OR^NG
HHB
.
'
,
"OVER THIS RURAL PLACE WE STRAYED AT OUR WILL."
The
ORANGE
GIRL
SIR WALTE-R* BBS ANT
//
Illustrated by
WARREN B. DAVIS
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1899
Copyright, 1898,
By WALTER BKSANT.
CONTENTS
PJLG*
PROLOGUE I
PART I
HOW I GOT INTO THE KING S BENCH
CHAPTER
I I AM TURNED OUT INTO THE WORLD 15
II A CITY OF REFUGE - 23
III A WAY TO LIVE 29
IV LOVE AND MUSIC 33
V WEDDING BELLS AND THE BOOK OF THE PLAY - - - 40
VI A CITY FUNERAL 51
VII THE READING OF THE WILL 58
VIII THE TEMPTATION 65
IX THE CLAIM AND THE ARREST - - 72
X THE ARREST .79
lii
952440
iv Contents
PART II
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE
CHAPTER PAGE
I BELEASE 01
II HOW I GOT A NEW PLACE - 97
III THE MASQUERADE 103
IV WHO BHE WAS 116
V THE BLACK JACK - . - -... 130
VI A WARNING AND ANOTHER OFFER 143
vii JENNY'S ADVICE 156
VIII A SUCCESSFUL CONSPIRACY -162
IX NEWGATE 170
X THE SAME OFFER ......... 184
XI THE IMPENDING TRIAL ....... 191
XII THE TRIAL 197
XIII THE COMPANY OF REVENGE ...... 213
XIV AN UNEXPECTED CHARGE 225
XV THE FILIAL MARTYR 238
XVI THE SNARE WHICH THEY DIGGED FOR OTHERS - - 248
XVII THE CASE OF CLARINDA 253
XVIII THE FALLEN ALDERMAN 261
XIX THE END OF THE CONSPIRACY 267
XX THE HONOURS OF THE MOB 273
XXI GUILTY, MY LORD 280
XXII FROM THE CONDEMNED CELL 295
XXIII AN UNEXPECTED EVENT 808
XXIV COMMUTATION 316
XXV TRANSPORTATION - 822
XXVI THE LAST TEMPTATIONJ ....... 836
PROLOGUE
ON a certain afternoon in May, about four or five of the
clock, I was standing at the open window of my room in
that Palace to which Fortune leads her choicest favourites
the College, or Prison, as some call it, of the King's
Bench. I was at the time a prisoner for debt, with very
little chance of ever getting out. More fortunate than
most of the tenants, I was able to carry on my business.
For instance, all that morning I had been engaged in com-
posing a song it was afterwards sung with great applause
at the Dog and Duck; and on the bed reposed the instru-
ment with which I earned the greater part of my daily
bread my faithful violin.
My window was on the ground-floor in the great build-
ing which was then new, for the Prison had been trans-
ferred from the other side two or three years before. This
building contains more than two hundred rooms, and twice
that number of prisoners. Many of the ground-floor rooms
have been converted into shops chandlers', grocers', mer-
cers', hosiers'. You may buy anything in these shops, ex-
cept a good book. I believe that there is no demand in the
prison for such an article of commerce. Song-books and
jest-books and cards on the other hand, are constantly called
for. It was a day of bright sunshine. Outside, on the
Grand Parade otherwise called King Street which is a
broad footway flagged, strolled up and down in the sunshine
an endless procession. They paced the pavement from East
to West ; they turned and paced it again from West to East.
Among them were a few neatly attired, but by far the
greater number, men and women, were slatternly, untidy,
and slipshod. Their walk nobody was ever seen to walk
briskly in the PrLon was the characteristic scuffle easily
acquired in this place; the men were mostly in slippers:
The Orange Girl
some were 'in .morning gowns: very few had their heads
drfesged : ; some .wore old-fashioned wigs, rusty and un*
cOmbed' sohie, the poorer set, were barefooted, and in such
rags and tatters as would not be tolerated in the open streets.
The faces of the people as they passed were various. There
was the humorous face of the prisoner who takes fortune
philosophically: there was the face always resentful: the
face resigned: the face vacuous: the face of suffering: the
face sodden with drink: the face vicious: the face soured:
the face saddened: the face, like the clothes, ragged and
ruined : everything but the face happy that cannot be found
in the King's Bench Prison. Children ran about playing
and shouting: there were at this time many hundreds of
children in the prison. Against the wall 'tis surely
twenty-five feet higher than is needed the racquet and fives
players carried on their games : at the lower end of the Pa-
rade some played the game called Bumble Puppy: here and
there tables were set where men drank and smoked pipes of
tobacco and played cards, though as yet it was only after-
noon. The people talked as they went along, but not with
animation: now and then one laughed; but the merriment
of the College is very near the fount of tears; it hath a
sound hysterical. Some conversed eagerly with visitors:
by their eagerness you knew that they were new-comers.
What did they talk about? The means of release? Yet so
few do get out. For the first three or four years of impris-
onment, when visitors call, prisoners talk of nothing else.
After that time visitors cease to call: and there is no more
talk of release. A man in the King's Bench is speedily for-
gotten. He becomes dead to the world: dead and forgot-
ten. Surely there is no more pitiless and relentless enemy
than a creditor. Yet in church every Sunday he asks, and
expects, that mercy from his God which he himself refuses
to his debtor.
On no other day in the year could the Prison look more
cheerful. Yet as I stood at the window there fell upon me
such sadness as belongs only to the Prison ; it is a longing to
be free: a yearning inconceivable for the green fields and
the trees. Such moods are common in the Prison. I have
seen men turn aside from their friends in the midst of a
song, in the height of the revelry, and slink away from the
company with drooping head and bowed shoulders. It is
indeed difficult not to feel this sadness from time to time.
Prologue 3
I was young : I had few friends, for a reason that I shall tell
you presently. For aught that I could see there was nothing
before me but a life-long imprisonment. Nobody, I say, can
understand the strength and the misery of this yearning for
liberty for air that sometimes seizes the prisoner and
rends him and will not let him go. Yet I was better off than
many, because, though I could in no way pay the money for
which I was imprisoned, I was not without the means of a
livelihood. I had, as I have said, my fiddle. So long as a
man has a fiddle and can play it he need never want. To
play the fiddle is the safest of all trades, because the fiddler is
always wanted. If a company is drinking they will call for
the fiddler to lift up their hearts : if there are girls with them
they will call for the fiddler to make them dance: if they
would sing they want the fiddler to lead them off : if they are
sitting in the coffee-room they call for the fiddler to enliven
them. Grave discourse or gay; young people or old: they
are always ready to call for the fiddler and to pay him for
his trouble. So that by dint of playing every evening, I did
very well, and could afford to dine at the two shilling ordi-
nary and to drink every day a glass or two of ale, and to pay
my brother-in-law for the maintenance of Alice and the boy.
Among the prisoners were two who always walked to-
gether: talked together: and drank together. The others
looked askance upon them. One, who was called the Cap-
tain, wore a scarlet coat which might have been newer, and
a gold-laced hat which had once been finer. He was a tall,
burly fellow, with the kind of comeliness one may see in a
horse-rider at a fair, or a fellow who performs on a tight-
rope ; a man who carries by storm the hearts of village girls
and leaves them all forlorn. He swaggered as he walked,
and looked about him with an insolence which made me,
among others, desirous of tweaking him by the nose, if only
to see whether his courage was equal to his swagger. I have
always, since, regretted that I lost the opportunity. Duels
are not allowed in the College, and perhaps in an encounter
with the simpler weapons provided by Nature I might have
been equal to the Captain. His manners at the Ordinary
were noisy and, if he had ever really carried His Majesty's
Commission, as to which there were whispers, it must have
beeen in some branch of the service where the urbanities of
life were not required. Further : it was known that he was
always ready to play with anyone: and at any time of the
4 The Orange Girl
day: it was reported that he always won: this reputation,
coupled with his insolent carriage, caused him to be shunned
and suspected.
His companion, commonly known as the Bishop, was
dressed in the habit of a clergyman. He wore a frayed silk
cassock and a gown with dirty bands. His wig, which
wanted dressing, was canonical. His age might have been
forty or more: his cheeks were red with strong drink: his
neck was puffed : his figure was square and corpulent : his
voice was thick : he looked in a word what he was, not a ser-
vant of the Lord at all, but of the Devil.
At this period I had little experience or knowledge of the
people who live by rogueries and cheats : nor had I any sus-
picion when a stranger appeared that he was not always
what he pretended to be. At the same time one could not
believe that the hulking fellow in a scarlet coat had ever
received a commission from the King: nor could anyone
believe that the hoglike creature who wore a cassock and a
gown and a clergyman's wig was really in Holy Orders.
Among the collegians there was one who pleased me,
though his raiment was shabby to the last degree, by his
manners, which were singularly gentle; and his language,
which was that of a scholar. He scorned the vulgar idiom
and turned with disgust from the universal verb (or par-
ticiple) with which annoyance or dislike or disappointment
was commonly expressed. And he spoke in measured
terms as one who pronounces a judgment. I heard after-
ward that he wrote critical papers on new books in the Gen-
tlemen's Magazine. But I never read new books unless
they are books of music. When he could afford to dine at
the Ordinary, which was about twice a week, he sat beside
me and instructed me by his discourse. He was a scholar
of some college at Cambridge and a poet. I sometimes
think that it may be a loss to the world not to know its
poets. There are without doubt some who regard poetry
as musicians regard music. Now if the work of a Purcell
or a Handel were to fall dead and unnoticed it would be a
most dreadful loss to music and a discouragement for com-
posers. So that there may be poets, of whom the world
hears nothing, whose verse is neglected and lost, though it
might be of great service to other poets or to mankind, if
verse can in any way help the world.
However, one day, when these two prisoners, the Cap-
Prologue 5
tain and the Bishop, had left the Ordinary and were brawl-
ing in the tavern hard by for a bottle of Port, my friend
the scholar turned to me.
'Sir/ he said, 'the Prison ought to be purged of such
residents. They should be sent to the Borough Compter
or the Clink. Here we have gentlemen: here we have
tradesmen: here we have craftsmen: we are a little World.
Here are the temptations of the world': he looked across
the table where some of the ladies of the Prison were din-
ing. 'The tavern invites us: the gaming table offers us a
seat : we have our virtues and our vices. But we have not
our crimes. And as a rule we cannot boast among our com-
pany the presence of the Robber, the Forger, or the Com-
mon Rogue. We have, in a word, no representative, as a
rule of the Gallows, the Pillory, the Stocks, the Cart-tail,
and the Whipping Post/
I waited, for he did not like to be interrupted.
'Sir/ he went on, 'I am a Poet. As a child of the Muses'
I thought they were unmarried but did not venture on
that objection 'it is my business to observe the crooked
ways of men and the artful ways of women, even though
one may at times be misunderstood as has once or twice
happened. One may be the temporary companion of a Rogue
without having to pick a pocket. I remember the faces of
those two men I saw them in a Thieves' Kitchen whither
I was taken in disguise by one who knows them. The Cap-
tain, Sir, is a Highwayman, common and notorious. He is
now five-and-twenty, and his rope is certainly long out, so
that he is kept from Tyburn Tree by some special favour by
Mr. Merridew the Thief-Taker. The other, whom they call
the Bishop, is a Rogue of some education. He may last
longer because he is useful and it would be hard to replace
him. He was once usher in a suburban school at Marybone,
and now writes lying, threatening or begging letters for the
crew. He also concocts villainies. He threatens to set the
house on fire, or to bring the householder into bankruptcy :
or in some way to injure him fatally unless he sends a cer-
tain sum of money. He tells gentlemen who have been
robbed that they can have their papers back, but not their
money, by sending a reward. His villainy is without any
pity or mercy or consideration. The Captain is a mere rob-
ber a Barabbas. The Bishop is worse: he has the soul of
a Fiend in the body of a man/
6 The Orange Girl
'But why/ I said 'are they here?'
'They are in hiding. A sham debt has been sworn against
them. From their dejected faces and from what I have
overheard them saying, I learn that a true debt has been
added for another detainer. But indeed I know not their
affairs, except that they came here in order to be out of the
way, and that something has happened to disconcert their
plans. As honest men we must agree in hoping that their
plans, which are certainly dishonest, may succeed, in order
that their presence among us may cease and so we may
breathe again. The air of the Prison is sometimes close and
even musty, but we do not desire it to be mistaken for the
reek of St. Giles's or the stench of Turnmill Street '
However, I troubled myself but little as to these two
men. And I know not how long they were in the prison.
Had I known what they would do for me in the future I
think I should Lave brained them there and then.
This afternoon the pair were talking together with none
of the listlessness that belongs to the King's Bench. 'Might
as well get out at once' I heard fragments 'quite certain
that he won't appear no more danger if she will consent/
and so on phrases to which I paid no attention.
Suddenly, however, they stopped short, and both cried
out together:
'She's come herself !'
I looked out of my window and beheld a Vision.
The lady was alone. She stood at the end of the Parade
and looked about her for a moment with hesitation, because
the scene was new to her. She saw the ragged rout playing
racquets : drinking at their tables : leaning against the pumps
at each of which there is always a little gathering : or stroll-
ing by in couples on the Parade. Then she advanced
slowly, looking to the right and to the left. She smiled
upon the people as they made way for her : no Queen could
have smiled more graciously: yet not a Queen, for there
was no majesty in her face, which was inspired by, and
rilled with, Venus herself, the Goddess of charm and grace
and loveliness. Never was a face more lovely and more full
of love. As for her dress, all that I can tell you is that I
have never known at any time how this lady was dressed:
she carried, I remember, an ivory-handled fan in her hand:
she seemed to beholders to be dressed in nothing but lace,
ribbons and embroidery. Her figure was neither tall nor
Prologue 7
short. Reasonably tall, for a woman ought not to be six
feet high : so tall as not to be insignificant : not so tall as to
dwarf the men : slender in shape and quick and active in her
movements. Her eyes, which I observed later, changed
every moment with her change of mood: one would say
that they even changed their colour, which was a dark blue :
they could be limpid, or melting, or fiery, or pitiful; in a
word, they could express every fleeting emotion. Her feat-
ures changed as much as her eyes : one never knew how
she would look, until one had watched and known her in all
her moods and passions: her lips were always ready to
smile: her face was continually lit up by the sunshine of
joy and happiness. But this woman wanted joy as some
women want love. Her voice was gentle and musical.
I speak of her as I knew her afterwards, not as she ap-
peared on this, the first day of meeting. I make no excuse
for thus speaking of her, because, in truth, the very thought
of Jenny I have too soon revealed her name makes me
long to speak of what she was. Out of the fulness of my
heart I write about her. And as you will understand pres-
ently, I could love without wronging my wife, and as much
as a woman can be loved, and yet in innocence and with the
full approval of the other woman whom also I loved.
At the sight of this apparition the whole Prison stared
with open mouth. Who was this angel, and for what for-
tunate prisoner did she come? At the very outset, when I
could not dream that she would ever condescend to speak to
me, she seemed the most lovely woman I had ever beheld.
Some women might possess more regular features : no one,
sure, was ever so lovely, so bewitching, so attractive. It
is as if I could go on forever repeating my words. The wo-
men of the Prison poor tattered drabs, for the most part
looked after her with sighs oh ! to dress like that ! Some
of them murmured impudently to each other, 'Who gave
her all that finery?' Most of them only looked and longed
and sighed. Oh! to be dressed like her! To look like
her ! To smile like her ! To put on that embroidered petti-
coat that frock those gloves to carry that fan to pos-
sess that figure that manner! Well: to gaze upon the
inaccessible may sometimes do us good. The sight of this
Wonder made those poor women appear a little less slat-
ternly. They straightened themselves : they tidied their
hair: the more ragged crept away.
8 The Orange Girl
As for the men, they followed her with looks of wonder
and of worship. For my own part I understood for the
first time that power of beauty which compels admiration,
worship and service: when I am greatly moved by music
that memory comes back to me. In looking upon such a
woman, one asks not what has been her history: what she
is: what she has done: one accepts the heavenly cheerful-
ness of her smile : the heavenly wisdom seated on her brow :
the heavenly innocence in her eyes: the purity which can-
not be smirched or soiled by contact with things of the
world.
I continued to gaze upon her while she walked up the
Parade. To my surprise this angelic creature stopped be-
fore the pair of worthies the bully in scarlet and the
drunken divine. What could she want with them? They
received her with profound salutations, the Bishop sweep-
ing the ground with his greasy hat.
'Madam,' he said, 'we did not expect that you would your-
self condescend to such a place.'
'I wished to see you,' she replied, curtly. I seemed to
remember her voice.
'May we conduct you, Madam,' said the Captain, 'to
the Coffee-room for more private conversation. Perhaps a
glass '
'Or/ said the Bishop, for she refused the proffered glass
with an impatient gesture could such a woman drink with
such men? she refused, I say, with a shake of her head, 'for
greater privacy to our own room. It is on the third floor.
No one will venture to intrude upon us and there is a chair.
I fear that, in the neglect, which is too common in this place,
the beds are not yet made.' He looked as if the morning
wash had not been performed either.
'What do I care, sir/ she asked, interrupting again,
'whether your beds are made or not? I shall stay here/
She withdrew a little nearer to the wall beside my window,
so as to be outside the throng of people. 'We can talk, I
suppose, undisturbed, and unheard, though, so far as I care,
all the world may hear. Bless me! The people look as if
a woman was a rare object here/ She looked round at the
crowd. 'Yet there are women among your prisoners.
Well, then, what have you got to say? Speak up, and
quickly, because I like not the place or the company. YQU
wrote to me. Now go on/
Prologue 9
'I wrote to you,' said the Bishop, 'asking a great favour.
I know that we have no reason to expect that or any other
favour from you.'
'You have no reason. But go on/
'We came here, you know' his voice dropped to a whis-
per, but I heard what he said 'in order to escape a great
danger.'
'I heard. You told me. The danger was in connection
with a gentleman and a post-chaise.'
'A villainous charge,' said the Captain.
'Villainous indeed,' repeated the Bishop. 'I could prove
to you in five minutes and quite to your satisfaction that
the Captain was engaged at Newmarket on the day in ques-
tion, while I myself was conducting a funeral in place of the
Vicar in a country village thirty miles on the other side of
London.'
'An excellent defence, truly. But I will leave that to the
lawyers. Well, the debt was sworn against you by Mr.
Merridew.' I pricked up my ears at this because this was
the name of the man, as you shall hear, who swore a debt
which never existed against me. Could there be two Mer-
ridews ?
'That was mere form. Unfortunately other detainers are
out against both of us. I know not how they found out that
we were here. Mr. Merridew refuses to take us out. He
says that he thinks our time is up, and so he knows that we
are safe.' He shuddered. Afterwards I understood why.
'There is the danger that we may have to remain here till he
takes us out. As for our present necessities ' He
drew out his purse and dangled it a long purse with a very
few guineas in it. 'You see, Madam, to stay here, where
there is no opportunity of honest work, is ruin and starva-
tion/
'Honest work! Why, if you go out, you will only con-
tinue in your old courses/
'They are at least honest and even pious courses/ said the
Bishop with a snuffle.
'As you please. But there is still the former danger/
'No. The gentleman understands now that he only mis-
laid his pocket-book. Mr. Merridew found it for him. The
drafts and notes were still in it, fortunately. The gentle-
man has redeemed the papers from Mr, Merridew, He will
not take any further steps/
io The Orange Girl
'If I take you out/ she spoke to the Captain, 'you know
what will happen. Better stay here in safety/
'What else can a man do?' asked the Captain.
'You might go abroad ; go to America anything is bet-
ter than the Road and the certain end.' She made a ges-
ture with her hand, easy to be understood.
'If a man has a long rope, what else can he expect?'
'And you?' she turned to the Bishop, 'what will become
of you? Will you stay in London where you are known in
every street?'
'I have had thoughts of trying Ireland. A good many
things can be done in Ireland. The Irish are a confiding
people.'
'Do what you please. It is nothing to me what becomes
of both of you. I interfere because oh! you know why.
And as for your future that, I suppose, will be arranged
for you by your friend Mr. Merridew.
Putting together what my friend the starveling poet told
me and what they themselves confessed, they were clearly a
pair of rogues, and she knew it, and she was going to help
them. Charity covereth a multitude of sins. Yet, surely,
it was remarkable that a gentlewoman should come to the
King's Bench Prison in order to send two abominable crim-
inals back to their old haunts.
'Any place is better than this/ said the Captain.
'Much better than this/ echoed the Bishop. 'Give me
freedom while I live. A short life ' but he was certainly
past forty 'and a free life, for me/
'How much is it, then, altogether, for the pair of you?'
'The detainers, not counting Mr. Merridew's, amount to
close upon seventy pounds. Then there are the costs and
the fees/
'Oh !' she cried impatiently, 'what is the good of setting
you loose again? Why should I let loose upon the world
such a pair of rogues? Why not keep you here so that
you may at least die in your beds?'
The Bishop looked astonished at this outburst. 'Why/
he said, slowly, 'we are what we are. That is true. What
else can we be? Nobody knows better than you what we
are. Come, now, nobody, I say, knows better than you
what \ve are/
'Yes/ she replied with a sigh. 'I do know very well I
wish I did not/
Prologue 1 1
And nobody knows better than you/ he went on, roughly,
'that what we are we must continue to be. What else can
we do?'
'Say no more/ she replied, sighing again. 'There is no
help, I suppose. When I made up my mind to come here