Читать книгу Botany Bay - James Norman Hall - Страница 5

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Tom was caught all too neatly in the trap set for him when he rode home at dusk, and we were held at Garth’s house till late on the following afternoon. A long day it was for me, for I was alone in my upstairs room, with the guard at the door outside. His companions were below, and I could hear their voices and the coming and going of men on horseback in the stable yard and the lane beyond. For all the loneliness of Garth’s farm, the news of our arrest had spread and by midday there was a crowd of farmers and farm labourers gathered outside in the hope of seeing the highwaymen. Among others who came early in the day was Nellie’s friend and neighbour, Mrs. Windle. I have no doubt that she knew all about Oakley and that Nellie harboured him with a full knowledge of his profession; but, like most humble folk, whether living in towns or the open country, she had no love for officers of the law. I heard her lashing out shrilly at our guards for taking a poor hard-working woman into custody, and “two honest gentlemen, as anyone could see,” who chanced to be stopping at her house for the good of the country air. She remained at the house throughout the day and took charge of the kitchen in our behalf. Food for the guards was brought from the inn on the main road, but there was none for us, and it was thanks to Mrs. Windle that we did not set out for London with empty stomachs.

The winter afternoon was drawing to a close when I was ordered down to the kitchen. There was Nellie on a settle by the wall, with young Nat beside her, a look of terror and bewilderment on his face as he gazed at his foster mother. The lad, in his simplicity, had betrayed us, but Nellie’s reproaches were, as I knew, all for herself. Her face was hard set and there was a great bluish bruise on one cheek, received in her struggle with the constables. She gave me a quick glance as I came down the stairway, but said nothing. Mrs. Windle stood by the fireplace, her fists on her hips, glaring defiance at the constables. A moment later Oakley was brought in from the stable where they had kept him overnight. He had a horse blanket over his shoulders, and from his condition I could picture the fight they had had to subdue him. His jacket and waistcoat were gone and he had only the half of a shirt to his body. One arm was covered with dried blood and there was a welt on his forehead the size of a hen’s egg. One of the guards had an eye swelled shut and the head of another was bound round with a dirty napkin. Three of these fellows had rolled on the stable floor in subduing Oakley, but they had had time to clean themselves whilst Tom had been left as he was when the struggle ended. He was at his lowest at such a moment, for if ever there was a man who loved cleanliness and something approaching splendour in his dress, it was Tom. Nellie’s eyes blazed as she saw him in this bedraggled condition. She turned to the fellow in charge of the guards.

“Ye’ve left the man, the day long, in such a state as this?” said she.

“No matter for that. He’ll have time and to spare to wash himself at the pump in Newgate,” said the guard.

“Was ye brought up in a pigsty?” said Garth. “There’s none of us leaves this house till he’s made decent.”

She spoke with so determined an air that the man gave a surly consent. Oakley was taken to the wash house at one side of the yard, where he enjoyed a complete scrub. Meanwhile, Mrs. Windle, at Garth’s direction, had fetched him clean clothing, and when he reappeared he had put on with it his old assured and carefree manner. He was now dressed in a suit of blue broadcloth with silver buttons, white silk stockings, and black shoes, and this transformation had its immediate effect upon the guards, who were more civil to him.

I had wondered at the long delay at Garth’s house; the reason was that the men who had taken us were not of the regular constabulary, but had been hired privately to search for us. When they had found us, or at least men answering to the description of those wanted, warrants had to be procured for our proper arrest. This had now been done and the sun was just setting when an old country coach drawn by two horses was brought to carry us to London. Nat was in despair and clung desperately to his mother, who tried to console him.

“There, Nat,” said she. “Never fret, laddie; it’s all right. I’ll be home within the week—see if I don’t, and till then you’re to stay with Mrs. Windle.”

“To be sure he is!” said Mrs. Windle. “Why, Nat, where’s your spirit? Hush, now! Mercy me! A boy of fourteen and crying the like of this!”

“You’ll look out for the place, Mrs. Windle?” Garth asked.

“Trust me for that,” the latter replied. “I’ve daughters and sons to spare, Nellie, and with Nat here to help, we’ll keep all shipshape, won’t we, Nat?”

The boy nodded, miserably, and a moment later we were led out of the house, through the crowd of gaping, staring countrymen, to the coach. The guards mounted their horses, and with two in front and four riding behind, we proceeded toward London.

I shall try to recollect what I can of the young man I then was, and what he felt and thought as he sat bound in a lumbering old country coach on the way to Newgate prison. For the feelings, there was no shame—none: not a shred or an atom, except for being caught, and that was chance and no fault of ours. I had tried every honest means of earning a living open to a young man without friends, in a strange country, and when I was in desperate need I took the chance Oakley offered without two thoughts about the right or the wrong of it. Beside this, my heart was sore at the way the Loyalists had been used by Government, and I’d lost all hope of the promised compensation ever coming to anything. After three years of waiting not one penny had we received. I was none too happy, of course, about the future. I had not lived in England this while without having seen the bodies of highwaymen swinging in chains from gibbets at lonely crossroads, and I well knew that these were but a small part of the number who met their end at Newgate. For all that, I was in no mood of despair, for I had a power of life in me, and it is next to impossible for a young man to imagine the worst that can happen. What worried me most was that young Nat, in his innocence, had betrayed my name to the men who caught us. At first, I was minded to deny stoutly that my name was Tallant, but they had found it written in a pocketbook I carried, and since they had this double confirmation, I decided to let matters take their course. My mother would never know, and the only other person I cared deeply for was Mr. Fleming, and he was still in Canada. As for the other Loyalists, I had dropped all connection with them long since, and it was far from likely that they would ever learn what had become of me.

I was blessed in my companions in misery, but I didn’t know then how great was my fortune in having such friends, nor how events to come were to draw us together. Garth said little as the coach rolled and jolted over the uneven road. She was worried about Nat, for the lad was as dependent upon her as a babe in arms; she loved him the more because of his simple mind and his need for her. She wondered how he’d fare with Mrs. Windle, who was a good woman but sharp of temper and likely to hurt the boy without meaning to. Tom distracted her thoughts by singing songs all the way along, for there was never such a man to face a dark prospect with a blithe spirit. As I write these lines I hear the fine tenor voice he was so proud of ringing out as clearly as I heard it then. You would have thought that he had not a care in the world and that we were bound for London on a pleasure jaunt. Presently he broke off and said: “Hugh, have ye ever been to Newgate?”

“Never,” said I, “but I’ve passed the place a time or two.”

“Then I’d best prepare ye,” said Tom, “for if a man is to be chucked into a laystall, the shock will be the less for knowing it before he finds himself there. It’ll be worst for you, Nellie.”

“Never ye fret about me,” said Garth. “I’ll fend for myself.”

“Aye, you’re a woman of courage; I grant that, and yon’s the place ye’ll need the whole of it.”

“I’ve seen the inside,” said Garth.

“What! Newgate?”

“ ’Twas before ever I knew ye, Tom—five years back. My husband—as honest a man as ever lived—was took for stealing some fowls at Covent Garden Market. The wretch that did it was caught later and my man was cleared when it was too late. He died of the gaol fever the week I got him home. Four Sabbaths I spent with him in Newgate before that happened. Sabbaths in hell ye might well say.”

“Nellie, ye never told me this!”

“And why should I? But I know the place.”

“There’s a hundredweight lifted off my mind on your account,” said Oakley, in a relieved voice. “Knowing the worst afore it comes is half the bearing of it.”

“And what is the worst?” I asked.

“The whole of it, but there’s shades of worst, even in Newgate, and the Felons’ Common Side, as they call it, is the bottom of the black. With only ten shillings amongst us, it’s to the Common Side we’ll have to go. We’ll be for it at the start, till I can reach some of my friends outside, but that’ll be soon, I promise.”

He then went on to speak of the different wards in that home of misery and of the hierarchies of felons who lived there. The lowest was the Common Side, one ward for men and one for women, where those convicted or awaiting trial, and having neither friends nor money, were kept. Next above this was that part called the Masters’ Side where those with money could buy themselves in and away from the misery of the Common Side.

“And how much is needed?” I asked.

“Thirteen-and-six a head for the entering,” said Tom, “with half a crown a week more for a bed and bedding. Then there’s ten shillings’ garnish collected by the steward for coals, candles, plates, knives and forks, and the like. And beyond all this is the food ye must buy, for ye get no victuals in Newgate save a penny loaf a day and pump water to wash it down with.”

But the best accommodation was on the State Side, open to all who could pay, no matter what their crimes. Here the fee for admission was three guineas, and ten-and-sixpence a week more was charged for the rent of a single bed. Prisoners who could afford it sometimes paid for the extra beds and so secured for themselves the luxury of a private room.

“And to the State Side we’ll go,” Oakley went on, “the minute I can get word to my friends outside. And Nellie shall have her own good quarters near by, trust me for that. We’ll do far from bad once we’re settled in the place. But for a night or two we must take the luck of beggars.”

“You speak with a wide knowledge of the place, Tom,” said I.

“And why not? I’ve had friends in the cursed hole, and I’ve done for them what they’ll do for me, for the three of us, now. If ever a man wants friends, it’s there. Shall we fight for our coats, lad?”

“Fight for them? Why?”

“There’s the matter of garnish, or footing, demanded by the felons of the Common Side of every newcomer the instant he comes in: It’ll be pay or strip for the three of us.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Nellie, grimly. “They’ll take naught of mine, I promise ye.”

“No, Nellie, it’s best to pay; the garnish is but two-and-six. That’s seven-and-six for the three: we’ll have half a crown to spare.”

“Ye’ll pay naught for me,” said Garth. “I won’t have it.”

“God bless ye, Nellie! Ye’ve a fist like the Rock of Ages and the weight of a draught horse to drive it with. But mind this! They’ll be twenty to one against ye—aye, fifty to one. Ye’ll be lucky to get off with your shift.”

“Never ye mind.”

“Ye’ll be alone amongst the harridans in the women’s part. Hugh and I will be wards away.”

“I want no help.”

“Ye mean to fight, then?”

“I do if needful,” Garth replied, with the same confident grimness.

“There, Hugh,” said Oakley; “Nellie’s decided all for us. We’ll not be shamed by a woman.”

“What are ye saying?” said Garth. “Will ye have Hugh fight with but the one arm and the flesh already torn apart a second time?”

“God’s truth!” said Oakley. “I’d clean forgot his wound.”

“I’ll not have you held up on my account,” said I. “I can favour the wound and my right arm’s as good as ever. You mind the old saying? ‘A good brawl cheers all.’ We’ll be the better for it.”

“So we would, but it can’t be,” said Tom. “Ye’d lame yourself for months to come. No, we’ll pay, and so will Nellie, if she’ll take counsel.”

“I pay naught,” said she, with such emphasis that Tom shook his head with a give-it-up expression. “Well, Mrs. Garth,” he said with a grin, “more power to ye! We’ll see who’s naked the morn.”

London was now at hand; we passed the scattered houses of the outskirts and from the open road to the cobbled streets, the coach and our guards on horseback making a great clatter over the uneven stones. The clocks were striking eight as we came along Holborn in a thin wintry fog that blurred the scant lights and made going slow. The air was harsh and raw; it was a night for indoors by a snug fire and none were abroad save the homeless. A few hackney coachmen stood at the corners, by lampposts or in entryways, and their poor nags, with their heads hanging low, looked the very picture of outdoor misery. We were miserable enough, ourselves, and all but perished with cold when we drew up before the gloomy front of Newgate prison.

Of all the horrors of Newgate, the smell of the place was, I think, the worst. I was no squeamish fellow; in my wanderings about London, I had walked the filthiest courts and alleys of St. Giles, Spitalfields, Lock’s Fields, and elsewhere, but in these places the air was abroad: in Newgate it was the confined stench of ages that had simmered and thickened and slimed the walls since the place was a gaol, long before the time of Henry the Third. As the ponderous iron-and-oaken door was pushed ajar to admit us, the cold smell of human misery and hopelessness struck me like a blow in the face, or, better, in the pit of the stomach. I gasped and glanced at Tom, and for all that he knew what to expect, he was as hard hit for the moment as myself. He gave me a sickly grin and said, “Draw it in and be done with it, for it’ll never be done with you. There’s no other way: ye must conquer or be conquered by it.” Garth’s courage in meeting it was a help. If a woman used to clean sweet country air could suffer the change without wincing, it was not for us to quail before it.

We had not been shackled for the journey to London for the reason that no shackles were to be had. In lieu of them we had been roped together by the leg, with our hands tied behind us, but the guards had had the decency to leave my left arm free because of my wound. We were now unbound and a blessed relief it was to have the cords removed. They gave us a minute or two to stamp our feet and to beat our numbed arms across our breasts to start the blood flowing once more; then we were marshaled down a passageway that looked like an entrance to the infernal regions,—as it was, in fact,—and into a room to the right, down a flight of steps. It was a place about a dozen feet square, furnished with a table, some shelves for prison records, and two settles on either side of the fireplace. The smell here was no different from that in the passageway except for the warmth from the fire which seemed to stir and liven it. Three as mean-looking rogues as ever I’d set eyes on occupied one of the settles. An honest constable mindful of his duty, if you can imagine so great a rarity, meeting them in the street would have taken them up at once, on suspicion. They were turnkeys of the prison, and none but rogues can be found to accept such a position. These three eyed us up and down; they reminded me of so many mongrel dogs sniffing up from afar the knowledge of how to behave toward strangers. Oakley paid no attention to them, but Garth turned and stared them out of countenance. Their smiles and winks seemed to indicate that they expected a rich harvest from our coming. I was decently dressed, and Oakley’s costume was only a little this side of elegance. Garth, in her stout shoes, grey flannel petticoat, shawl and bonnet, made a handsome picture of a decent countrywoman who had gotten into the place by mistake.

The man seated at the table pushed aside the candlestick and peered at us over a pair of spectacles with an air of benevolent interest, as though he had been a superannuated schoolmaster welcoming new scholars to his establishment. There’s no place like London for queer specimens of humanity, and this strange little fellow took the eye at once. His name was Tillot, as I afterward learned, and he had been keeper of the records at Newgate for close to fifty years. His complexion was like that of a resurrected mummy and he couldn’t have weighed above six stone. He was nothing but skin and bones, with a head so large that you wondered how he managed to support it. And within that massive head, completely tabulated and ready for instant reference, were records of crime and human misery that dated back over a half-century.

Tillot booked us with an air of quiet satisfaction, as though he were a merchant setting down items in a valuable bill of goods. Newgate was home to him, and he must have thought that the wretches who were brought there regarded it in the same light. Beginning with Oakley, he wrote into his great ledger our names, ages, occupations, places of residence, and in the column to the right he set down the charge—highway robbery. Garth was booked as an accessory.

An assistant keeper who had received us from the guards at the door now returned and took us in charge. He was a greasy wretch with a nose like a beetroot, and small piglike eyes under bushy brows. All the grime of Newgate seemed to cling to his person like mildew, and his oily smile was meant, perhaps, to be ingratiating. He had guessed, from our decent appearance, that we were well provided with money. He went before us like the landlord of some low tavern prepared to show distinguished guests his best accommodations. One of the turnkeys followed. We were led, first, along the main passageway to a room bare of furnishings save for two candles burning in an iron sconce fixed to the wall. Heavy locked doors opened from this in three directions. The keeper halted here.

“And now,” said he, “we come to the parting of the ways.” He turned to Oakley. “Ye and your friends will be wishing the best we have to offer, sir?” he asked.

Oakley looked at him in silence.

“What do ye mean by that?” said Garth.

“Ye’ve never been here before, ma’am, that’s plain,” said he. “There’s degrees of comfort in this inn, and ye must pay for the best or be lodged with the sluts.”

“We’ve no money,” said Garth, shortly.

The fawning smile vanished at once. “No money?” said the keeper, as though not sure he heard aright.

“No,” said Garth, “and I’ll thank ye to show me at once to the females’ apartments. The worst slut in the place, I’ll warrant, would be too good for the likes of yourself.”

The fellow gave her a black look.

“Ye’ll gain nothing by that, mistress, I promise ye,” he said.

“Pah!” said Garth. “Keep yer threats for them that fears ’em. I’d scorn to wipe my feet on such a thing as you be.”

She waited with her arms folded while the man unlocked the door to the passage leading to the women’s quarters; then, with a curt nod to us, she followed him out and the door was closed behind her. We were left with the other turnkey, and whatever bully and tyrant he may have been with scared and humble prisoners, he seemed to be at a loss for the line to take with us. Neither of us paid the slightest attention as he fumbled with his keys and unlocked the door to the passage we were to take. We stood looking through the barred door that had closed behind Nellie.

“Yon’s a grand woman, Hugh,” said Tom. “It makes me fair sick to think it’s us that brought her here.”

“You’ve seen the quarters she’ll be sent to?” I asked.

Tom nodded glumly. Suddenly he turned his head toward the turnkey who was waiting by the other door. “See here, corny-face,” he called.

“Ye’d best come along now,” said the fellow, sullenly. “Ye’ll have me in trouble, else.”

“Ye’ve a thirsty look,” said Tom, “and we’re not as stony as we said just now.” He took some coins from his pocket and jingled them in one hand, eyeing the wardsman appraisingly. “Would two shillings wet down such a gullet as yours?”

“Aye, it might,” said the fellow, perking up. “What do ye wish?”

“Have ye the keys to the women’s court?” Oakley asked.

The man shook his head.

“Then can ye take us where we can see the place?”

“Aye,” said the man. “There’s a room that looks into it from above the wall. I could take ye there, but not for long, mind!”

“Lead on,” said Oakley, “for there’s to be the battle of the ages directly.”

“If it’s your friend you’re thinking of, there’s naught ye can do to help her,” said the wardsman. “She’d best pay her garnish else they’ll not leave a rag to her back.”

“That’s as it falls out,” said Oakley. “Make haste now, for we wish to be there at the start.”

It was the custom at Newgate to lock the felons into their wards at nightfall, and from then on until day there were no keepers amongst them. The man led us through a maze of passages and up a stairway to a miserable room about eight by ten feet with a wooden barrack bed against the wall. This was one of the supposedly luxurious apartments reserved to female prisoners with money, but the place was empty now. In one wall was a barred window looking directly into the women’s court, a stone-paved area as dank and dismal as some underground dungeon. It was the common court for the lowest, poorest class of women, and was lighted by a few candles stuck into blackened niches in the walls. Leading off from it were passages to their sleeping quarters if ever sleep could be possible in so frightful a place. For all that it was now past nine o’clock, the din that rose from the court was worse than Bartholomew Fair, and it was given back redoubled in volume from the walls. As my eyes became accustomed to the dim light I saw children, like the offspring of famine, amongst the adults, and slatterns with infants in their arms sitting against the walls. Many of the women were barefoot, and others were shod in rags they had tied about their feet. Here and there I saw groups huddled together for warmth, for they had no fires. Nothing I had seen in the most wretched quarters of London had prepared me for the sight of the women’s court at Newgate. Here, surely, was the “bottom of the black,” as Oakley had called it.

Then we spied Garth. She was standing with her back to the gate she had been let in by, and in front of her was at least a score of the vilest creatures in the place all yelling “Garnish! Garnish!”

“God help her!” said Oakley with a groan. “Nellie, Nellie! Pay and be done with it!”

He said that not for Garth’s hearing but as a kind of prayerful entreaty; indeed, Garth could scarcely have heard him had he shouted at the top of his voice. “She’s a grand woman,” he added. “I see how it is with her; she wishes to be roused; there’ll be no bearing the place unless her blood is up.”

A striking figure she made in that dismal setting, her shadow towering behind her on the wall. Mrs. Garth was just under six feet and weighed better than twelve stone, and there was that in her bearing to make any woman think twice about attacking her. The harridans that ringed her on three sides kept their distance at first; then one made a rush in an attempt to snatch her bonnet. Garth met her with a powerful open-handed slap that sent the woman sprawling.

Yells of delight followed this resolute action, for, in that pitiful hopeless place where the women had nothing to do from day’s end to day’s end, they became desperate for some diversion, some bit of excitement to make them forget their miserable lot. There was a rush to the side of the court where Garth stood, and those who had been baiting her now crowded closer, reviling her in terms so foul that I must omit them here. They were out to conquer her now; they could see that she was a decent woman, and they may have thought to subdue her with abuse alone, for none of them ventured to step forward to receive what she had given the first of their number. A semblance of quiet followed as Garth untied the strings of her bonnet. She held it for a moment, then tossed it amongst them. “That ye may have,” she announced. A score of hands clutched wildly at it, and in their greed they tore it to bits. Whilst this was happening a huge woman appeared from the rear of the court and shoved the others aside till she stood before Garth. She glared right and left at her companions.

“What are ye about, ye bitches!” said she. “Do ye fight and send no word to me?”

“The fine lady is only just come, Moll,” said one, “and she’ll pay no garnish.”

“Won’t she so?” said the other. She turned to Garth and gave her a mock courtsey. “Well, me handsome duchess! Do ye think to buy us off with the bunnit? Stand against us, would ye?” In half a minute she had worked herself into such an appalling tantrum that she had to pause for breath. “We’ll have every rag to yer body, ye milk-fed trollop, and yer blood with it! Strip!”

This woman was a horror to see. Her name was Moll Cudlip and she was the bully of the female side. She had a hoarse voice, and had she been dressed as a man you would never have guessed her sex. Her hair was cropped short, making the egg-shaped head appear small and out of place on shoulders which were as broad as those of a Thames bargeman. Her only garment was a quilted petticoat black with age and grime, reaching to her knees. Her arms, legs, and feet were bare, but she seemed indifferent to the cold.

“Stand back!” she said to her companions. “I’ll handle her!”

The others made room amid cries of, “Go it, Moll! Christen her! Paint her red! We’ll show her who’s mistress here!”

Oakley gripped my shoulder in his anxiety. “Nellie, Nellie, if only ye’d listened to me!” he groaned, in a low voice. I was as worried as himself, for this Cudlip would have weighed a good two stone above Garth. But Nellie stood her ground, her eye fixed upon her opponent as she quietly unpinned the brooch that held her shawl in place. She then folded the garment as neatly as though she were about to lay it in the drawer of her wardrobe at home. Cudlip watched her with an air of triumph, but instead of passing over the shawl, Nellie thrust it quickly into the bosom of her dress. Then she stepped back until she was braced against the gate.

Cudlip had not expected this. With a bellow she rushed at Garth, who raised her foot and shoved it with terrific force full into Cudlip’s stomach. The latter doubled up and fell in a heap, gasping for breath. Garth leaped upon her and, seizing her by the ears, bashed her head again and again against the stone floor. The others might have overpowered her then by sheer weight of numbers, but they were so taken by surprise that instead of rushing her they fell back. Now Garth’s blood was up. She seemed to have been gifted with the strength of all the furies, and with her eyes alight and her strong fists clenched, she laid into those nearest with rights and lefts straight to eyes and noses, using her feet at the same time. I’ve seen battles now and again, but never one so hopeless-seeming at the start that ended so quickly. With their leader conquered, Cudlip’s followers showed the craven spirit that was native to them, and within three minutes Garth was mistress of the ward. There must have been well over a hundred women in the place but not above a dozen had taken an active part against her. At the end she stood in the midst of the yard, scarce breathed by the encounter and looking as though she could have battled the night through had there been any with the courage to meet her. Then her eye fell upon a woman crouched by the wall with a sickly half-naked child huddled in her arms for warmth. Garth stepped over to her; we could not hear what was said, but she drew forth her warm shawl and wrapped it about the child as gently as though it had been her own.

“There,” said Tom, “Nellie’s paid her garnish in the only way she’d ever consent to pay it. God bless her! They’ll meddle with her no more, that’s certain.”

Cudlip lay where she had fallen, but a moment later she lifted herself slowly to a sitting position and stared about her. At our last glimpse she was still here, with such an ache, I’ll warrant, in that egg-shaped head as had knocked the conceit out of her for days to come.