Chapter XI A Brave Woman
Sooner or later we all find a place which fits us in the world, and when Mistress Newbolt crossed the threshold of Newgate to take charge of her husband, unwittingly, even to herself, she had reached her bourne. She did not know it, she did not realize it till long after; but her work had found her, and she was not one of those who, having put her hand to the plough, would turn back again.
An ordinary woman would have shrunk from the misery which surrounded her, but she never did. All the sorrow, the discontent, which so often troubled her, ceased to be as she stood beside her husband in that narrow cell. With strong hands, helped by Reginald, she arranged his bed; she spoke to him, she comforted him; even in his delirium he knew her and clung to her. That he was desperately ill she saw at a glance, but even the doctor, a rough, hard man, when he came to visit him, grew soft in Mistress Newbolt’s presence.
“Madam,” he said, “I cannot tell whether he will live or die. His life is in your hands.”
“Not in mine,” said Mistress Newbolt, “but in God’s.”
“We do not hear much of God here,” said the doctor roughly. “It is verily a God-forsaken place; but your presence is potent, your care may save him.”
“I can only stay here a few hours,” she answered, “at least, so I am told. I will do what I can.”
“You may stay here as long as you choose,” said the doctor. “I will speak to the governor.”
And so it came to pass that Mistress Newbolt was established at Newgate. That first night her husband was seized with such violent delirium that it required two men to hold him down.
Reginald therefore remained till early morning, when, exhausted, the patient dropped into a deep sleep. Then his mother bade him go and rest.
“You have your duties to attend to; you have Ann to see after,” she said. “I am sufficient here.”
“Will you not be afraid to remain here alone, Mother?” asked Reginald.
“Afraid!” she answered, “of what? Is not God with me?” And that strangely inspired look came into her face. “I feel as if my place were here, as if at last I had found my appointed task. Go, and do not trouble about me or your father.”
Reginald kissed her hand.
“You are wonderful, Mother,” he said. “I will return this evening before the prison gates close.” And so he left her.
As Mistress Newbolt stood in the passage she heard cries and moans, loud voices, and bitter plaints.
“Are those the prisoners?” she asked of Knight, the jailer.
“Yes,” he answered, “they are hungry dogs to-day. They declared that the morning allowance of food was insufficient. There was not a hunch of bread for each man, and it was sour, not fit to cast to the dogs.”
“How was it so?” asked Mistress Newbolt.
The keeper shrugged his shoulders.
“How can I tell?” he said. “It is bought by contract. As we get it we give it them. Those who have no money of their own, and no friends, come badly off. Your husband is sleeping, will you come and look at them?”
Mistress Newbolt acquiesced.
He took her down the passage to a great iron door, in which there was a sliding panel, not large, but large enough to allow an outsider to look into the interior. The keeper drew back the panel, and shrill voices fell upon her ears, uttering curses and foul language. She saw men and women with scarce any semblance of humanity, rather like wild beasts. Some were tearing at hard crusts of bread, others at meat of the worst kind; men belaboured the women and thrust them back, snatching the food out of their thin hands. And they in their turn clutched at them and tore their hair, scratching their faces in their madness. One or two had infants in their arms, parodies of childhood.
“It is terrible!” said Mistress Newbolt, her pale face paling.
“Here is gold,” she said to the keeper; “go fetch me food! I will give it them. And look you,” she continued, “that you are just, and bring me full measure for the money.”
Her stern eyes stared straight into Knight’s, and he, as if affrighted, looked away; nevertheless he took the gold and departed to do her bidding.
Mistress Newbolt faced the opening again and called out, “Peace, peace!”
Her words were received with a loud yell.
“Peace? There is no peace here.”
“Peace, peace, God’s peace be with you!” she continued; and then in a loud voice, which rose above the turmoil, she began:
“Our Father which art in heaven.”
Shrieks of mockery greeted her words.
“He who would have bread let him pray for it,” she cried out. “Surely it will come to him who asketh.”
A loud voice greeted her words.
“We have asked, and they have given us stones for bread,” said a gaunt man.
“Because ye have asked amiss,” she answered. “Down on your knees and I will pray for you.”
A moment’s hesitation, then there was dead silence, and that crowd fell down as if moved by some invisible power.
“Repeat what I say, after me,” she cried. “Our Father.”
And so through that blessed prayer, the like of which there is none other, these poor wretches, the outcast of the earth, followed her, repeating the words, some with sobs, some still cursing between the words.
As the Amen died out, Knight stood beside her.
“Open the gate and let me in to them,” she said, “and then do as I bid you.”
She took a great white loaf from the basket he had brought.
“There are more coming,” he said in a low voice; “this is not all your bounty gives.”
“A knife,” she said. “I will break each loaf in four. Open the gate,” she continued, “and I will go in and feed them myself.”
“They will tear you to pieces,” said Knight.
“No they will not,” she answered; and she stood erect as one inspired.
The jailer took the bunch of keys from his side, unlocked the door, and she passed in.
In a second she was surrounded.
“The bread, the bread we have prayed for!” they cried.
“It is coming,” she answered; and she took the lumps of bread which Knight handed her. Quickly they were snatched from her.
Suddenly she stopped, for she saw that the men in their greed were thrusting the women back, and fighting their way towards her.
“Cowards!” she cried, “stand back! The women and the children. Have you nothing human left in you? Shame! Shame!”
There was a deep growl of anger, but slowly the men fell back, and the women rushed forward, kneeling at her feet, kissing her hands. Their souls were touched, and she, stooping over them, bade them rise, and gave them food. She took one child in her arms and fed it with her own hands.
“Water!” they called out, “water!” And they showed her a pitcher filled with a foul liquid.
“Water, bring water!” she repeated; and the keepers brought it as they would have brought it at an angel’s word.
She held the jars to the parched, thirsty lips, and they drank, all those who could get near enough; but it was not enough, there were so many.
“That is all,” she said at last. “I have no more; but to-morrow I will come back and feed you again; only be human and know there is a God who careth for you. Ye have sinned, but He will pardon you if you repent. He suffered, though He was sinless, and you are sinners. It is but just that you should suffer for your sins. Listen to what the psalmist of Israel sang.” In a loud, clear voice she recited the 77th Psalm:
“‘I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice, and he gave ear unto me’,” and so on to the end.
Where there had been such an uproar there was now a grave stillness, save for the groans of the men and the weeping of the women. She stood with the half-naked child still in her arms, and looked down upon the people, her tall figure resting against the unclean wall of that prison-house. Her voice was steady; her eyes had in them that strangely luminous look of inspiration.
When she had finished she gave the child back to its mother.
“If they will let me, I will come to you to-morrow,” she repeated, “and so each day. Only be patient, and the Lord will be with you.”
As she spoke she backed out of the cell, and disappeared from their sight.
The keepers told the governor they had never had such a quiet day; the prisoners seemed subdued. They took their portions of food at night and hardly murmured. There were many brutes amongst those men, and many shameless women, but their passions were curbed and their evil tongues silenced.
Mistress Newbolt went back to her husband and tended him all that day, praying beside him with such earnestness, and with such impassioned eloquence that the warders came and stood at the door of the cell and listened. There was not one of them who would not gladly serve her; she might ask what she would of them, they did it.
The governor, hearing what she had done, though knowing it to be against the rules, said:
“Let her do what she will for the poor wretches!”
And so every morning for ten long days she went in to them. Some passed away, but the greater number remained. Every day she added something to her bounty: she gave the women cloths and brooms, and bade them try to keep some order and cleanliness in the cells; but it was impossible, and she soon recognized it was so.
Some days she would repeat a few verses from the Bible to them, and they would listen. Her heart would be glad then, thinking she had won them, but on the morrow there would be fresh cursing, swearing, and evil-speaking. Still, she never wearied. She brought fresh water and clean linen, and dressed their wounds; she brought milk for the little children; she spent herself and her wealth for these outcasts. They grew to look upon her coming as the one thing in the twenty-four hours for which they lived.
“Our mother’s coming,” they told one another, as the hour approached, and like children they watched for her.
It was wonderful how her strength stood it all—those long days and nights at her husband’s pallet, and the horror of her surroundings.
The order came at last that her husband should be removed to Aldersgate to await his trial. The class of prisoners there was of a higher degree, and the prison was less crowded. But the order came too late; they could not move him.
“He will die on the way,” the doctor said; “he must die, therefore let him remain here in peace.”
When she was not tending the prisoners or waiting on her husband she was praying, this marvellous woman, in whom verily the blood of martyrs must have flowed. She grew gaunter and gaunter, but there came into her face a look of enthusiasm, as if she no longer belonged to this world, but to the heaven of which she spoke.
“If Ann is to see my father alive, I must bring her soon, Mother,” said Reginald, on the eighteenth day of the colonel’s illness.
“He will not die until the twenty-first,” she answered.
On the morning of the twenty-first it was evident that he was sinking, that he would not outlive the day, and so Reginald went for Ann and brought her to the prison. He had told her something of their mother’s doings, but it was difficult for anyone who did not see it to know what that prison life was, and Ann was spared the horror. In the cell where her father lay dying everything was spotless. There was scarcely standing room for two or three people, but the door was left open; there was no fear of his escaping—the spirit would go, but the shell would remain, until it was given back to earth. Man could not hurt him; he need not fear being called to any earthly judgment.
So changed was he that Ann hardly knew him. If she had not known he was her father she would not have recognized him. Looking at her mother, she saw it was the same with her.
“Can this be my father,” she thought, “by whose side I have ridden over moor and fell, whose voice was so strong to command, whose presence was so good?” And then, looking at her mother, she grew faint with fear.
There was something unearthly in Mistress Newbolt’s appearance: her tall figure had grown supernaturally thin, her hands and face were transparent in their whiteness, her eyes shone with kind and tender pity—they were no longer cold and hard as they had been.
When Ann, overcome with grief, sank by her father’s bedside and sobbed out her sorrow, she felt her mother’s hand on her head, and her voice whispering:
“Nay, my child, do not weep; it is well with him. We have prayed together, he and I, when God has vouchsafed to him short glimpses of reason, and I am persuaded that his soul is safe in the hands of his Maker. Do not trouble; it is well with him.”
Then she knelt beside her and poured forth her soul in prayer. It was wonderful to hear her; she was as one inspired; the words flowed forth in a stream of unbroken eloquence. The warders, the keepers, the women of the prison, all gathered round to hear her, and many having come to mock, remained to pray. Throughout the day this went on.
Towards evening Reginald came to take Ann away. Suddenly life seemed to come back to the dying man. He sat up; they put pillows behind him. He looked around him, and seeing Ann and Reginald, beckoned them to come to him. Laying his hands on their heads, he blessed them.
“I have one desire,” he said. “I have loved lands, and wealth, and all the good things of this world; now I know they are of no value at all. I charge you two to discover if there be any child, kith or kin, of those who possessed Newbolt Manor before it came into my hands. If so, give it back to them; if not, then do as the disciples of old—succour the poor, make a home for the destitute, let the wealth go back to God who gave it. You will remember?”
“I will remember, Father,” said Reginald; “have no fear.”
Colonel Newbolt sank back on his pillows as if content, and quietly, without an effort, as if he were falling asleep, passed away.
His wife rose from her knees and covered his face. At a sign from her all those present left the cell, except her children. They remained with her until the last offices for the dead had been accomplished, then, at her command, hand in hand they went forth; she remaining alone to keep watch beside him who had been her husband.