraggy, trembling hand, "Don't mention this to a living
soul, Tom Wanless, or by God I'll haunt you.--E.H." Thus the scorned
infidel was soft-hearted and characteristic to the last. His estate
passed to a cousin, who soon gave the tenants cause to remember how good
the old Captain had been. And once more he had kept the labourer's heart
from breaking. The deliverance from debt which this packet brought, and
the prodigious wealth a L20 note appeared to be to Thomas, renewed his
courage and made him resolve to strike further afield in search of
better paid labour. Railway making was at its height all over the
country, and he had often thought of becoming a navvy. Now he decided to
be one if he could get work on the line down Worcester way. A bit of
that line came within fifteen miles of Ashbrook, and he might therefore
see his family now and then at least Young Tom was to stay at home, and
the 5s. a-week, to which his wages was reduced after old Hawthorn's
death, would help to keep house till work was found by his father. The
L20 was not to be touched till the very last extremity, and in the
meantime Thomas put it in as a deposit in a savings bank at
Stratford-on-Avon. He would not deposit it in Warwick lest questions
might be asked, and the Captain's dying command be in consequence
disobeyed.
The new plans succeeded better almost than Thomas had hoped. He got work
on the railway; it was very hard work, but the wages were good; at first
he only got 18s. per week, and he began by stinting himself in order to
send 10s. of this home; but he soon found that to be a mistake. His work
demanded full vigour of body, and to be in full vigour he must be well
fed. The other men had meat of some kind three times a day, and Thomas
followed their example, with the best results. Not only did he stand by
his work with the rest, but he displayed such energy and intelligence
that within a few weeks he obtained charge of the work in a deep cutting
at 28s. per week. Of this he saved from 12s. to 14s. a-week, after
paying for clothes, lodgings, and food. It seemed very little, and he
grudged much the cost of his own living; but there was no help for it.
Besides, what he saved now was more than all he earned in Ashbrook,
except for a few weeks during harvest. Much reason had he to thank the
dairyman's wife for feeding him in his youth so as to fit him now for a
navvy's toil.
Truly the life was rough, and little to Wanless' liking, yet he worked
with a heart and hope rarely his before. Altogether this job lasted for
two years, and regularly all that time Thomas went home once a month
with his savings. Sometimes he had more than 20 miles to walk each way,
but he had health, and never failed. Starting on Saturday evenings, in
wet weather and dry, summer and winter, he would reach home early on
Sunday morning, when after a good sleep, he passed a few happy hours,
and then started on the Sunday afternoon for his work again.