Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (344 page)

“Sir,” Mr. Roland said, “the beast is a wild-cat.”

“And what,” Mr. Bestwell asked triumphantly, “is a lion but a wild-cat?”

“And remember,’’ Mr. Chuckel continued,” again, the phrasing of her ladyship’s letter where her ladyship commends me upon my head to look after the comfort of this man as if he were the King or his brother. What is this but to say that this is a Royal personage, come to prepare the way for the king from over the water?”

“And,” Mr. Bestwell said, “he did utter the most horrible threats of having me hanged; of raising troops of horse; of devastating the country. Who could do such things but a usurper?”

“Why,” Mr. Roland said, “this is a very good hearing, for since this gentleman is so near akin to me, I, also, must be demonstrably a royal Duke, for you have proved it very satisfactorily upon my brother.”

Mr. Justice Stareleigh’s mind moved with some slowness if with considerable ferocity. He had by now arrived at the comprehension of the fact that these were strangers.

“Who be you to question the Justices?” he rumbled, with a deep fury, from his stomach. “Kiss my wig! I will show you what Justices be in Kent. I will commit you. I will commit you all. I am in a very committing frame of mind, and will have Habeas-corpus burnt by the town-crier;” and his voice died away into a rumble of obscene ejaculations.

“Brother Stareleigh,” Mr. Justice Bestwell exclaimed, “I think that is a very fine idea. I think you have the right of it. How can we tell that these are not officers of the Duke’s force now in the marshes?”

Mr. Chuckel commented suddenly —

“Your Worships, that I would have had all along. For these gentlemen came also with the Duke from I know not where, descending, as it appeared, from heaven, but coming, of a truth, from the King of France’s dominions.”

“Ha!” Mr. Justice Bestwell exclaimed, “let us arrest them at once. Let us send for paper and pens and sign the warrants.”

“My friends,” Mr. Roland exclaimed, “we are but two to five, but I think we can let a little blood before you make much pen play.”

Mr. Chuckel slipped slowly behind the fat Justice. Mr. Harcourt, anew, cast glances towards the garden door. Mr. Justice Stareleigh had not yet perceived the tenor of Mr. Roland’s remarks, but with a scream of incredulous rage Mr. Bestwell suddenly drew his sword, which was a great deal too large for him.

“Ho!” he exclaimed, “shall we be threatened? Ho! we are swordsmen, too! Ho! I am a match for six Papists and French frogs!” And at each ejaculation he leapt into the air, feinted towards Mr. Roland’s face, and uttered a shrill and ape-like cry of rage.

“Gentlemen! gentlemen,” Major Penruddock exclaimed. “I beg your Worships to listen to me.” He stepped with a business-like calm between Mr. Roland and the little Justice, whose sword he brushed aside with his hand. “This is a sad misunderstanding,” he said. “It is lamentable to see gentlemen fall out about follies.” He looked gravely upon Mr. Bestwell and gravely upon Mr. Roland. He took a pinch of snuff whilst he marshalled his words, and reflected upon his course of action. To the one he said —

“Mr. Roland Bettesworth will understand that the inevitable is the inevitable. To pass a night or a day, or many days or a week, in the smelling Round House here, whilst his credentials are being inquired into, would help very little any cause he may have at-heart. Yet Mr. Roland must perceive that to utter threats against Justices, or so to act as to cast suspicion upon themselves, must ensure such an incarceration, which I, for my part, am very willing to spare him.” He turned with an equal gravity upon the two magistrates, and tapped the lid of his snuff-box. “Your Worships,” he said, “I will answer for it with my life that neither of these gentlemen is a friend to the Duke of Berwick or mixed in his vile schemes. Mr. Harcourt will swear to the same thing, and Mr. Harcourt is of His Gracious Majesty’s Privy Council.” He waved his hat in a manner of introduction. “Your Worships,” he said, “this is Mr. Roland Bettesworth; this, Mr. Jack Williamson; each of them well known to the Town, in their several ways, as the joviallest and most loyal subject His Majesty has. Each was long since known in the ties of friendship and acquaintance by Mr. Harcourt and myself, and if you have arrested your prisoner upon our evidence, by just such evidence, formally as we render it, you should release these gentlemen. Nay, more, in as far as you may, you should render them amends as right-down jovial fellows to be kissed, slobbered over, and feasted.”

Major Penruddock desired no more, now that Mr. Bettesworth was put out of the way, than a couple of hours of freedom of action. His work appeared to him, to all intents and purposes, to be at an end, and he had at once a certain good-nature that made him very undesirous of seeing gentlemen of his own rank mishandled, or of swearing falsely when it would not profit him. Moreover, the arrest of Mr. Bettesworth, though it might cause some stir, would yet be condoned as being all a portion of the wager. But needlessly to cause the incarceration of two gentlemen who profited in no way by the wager itself, would be very much to extend the affair. The Courts of Law might well take cognizance of it, and Mr. Penruddock had no desire to employ the greater portion or more of the winnings, which he seemed to feel already in his pockets, upon the payment of an immense fine. He cast about in his mind, whilst he was taking another pinch of snuff, for an expedient that should detain the two gentlemen for the two hours that he needed. He wanted them out of the way for that space of time; but he observed he had almost converted the Justices to setting them instantly free.

Mr. Chuckel, however, was by no means so resigned to their liberation. He dreaded, in the first place, their wrath; and, in the second, that their efforts might ensure the speedy liberation of Mr. Bettesworth. He ventured, therefore, to urge upon the Justices the fact that, for all Major Penruddock and Mr. Harcourt might be well acquainted with these two gentlemen, nevertheless these were very treacherous times, and many great lords and others in London had been attainted for plotting with High Churchmen and the king over the water. It was indubitable that these gentlemen had come in the company of the prisoner. What possible errand, then, could have brought them to Ashford if they were not of the Jacobite party?

Major Penruddock suddenly bent his brows upon Mr. Chuckel.

“Sirrah,” he growled tumultuously, “have I lived to see the day when a servant, an attorney’s clerk, a marrier of kept mistresses, shall set his words up against mine?” He turned to the Justices. “Your Worships,” he said, “this gentleman’s errand, and he will bear me out, is a secret one, but not so very secret neither as that I may not breathe it before discreet ears. We are both upon the same errand. We are after a wench, and that is all there is to it. What the Duke of Berwick’s errand to this town was, we know. And since his errand was to this town, and the wench dwells in this town, — nay, more, in the very house of Mr. Chuckel himself, — what more natural than that these gentlemen should become travelling companions, nay, very guests — as Mr. Harcourt and I have been — of the Duke himself.”

At this point Mr. Stareleigh said —

“They came from nowhere with the Duke of Berwick!” — not so much because he was offering any objection to the Major’s speech, as because it was only at that juncture that this information had reached his brain.

“Sirs,” Major Penruddock said, “I will stake my head — nay, I will risk my commission in His Majesty’s Army; and so, I am sure, will Mr. Harcourt risk his upon the King’s Privy Council — that these gentlemen have no concurrence in the designs of the Duke of Berwick.”

He frowned at Mr. Harcourt, and that gentleman, although he had no particular inkling of the Major’s designs, added obediently, in languid tones —

“Why, stap my vitals! if my old friends Roland Bettesworth and Jack Williamson are concerned in any treason with the Duke of Berwick, I will eat my iron fireback, dogs and all.”

“Nay, more,” Major Penruddock said; “Mr. Harcourt, as a Privy Councillor, is of higher judicial post and authority than any one else in this room, and he will command you by virtue of that position of authority to let these two gentlemen go in peace, and he will hold you absolved from any danger or responsibility that this may cause you.”

“Why, so I will,” Mr. Harcourt said. “I will absolve you from all responsibility, and I order you now to set these gentlemen at once at liberty.”

“Why, not so very precipitately, friend Harcourt,” the Major said; “let us make the more absolutely certain of this. Let these gentleman give their parole of honour to remain here three hours — or say till midnight — whilst we make search for the Duke’s papers at the Manor-house, and then let them go free.”

He grinned swiftly at Mr. Roland Bettesworth, who exclaimed beneath his breath,”Oh, the rogue!” and then asked aloud, “But if we will not give this parole?”

“Why, sirs,” the Major said lightly, “this is the merest formality. But if you will not do it, then it is to be feared that you must to prison until we have completed our search of the Manor-house. For to object to this formality would seem to be, of itself, a
prima facie
of guilt, though I am very sure that you have no guilt at all. But we have our duties to perform.”

“Why, they are fine, jovial fellows,” Mr. Justice Stareleigh exclaimed at this point. “I am sure I never met none so fine, not even when I was in London Town seven years agone!”

“Well, you have us trapped!” Mr. Roland said to the Major. “But what will you do in the three hours of our parole?”

“Why,” the Major said, with a pleasant smile, “it falls upon me, as a man of arms, to search Ashford Manor-house and, under commission from the hand of Mr. Harcourt, to take from there any person that we may suspect to be treasonably inclined, to be produced and examined in the City of London.”

“
By God! he will take Celia,” Mr. Williamson exclaimed, “and all our labours are lost!”

“Mr. Williamson,” the Major said gravely, “until the troops come from Canterbury, which they shall not do before to-morrow at noon, or I am no judge of troops, I am the military officer of highest command here, and, acting with the warrant of Mr. Harcourt, I will take who I will and when and how.”

“Why, the game is up, bully boy,” Mr. Williamson said. “There are a hundred armed men in the inn at this moment.”

“But, Major,” Mr. Bestwell interrupted, “what dispositions will you make for our safety? For to your own knowledge there are twenty thousand Jacobites in arms upon the marsh. And we, as Justices, by the eminence of our position, shall be the first whom these blind brutes will attack.”

“Why, it is very true,” Major Penruddock said, “that you will be in some danger if they should make a move, though this I hardly expect, inasmuch as their leader is clapped up in jail. But the disposition of the land is this: you, Mr. Bestwell, live upon the north-east of the town, and you, Mr. Stareleigh, upon the north-west. I should therefore counsel you to divide such men as you have, — which I understand to be the number of a hundred in arms, — to divide them into two bodies, and to set out for your homes, retaining them for your protection. And for my part, if I perceive any movements during my reconnaissances I will send messengers to you to say that the Jacobites are afoot and that you may flee to the hills. But stay here till midnight with these two gentlemen; eat the supper that has been prepared for ourselves, crack with them as many bottles of wine as you will, and be merry. And at midnight I will come again and give you news of how all fares to the south-east of the town.”

“Why, I could crack a bottle of wine,” Mr. Justice Stareleigh said. “I could crack many bottles of wine. I am very much in the mind for wine and company.”

“But,” Mr. Bestwell said, “supposing these Jacobites should march round you and come in upon us while you are gone?”

“Sir,” the Major answered, “I have had so much practice of war in the Low Countries that I am a past-master of reconnoitring; I can so throw out vedettes, scouts, skirmishers, night-posts, and dark horsemen, that I am very certain no Jacobite shall get past me. Nay, you may eat and drink and sleep as sound as if no Jacobite were in Kent — and this were all a dream of them.”

CHAPTER III
.

MR. BETTESWORTH was in a circular, blind, stone cell that was some thirty feet across. The floor was ankle deep in black and stinking straw. A lantern hung from the green and slimy wall, and gave out an odour of rancid oil, and the light was so yellow and dim that it hardly pierced to the end of the cell that faced the iron-studded door. There were no windows, the stone arches of the roof contained no aperture, and the stench of the apartment was so terrible that, upon being thrown into it, Mr. Bettesworth was violently sick. Past his convulsed ears there went a perpetual sound of stertorous breathing, at intervals a whining like the whimpering of a small monkey, and at other intervals words were moaned that resolved themselves into the phrase: “Oh, accursed generation!” And as, gradually, Mr. Bettesworth’s senses reasserted themselves, he perceived shapes so hideous that he imagined himself to be in hell. He was still near the door, and at the farther end, upon the straw, was the shape of a young woman half naked, her bare back covered with grime from the floor and with clots of blood. Her head was upon the lap of another, whose matted, grey hair fell across a face begrimed with tears and ancient dirt. Her hands were like claws. They

groped from time to time at her scalp, and she sent out a feeble whimpering.

Against the wall, all in black, with his arms crossed and his legs thrust into the straw before him, stood the figure of a man. The lantern-light shone on his dry, long, and twisted features; his broad-rimmed hat was pulled down upon his eyes, that glittered and stared straight before him.

“What place is this?” Mr. Bettesworth asked hoarsely.

The man groaned, the elder woman whimpered, but the stertorous breathing of the younger ceased for a moment.

“Have faith,” the man groaned hollowly; “miserable sinner, wretched criminal, find conversion now. Glory! Glory!”

“In the name of God, what place is this?” Mr. Bettesworth asked again.

“This is England — a Christian land,” the Methodist said with a deep irony.

“But, sir,” Mr. Bettesworth said, “is it possible that they should incarcerate so many?”

For his mind ran upon the fact that this was some smugglers’ cavern, and that he and the others were being held for ransom somewhere in the bowels of the earth.

The Methodist’s eyes glinted round upon the occupants of the confined space.

“Friend,” he said, but with a bitter contempt, “do you call this so many when we are but four? God help me, we are but a very small consignment, and this place is at a very low ebb. For it is usual to have ten or twelve wretches in this hole; and if you will go up and down the length and breadth of England, you will find thousands of such — nay, tens of thousands and hundreds.”

Mr. Bettesworth gazed at him with bewilderment and horror. The prostitute began to breathe again, and the rattling sound of her breath rolled round the moulded stones.

“A’s time has come,” the other woman whimpered. “A’s time has come, and I hev’ naught but took sticks from Squire’s hedge.”

“I do not understand,” Mr. Bettesworth said, almost pitifully. “These are all dark sayings.”

“Friend,” the Methodist said, “who are you, that you should not understand; or where do you dwell, that these should be dark sayings to you? For I tell you that this is England, a Christian land that is like ripe fruit, of a great outward beauty and ruddiness, but all rotten within. Yes, within all stinketh; and again I ask you, who are you that do not understand, and that find these sayings dark? For here, but that the fair seemliness of the surface is neither visible nor in evidence, you have an epitome of all this land. In this harlot, with the death-rattle in her throat, having been beaten at the cart-tail and lying in filth, you have personified the carnal lusts of all the land, which, in spite of all premonitions, persist unto death itself amidst foul stenches and filthy garbage, unto eternal torture. And in this other woman you see those who go scratching upon this teeming earth for the bare portion of a beggar, and to raise a roof of rushes over their heads. Until at the last gasp, with their sides caved in and their bodies naked, you find them thus bewildered in the doings of this world. For upon the one hand, by adherence to virtue, they starve and rot in the straw, and are clapped up for the taking of a few sticks from the hedges of the great ones of this world. And upon the other hand, if they should forsake virtue and toil, and by the sale of their bodies, or the bowing to temporary lusts, they procure the wherewithal to live or the means of oblivion — if so they do, they see that here they end. Now what shall these poor folk do? — for for the rich there is no account nor hope of salvation, since they take their tolls, a thousand poor folk going to the sustenance of one such. And they fill their bellies with fat meats, and blind their eyes with gawds and trinkets and the sparkle of gold and the shine of silk. But what shall these poor folk do, since they find in this world ease neither in what is accounted virtue in this world, nor in what is accounted filthiness and vice in this world and all the worlds that shall follow?”

He moved before the lantern, so that his form cast a blackness upon the whole cell. He caught Mr. Bettesworth by the shoulder and pointed one arm, stiff like a semaphore, to the apex of the place.

“Filthy sinner,” he exclaimed, in a voice that mounted and mounted in tone, “there is but one thing that availeth in this world. Have faith! Virtue shall not avail you, nor vice shall not stop up your ears. In this England there be three hundred and sixty jails that yawn alike for the one and the other, and that avail nothing. My poor, miserable brother, a flame of fire shall consume all England.

There shall but one thing avail: instant conversion. Have faith! Now! At once! There is no time! The flame of fire is coming! Coming now! Coming down from Heaven! Heaven!!”

He shook Mr. Bettesworth by the arm that he had seized, his hand waved over his head. His voice rose higher and higher, into an incoherent scream, and suddenly there mingled with it another scream, so high and so potent that Mr. Bettesworth chafed the skin on his wrists in the effort to tear his hands from the manacles and to thrust them to his ears. From the obscurity that the Wesleyan’s figure caused there came invisibly deep pantings and violent rustlings. The screams continued to resound and drowned his voice. He bent to peer forward, and the light from the lantern fell over his shoulder. Mr. Bettesworth saw dimly the last motions of a convulsed struggle. The old woman had been thrust backwards against the wall, and crouched like an ape, her arms amongst the straw. The girl lay with her face to them, the hair fallen back, the features begrimed and contused, a thin trickle of black blood running from the corner of the mouth into the black straw. She was absolutely immobile.

“Merciful God!” Mr. Bettesworth said, “what is this?”

The old woman, who had been thrown against the wall by the girl’s last struggle, crawled slowly forward with an air of caution, as of one who approaches a dangerous beast. She extended an arm that was grey and lean, like the enlarged claw of a bird, and slowly fumbled into the girl’s neck till her hand rested on the heart. She said, “Well, well, well!” and gazed at the lantern with bleared eyes.

“Merciful God!” Mr. Bettesworth repeated, “what is this?”

“The harlot is dying or dead,” the Methodist said.

Horror overcame Mr. Bettesworth; he stammered incoherent things, trying to say, “Shall a Christian soul die thus?” and “Knock upon the door! Call out for help!” and at last, “Will you not send for a chaplain? There is no wretch so mean — no country so barbarous—”

“Friend,” the Methodist said harshly, “I have been now but two years a field-preacher and have been cast but eleven times into jail, and in that time I have seen nine men and women die without the help of a chaplain. They died very well without that help, for what can these sluggard and indifferent men do towards the saving of a soul?”

“Sir,” Mr. Bettesworth said, “that is a matter for the magistrates. It concerns in nowise our condition.”

The preacher had refolded his arms and leant once more against the wall.

“Prisons in nowise concern us,” Mr. Bettesworth said, “but only the lawless scoundrels who have here shut us in.”

“Friend,” the preacher said, “you may well — though it is not the mode — call them lawless that have here imprisoned us. For I am here right against the law, since the Act against Nonconformists — even if I were a Nonconformist — is annually suspended, and I have neither brawled nor taken purses, nor done aught save preach the Word of God. And of a great majority of the poor people that are cast into jail it is likely that the most part are such as have incurred the ill-will of magistrates rather than the just ire of the law—”

“Sir,” Mr. Bettesworth said, “I cannot well hear these doctrines, considering my rank and position in the land; and it seems to me that, rather than debate upon such matters, we should do what we could to succour the poor wretch that lies there.”

“Friend,” the Methodist said, “the harlot is dead; and if she were not, what could we do to succour her, since your hands are chained behind your back, and there is not, nor will be till the morning, so much as a crock of water in this place? And as for your position or rank in the country, I do not know what it may be, but if you were even a magistrate it might very well benefit you to know how you send poor wretches to jail for the picking of a few sticks from your hedgerows, because they have incurred your displeasure by being not supple enough in backbone, or because they have taken a hare from the furrow, or a plover from the uplands; it might very well benefit you to know to what hells it is that you condemn at a nod of your head, and how those fare whose miserable superfluity maintains you in your great halls.”

“Sir,” Mr. Bettesworth said, “I am a magistrate of my County.”

“Oh, my poor brother,” the Methodist said, “is this a place or a time for vainglorious boasting and buffoonery? I have seen others such as you — highwaymen and footpads — so talking on the night they were taken; but oh, in a very little time they will change you their tune, as the rope comes nearer to their necks. Oh, my sinful brother, it is then, it is then that they will listen to my ministrations that before cast upon me the straw and stones of a prison-yard!”

“Sir,” Mr. Bettesworth said, with a return of spirit, “your talk of prisons and of prison-yards is offensive to me, for this, assuredly, is no prison but a den of thieves, and our business is not so much to debate of things that concern you little, and of which you know less, — for what can you know of the high state of a magistrate, or of the polity of a nation and its laws? — but rather we should lay our heads together to consider of how we may escape from this place and bring some succour to these poor wretches.”

“Sir,” the Methodist said dryly, “your head is softer than your heart, which, I thank God, is softer than in most of your kidney. For thus in the course of our stay here I may bring you to see the light, for I have seldom known a highwayman or a footpad who had compassion on such poor dross. But these walls here are nine foot thick, of solid stone, there are no windows or apertures, and before the door doubtless stands an armed guard; so that I would have you to compose your mind, and set it upon other matters, until the rope claims you for its own.”

“Sir,” Mr. Bettesworth said, “your mind rambles, which is pardonable if you have been long here enclosed. But without doubt you will tell me what manner of place this is and where situated, that I may consider for myself what chance I have of escape, or how long it shall be before my men may come to my rescue. I beg, therefore, that you will compose your mind and give me a civil answer to these questions. And then, if you be, as I should not wonder, without means
to
obtain redress, when we have come out from the clutches of these villains be sure my purse shall be open to you.”

“Friend,” the Methodist said, “for the place, it is the common jail of the town of Ashford; and for its situation, it standeth at the far end of the marketplace, midway between the stocks, the pound, and the ducking-pond.”