DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16513#0087
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
THE STORY OF A FEATHER.
CHAPTER XXIX.—I MEET PATTY BUTLER IN NEWGATE—THE TURN-
KEY'S WIFE PLEADS FOR CURLWELL.
At the time—the good old time—I was in Newgate, there was a
finer spirit of cordiality between the keepers and the kept than, at
the present day, lessens the gloom of that great, yet necessary, evil.
The departing spirit of romance still lingered about it. Fine ladies
thronged the lobby to roll their liquid eyes upon the gentle high-
wayman ; and housebreakers, though barred from liberty, were still
treated as persons of distinction, indulgence being ever vendible for
ready money. In those days, Bacchus and Venus were never denied
by the grim turnkey ; but received with a frank courtesy due to their
large influence on the life of mortals. Hence, Newgate was not the
stony terror of our day. True, it was not so clean ; but then, in all
the real enjoyments of life, how much more comfortable ! Soap is
but a poor commodity, exchanged against that agreeable licence
which softens captivity. True, there was then the gaol-fever, that
sometimes lessened the fees of the hangman ; but then there was
permitted ingress to all black-bottles, with no inquisitorial nose of
turnkey, cnuffing their contents. Even then romance gilded the
prison flags, and cast a bloom, a lustre on the footpad and the burglar !
Then was there popping of corks and rustling of lutestrings ! And
now is Newgate a hard, dull, dumpish reality ; dull as a play-house.
As if in mockery of the glad past, the gyves of Jack Slieppard hang,
ignobly idle, in Newgate lobby. The imagination may yet play
around them ! but, alas ! they are but as a satire and reproach to the
poor, grisly ankles of the degenerate burglar of our time ; to the
living felon of present Newgate, as the Elgin Marbles to the dwarfs
that gaze on tiptoe under them.
That Mrs. Traply should board and bed with her husband in New-
gate was a part of that indulgence vouchsafed in the old, benevolent
day : turnkeys are not now so blessed ! Hence, I owed my intro-
duction to the gaol, and my early meeting with dear, persecuted
Patty. Mr. Traply quitted his connubial bed before daylight, called
from his repose by the iron tongue of law. "Ugh!" he grunted,
as he put on his clothes, " here's a day, I can tell, to call a man out!
Pretty ride I shall have to Tyburn ! It's pleasant enough in summer;
but this weather's enough to kill a man."
" Never mind, Mike," said his wife ; " I've got you what you love
for dinner—rabbit and onions ; so let the thoughts of that comfort
you as you go and come."
"Ha !" cried Traply, "a man wants something, Heaven knows ;"
and with this saying he went upon his awful errand, ao errand to be
lightened bv the vision of rabbit and onions !
©
When Mrs. Traply rose, she looked at me again and again, and
vowing I should be a perfect beauty when a little put to rights, began
to prepare breakfast. Suddenly she stopped ; and then adding a
second cup and saucer, said—"Yes, poor dear, she shall breakfast
with me ; and, as luck would have it, she's a feather-dresser; she can
tidy it up for me." With this thought Mrs. Traply left the room.
In a few minutes she returned, with Patty Butler, prisoner !
Poor thing ! I thought to see her much changed ; even more pale,
more ha°-£rard than when carried from Bloomsbury. It was not so.
OO •
111 she looked—very ill. But to me she seemed as one who held
constant communion with death, and was thereby comforted. There
was sadness in her face, yet sadness glorified by sweetest patience.
Sorrow seemed to ennoble her. She appeared no more sullied by all
the hideous guilt and misery of the gaol than did the light of heaven
that shone in upon her. Her eyes were mild and tearless ; and at
her mouth there was a smile of resignation ; a smile that showed
angelic might of heart; mighty from its very meekness. Pier voice
was changed ; deeper, calmer.
" There, my dear child," said Mrs. Traply, whose heart was, after
all, unchiiled by the flints of Newgate, " there ; make yourself happy
■ with some tea and toast. Come; you seem a little down this morning.
Ha ! I don't wonder at it. I, who have been here these ten years—
ha ! my dear, when I danced at the race-ball with Sir Mohawk Brush,
I never thought to come to Newgate. A little drop in your tea,"—
and Mrs. Traply having gratified her own cup with some brandy,
proffered the restorative to Patty.—" You won't? Well, you know
best. I should never g-et through these days without it. I'm sure
o o ^
it's enough to wcrk poor Traply to death. They hang six more
next Monday."
Patty spoke not ; but shuddered, then with an effort compressed
her lips.
"Jack Ketch drinks George the Third's health every Monday,"
aaid the woman ; " calls him the real father of his people, he does j
so well know how to correct 'em. Ha !" cried Mrs. Traply, casting
a glance at a Dutch clock in the corner, "they hav'n't got to St.
Giles's Pound yet ; and such a day ! Poor dear Traply ! I feel for
his rheumatiz. And going, they do go so slow, my dear "
Patty tried to speak ; she could not.
"You couldn't have lived so long in London without seeing snch
a sight, my love ?"
" I never did—never will," said Patty.
"Let us hope not; for though there's a sort of something that
makes one long to see it—I don't know, but it isn't pleasant—no my
dear it isn't," cried Mrs. Traply, with emphasis. " I was a young,
giddy, happy thing, when I saw the first man hanged. Ha ! my
dear, little I thought of Newgate then. Well, we won't talk of it.
We'll talk of your little trouble, my love. I'm sure I hope it will
come to nothing. I'm sure, I think you innocent."
" I am innocent," said Patty, mildly.
"But my dear," cried the turnkey's wife, u what's innocence in
Newgate ? Bless you, it's better to be a little guilty and safe outside,
than be as innocent as snow, and locked up. Still, you know, my dear,
matters do look a little black against you. In case of the worst"—
" I am prepared, even for the worst," said Patty.
" I don't blame you, as a Christian, my dear ; I don't blame you,"
said the woman. " But for all that, you wouldn't throw away your
life, my dear ? It would be murder, you know."
Patty said no word, but sighed heavily.
" And you 're so young ; and if you were once comfortable, I've no
doubt would be very good-looking. Bless you ! I shall live to see
yen a happy wife, and the mother of a dear family. Now, there's
that gentleman, Mr. Curlwell—the man's a doting upon you. He
says he'll lay out his last farthing upon lawyers and witnesses for
you : and for money, in a good cause, there's kind-hearted people to
be found who '11 swear what they're told, my dear."
" I am sorry to hear it," said Patty.
" What ! when they know you to be innocent, and will swear what
will prove as much ?"
" Never mind ; we will not talk of it, Mrs. Traply. I have
known but little to tie me to this world ; and if it—if I say"—here
Patty struggled with her heart ; then observing me upon a chair,
she said, her lips quivering as she spoke—" What a pretty feather !
Is it yours ?"
"Yes, my dear; though I don't wear such things now. Ha! the
last time I wore that feather I danced with Sir Mohawk Brush—I
think I've named him to you before. Ha ! if he had only kept his
word, what a sweet man he would have been. It's been tumbled, my
love, lying by in my box ; perhaps you can put it to rights for me ? "
" Certainly : I shall, indeed, be glad ; for you have been very kind
to me."
" And I want to be kind to you, if you '11 let me," said the woman.
" Now there's Mr. Curlwell—"
" Pray, do not speak of him," said Patty.
" A nice, kind, affable man ; older than you, to be sure ; but all
the better; for die when lie will, he'll leave you snug. Suppose
now—I merely say suppose, he could get you out of this trouble, if
you'd only marry him : suppose, I say, there was nothing between
death and the church, what would you do ?"
Patty, who had been gazing at me, laid me down upon the table,
and looking full at the woman, answered in a calm, deep voice—
" Die ! "
" You'd never be so wicked," cried Mrs. Traply.
" I will never be so wicked," said Patty, "so false, so cruelly de-
ceitful towards any man, as to vow a love where my heart sickens."
" Yes, my dear, but to die"—said Mrs. Traply.
" But to live," cried Patty, with quick earnestness ; " to live and
be a daily hypocrite ; to feel a daily heartache ; to shudder at even
a word of tenderness; to loathe one's-self for seeming content—
happy ! Where all this is, what can be life ? Oh, no !" said Patty,
with a gentle smile, " I have thought of death ; and, indeed, I can die."
" Ha! my dear, that's often our pride and vanity to think so.
But to die any way in our own sheets, with, the doctor, and every
other comfort about us, and to have all sorts of civil tilings sawl in a
sermon made on purpose for us, even then, my dear, deatli is bad
enough ; but what, when you go out of the world with a bad name—
with the world, my love, always to have something to say leainst
you ?"
"Terrible, very terrible," said Patty, placing her hand to ner Drow,
" but I have thought of this, too ; and it is little, very little, with the
thought of innocence. The world," cried Patty, in a piteous voice—•
" what shall I be to the world ? What to rr.e the blaute er praise of
j the world, when I am in the grave !"
THE STORY OF A FEATHER.
CHAPTER XXIX.—I MEET PATTY BUTLER IN NEWGATE—THE TURN-
KEY'S WIFE PLEADS FOR CURLWELL.
At the time—the good old time—I was in Newgate, there was a
finer spirit of cordiality between the keepers and the kept than, at
the present day, lessens the gloom of that great, yet necessary, evil.
The departing spirit of romance still lingered about it. Fine ladies
thronged the lobby to roll their liquid eyes upon the gentle high-
wayman ; and housebreakers, though barred from liberty, were still
treated as persons of distinction, indulgence being ever vendible for
ready money. In those days, Bacchus and Venus were never denied
by the grim turnkey ; but received with a frank courtesy due to their
large influence on the life of mortals. Hence, Newgate was not the
stony terror of our day. True, it was not so clean ; but then, in all
the real enjoyments of life, how much more comfortable ! Soap is
but a poor commodity, exchanged against that agreeable licence
which softens captivity. True, there was then the gaol-fever, that
sometimes lessened the fees of the hangman ; but then there was
permitted ingress to all black-bottles, with no inquisitorial nose of
turnkey, cnuffing their contents. Even then romance gilded the
prison flags, and cast a bloom, a lustre on the footpad and the burglar !
Then was there popping of corks and rustling of lutestrings ! And
now is Newgate a hard, dull, dumpish reality ; dull as a play-house.
As if in mockery of the glad past, the gyves of Jack Slieppard hang,
ignobly idle, in Newgate lobby. The imagination may yet play
around them ! but, alas ! they are but as a satire and reproach to the
poor, grisly ankles of the degenerate burglar of our time ; to the
living felon of present Newgate, as the Elgin Marbles to the dwarfs
that gaze on tiptoe under them.
That Mrs. Traply should board and bed with her husband in New-
gate was a part of that indulgence vouchsafed in the old, benevolent
day : turnkeys are not now so blessed ! Hence, I owed my intro-
duction to the gaol, and my early meeting with dear, persecuted
Patty. Mr. Traply quitted his connubial bed before daylight, called
from his repose by the iron tongue of law. "Ugh!" he grunted,
as he put on his clothes, " here's a day, I can tell, to call a man out!
Pretty ride I shall have to Tyburn ! It's pleasant enough in summer;
but this weather's enough to kill a man."
" Never mind, Mike," said his wife ; " I've got you what you love
for dinner—rabbit and onions ; so let the thoughts of that comfort
you as you go and come."
"Ha !" cried Traply, "a man wants something, Heaven knows ;"
and with this saying he went upon his awful errand, ao errand to be
lightened bv the vision of rabbit and onions !
©
When Mrs. Traply rose, she looked at me again and again, and
vowing I should be a perfect beauty when a little put to rights, began
to prepare breakfast. Suddenly she stopped ; and then adding a
second cup and saucer, said—"Yes, poor dear, she shall breakfast
with me ; and, as luck would have it, she's a feather-dresser; she can
tidy it up for me." With this thought Mrs. Traply left the room.
In a few minutes she returned, with Patty Butler, prisoner !
Poor thing ! I thought to see her much changed ; even more pale,
more ha°-£rard than when carried from Bloomsbury. It was not so.
OO •
111 she looked—very ill. But to me she seemed as one who held
constant communion with death, and was thereby comforted. There
was sadness in her face, yet sadness glorified by sweetest patience.
Sorrow seemed to ennoble her. She appeared no more sullied by all
the hideous guilt and misery of the gaol than did the light of heaven
that shone in upon her. Her eyes were mild and tearless ; and at
her mouth there was a smile of resignation ; a smile that showed
angelic might of heart; mighty from its very meekness. Pier voice
was changed ; deeper, calmer.
" There, my dear child," said Mrs. Traply, whose heart was, after
all, unchiiled by the flints of Newgate, " there ; make yourself happy
■ with some tea and toast. Come; you seem a little down this morning.
Ha ! I don't wonder at it. I, who have been here these ten years—
ha ! my dear, when I danced at the race-ball with Sir Mohawk Brush,
I never thought to come to Newgate. A little drop in your tea,"—
and Mrs. Traply having gratified her own cup with some brandy,
proffered the restorative to Patty.—" You won't? Well, you know
best. I should never g-et through these days without it. I'm sure
o o ^
it's enough to wcrk poor Traply to death. They hang six more
next Monday."
Patty spoke not ; but shuddered, then with an effort compressed
her lips.
"Jack Ketch drinks George the Third's health every Monday,"
aaid the woman ; " calls him the real father of his people, he does j
so well know how to correct 'em. Ha !" cried Mrs. Traply, casting
a glance at a Dutch clock in the corner, "they hav'n't got to St.
Giles's Pound yet ; and such a day ! Poor dear Traply ! I feel for
his rheumatiz. And going, they do go so slow, my dear "
Patty tried to speak ; she could not.
"You couldn't have lived so long in London without seeing snch
a sight, my love ?"
" I never did—never will," said Patty.
"Let us hope not; for though there's a sort of something that
makes one long to see it—I don't know, but it isn't pleasant—no my
dear it isn't," cried Mrs. Traply, with emphasis. " I was a young,
giddy, happy thing, when I saw the first man hanged. Ha ! my
dear, little I thought of Newgate then. Well, we won't talk of it.
We'll talk of your little trouble, my love. I'm sure I hope it will
come to nothing. I'm sure, I think you innocent."
" I am innocent," said Patty, mildly.
"But my dear," cried the turnkey's wife, u what's innocence in
Newgate ? Bless you, it's better to be a little guilty and safe outside,
than be as innocent as snow, and locked up. Still, you know, my dear,
matters do look a little black against you. In case of the worst"—
" I am prepared, even for the worst," said Patty.
" I don't blame you, as a Christian, my dear ; I don't blame you,"
said the woman. " But for all that, you wouldn't throw away your
life, my dear ? It would be murder, you know."
Patty said no word, but sighed heavily.
" And you 're so young ; and if you were once comfortable, I've no
doubt would be very good-looking. Bless you ! I shall live to see
yen a happy wife, and the mother of a dear family. Now, there's
that gentleman, Mr. Curlwell—the man's a doting upon you. He
says he'll lay out his last farthing upon lawyers and witnesses for
you : and for money, in a good cause, there's kind-hearted people to
be found who '11 swear what they're told, my dear."
" I am sorry to hear it," said Patty.
" What ! when they know you to be innocent, and will swear what
will prove as much ?"
" Never mind ; we will not talk of it, Mrs. Traply. I have
known but little to tie me to this world ; and if it—if I say"—here
Patty struggled with her heart ; then observing me upon a chair,
she said, her lips quivering as she spoke—" What a pretty feather !
Is it yours ?"
"Yes, my dear; though I don't wear such things now. Ha! the
last time I wore that feather I danced with Sir Mohawk Brush—I
think I've named him to you before. Ha ! if he had only kept his
word, what a sweet man he would have been. It's been tumbled, my
love, lying by in my box ; perhaps you can put it to rights for me ? "
" Certainly : I shall, indeed, be glad ; for you have been very kind
to me."
" And I want to be kind to you, if you '11 let me," said the woman.
" Now there's Mr. Curlwell—"
" Pray, do not speak of him," said Patty.
" A nice, kind, affable man ; older than you, to be sure ; but all
the better; for die when lie will, he'll leave you snug. Suppose
now—I merely say suppose, he could get you out of this trouble, if
you'd only marry him : suppose, I say, there was nothing between
death and the church, what would you do ?"
Patty, who had been gazing at me, laid me down upon the table,
and looking full at the woman, answered in a calm, deep voice—
" Die ! "
" You'd never be so wicked," cried Mrs. Traply.
" I will never be so wicked," said Patty, "so false, so cruelly de-
ceitful towards any man, as to vow a love where my heart sickens."
" Yes, my dear, but to die"—said Mrs. Traply.
" But to live," cried Patty, with quick earnestness ; " to live and
be a daily hypocrite ; to feel a daily heartache ; to shudder at even
a word of tenderness; to loathe one's-self for seeming content—
happy ! Where all this is, what can be life ? Oh, no !" said Patty,
with a gentle smile, " I have thought of death ; and, indeed, I can die."
" Ha! my dear, that's often our pride and vanity to think so.
But to die any way in our own sheets, with, the doctor, and every
other comfort about us, and to have all sorts of civil tilings sawl in a
sermon made on purpose for us, even then, my dear, deatli is bad
enough ; but what, when you go out of the world with a bad name—
with the world, my love, always to have something to say leainst
you ?"
"Terrible, very terrible," said Patty, placing her hand to ner Drow,
" but I have thought of this, too ; and it is little, very little, with the
thought of innocence. The world," cried Patty, in a piteous voice—•
" what shall I be to the world ? What to rr.e the blaute er praise of
j the world, when I am in the grave !"