A prison is a house of care, A place where none can thrive,
A touchstone true to try a friend, A grave for one alive.
Sometimes a place of right, Sometimes a place of wrong,
Sometimes a place of rogues and thieves, And honest men
among. Inscription on Edinburgh Tollbooth.
Early on the following morning, the carriage which had brought
Bertram to Hazlewood House, was, with his two silent and surly
attendants, appointed to convey him to his place of confinement at
Portanferry. This building adjoined to the Custom-house
established at that little seaport, and both were situated so close
to the sea-beach that it was necessary to defend the back part with
a large and strong rampart or bulwark of huge stones, disposed in a
slope towards the surf, which often reached and broke upon them.
The front was surrounded by a high wall, enclosing a small
courtyard, within which the miserable inmates of the mansion were
occasionally permitted to take exercise and air. The prison was
used as a House of Correction, and sometimes as a chapel of case
to the county jail, which was old, and far from being conveniently
situated with reference to the Kippletringan district of the
county. Mac-Guffog, the officer by whom Bertram had at first been
apprehended, and who was now in attendance upon him, was keeper of
this palace of little-ease. He caused the carriage to be drawn
close up to the outer gate, and got out himself to summon the
warders. The noise of his rap alarmed some twenty or thirty ragged
boys, who left off sailing their mimic sloops and frigates in the
little pools of salt water left by the receding tide, and hastily
crowded round the vehicle to see what luckless being was to be
delivered to the prison-house out of "Glossin's braw new
carriage." The door of the courtyard, after the heavy clanking of
many chains and bars, was opened by Mrs. MacGuffog, an awful
spectacle, being a woman for strength and resolution capable of
maintaining order among her riotous inmates, and of administering
the discipline of the house, as it was called, during the absence
of her husband, or when he chanced to have taken an overdose of the
creature. The growling voice of this Amazon, which rivalled in
harshness the crashing music of her own bolts and bars, soon
dispersed in every direction the little varlets who had thronged
around her threshold, and she next addressed her amiable
helpmate:--
"Be sharp, man, and get out the swell, canst thou not?"
"Hold your tongue and be d-d, you--," answered her loving husband,
with two additional epithets of great energy, but which we beg to
be excused from repeating. Then, addressing Bertram:
"Come, will you get out, my handy lad, or must we lend you a lift?"
Bertram came out of the carriage, and, collared by the constable as
he put his foot on the ground, was dragged, though he offered no
resistance, across the threshold, amid the continued shouts of the
little sans-culottes, who looked on at such distance as their fear
of Mrs. Mac-Guffog permitted. The instant his foot had crossed the
fatal porch, the portress again dropped her chains, drew her bolts,
and turning with both hands an immense key, took it from the lock,
and thrust it into a huge side-pocket of red cloth.
Bertram was now in the small court already mentioned. Two or three
prisoners were sauntering along the pavement, and deriving as it
were a feeling of refreshment from the monetary glimpse with which
the opening door had extended their prospect to the other side of a
dirty street. Nor can this he thought surprising, when it is
considered, that, unless on such occasions, their view was confined
to the grated front of their prison, the high and sable walls of
the courtyard, the heaven above them, and the pavement beneath
their feet; a sameness of landscape, which, to use the poet's
expression, "lay like a load on the wearied eye," and had fostered
in some a callous and dull misanthropy, in others that sickness of
the heart which induces him who is immured already in a living
grave, to wish for a sepulchre yet more calm and sequestered.
Mac-Guffog, when they entered the courtyard, suffered Bertram to
pause for a minute, and look upon his companions in affliction.
When he had cast his eye around, on faces on which guilt, and
despondence, and low excess, had fixed their stigma; upon the
spendthrift, and the swindler, and the thief, the bankrupt debtor,
the "moping idiot, and the madman gay," whom a paltry spirit of
economy congregated to share this dismal habitation, he felt his
heart recoil with inexpressible loathing from enduring the
contamination of their society even for a moment.
"I hope, sir," he said to the keeper "you intend to assign me a
place of confinement apart?
"And what should I be the better of that?"
"Why, sir I can but be detained here a day or two, and it would be
very disagreeable to me to mix in the sort of company this place
affords."
"And what do I care for that?"
"Why, then, sir, to speak to your feelings," said Bertram, "I shall
be willing to make you a handsome compliment for this indulgence."
"Ay, but when, Captain? when and how? that's the question, or
rather, the twa questions," said the jailor.
"When I am delivered, and get my remittances from England,"
answered the prisoner.
Mac-Guffog shook his head incredulously. "Why, friend, you do not
pretend to believe that I am really a malefactor?" said Bertram.
"Why, I no ken," said the fellow; "but if you are on the account,
ye're nae sharp ane, that's the daylight o't."
"And why do you say I am no sharp one?"
"Why, wha but a crack-brained greenhorn wad hae let them keep up
the siller that ye left at the Gordon Arms?" said the constable.
"Deil fetch me, but I wad have held it out o' their wames [*Bellies
] Ye had nae right to be strippit o' your money and sent to jail
without a mark to pay your fees--; they might have keepit the rest
o' the articles for evidence. But why, for a blind bottle-head,
did not ye ask the guineas? and I kept winking and nodding a' the
time, and the donnert [*Stupid] deevil wad never ance look my
way!"
"Well, sir," replied Bertram, "if I have a title to have that
property delivered up to me, I shall apply for it; and there is a
good deal more than enough to pay any demand you can set up."
"I dinna ken a bit about that," said Mac-Guffog; "ye may be here
lang eneugh. And then the giving credit maun be considered in the
fees. But, however, as ye do seem to be a chap by common, though
my wife says I lose by my good-nature, if ye gie me an order for
my fees upon that money--I dare say Glossin will make it
forthcoming--l ken something about an escape from Ellangowan--ay,
ay, he'll be glad to carry me through, and be neighbour-like."
"Well, sir," replied Bertram," if I am not furnished in a day or
two otherwise, you shall have such--an order."
"Weel, weel, then ye shall be put up like a prince," said
Mac-Guffog. "But mark ye me, friend, that we may have nae
colly-shangie [*Quarrel] afterhend, these are the fees I always
charge a swell that must have his libken to himsell--Thirty
shillings a week for lodgings, and a guinea for garnish;
half-a-guinea a week for a single bed,--and I dinna get the whole
of it, for I must gie half-a-crown out of it to Donald Laider
that's in for sheep-stealing, that should sleep with you by rule,
and he'll expect clean strae, and maybe some whisky beside. So I
make little upon that."
"Well, sir, go on."
"Then for meat and liquor, ye may have the best, and I never charge
abune twenty per cent. ower tavern price for pleasing a gentleman
that way--and that's little eneugh for sending in and sending out,
and wearing the lassie's shoon out. And then if ye're dowie, I
will sit wi' you a gliff [*Twinkling] in the evening mysell, man,
and help ye out wi' your bottle.--I have drunk mony a glass wi'
Glossin, man, that did you up, though he's a justice now. And then
I'se warrant ye'll be for fire thir cauld nights, or if ye want
candle, that's an expensive article, for it's against the rules.
And now I've tell'd ye the head articles of the charge, and I dinna
think there's muckle mair, though there will aye be some odd
expenses ower and abune."
"Well, sir, I must trust to your conscience, if ever you happened
to hear of such a thing--I cannot help myself."
"Na, na, sir," answered the cautious jailor, "I'll no permit you to
be saying that--I'm forcing naething upon ye;--an ye dinna like the
price ye needna take the article--I force no man; I was only
explaining what civility was; but if ye like to take the common run
of the house, it's a' one to me--I'll be saved trouble, that's a'."
"Nay, my friend, I have, as I suppose you may easily guess, no
inclination to dispute your terms upon such a penalty," answered
Bertram. "Come, show me where I am to be, for I would fain be
alone for a little while."
"Ay, ay, come along then, Captain," said the fellow, with a
contortion of visage which he intended to be a smile; "and I'll
tell you now,--to show you that I have a conscience, as ye ca't,
d-n me if I charge ye abune sixpence a day for the freedom o' the
court, and ye may walk in't very near three hours a day, and play
at pitch-and-toss and handba', and what not."
With this gracious promise, he ushered Bertram into the house, and
showed him up a steep and narrow stone staircase, at the top of
which was a strong door, clenched with iron and studded with
nails. Beyond this door was a narrow passage or gallery, having
three cells on each side, wretched ,vaults, with iron bed-frames
and straw mattresses. But at the farther end was a small apartment,
of rather a more decent appearance, that is, having less the air of
a place of confinement, since, unless for the large lock and chain
upon the door, and the crossed and ponderous stanchions upon the
window, it rather resembled the "worst inn's worst room." It was
designed as a sort of infirmary for prisoners whose state of health
required some indulgence; and, in fact, Donald Laider, Bertram's
destined chum, had been just dragged out of one of the two beds
which it contained, to try whether clean straw and whisky might not
have a better chance to cure his intermitting fever. This process
of ejection had been carried into force by Mrs. Mac-Guffog while
her husband parleyed with Bertram in the courtyard, that good lady
having a distinct presentiment of the manner in which the treaty
must necessarily terminate. Apparently the expulsion had not taken
place without some application of the strong hand, for one of the
bed-posts of a sort of tent-bed was broken down, so that the tester
and curtains hung forward into the middle of the narrow chamber,
like the banner of a chieftain, half-sinking amid the confusion of
a combat.
"Never mind that being out o' sorts, Captain," said Mrs.
Mac-Guffog, who now followed them into the room; then, turning her
back to the prisoner, with as much delicacy as the action admitted,
she whipped from her knee her ferret garter, and applied it to
splicing and fastening the broken bed-post--then used more pins
than her apparel could well spare to fasten up the bed-curtains in
festoons--then shook the bed-clothes into something like form--then
flung over all a tattered patchwork quilt, and pronounced that
things were now "something purpose-like."
"And there's your bed, Captain," pointing to a massy four-posted
bulk, which, owing to the inequality of the floor that had sunk
considerably (the house, though new, having been built by
contract), stood on three legs, and held the fourth aloft as if
pawing the air, and in the attitude of advancing like an elephant
passant upon the panel of a coach--"There's your bed and the
blankets; but if ye want sheets, or bowster, or pillow, or ony sort
o' nappery for the table, or for your hands, ye'll hae to speak to
me about it, for that's out o' the gudeman's line (Mac-Guffog had
by this time left the room, to avoid, probably, any appeal which
might he made to him upon this new exaction), and he never engages
for onything like that."
"In God's name," said Bertram, "let me have what is decent, and
make any charge you please."
"Aweel, aweel, that's sune settled; we'll no excise you neither,
Though we live sae near the Custom-house. And I maun see to get
you some fire and some dinner too, I'se warrant; but your dinner
will be but a puir ane the day, no expecting company that would be
nice and fashious."--So saying, and in all haste, Mrs. Mac-Guffog
fetched a scuttle of live coals, and having replenished "the rusty
grate, unconscious of a fire" for months before, she proceeded with
unwashed hands to arrange the stipulated bed-linen (alas, how
different from Ailie Dinmont's!), and muttering to herself as she
discharged her task, seemed, in inveterate spleen of temper, to
grudge even those accommodations for which she was to receive
payment. At length, however, she departed, grumbling between her
teeth, that "she wad rather lock up a haill ward than be fiking
about thae niff-naffy [*Fastidious] gentles that gae sae muckle
fash [*Trouble] wi' their fancies."
When she was gone, Bertram found himself reduced to the alternative
of pacing his little apartment for exercise, or gazing out upon the
sea in such proportions as could be seen from the narrow panes of
his window, obscured by dirt and by close iron-bars, or reading
over the records of brutal wit and black-guardism which despair had
scrawled upon the half-whitened walls. The sounds were as
uncomfortable as the objects of sight; the sullen dash of the tide,
which was now retreating, and the occasional opening and shutting
of a door, with all its accompaniments of jarring bolts and
creaking hinges, mingling occasionally with the dull monotony of
the retiring ocean. Sometimes, too, he could hear the hoarse growl
of the keeper, or the shriller strain of his helpmate, almost
always in the tone of discontent, anger, or insolence. At other
times the large mastiff, chained in the court-yard, answered with
furious bark the insults of the idle loiterers who made a sport of
incensing him.
At length the tedium of this weary space was broken by the entrance
of a dirty-looking serving wench, who made some preparations for
dinner by laying a half-dirty cloth upon a whole-dirty deal table.
A knife and fork, which had not been worn out by over-cleaning,
flanked a cracked delf plate; a nearly empty mustard-pot, placed on
one side of the table, balanced a salt-cellar, containing an
article of a grayish, or rather a blackish mixture, upon the other,
both of stone-ware, and bearing too obvious marks of recent
service. Shortly after, the same Hebe brought up a plate of
beef-collops, done in the frying-pan, with a huge allowance of
grease floating in an ocean of lukewarm water; and having added a
coarse loaf to these savoury viands, she requested to know what
liquors the gentleman chose to order. The appearance of this fare
was not very inviting; but Bertram endeavoured to mend his commons
by ordering wine, which he found tolerably good, and, with the
assistance of some indifferent cheese, made his dinner chiefly off
the brown loaf. When his meal was over, the girl presented her
master's compliments, and, if agreeable to the gentleman, he would
help him to spend the evening. Bertram desired to be excused, and
begged, instead of this gracious society, that he might be
furnished with paper, pen, ink, and candles. The light appeared in
the shape of one long broken tallow-candle, inclining over a tin
candlestick coated with grease; as for the writing materials, the
prisoner was informed that he might have them the next day if he
chose to send out to buy them. Bertram next desired the maid to
procure him a book, and enforced his request with a shilling; in
consequence of which, after long absence, she reappeared with two
odd volumes of the Newgate Calendar, which she had borrowed from
Sam Silverquill, an idle apprentice, who was imprisoned under a
charge of forgery. Having laid the books on the table she retired,
and left Bertram to studies which were not ill adapted to his
present melancholy situation.