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 Tolbooth
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 ease 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. Mac-Guffog--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
sansculottes, 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 momentary glimpse with which the opening
door had extended their prospect to the other side of a dirty street. Nor
can this be 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 had it out o’ their wames! 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 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 gieing 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
daresay Glossin will make it forthcoming; I 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 afterhend,
these are the fees that I always charge a swell that must have his
lib-ken 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 in
the evening mysell, man, and help ye out wi’ your bottle. I have drank
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’
ane 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
six-pence 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 hand ba’ 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 patch-work quilt, and
pronounced that things were now ‘something purpose-like.’ ‘And there’s
your bed, Captain,’ pointing to a massy four-posted hulk, 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 be made to
him upon this new exaction), and he never engages for ony thing 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 gentles that gae sae muckle fash 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 blackguardism 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 courtyard 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 overcleaning, 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 greyish, or rather a
blackish, mixture, upon the other, both of stoneware, 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.