Читать книгу The Orange Girl - Walter Besant - Страница 11

In this distress I again consulted Tom, who knew already the whole case.

'In my opinion, Will,' he said, 'the best thing for you is to run away. Let Alice and the boy come here. Run away.'

'Whither could I run?'

'Go for a few days into hiding. They will come here in search of you. Cross the river – seek a lodging somewhere about Aldgate, which is on the other side of the river. They will not look for you there. Meantime I shall inquire – Oh! I shall hear of something to carry on with for a time. You might travel with a show. Probus does not go to country fairs. Or you might go to Dublin or to York, or to Bath, and play in the orchestra of the theatre. We will settle for you afterwards – what to do. Meantime pack thy things and take boat down the river.'

This seemed good advice. I promised I would think of it and perhaps act upon it. Some might think it cowardly to run away: but if an enemy plays dishonest tricks and underhand practices, there is no better way, perhaps, than to run away.

Now had I been acquainted with these tricks I should have remained where I was, in Tom's house, where no sheriff's officer could serve me with a writ. I should have remained there, I say, until midnight, when I could safely attempt the flight. Unfortunately I thought there was plenty of time: I would go home and discuss the matter with Alice. I left the house, therefore, and proceeded across the fields without any fear or suspicion. As I approached the Bank, I saw two fellows waiting about. Still I had no suspicion, and without the least attempt to escape or to avoid them I fell into the clutches of my enemy.

'Mr. William Halliday?' said one stepping forward and tapping my shoulder. 'You are my prisoner, Sir, at the suit of Mr. Ezekiel Probus, for the debt of fifty-five pounds and costs.'

As I made no resistance, the fellows were fairly civil. I was to be taken, it appeared, first to the Borough Compter. They advised me to leave all my necessaries behind and to have them sent on to the King's Bench as soon as I should be removed there.

And so I took leave of my poor Alice and was marched off to the prison where they take debtors first before they are removed to the larger prison.

The Borough Compter is surely the most loathsome, fetid, narrow place that was ever used for a prison. Criminals and Debtors are confined together: rogues and innocent girls: the most depraved and the most virtuous: there is a yard for exercise which is only about twenty feet square for fifty prisoners: at night the men are turned into a room where they have to lie edgeways for want of space: there is no ventilation, and the air in the morning is more horrible than I can describe. My heart aches when I think of the cruelty of that place: it is a cruel place, because no one ever visits it, no righteous Justice of the Peace, no godly clergyman: there is no one to restrain the warder: and he goes on in the same way, not because he is cruel by nature, but because he is hardened by daily use and custom.

I stayed in that terrible place for two nights, paying dues and garnish most exorbitant. At the end of that time I was informed that I could be removed to King's Bench at once. So I was taken to the Court and my business was quickly despatched. As a fine for being poor, I had to pay dues which ought not to be demanded of any prisoner for debt – at least we ought to assume that a debtor wants all the money he has for his maintenance. Thus, the Marshal demanded four shillings and sixpence on admission: the turnkey eighteen-pence: the Deputy Marshal a shilling: the Clerk of the Papers, a shilling: four tipstaffs ten shillings between them: and the tipstaff for bringing the prisoner from the Court, six shillings.

These dues paid, I was assigned a room, on the ground-floor of the Great Building (it was shared with another), and my imprisonment began. It was Matthew's revenge and Mr. Probus's first plan of reduction to submission. But I did not submit.

Thus I was trapped by the cunning of a man whom I believe to have been veritably possessed of a Devil. That there are such men we know very well from Holy Writ: their signs are a wickedness which shrinks from nothing: a pitiless nature: a constant desire for things of this world: and lastly, as happens always to such men, the transformation of what they desire, when they do get it, into dust and ashes; or its vanishing quite away never to be seen, touched, or enjoyed any more. These signs were all visible in the history of Mr. Probus, as you shall hear. Possessed, beyond a doubt, by a foul fiend, was this man whom then I had every reason to hate and fear. Now, I cannot but feel a mingled terror and pity when exemplary punishment overtakes and overwhelms one who commits crimes which make even the convicts in the condemned cell to shake and shudder. His end was horrible and terrible, but it was a fitting end to such a life.

Tom Shirley came, with Alice, to visit me in my new lodging.

He looked about him cheerfully. 'The new place,' he said, 'is more airy and spacious than the old prison on the other side of the road, where I spent a year or two. This is quite a handsome court: the Building is a Palace: the Recreation ground is a Park, but without trees or grass: the three passages painted green remind me somehow of Spring Gardens: the numbers of people make me think of Cheapside or Ludgate Hill: the shops, no doubt contain every luxury: the society, if mixed, is harmonious…'

'In a word, Tom, I am very lucky to get here.'

'There might be worse places. And hark ye, lad, if there is not another fiddler in the Bench, you will make in a week twice as much in the Prison as you can make out of it. Nothing cheers a prisoner more than the strains of a fiddle.

This gave me hope. I began to see that I might live, even in this place.

'There are one or two objections to the place,' this optimist philosopher went on. 'I have observed, for instance, a certain languor which steals over mind and body in a Prison. Some have compared it with the growth they call mildew. Have a care, Will. Practise daily. I have known a musician leave this place fit for nothing but to play for Jack in the Green. Look at the people as they pass. Yonder pretty fellow is too lazy to get his stockings darned: that fellow slouching after him cannot stoop to pull up his stockings: that other thrusts his feet into his slippers without pulling up the heels: there goes one who has worn, I warrant you, his morning gown all day for years: he cannot even get the elbows darned: keep up thy heart, lad. Before long we will get thee into the Rules.'

He visited my room. 'Ha!' he said, 'neat, clean, commodious. With a fine view of the Parade; with life and activity before one's eyes.' He forgot that he had just remarked on the languor and the mildew of the Prison. 'Observe the racquet players: there are finer players here than anywhere else, I believe. And those who do not play at racquets may find recreation at fives: and those who are not active enough for fives may choose to play at Bumble puppy. Well, Will, Alice will come back to me, with the boy. She can come here every morning if you wish. Patience, lad, patience. We will get thee, before long, within the Rules.'

It is possible, by the Warder's permission, to go into the Rules. But the prisoner must pay down £10 for the first £100 of his debts, and £5 for every subsequent £100. Now I had not ten shillings in the world. When I look back upon the memory of that time: when I think of the treatment of prisoners: and of the conduct of the prison: and when I reflect that nothing is altered at the present day I am amazed at the wonderful apathy of people as regards the sufferings of others – it may become at any time their own case: at their carelessness as concerns injustice and oppression – yet subject every one to the same oppression and cruelty.

What, for instance, is more monstrous than the fact that a man who has been arrested by writ, has to pay fees to the prison for every separate writ? If he has no money he is still held liable, so that even if his friends are willing to pay his debts with the exorbitant costs of the attorney, there are still the fees to be paid. And even if the prisoner's friends are willing to release him there is still the warden who must be satisfied before he suffers his prisoner to go.

Again what can be more iniquitous than the license allowed to attorneys in the matter of their costs? Many a prisoner, originally arrested for a debt of four or five pounds or even less, finds after a while that the attorney's costs amount to twenty or thirty pounds more. He might be able to discharge the debt alone: the costs make it impossible: the creditor might let him go: the attorney will never let him go: the friends might club together to pay the debt: they cannot pay the costs: the attorney abates nothing, hoping that compassion will induce the man's friends to release him. In some cases they do: in others, the attorney finds that he has overreached himself and that the prisoner dies of that incurable disease which we call captivity.

At first sight the Parade and the open court of the Prison present an appearance of animation. The men playing racquets have a little crowd gathered round them, there are others playing skittles: children run about shouting: there are the shrill voices of women quarrelling or arguing: the crowd is always moving about: there are men at tables smoking and drinking: the tapsters run about with bottles of wine and jugs of beer. There are women admitted to see their friends, husbands and brothers, and to bring them gifts. Alas! when I remember – the sight comes back to me in dreams – the sadness and the earnestness in their faces and the compassion and the love – the woman's love which endures all and survives all and conquers all – I wish that I had the purse of Crœsus to set these captives free, even though it would enrich the attorney, whose wiles have brought them to this place.

One has not to look long before the misery of it is too plainly apparent above the show of cheerful carelessness. One sees the wives of the prisoners: their husbands play racquets and drink about and of an evening sit in the tavern bawling songs; the poor women, ragged and draggled, come forth carrying their babes to get a little air: their faces are stamped with the traces of days and weeks and years of privation. The Prison has destroyed the husband's sense of duty to his wife: he will not, if he can, work for his family; he lives upon such doles as he can extract from his family or hers. Worse still, men lose their sense of shame: they say what they please and care not who hears: they introduce companions and care not what is said or thought about them: things are said openly that no Christian should hear: things are done openly that no Christian should witness or should know. There are many hundreds of children within these accursed walls. God help them, if they understand what they hear and what they see!

In the prison there are many kinds of debtors: there is the debtor who is always angry at the undeserved misery of his lot: sometimes his wrongs drive him mad in earnest: then the poor wretch is removed to Bedlam where he remains until his death. There is, next, the despairing debtor who sits as one in a dream and will never be comforted. There is the philosophical debtor who accepts his fate and makes the best of it: there is the meek and miserable debtor – generally some small tradesman who has been taught that the greatest disgrace possible is that which has actually fallen upon him; there is the debtor who affects the Beau and carries his snuff-box with an air. There is the debtor who was a gentleman and can tell of balls at St. James's; there is the ruffler who swaggers on the Parade, looking out for newcomers and inviting those who have money to play with him. As for the women they are like the men: there are the wives of the prisoners who fall, for the most part, into a draggled condition like their husbands; there are ladies who put on sumptuous array and flaunt it daily on the Parade: stories are whispered about them; there are others about whom it is unnecessary to tell stories; in a word it is a place where the same wickedness goes on as one may find outside.

There is a chapel in the middle of the great Building. Service is held once a week but the attendance is thin; there is a taproom which is crowded all day long: here men sit over their cups from morning till evening; there is a coffee-room where tea and coffee can be procured and where the newspapers are read; this is a great place for the politicians of whom there are many in the Prison. Indeed, I know not where politics are so eagerly debated as in the King's Bench.

The King's Bench Prison is a wonderful place for the observation of Fortune and her caprices. There was a society – call it not a club – consisting entirely of gentlemen who had been born to good estates and had suffered ruin through no fault of their own. These gentlemen admitted me to their company. We dined together at the Ordinary and conversed after dinner. One of them, born to an easy fortune, was ruined by the discovery of a parchment entitling him to another estate. There was a lawsuit lasting for twenty years. He then lost it and found that the whole of his own estate had gone too. Another, a gentleman of large estate, married an heiress. Her extravagancies ran through both her own fortune and her husband's. She lived with him in the Prison and daily, being now a shrew as well as a slattern, reproached him with the ruin she herself had caused. There was a young fellow who had fallen among lawyers and been ruined by them. He now studied law intending as soon as he got out to commence attorney and to practise the tricks and rogueries he had learned from his former friends. Another had bought a seat in the House of Commons and a place with it. But at the next election he lost his seat and his place, too. And another was a great scholar in Arabic. His captivity affected him not one whit because he had his books and could work in the Prison as well as out.