I say that the British constitution is in a shameful condition. I say that any system of legislation which breeds matrimonial discord and sets a husband against his wife, or, what is much worse, a wife against her husband, is a disgrace to civilisation. I say it without hesitation. I have said it before, and I say it again.
Look at me and Mrs Bloxam. From the first I have had difficulties with that woman. She has never properly perceived the inevitable and natural superiority of the husband over the wife. No, not once. I can prove it out of the mouths of a cloud of witnesses. But when it comes to making the husband the laughing-stock of his native land, not to speak of his own parish, and an object of derision in the low columns of a ribald press, then I assert, emphatically, that something must be done. And it will have to be done, too, and that before very long. I've had enough of it, I do know that. The time has come to throw aside the entangled folds of the cloak of dignity, and to wave the impassioned arms of a threatening Nemesis. Let her beware. And her aiders and abettors, let them beware also.
I had a difference with our rector. I do not deny that the Reverend George Crookenden has his good points. Every man has. Although Mr Crookenden failed to see that I have mine. Therefore, when it was pointed out that the parish of Copstone was in a state of educational inefficiency, I threw my weight into the scale of intelligence. It was shown that the Church school was a failure. So I said, "Let there be a School Board." And there was a School Board. And what is more, I was put forward as a candidate. I admit that, at first, I was unwilling. I declare, positively, that I refused five distinct and separate times. But at last I was overpersuaded. I stood. And now I wish to goodness that I hadn't. But who can foresee the march of events as they trickle through the convoluted waterways of an impenetrable thicket?
Mrs Bloxam has always been an enemy to the intellectual advance of the age.
"Bother your books and things!" she would say. "I want a girl with some knowledge of housework. Is she going to get it out of them?"
"Certainly, if she looks for it in the proper quarter."
"And pray, what do you call the proper quarter?" Mrs Bloxam looked at me in a way I particularly dislike, as if I were an inferior animal. "You are yourself such an omnivorous reader that no doubt you will be able to throw light upon the subject."
I knew what she meant, but I declined to let her see it.
"It is true that I do not read trashy novels, or sickly love tales, which present a false picture of the stern realities of life. I confine my attention to works of a higher class."
"There are not many of them published, are there?"
"What do you mean?"
"Because I have never seen you read anything but newspapers since we were married, and I doubt if you ever read a whole book through in your life."
The assertion took my breath away. But I declined to argue. I always do decline when circumstances permit. They did most clearly then. Though, when I considered the matter afterwards, I perceived that, had I chosen, I might have overwhelmed her with the force of my reasoning. In my opinion, reading is a finite process. I read a great deal when I was a lad, though I do not quite remember what. There the matter ended. Life is, as it were, divided into sections. Each section should be devoted to a different object. For me the section devoted to reading is passed.
The bombshell fell while we were at dinner, and while Jane was still in the room.
"What rubbish is this I hear about your being a candidate for this tuppenny-hapenny School Board which is going to plague the unfortunate people?"
"My dear, I am not responsible for all the rubbish you may hear."
"Then you admit that it is a rubbishing idea?"
"I do nothing of the kind; at least, so far as my standing is concerned. On the contrary, I am standing in deference to the earnestly-expressed wish of the more intelligent portion of the inhabitants of this parish."
"Meaning Broadbridge the cobbler, Tyler the blacksmith and their friends, who never attend any place of worship, but spend most of their time at the 'Fox and Hounds' instead. They know that you have been silly enough to quarrel with Mr Crookenden and propose to use you as a catspaw."
"I traverse the whole of your assertion, but decline to dwell on so delicate a subject. Any discussion had better be postponed to when we are alone."
"Jane, leave the room."
I did not wish Jane to leave the room. Not at all. On the contrary, I wished her to stay. I had yet occasion for her services. But, on the other hand, I did not desire to humiliate Mrs Bloxam by forbidding the girl to carry out her mistress's commands. So Jane went. And then Mrs Bloxam expressed herself on the subject of my candidature with a fluency which I found it difficult to curtail. As usual, she allowed her language to become stronger than the occasion required. But when it came to her "positively prohibiting"--her own words--me to go to the poll, I put my foot down. I pointed out, with irresistible clearness of reasoning, that I was pledged to represent the conscience of a well-defined section of our neighbours, and by that pledge my sense of honour constrained me to stand. And, in fact, that I would stand by it. Nothing she could say would turn me from my purpose. Not of such weak materials was I made. The sooner she understood that the better. And, at last, she did understand--in a measure.
"Then all I can say is that your quarrel with Mr Crookenden will be life-long. Which will be nice for me, and for all of us. So the sooner you sell this place and go to live elsewhere, the better it will be."
"Henrietta, I am ready to forgive Crookenden at any moment of any day. He has only to ask me; he will find me quite prepared. Do you mean to say that he is so dead to the beauty and the sweetness of a united parish that he is unwilling to allow to others that freedom of conscience which he claims for himself."
"It is unfortunate, Augustus, that when there are two ways between which to choose, you should always prefer the silliest. Still I feel that it is rather your misfortune than your fault, since it is in that way you are constituted. I can only hope that, on this occasion, you will yourself see your folly before it is too late."
There the discussion ended. I was not disposed to bandy personalities with Mrs Bloxam. I never am.
At the same time I am prepared to confess that I was not altogether satisfied with the persons who were bracketed with me as associates in my candidature. There were to be seven members of the Board, so there were seven of us. We found it rather difficult to complete the tale, but it was done. We called ourselves Progressives. We stood for intellectual advance. Our motto was "Brain Emancipation. Unchaining of the Intellect. Cultivation of the Mind." It was of my own composition, and was generally found to be pregnant with suggestion. As someone, I forget who it was, himself pointed out to me, "The more you look at it, the more you understand what it means." That I felt myself to be the case.
Unfortunately, my colleagues were hardly up to the standard to which this motto pointed, as a whole. Nor to be quite correct, even in part. There was Broadbridge, who undoubtedly does mend shoes, and who also, it is equally certain, drinks. He is the person I dislike most in the whole country side. Ever since this School Board business has been in the air he has endeavoured to borrow small sums of money from me, and has been in a state of almost continual intoxication. Tyler, the proprietor of the smithy on Wayman's Hill, calls himself a Red Republican, and is the most ignorant, argumentative and I may add, quarrelsome person I ever encountered. We three were the actual candidates. The other four were dummies, dragged in by the head and heels to make up the tale of the seven. One of them, Isaac Harding, who styles himself an "odd man," and who is in reality a loafing, able-bodied vagabond, who makes his wife support him by taking in washing, told me that his name had been used without his authority, and that he "didn't know nothing at all about it." Which I thought extremely probable. It is not easy to find seven Progressive candidates in a parish like Copstone.
Not the least of our misfortunes, from my point of view, was the fact that we were compelled to hold our meetings at the "Fox and Hounds." The parish room is practically under the control of the rector, and even had I been willing to ask his permission, which I was not, I doubt if he would have allowed us to have them there. So we were driven to what they call the "large room" at the "Fox and Hounds." I liked our quarters none the more because they were so exactly suited to the tastes of my associates. They loved the place; had they had their own way I believe they would have lived there altogether; the proximity of the bar was, to them, an unqualified, unceasing delight. I do not know what is the state of the law on the subject of treating at School Board elections; but if there is no clause objecting to candidates treating each other, then there ought to be. I never, at any hour of the day or night, met my colleagues without their suggesting something to drink, which, if I wished to avoid unpleasant observations, I had to pay for. It was most unsatisfactory. I found myself on the high road to being held up as an inciter to drink and an encourager of drunkenness. It was a decidedly undesirable condition of affairs.
But I could have borne it all. I could have put up with being seen with Broadbridge when he had to cling to my neck to prevent himself reclining in the gutter. I could have swallowed my feelings at being coupled with Tyler in his idiotic denunciations of all that is decent and respectable in my native land. It was to suffer in the cause of truth and progress, it was to show Mr Crookenden that there are persons who will not be trampled on rough-shod, and that he is not the only creature in the parish who dare call his soul his own. But there was something which I could not endure. And it was that which came soon. It was that which has caused that epoch in my life to become branded with indelible letters of flaming fire.
When I say that the first intimation was received from a third party, I say more than enough to show what was the state of affairs which obtained in my domestic circle. I was driving up Wayman's Hill, when, as I was passing his smithy, Tyler, coming out, called to me to stop. He was in his shirt-sleeves; had his hammer in his hand; and I could see that he was shoeing Mr Rudd's brown mare. As usual, he did without a preface.
"I don't know if you call this the proper way in which to treat us, Mr Bloxam, because, if you do, I don't. I thought that in this election business you were with us heart and soul. We're standing by you like men, why don't you stand by us?"
"What on earth do you mean?"
I wondered if, at that hour of the day, he had already been drinking.
He took a printed paper out of his pocket, smoothed it open with his dirty hand and passed it to me. It was the election address of the opposition candidates.
"That's an advance copy which I got from Briggs the printer on the quiet. Perhaps you'll let me know what explanation you have to offer."
There had been some mystery as to who Crookenden's supporters were to be. Now it seemed that the names were out. But what did the fellow mean by asking me for an explanation? What had I to do with Mr Crookenden's puppets? I glanced at the list. The first name was Crookenden's. Of course, it always would be first, where he had a voice in the matter. The second was "Ada Kate Laughton." It seemed incredible. Actually Mrs Laughton. Well, if Laughton chose to let his wife make a public exhibition of herself, all I could say was that I was extremely sorry for him. Hadn't the woman any household duties to attend to? Everybody knew who was the grey mare in that establishment. Some men do not know how to rule their wives. Still, that such a woman as Mrs Laughton should take it upon herself to oppose me was--I will be mild and say surprising. The third name was--it was a hoax, a silly hoax. Tyler, or someone, was trying to make me a butt for a practical joke. But I was not to be so easily caught, the thing was too preposterous. Yet there it was, in all the dignity of print. "Bloxam, Henrietta." Address, "The Chestnuts." Description, "Married Woman." The letters danced before my eyes. I stared at them with unseeing gaze.
"What nonsense is this?" I muttered.
"That's what I want to know, what nonsense that is. That's what I thought I'd ask you to explain, like a man."
I looked at Tyler. Tyler looked at me. There was something on his face which I did not relish; something which approximated to a grin, an unfriendly grin.
"Where did you get this paper from?"
"I tell you--from Briggs the printer. He's printing them. That's a private copy."
"It's a hoax. Someone's been having a joke with you."
"Don't you make any mistake. No one would play a joke off on me, not round these parts."
He grasped his hammer in an eminently suggestive way. What he said was probably correct. He had the reputation, a well-deserved one, of being a man with whom one would joke with difficulty and danger.
"All the same, Mr Tyler, the statement on this paper is ridiculously incorrect. Mrs Bloxam, my wife, is not a candidate; she has no intention of becoming a candidate; and, I may say at once, that under no circumstances would I permit her to do so. Especially in opposition to me, her husband. The idea is really too ridiculous for contemplation. I beg you will dismiss it at once and finally from your mind."
I prepared to start. He held my horse's head.
"But suppose she is a candidate, what then?"
"You don't flatter me, Mr Tyler. Should you allow your wife to act in direct antagonism to your wishes?"
"I reckon not." He grinned significantly. "Then shall you leather Mrs Bloxam if she tries any of her little games? I rather fancy you'll find you've put off leathering her too long. They want a lot of strap when you're first starting."
What did the fellow mean? How dare he talk to me like that? Really, this business was bringing me on terms of uncomfortable familiarity with the most curious characters. Leather Mrs Bloxam! I shivered at the thought. What did he take me for? And her? Henrietta is not the sort of person to whom it is necessary to do more than remotely hint at what are the channels in which the course of a wife's duty flows. And yet--
I wished the fellow had never shown me his wretched, nonsensical, trumpery paper, which he had apparently stolen from the imbecile Briggs. As though my mind was not already sufficiently occupied. If I had dreamt that this preposterous School-Board business would have been such a source of worry, so far as I was concerned Crookenden and his Church school might have gone on for ever. In my agitation--I am agitated, sometimes, by a very little--I touched Toby with the whip, so that, when I got him home, he was in quite a lather.
Mrs Bloxam was in her own sitting-room. I found her there. I had worked myself into something approaching a state of indignation. I produced Tyler's handbill with a sort of flourish.
"Henrietta, some scoundrel has been taking liberties with your name."
"Mr Bloxam!"
She was engaged on some needlework of a domestic character, from which she looked up at me with an air of apparent surprise.
"I shall cause immediate legal proceedings to be taken against the man who has acted in a manner calculated to bring you and myself into public contempt."
"To what man do you allude?"
"To the man who put your name on this."
I gave her Tyler's handbill. She looked it up and down, very carefully, as it seemed to me.
"I fail to see what there is here to which you have any reason to take objection."
"Nothing there! When the impertinent rascal has dared to put you forward as one of Crookenden's puppets."
"If he has done so, he is to blame, for I certainly am no one's puppet. I have merely availed myself of that of which you have so freely availed yourself, the right to call my soul my own."
"Henrietta! I don't understand what you mean."
"And yet it is simple enough. Ever since I have been able to think on such subjects at all, I have had my own views on the subject of education--true education as opposed to false. When I see such creatures as Broadbridge and Tyler endeavouring to promulgate their hideous notions and notorious malpractices in the place in which I live, I cannot refuse to listen to the call of duty which summons me, both as a Christian and a woman of education and refinement, to take my stand against them."
"Then am I to gather that that name--that your name--that my name--is there by your authority?"
"Your name, certainly not. My name, undoubtedly."
"But have you forgotten that I am myself a candidate?"
"So, I am sorry to say, I have been given to understand."
"I represent the cause of progress and advance."
"Both, I imagine, in the direction of the public-house. I am credibly informed that since your candidature there has been more drunkenness in Copstone than has ever been known before in the annals of the parish."
It was a monstrous thing to say. Yet I wished that my associates had been teetotallers, and that we could have had the use of the parish room.
"Henrietta, I will not characterise the statement which you have just now made. I content myself by taking up my position as head of this household to prohibit your pursuing any farther the dangerous pathways along which your feet have been induced to stray by the Jesuitical teachings of an insidious foe."
"Speak English, Augustus, if you please, at home. Rodomontade, if you choose, where nobody understands you, or wants to. Here say plainly what you mean."
"I forbid you to carry the farce of your candidature any farther."
"That I readily undertake to do. I promise you it shall be no farce."
"Farce or no farce, I command you to take your name from off that list." I regret to say that Henrietta snapped her fingers in the air. "Am I to understand that you snap your fingers at the expression of my wishes?"
"You have not even troubled yourself to do that. You have known all along what my wishes were, yet you have chosen to entirely ignore my most sacred aspirations."
"Henrietta, the husband is the head of the wife."
"Who says so? Your friend Tyler? It is notorious that he scoffs at the sanctity of the marriage tie."
"Don't call that man my friend."
"No? Do you authorise me to state in public that you repudiate his friendship?"
"I won't chop phrases with you. I will merely remind you that at the altar you promised me obedience."
"Suppose you were to instruct me to commit murder, would you consider it my duty to carry the promise even so far?"
"I am not instructing you to commit murder."
"You are requesting me to do something analogous, to murder all that is best and noblest in the parish of Copstone."
"That's an outrageous falsehood."
She stood up.
"Of course, if you accuse me of deliberate untruth--"
"You won't get out of it like that. I tell you, frankly, that if you are not careful I shall go straight to Crookenden and tell him with my own lips that I have forbidden you to stand."
"He knows already that you would forbid me. They all know it. It is because of that knowledge they have urged me to take up the position I have done, and to persist in it; in the hope that my action may do something to mitigate the evil example which you are setting to the parish."
"This is awful. When I stood beside you at the altar I never thought that you would speak and behave to me like this--never!"
"Nor I that I should be constrained to such a course. You may, however, easily make the situation more tolerable."
"How?"
"By withdrawing your candidature."
"Indeed! Now I see the point at which the whole thing's aimed. Crookenden has egged you on to make a public exhibition of yourself in order to drive me from the righteous stronghold which I have occupied. I see the Jesuit hand."
She shrugged her shoulders as calmly as if we were discussing the question of thick or clear soup for dinner.
"You see things which do not exist. It is a condition of a certain mental state. There is one thing I should like to say. I have been told that courtesy is the characteristic note of English politics. That men may sit on opposite sides of the House and yet be very good friends both in and out of it. I hope that may be the same with us. You have taken up the cry of 'Beer and the "Fox and Hounds,"' I that of the 'Bible and Clean Living.' Let each admit that the other may be actuated by conscientious motives. Then we shall still be good friends, though we may agree to differ."
It was no use talking to such a woman, not the slightest. We all have to bear our burdens, and I bore mine, though I never supposed that it would have taken the shape of being opposed by my own wife in an election for the School Board. As a matter of fact, it was unendurable--yet I bore it. Not only did she persist in her candidature, but she carried it on with a degree of activity which was little less than astounding. The contest afforded considerable entertainment to the parish. From the public interest point of view there might have been only two candidates--she and I. It was a subject of constant comment in the public prints. "Husband and wife oppose each other at a School-Board election. Amusing situation. Lively proceedings." That was the sort of headline which confronted me in I do not know how many papers.
Some of my colleagues actually chose to regard me as responsible for Mrs Bloxam's conduct. It is a painful moment when a man, of a naturally sensitive disposition, has to state in public that his wife is acting in direct defiance of his wishes. And the delicacy of his position is intensified when his hearers begin to criticise her conduct. It is in accordance with the fitness of things to abuse your opponent; but when your opponent is your own wife, it is an open question whether, even if you are entitled to abuse her yourself, your associates have a right to do so too. It is obviously a problem of an exceedingly complicated character, and one which, I believe, has never been properly thrashed out. I shall never forget my sensations when, at a meeting at the "Fox and Hounds," Tyler began to call Henrietta names. I had to stop him. Then he said I was a traitor. He certainly succeeded in creating a suspicion that I was in collusion with my own wife to cause him and myself to be defeated. I had to put great restraint upon myself to prevent a vulgar brawl.
One morning, as I was walking along Church Lane, I met Crookenden. I stopped him. There was no beating about the bush. I went straight to the point.
"I hope, Mr Crookenden, that you are able to reconcile it with your conscience that you have succeeded in sowing the seeds of discord between husband and wife."
"Pray how have I done that?"
"You know very well what I mean, sir. Have the goodness not to feign ignorance with me."
"You refer to your wife's action with reference to that pet scheme of yours, the School Board with which you are about to saddle the parish."
He actually laughed. That is the kind of man he is. No wonder that some say the Church of England totters to a fall! Just then Colonel Laughton came through the clapper gate. Crookenden turned to him.
"Ah, Mr Bloxam, here is the man you should assail. Laughton, Mr Bloxam wants to know who induced Mrs Bloxam to put herself forward in connection with that School Board of his."
"Why, Madge, of course." The Colonel addressed himself to me. "Mrs Laughton said to your wife, 'Here's Bloxam making an ass of himself'--"
"Sir!"
"I'm not implying that that's the exact word she used, but that's the sense of it. 'Let's do something to show that it's not always the women who are idiots. If you'll stand, I will.' But your wife wouldn't, so Madge kept on, and kept on at her, till she did; few people can hold out against Madge when she's made up her mind about a thing." Laughton put his feet apart, his stick under his arm, and his hands in his trouser pockets. "Why, you don't mean to say that you object to your wife standing. My wife is, and I don't mind."
"The cases are not identical. Mrs Laughton is not standing in opposition to you."
"No, I'm not a fool--at least, I'm not that kind. Now, look here, Bloxam, we all know what's the matter with you, and why you've gone out of your road to set the parish by the ears. Crookenden's rubbed you the wrong way, that's the beginning and the end of it. Now here is Crookenden, and I'm speaking for him when I say that he'll be delighted to shake hands with you and say 'As we were.' Then your wife'll withdraw her candidature in favour of yours, and be only too glad to get the chance of doing it."
Crookenden held out his hand.
"Whether Bloxam prefers to stand as an opposition candidate or not makes no difference to me. But I do trust that he won't allow a friendship of many years' standing to be interrupted by a little difference of opinion on the subject of education."
There was a twinkle in the rector's eyes which I did not altogether relish. But I believe I should have taken his hand if Tyler had not just then appeared in sight. I remembered what I had said to him, and in his hearing, and I refrained. I observed, with dignity,--
"I am afraid that there is more in question than a difference of opinion on the subject of education."
And I walked away.
Tyler fell in beside me as I went along the field-path, inquiring,--
"Well, have you finally decided to give us the chuck?"
"May I ask, Mr Tyler, what it is you mean?"
"Oh, it's plain enough. I always am plain, I am." He was, confound his impudence! "Have you arranged to back out in favour of Mrs Bloxam? That's what I want to know. So long as one of the family gets in, I dare say you don't care which it is. But that won't do for me." He laid his great, grimy hand upon my shoulder, and kept it there in spite of my effort at withdrawal. "You've been stirring us up, you've been worriting us till you've got us all alive about this here School Board, you've got us all to stand, and now it looks to me as if you was going to dish us and leave us to be laughed at; because, don't tell me that a man can't get his wife to do what he chooses--leastways, a man that is a man." He looked at me with his great black eyes in a way I did not like. "You mind me, Mr Bloxam, if after all that's passed I'm left out in the cold, for folks to snigger at, no matter by whom it is, man or woman, you'll be sorry--you hear that? you'll be sorry. I'm not the sort to play a joke on, as perhaps you'll find before you've done."
He slouched off without affording me an opportunity to give him a piece of my mind, even had I been disposed to do so, of which I am not sure. The fact is, he is such an impossible character, having been convicted several times of assaults with violence, that he is not at all the sort of person with whom I should condescend to remonstrate, beyond, that is, a certain clearly-defined limit.
Two days afterwards the poll was taken. Very thankful I was. Had it been postponed much longer I should have gone away for a change of air. My system was completely run down. I saw most plainly that for a person of my constitution public life was not desirable. I wished, very heartily, that I had never had anything to do with the business from the first.
My emotions cannot be pictured when the result was announced. Mrs Bloxam and I were bracketed together at the head of those who were elected. We had each received the same number of votes. And it is my belief that all the idiots in the country-side, of every shade of opinion, thought it would be a joke to plump for the pair of us. On no other hypothesis can I understand such an obvious coincidence. Crookenden came next. And, after him, came four of his nominees. I was the only one on our side who was returned.
There, at present, the situation remains. The first meeting of the Board has yet to take place. I need not point out how, in anticipation of that event, my situation is painful in the extreme. That solemn truth is only too obvious. I am one against six; and one of those six is Henrietta. It is dreadful to think that, in public matters, my wife should be in a position to trample on me whenever she pleases. How can a woman respect her husband when he is in such a humiliating minority? Situated as we are she has only to contradict me to prevail. What, then, becomes of marital authority? Such a condition of affairs is an unnatural one.
My recent colleagues, by some perversion of reasoning, choose to consider, as they put it, that I have "dished" them. I do not know how they make it out. I can safely affirm that my conduct defies criticism. Yet Tyler has already nearly assaulted me in the street; while in the presence of a large number of persons, Broadbridge has asked me if I call myself a gentleman. It seems to me that I could hardly be in a more uncomfortable position.
I say--I have said it more than once before, but I repeat it again--that the fact that such a state of things should be even possible, points to a radical defect in the fabric of the British constitution. One, moreover, which calls for instant and drastic remedy, if we are not to relapse into a condition of worse than savagery. To speak of nothing else, how can a woman give due and proper consideration to the Apostolic teaching, "Wives, obey your husbands," if she is not only in active and even organised opposition to her husband, but actually in a majority against him of six to one?
I ask the question without having the slightest doubt of what is the answer which I must receive. It is not in accordance with the Divine intention that a husband should be made to look like a fool. And what else can he do if he finds himself in such a situation?
Fourteen days for "contempt of court"--ominous phrase that between the commas. The county court judge has made an order that a certain debt shall be paid within a certain time. Circumstances have been too strong--compliance has been impossible. You are summoned to show cause why, in default, you should not be committed to prison. The hearing takes place in a distant town. Circumstances are, just then, so strong that you are unable to put in a personal appearance--being without the money with which to pay your fare. Shortly afterwards--you having, in the interim, received no sort of notice as to what has taken place at the distant court--the high bailiff of your district writes to tell you that he has received a warrant for your arrest. He has, he says, written of his own initiative to your creditors' solicitors, asking if they will allow him to suspend the execution of the warrant for a week--to give you a further opportunity to pay. They have complied with his request. He hopes--in his letter--that, within the week, the money will be paid. You go at once to see him. You tell him you would if you could--you only wish you could! You never have been able to pay since the debt was incurred--circumstances have been too strong. He is a kindly-hearted man--though a shrewd man of the world. He is convinced, of his own experience, that imprisonment for debt does no one any good, neither the man who owes, nor the man who is owed, nor the onlookers who have to contribute to the support of destitute debtors. In your case he will write again, asking still to be allowed to give you time. You return home, hoping that some miracle may happen so that you still may pay. Four days afterwards you admit a young man at your front door. He has come to enforce the warrant. Your creditors have, that morning, instructed the high bailiff to take his prisoner at once--they decline to concede another hour. You and your wife put a few things in a bag--your wife trying her best not to let you think that she will cry her eyes out directly you are gone. She wishes you to take four and threepence in your pocket. Argument, at such a moment, would mean hysterics--and a scene. Her breath comes in great sobs as she kisses you. You give way. You take the money--leaving her with just one shilling. A small payment is due to you upon the morrow; it is on that she is relying; you hope, with all your heart and soul, that it will come. You go with the bailiff--to gaol--because circumstances have been too strong.
The bailiff is a communicative youngster, kindly hearted, like his chief. You are only the third one he has "taken." He is paid by the job, he will receive five shillings for "taking" you. He considers it money easily earned--he would have received no more had you "dodged" him for days. The county gaol is two-and-twenty miles away, in a lovely country, on the side of a hill, on the edge of the downs. You reach it about half-past four on a glorious July afternoon. You and your custodian are admitted through a wicket in the huge doors. The bailiff shows his warrant. The gatekeeper tells you to go straight on. You go straight on, across an open space, up half a dozen steps, under a lofty arch, which has some architectural pretensions, to a room on the left. The room is a sort of office. In it are two warders, a policeman and a man from whose wrists the policeman is removing a pair of handcuffs. The bailiff delivers his warrant to one of the warders. Certain entries are made in a book. The bailiff obtains a receipt for you--and goes. It is only when he has gone that you realise you are a prisoner. One of the warders favours you with his attention.
"What's in that bag?"
"Only a change of clothing and my work. Can I not work while I am here?"
"Don't ask me questions. You oughtn't to have brought any bag in here--it's against orders. How much money have you got?" You hand him over four and twopence--on the way you have expended a penny on a bottle of ink. "Can you write? Then put your name here."
You affix your signature to a statement acknowledging that you have handed the warder the sum of four and twopence. Another warder enters--an older man. He addresses you,--
"What's your name?" You tell him. "Your age? your religion? your trade?" You allow that you are a poor devil of an author. He goes. The first warder favours you again.
"Take your boots off! Come here!" You step on to a weighing-machine. He registers your weight. "Put your boots on again. Come along with me, the two of you."
He snatches up your bag, you follow him, accompanied by the gentleman who wore the handcuffs. Unlocking a door, he leads the way down a flight of stone steps to cells which apparently are beneath the level of the ground. "In there!" Your companion goes into one of them. The door is banged upon him. "In here!" You go into another. The door is banged on you. You find yourself alone in a whitewashed cell which contains absolutely nothing but a sort of wooden frame which is raised, perhaps, twelve inches from the floor of red and black lozenge-shaped tiles. After some three or four minutes the door is opened to admit the older warder. He hands you some books--without a word. And, without a word, he goes out again and bangs the door. He has left you in possession of a Bible, a prayer book, hymn book, an ancient and ragged volume of thePenny Post--in its way a curiosity--and a copy ofQuentin Durward--Routledge's three-and-sixpenny edition, almost as good as new. Presently the first warder reappears.
"What property have you got about you?"
You give him all you have, he returning your handkerchief. Having given him everything, he satisfies himself that you have nothing more by feeling in your pockets.
"Can't I have my work? It is in my bag. Can't I work while I am here?"
"Ask all questions when you see the governor to-morrow." He vanishes. Another five minutes, he appears again. "Come along. Bring your books!"
You go into the corridor. Another person is there--in a brick-coloured costume on which is stamped, at irregular intervals, the "broad arrow." You recognise the gentleman who wore the handcuffs.
"Here you are!" The warder hands you a distinctly dirty round tin, holding, as you afterwards learn, a pint, filled with something which is greyish brown in hue, and a small loaf, of a shape, size and colour the like of which you have never seen before. The warder observes that you are eyeing the contents of the tin distrustfully. "That's good oatmeal, though you mayn't like the look of it. But it isn't the body you've got to think about, it's the soul--that's everything."
He says this in a quick, cut-and-thrust fashion which suggests that, behind the official, there is marked individuality of character. With the gentleman in the brick-coloured costume, you follow him up the flight of steps you not very long ago descended. He unlocks the door. "Stand here." Your companion stands. "You come along with me!" He unlocks another door, you follow him down another flight of stone steps into a lofty ward, on one side of which are cells. He shows you into one. Being in, he bangs the door on you. You are in a cell which is own brother to the one which you have quitted, only that this one makes some pretence to being furnished. It is, perhaps, ten feet by eight feet. The roof is arched, rising, probably, to quite twelve feet. Walls and roofs are of whitewashed brick. The floor is tiled. Opposite to the door, about five feet from the ground, is a small window. Panes of ground glass about two inches square are set in a massive iron frame. The only thing you can see through the window are iron bars. If you get through the window, you will still have to reckon with the bars.
The furniture consists of a wooden frame about two feet by six. An attenuated mattress, which you afterwards learn is stuffed with coir. A pillow of the same ilk. A pair of clean sheets which, by the way, the warder gave you, and which you have brought into the cell. A pair of blankets which look as if they had not been washed for years. A coverlet which, in common with the rest of the bedding, is stamped with the "broad arrow." There is a heavy wooden stool. A table perhaps eighteen inches square. In one corner is a shelf. On it is a wooden soap-box, containing an ancient scrap of yellow soap, a wooden salt-box containing salt, a small comb and a round tin, very much like a publican's pint pot. On the floor are a tin washing-basin, a covered tin, which you find you are supposed to use for personal purposes, a home-made hand broom, an odd collection of rags, some whiting, by the aid of which latter articles you are required to keep your cell and your utensils clean and in good order.
While you are taking a mental inventory of your quarters a voice addresses you. Turning to the door you perceive that near the top of it is a "bull's eye" spy-hole, covered on the outside by a revolving flap. This flap has been raised, someone is looking at you from without.
"Where are you from?" You vouchsafe the information.
"How long have you got?" You again oblige. "Never say die! keep up your pecker, old chap!"
"Are they going to keep me locked in here?"
"Till you've seen the doctor in the morning, then they'll let you out. Cheer up!"
The speaker disappears, the flap descends. You try to cheer up, to act upon the advice received, though, to be frank, you find the thing a little difficult. You taste the stuff in the tin. It may, as the warder said, be good oatmeal, but to an unaccustomed palate it is not inviting. You try a morsel of the mahogany-coloured loaf. It is dry as sawdust, and sour. Opposite you, against the wall, hangs a printed card. It is headed, "Dietary for Destitute Debtors." You are a destitute debtor--for the next fourteen days this will be your bill of fare. For breakfast and for supper daily, a pint of gruel, six ounces of bread. For those two meals there does not seem to be a promise of much variety. For dinner, on Mondays and Fridays, you will receive six ounces of bread, eight ounces of potatoes and three ounces of cooked meat, without bone; or as a substitute for the meat, three-quarters of an ounce of fat bacon and eight ounces of beans--you wonder how they manage to weigh that three-quarters of an ounce. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, four ounces of bread, six ounces of potatoes and three quarters of a pint of soup. On Wednesdays and Sundays, four ounces of bread, six ounces of potatoes and six ounces of suet pudding.
Stretching out the mattress upon the wooden frame, you endeavour to digest the circumstances of your situation and the prospect of such a dietary. In the ill-lighted cell the shadows quickly deepen. There is a clock somewhere in the prison. It noisily clangs out the half-hours and the hours. Soon after it has announced that it is half-past seven there is a sound of hurrying footsteps, a clattering of keys, a banging of doors. All is still--curiously still. In your cell it is much too dark to read. You make your bed. Undressing, you get between the sheets--immediately discovering that they rival sandpaper for roughness. The bed is just wide enough to enable you to lie flat upon your back--if you turn, unless you are very careful, you either strike against the wall or fall upon the floor. Also, you are not long in learning that it contains other occupants besides yourself. You have heard and read a great deal about the cleanliness of prisons. However that may be, it is quite certain that cleanliness has no connection with that particular set of bedding. It is alive. All night you lie in agony--literally. The clanging clock makes darkness hideous--it seems to accentuate the all-prevailing silence. Your brain is in a whirl--thoughts are trampling on each other's heels. To mental discomfort is added physical. When the earliest glimpse of dawn peeps through the caricature of an honest window you rise and search. There is slaughter. Rest is out of the question. Putting on your clothes you pace the cell. Soon after six the door is opened, an officer thrusts in his head.
"All right?"
You answer "Yes "--what can you tell him? He disappears and bangs the door. At half-past seven there is a sound of the unlocking of locks and of footsteps. The warder, reappearing, hands you a tin and a loaf, own brother to those which you received last night.
"Can't I wash?"
"Haven't you any water?" He looks round your cell. "You haven't a water can. I'll bring you one."
He presently does--a round, open tin, painted a vivid blue, containing perhaps three quarts of water. You fill your basin and wash--the first pleasant thing you have done since you saw the gaol. Then you consider your breakfast. You are hungry, hungrier than you would have been at home--but you cannot manage the gruel, and the bread still less. Apart from the flavour, the gruel is in such a dirty tin that you cannot but suspect its contents of being dirty too. The bread is hard, dry and sour, bearing not the faintest resemblance to any of the numerous varieties of bread which you have tasted. Hungry as you are, you give up the attempt at eating. Sitting on the bed, you take upQuentin Durward, which these many years you have almost known by heart. About half-past ten your door is thrown wide open.
"Stand up for the governor!" cries a warder.
You stand up. A short man is in front of you without a hat on, attired in civilian costume. Between fifty and sixty, with grey hair and beard, carrying a pair of glasses in his hand, quiet and unassuming--a gentleman, every inch of him. He puts to you the same sort of questions which have already been put to you by the officers at the gate.
"What are you here for? Where do you come from? Have you"--here was a variation--"anything to ask me?"
"Can I not work while I am here?"
"What are you?"
"An author. I have a commission for some work. If I cannot do it while I am here, I shall not be able to get it in in time."
"Did you bring anything with you?"
"I brought everything--paper, pens and ink."
"Certainly you can work, you are entitled to work at your trade. I will see that the things are sent to you."
He goes, leaving, somehow, an impression behind him that you are not entirely cut off from the world after all. Another half-hour passes; the officer who received you at the gate fetches you "to see the doctor!" "Seeing the doctor" entails the unlocking and locking of doors and quite a journey. You are finally shown into a room in which a young man sits writing at a table. He looks up. "Is this a debtor?" Then to you, "Is there anything the matter with you?"
You tell him that, to the best of your knowledge and belief, there is not. He looks down. You have seen the doctor and he has seen you; you are dismissed. The officer escorts you back to your ward.
"Now you've seen the doctor," he tells you, as he unlocks the door, "you needn't go back to your cell, if you don't like."
He lets you through, re-locks the door and vanishes. You go down the steps alone and at your leisure. You perceive that the ward is larger than you last night supposed. It is paved with flagstones. On one side there are two tiers of cells--one tier over yours. The upper tier is on a level with the door through which you have just come. An iron gallery runs down the front of it the whole length of the ward. Strolling along the flagstones, you find that an open door, almost opposite your cell, admits you into what, were the surroundings only different, would be quite a spacious and a pleasant garden. There is grass in the centre--in excellent condition--flower-beds all round. Between the grass and the beds is a narrow pathway of flagstones. Three or four men are walking on this pathway. At sight of you, with one accord, they come and offer greeting. It reminds you, in rather gruesome fashion, of your schooldays, of your first arrival at school--there is such a plethora of questions. You vouchsafe just so much information as you choose, eyeing the while your questioners. There are four of them--as doleful-looking a quartette as one would care to see. These men in prison because--they could pay, but wouldn't!--or can, but won't! Upon the face of it the idea is an absurdity. Apart from the fact that the clothes of all four would not, probably, fetch more than half a sovereign, there is about them an air of depression which suggests, not only that they are beaten by fortune, but that they are even more hopeless of the future than of the past. Yet they strive to wear an appearance of jollity. As to their personal histories, they are frankness itself. One of them is a little fellow about forty-five, a cabman. He is in for poor rates, £1, 12s. It seems funny that a man should be taken twenty miles to prison, to be kept there at the public expense, because he is too poor to pay his poor rates. Another is a hawker, a thin, grizzled, unhealthy-looking man about fifty; his attire complete would certainly not fetch eighteenpence. As he puts it, there is something of a mystery about his case--a moneylending job--two-and-twenty shillings.
"The worst of it is, I paid two instalments. The judge he ordered five shillings a month. I pays two months; then I has a slice of bad luck; then I gets here; and there's ten bob thrown clean away."
A third is an old man--he owns to sixty-six--unmistakably an agricultural labourer. He is the healthiest looking and the best dressed of the lot. He has evidently put on his best clothes to come to gaol, the chief feature of the said best clothes being a clean pair of corduroys. The story he tells is a queer one. He was away harvesting. His "old woman" bought a dress from a tallyman. She said nothing of her purchase to him, said nothing even when two months afterwards she died, aged sixty-eight--she must have been a dress-loving old lady! It was only after he had buried her that he learned what she had done. The tallyman presented a claim for eighteen shillings.
"This here dress wasn't no good to me; it were as good as new, so I says to this here chap, 'You can have it back again'; but this here chap he wouldn't have it, so here I be."
The fourth man appears to be the clearest-headed member of the party. He is a bricklayer's labourer, aged thirty-four. He is in for £1, 16s., an ancient baker's bill. His story also has elements of queerness. The bill was incurred nearly four years ago. He fell from a scaffold, was in hospital six months, his home was broken up; the baker, taking pity on his misfortunes, forgave the bill. Later on the baker himself was ruined. A speculator--you are destined to hear a good deal about this speculator; it seems that he sends a regular procession to the county gaol--bought up the baker's book debts. He immediately "went for" the bricklayer's labourer, who had the worst of it, and who, in consequence, is here. When in full work the labourer earns a pound a week. He was out of work for four weeks before he "came in." The day after he did "come in," his wife and six children went upon the parish. A pretty state of things.
I seems that there are four other prisoners for debt. But just now they are shut off in a room at the end of the ward, having an exercise-ground of their own; there is apt to be too much noise if the prisoners are all together.
Presently a warder appears, not only with your writing materials, but also with your bag, its contents left untouched, with all your property, indeed, except your watch, your tobacco, and your money. Almost simultaneously dinner appears, at noon. You are presented with two tins and a tiny loaf. The door leading to the exercise-ground is closed. With your dinner in your hand you troop up the stone steps with your companions. You discover that there is a large room at the end of the upper tier of cells, "First Class Misdemeanants" being painted on the panels of the door. There being, for the moment, no prisoner of that particular class, you have the use of it. It contains tables and stools, all sorts of things--among others, wooden spoons. Armed with a wooden spoon you investigate your tins. It is Wednesday. At the bottom of the large one, which is dirtier than ever, is a slab of suet pudding, brown in hue. With the aid of your spoon and your fingers you eat it; though lukewarm and sticky, it is grateful to your anxious stomach. In the smaller tin are two potatoes, in their jackets, said jackets having, apparently, never been washed. You eat the potatoes, too; but though you are hungrier than ever, the bread you cannot manage. On your mentioning that you could dispose neither of your supper nor of your breakfast, the labourer and the cabman tear off to your cell downstairs, immediately returning in possession of your despised food, which they eat with voracity. They assure you that you will be able to eat anything after you have been here a few days, even the tins. You learn that if you make your wants known to an officer, he will purchase whatever you choose to pay for. Your chief anxiety is to work. You know from experience that you cannot do good work upon an empty stomach. Slender though your resources are, you resolve that you will devote at least a portion of them to the purchase of something which you will be able to eat for breakfast and for supper.
In the afternoon, as you are working in your cell--with the door open--a warder enters the ward. You make known to him your wants. He says he will send you the officer whose duty it is to make purchases for prisoners. When the officer comes, you request him to lay out two shillings for you to the best advantage, and learn, to your dismay, that on the day on which you make a purchase you are supposed to be keeping yourself, and therefore receive none of the prison rations. It is too late to recede, so you tell the officer to make the best of your two shillings. You work till half-past four, then go into the exercise ground, which was opened again at two till five. At five it is closed for the night. Supper is served. You dispose of the greater portion of the gruel, this time you even dispose of some of the bread. Work in your cell till past seven, then stroll with the others up and down the ward. The room at the end of the lower ward has been unlocked. The prisoners are all together. The four you have not seen prove to be very like the four you have--two of them are here at the suit of the speculator in old and bad debts, who is responsible for the presence of the bricklayer's labourer; for poor rates another. A small calculation discloses the fact that a little over ten pounds would set all the eight men free. Shortly before eight you are locked in your cells till the morning. Another night of agony! When at half-past six the warder looks in to ask if you are all right, you answer "No"--you have not closed your eyes since entering the gaol--you have been eaten alive.
"I'll bring you a change of bedding." He does. "You'll find these all right, they've never been issued. You can't keep things clean this side--most of them wear their own clothes, you see, and they come in all alive, oh!"
You exchange your bedding for that which he brings, thankfully, wishing you had spoken before. About seven the same officer reappears. He brings your "things." There is a half-quartern loaf, two ounces of tea, quarter of a pound of butter, half a pound of cheese, tin of corned beef, couple of lemons; you never knew what good food was till you found yourself in possession of those supplies. Directly his back is turned, breaking a corner off the loaf, you rub it against the butter. If they would only allow you the use of a tin knife, what a godsend it would be! A kettle of boiling water is brought at breakfast time. Putting some tea in your pint pot, with a piece of lemon peel, you fill it from the kettle. Although you have to drink your tea from the teapot, you make a sumptuous meal.
At half-past eight you go with the other Church of England prisoners to chapel, a large room, which would probably seat five hundred, allowing to each person the same amount of space which he occupies outside. The debtors occupy the back seats. There is a gallery overhead. There are four raised seats on either side, against the walls; a warder sits in each of them. A pulpit is at the other end, an altar of rather a nondescript kind--which it need be, seeing that the Roman Catholic service is held here too--a couple of screens, more raised seats. A warder is standing before the altar; a door is at either side of him. Through these doors, so soon as the debtors are seated, begins to enter a stream of men, a space of several feet being between each. Those who are awaiting trial are the first to come. The prison costume of blue serge worn by the majority means that their own clothes are unfit to wear. So far as appearance goes, the four or five men in their own apparel would come within the scope of the immortal definition of a gentleman. You have heard about some of them in the debtors' ward. The slight, young fellow in black is a post-office clerk; he has to stand his trial for stealing a letter which contained a cheque. So soon as he reaches his place he falls upon his knees and prays. He wants all the help which prayer can bring him; in all human probability there is penal servitude ahead. The highly respectable-looking individual, with carefully-trimmed black hair and whiskers, who sits on the bench in front of you upon your right, is charged with stabbing his wife; luckily, she is not dead. The big, sandy-haired fellow upon his left, right in front of you, has rank murder to answer for. The story of his crime has been for weeks the talk of the countryside; a dramatic story, with glimpses of livid tragedy. He and his paramour, being shut out one night from the workhouse, took refuge on the hills under the shelter of an overhanging rock. In the night they quarrelled; he slew her with a stone. In the early morning a shepherd met him running across the hills, wet with her blood. Stopping, the man told the shepherd what he had done. Returning together they found the woman under the rock, dead, her head and face battered and broken, the stone beside her.
The trial men are followed by the convicted prisoners, in brick-coloured costumes; some with knickerbockers--those sentenced to penal servitude, who are waiting to be drafted to a convict station; some in trousers--those who are sentenced to not more than two years' imprisonment. The warders stand up as they enter, watching them as cats do mice. Each man is careful that he is a certain distance behind the man in front of him. They sit five on a bench which would comfortably accommodate twenty, in rows, each man exactly behind his fellow. While the procession continues, a woman passes behind one of the screens--a female warder. She commences to play a series of voluntaries on an unseen harmonium--"The Voice that Breathed o'er Eden," "There is a Green Hill"--airs which seem strange accompaniments to such a procession. The chaplain is away for his holidays. The schoolmaster reads the service--an abbreviated edition of Morning Prayer. He does not read badly. The congregation seems to listen with reverent attention, which is not to be wondered at, with the warders eyeing them like hawks. They join heartily in the responses, which is, again, not strange, considering that the only chance they have of hearing their own voice is in chapel. At the end a hymn is sung--"Thine for ever! God of love"--under the circumstance, an odd selection. The congregation sing with the full force of their lungs; perhaps strangely the result is not unpleasing. The female prisoners are in the gallery overhead. A woman's voice soars above the others, clear as a bell. You wonder who it is--officer or prisoner. After the hymn the schoolmaster pronounces the benediction. The service is over.
You work nearly all that day. How your companions manage without work is beyond your comprehension. This is an excellent school for the inculcation and encouragement of the Noble Art of Loafing. In the afternoon another prisoner is introduced. He calls himself a blacksmith, is about sixty, has scarcely a shirt to his back, and is here for poor rates! Later on, two more. One is in prison clothes, the other cowers in a corner of his cell, refusing to have intercourse with anyone. Presently the story goes that he is crying. The fellow in the prison clothes has been brought from a town more than thirty miles away, sentenced to fourteen days imprisonment, for a debt of twelve-and-sixpence.
When, shortly before five, ceasing work, you go into the exercise-ground for a breath of air, you find a warder with a bundle under his arm. In the corner is a brick erection with, fitted into the wall, a thermometer to register over 300° Fahrenheit. It is the oven in which they bake the prisoners' clothes. In the bundle under the warder's arm are the clothes of the twelve-and-sixpenny debtor. A debtor's clothes must be in an indescribable condition before they constrain him to wear the prison uniform. This man's rags--the warder, who is in a communicative mood, declares that you cannot call them clothes--are about as bad as they can be. It is only after the thermometer has continued for some minutes to register a temperature of over 230° that their unmentionable occupants are effectually destroyed.
You sleep better that night; the new bedding--from, at any rate, one point of view--is clean. The next day you come again upon prison rations, eked out, if you choose, with what is left of your own supplies. It is Friday. The Litany is read in the chapel. With what strenuousness do the members of the congregation announce that they are miserable sinners! After chapel you are beginning work when a warder calls your name.
"Put your things together--bring your sheets and towel--your discharge has come. Don't keep me waiting; come along!"
In a maze you ram your things into your bag. You follow the warder. He takes you to a room in which the governor is seated at a table. He addresses you.
"Your discharge has come." To the officer: "Get this man his discharge-note and such property as you may have of his."
Bewildered, you question the governor.
"But who has paid the money?"
"No one. You are discharged at the instance of your creditors. I will read you my instructions."
He does. They are to the effect that your creditors having made an application for your release, the registrar of the county court from which you were committed directs the governor of the gaol to discharge you from his custody forthwith. When he has finished reading, he hands you a letter which has come to you from your wife. Still at a loss to understand exactly what has happened, a few minutes later you find yourself outside the gates.
You have been a prisoner not three whole days. As you look around you--realising that you are once more your own man--you wonder what a man feels like, in his first moments of freedom, after he has been a prisoner three whole months. And years? Think of it!...
On reaching home you find that your wife has received a letter from your creditors. Somewhat late in the day they have been making inquiries into the truth of your statements. They have ascertained that it is a fact that circumstances have been too strong for you, that you have been unable to pay. That being the case, they tell your wife, being unwilling to keep you any longer in gaol, they have given instructions for your immediate release. So here you are. It seems strange, in these days of abolition of imprisonment for debt, that creditors should still have the power of sending their debtors to gaol when they please--and when they please, of letting them out again.