Читать книгу Red O'shaughnessy - J H M Abbott - Страница 4

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WHEN they led him from the gallows outside the wall facing the Old Bailey into the gloomy interior of Newgate Prison, Edward O'Shaughnessy found awaiting him in the Press Room, where his irons had so recently been removed, Lord Crawshaw himself.

His Lordship was a middle-aged man, a little inclined to stoutness, whose red face, its color heightened by a well-powdered box wig, seemed to indicate that he was not indifferent to the pleasures of the table and the stimulating properties of good wines. Something of a dandy, his apparel was nevertheless ordered with good taste, and was in no way influenced by the extravagances of which Mr. George Bryan Brummell—better known as "Beau" Brummell—was the arbiter and high priest in those earlier days of the Regency. As the red-headed young Irish giant re-entered the room, his arms still pinioned, and himself a little pale of face by reason of his recent close introduction to Death, Lord Crawshaw stepped indolently up to him, his hand outstretched.

"Delighted, my dear O'Shaughnessy," he drawled languidly, "to have been of service to you. I cannot forget what you did for me at Ballyhinchy, when that blackguard Brady tried to shoot me. Egad, though, I came near to being too late to do you any good! A wheel came off my carriage as we turned out of Bloomsbury Square, and I had to run to get here in time to be of any use. However, better late than too late, my dear good fellow. It gives me great pleasure to have been the means of securing your respite. Lord, but 'twas a near thing! Damme, I'd have dismissed my coachman if you'd swung, I give you my word on it. Too bad, though, I can't shake hands with you. Here, one of you turnkey rascals, pray untie this gentleman's arms. This is no way for two old friends to meet. D——n my limbs, 'tis not!"

With an obsequiousness due to the fact that the Earl of Crawshaw was well known to be a boon companion of the Prince of Wales, the Governor of Newgate himself came forward and untied O'Shaughnessy's arms, bowing to the great man as he did so.

"I congratulate you, my good fellow," he said to the Irishman. "You couldn't have been closer to it."

"Faith, thin," said the reprieved man, "'tis mesilf knows all about gettin' scragged—excipt th' lasht kick. I thank y'r honor—an' me beggin' Jack Ketch for to hurry up. But 'tis y'r Lardship I do be owin' most o' me thanks. Faith, ye've paid tin times for th' plug in th' jaw I give Micky Brady."

"And glad I am of the opportunity for evincing my gratitude, O'Shaughnessy. But I couldn't do anything else for you—though I tried. 'No, no,' says George—I mean the Prince Regent—'he'll have to go to Botany Bay.' But, pray, what is to happen to our friend now, Mr. Arkwright?" he asked the Governor. "What will happen to our young friend now?"

"Well, your Lordship," replied the Governor of the prison, "I think 'tis safe to say he'll spend a few months in the hulks, down the river, until a transport's ready to give him his passage over sea. That is the usual thing, your Lordship."

"He can't be kept here?"

"Faith, I don't want to be kep' here," interrupted O'Shaughnessy. "I've tuk a dislike to th' place, afther this mornin's expay'rince. I'd sooner be annywheer else, savin' y'r prisince, Misther Gov'nor. I wud as lief go to th' wor-rust sor-rt o' hulk as shtop in y'r hotel, sorr, so I wud. These, divarsions, like th' wan I just missed this marnin', faith they're a little thryin', so they are. Mebbe there won't be no galluses on them hulks, sorr?"

"Oh, no," laughed Mr. Arkwright. "You'll have to come back here, my man, if you want to play with Jack Ketch."

"Very well, then, O'Shaughnessy.

"'Twill be some months before they ship you off to Botany Bay," said Lord Crawshaw. "I'll write immediately to Colonel Macquarie, with whom I am acquainted, and when you get to New South Wales perhaps he'll be able to do something for you. You must face whatever may be coming to you here, but probably in the new world you'll have another chance given to you. Mr. Macquarie has recently gone out as Governor, and probably a word in season to him will do you no harm. Good-bye for the present, and I'll do what I can for you in the future. Keep up your spirits. You're a young man still, and have all your life before you. Good-bye to you. Please to treat him kindly, Mr. Arkwright. I'm indebted for my life to this young man, and would do what I could for him."

"I'll do what I can for him, too, your Lordship," replied the Governor of Newgate, bowing to Red O'Shaughnessy's preserver. "That is, while he's in my charge."

"Bedad, thin, me Lorrud," said the young Irishman gratefully, "'tis Ned O'Shaughnessy's th' thankful man to ye. God bless ye for y'r koindness, sorr."

"Pooh, pooh," observed the Earl of Crawshaw, taking snuff and proffering his gold box to Mr. Arkwright; "'twas nothing at all—nothing at all, I vow."

"Bedad, thin, it mint a dale to y'r very humble sarvint, sorr. I didn't like th' look o' that rope at all, at all. Or of Mr. Ketch, ayther. A murth'rin' blaggar-rd, if ever I see wan."

A fortnight after his narrow escape from hanging, Mr. O'Shaughnessy was conveyed from Newgate to the hulk Retribution, moored in the Thames off Woolwich. These floating prisons at this time were largely used for the accommodation of convicted prisoners who had been sentenced to transportation, and they remained aboard them until the ships which were to carry them round the world to New South Wales were ready for sea.

Prisoners aboard the hulks were confined in narrow cells, hardly seven feet long, by three in width. Stout oaken partitions separated them from one another, and the foul cubicles were always dark and cold and damp. On the lower deck, below the water-line, they lay in almost total darkness—the only light that pierced their gloomy prison coming from a horn lantern that hung from a beam in the 'tween decks. During the daytime the convicts were worked ashore, as is described below.

There is a faded letter in existence written by Mr. Edward O'Shaughnessy, to a brother in Ireland, some time after he had been in New South Wales, which vividly describes these dreadful craft, and some of it may be quoted here:—

"There were confined in this floating dungeon," he says, "nearly six hundred men, most of them double-ironed, and you may conceive the horrible effects arising from the continual rattling of chains, the filth and vermin naturally produced by such a crowd of miserable wretches, the oaths and execrations constantly heard amongst them, and, above all, from the shocking necessity of associating and communicating more or less with so depraved a set of spalpeens.

"On first going down the hatchway, you can have no idea, my good Patrick, of the scene which presented itself. Nothing short of a descent into Hell could be at all worthy of comparison with it, and the demons who populace the place are an indescribable set of rogues, who rob one another right and left—a man there will rob his best friend, or his most intimate messmate, of an article hardly worth one half-penny. He would murder him for half-a-crown.

"Every morning at seven o'clock all the convicts capable of getting into the boats are taken ashore to a place called the Warren, in which the Royal Arsenal and other public buildings are situated, and are there employed at various kinds of labor, some of which are very hard and fatiguing. While so employed, each gang of sixteen or twenty prisoners is watched and directed by a fellow called a 'guard.' These guards invariably carry a large shillelagh, with which, often without the smallest provocation, they will fell an unfortunate convict to the earth, and frequently repeat their blows long after the poor devil has lost his senses. On returning on board at nightfall all hands are mustered by a roll, and all being turned down below, the hatches are put over them and secured for the night.

"The rations are horrible and scanty. The allowance of bread was said to be about twenty ounces a day. Three days in the week we had about four ounces of cheese for dinner, and the other four days a pound of beef. The breakfast was invariably boiled barley, of the coarsest sort, and so nauseous that only starvation drove a man to eat it. For supper they have burgoo, of as good (?) a quality as the barley, and on meat days the water in which the beef was boiled was thickened with barley and formed a mess which they used to call 'smiggins,' of a more detestable nature than either of the two former. The cheese was generally so bad that they used to throw it away. It was manufactured, I believe, of skimmed milk for this particular contract.

"The beef generally consisted of old bulls, or cows which had died of age or famine—the least trace of fat was considered a phenomenon, and it was far inferior to horseflesh. I once saw the prisoners throw the whole day's supply overboard the moment it was hoisted out of the boat, and for this offence they were severely flogged.

"If I were to attempt a full description of the miseries endured in these ships, I could fill a volume as big as a Bible. I shall only sum up by stating that, besides robbery from each other, which is as common as cursing and swearing, I witnessed among the prisoners themselves, during the three months I remained with them, one deliberate murder, for which the perpetrator was hung in chains on the Isle of Dogs, and one suicide, and that the most bestial offences against all decency were openly committed."

One morning, after Mr. O'Shaughnessy had endured, as he mentions above, three months in this floating hell, all hands, instead of being taken ashore to hard labor, were paraded on the upper deck, and presently learned that they were to be inspected by the surgeon of a transport which was to sail before long for Sydney. The prisoners were formed up in straggling lines on the port and starboard sides, and before choosing his passengers the doctor addressed the convicts. He was business-like and brisk.

"Now, then, my lads," he said, "I'll make myself known to you. I'm James Moriarty, surgeon of the transport Admiral Gambler, and because I've been fortunate enough, during several voyages to New Holland, not to lose any prisoners by the hand of Death, the Government gives me first pick of the hulks, when it comes to the selection of my complement of passengers. So I'm not going to spoil my record by taking any of you who look at all likely to give me the slip by dying on the way to Botany Bay. I only want forty of you, and I'll pick them myself. Hey, you big, red-headed fellow by the mainmast, come over here—you, I mean," he said pointing a finger at Red O'Shaughnessy.

Gaunt and thin, but still erect in his strong young manhood, the Irish convict shuffled across the deck and stood before the surgeon of the Admiral Gambier, who looked him up and down.

"You'll do," he said in a few moments. "Go aft and stand on the quarter-deck."

The doctor was hardly half an hour choosing his men, and then he made them a little speech, whilst the rest of the unhappy ship's company were ferried ashore to work.

"Now, you men, I'm to be your father and mother for the next few months, and I want to tell you that if you treat me well you'll be well treated yourselves. But if there's any nonsense, you'll find I can be a holy terror. I know prisoners' ways, and all about 'em. Play fair, and you'll get a fair deal. Be mutinous, or dirty, or dishonest—and I'll give you b———y hell. Now you'll all get a fair chance. You're going to a new country, and it's one of the best I've ever been to—and I know the whole world. Now then, you big carroty-nob, you're the first man I picked this morning—are ye going to play the game with me."

"Be God, sorr," said Red O'Shaughnessy, fervently, "I'd play fair wid ould Nick himself, so long as I could get out o' th' Rethribution. I would that. I would so."