University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
THE INMATES OF THE WATCH HOUSE.

The place to which David conducted
the woman was a low wooden edifice,
one story in height, and situated at the
corner of Hanover street and a narrow
lane. It had a door and window on the
street, both defended by heavy shutters
with bars and bolts.

Upon opening the door he entered a
room about fourteen feet square in the
centre of which was a stove. Around it
sat two or three watchmen upon a semicircular
bench, and in an arm-chair, directly
in front of the door sat a stout
fleshy man in red whiskers, who was the
lieutenant of the watch for that ward.—
The watchmen had evidently just come
in, as they were covered with snow and
were warming their hands and feet at
the stove. The lieutenant was wrapped
in an ordinary surtout, his heavy apparel
for out doors hanging upon a peg within
reach. About the room on the walls
were suspended to rows of pegs, heavy
watch-coats, glazed hemlets, watchmen's
short staves armed with hook and spear,
gloves, caps, mufflers and other apparel.
Gver each peg was a number indicating
the peculiar ownership of what hung
upon it.

The room was comfortably warm, and
the party about the stove, which at one
corner was heated red hot, seemed to
be in the best of humors, as they were
laughing very loud when David entered.

`Ah here is number 8 come with a
cove,' said one of the watchmen, looking
at David and his charge.

The lieutenant of the watch, who was
called by courtesy Captain, by his men,
hereupon half turned his eye, and said
composedly,

`Ah, Davy, what have you there?'

`A poor woman, captain, who found
a shutter in the street which had blown
off from one of old Jarvey's windows.—
The old miser said she must be pursued
and I had to go after her, or lose my
place, though I would gladly let her gone
off clear. You see she is a poor body,
and she needed fire-wood this cold night,'
added David, removing his coat from her
person. `Stand back, Jeffrey, and let
her warm herself. She hasn't seen a
fire like this, in an age, I'll warrant
me!'

The poor woman drew near the stove
with an air of humility and shivering with
cold. Jeffrey's the scotchman moved
back and gave her a place on the bench.
She hesitated to take it!'

`Sit there, good woman,' said David
kindly. `Get well warm before you go
into the lodging room!'

`So, mistress, you stole a shutter, eh?'
observed the red-whiskered lieutenant,
eyeing her from beneath his shaggy
brows. His manner was authoritative
and disagreeable, like that of bitterness in
the possession of temporary power.

`Sir, I did not steal it, answered the
woman fervently. `I found it in the
street. My family were perisning with
cold and for food and—'

`Hush old woman! The same old
tale.'

`No it is not the same old tale, Captain,'
said David stoutly. The shutter was an
old rickeny affair not worth fourpence.
I saw it blown off into the street and did
not think it worth while to pick it up,
when this poor woman come shivering
along in the blast and catching it up with
a glad cry fled with it as if she had found
the treasures of the Indies! So I let her
go with it, for it was no theft and not
worth the trouble of calling to her; besides

unless the poor body had wanted it
very much she would not have taken it.
So I felt glad that she had found it.

`Too tender-hearted by half, Davy,'
ejaculated the lieutenant emitting a cloud
of smoke from his mouth for he had just
lighted a pipe. `Your humanity, as you
call it, Dalton, 'll lose you your place yet.
You remember the sassenger-case.'

`Yes, I do; and I would do the same
again, captain.'

`Well, you might but I would'nt,' said
one of the watchmen with No. 2 on his
helmet. `I would let a man go to jail if
he was old as methusalah afore I'd pay
for what he stole!'

`But the old man that took the sausages
from the door was starving to death;
for he began to eat them down raw as I
would eat a carrot,' answered David.
`Besides I only had to pay the shop-man
forty cents to let him go.'

`I would'nt have done it,' answered
No. 3. `A man caught pilfering ought
to be taken up.'

`I would rather have paid twice as
much rather than lugged that white-headed
old man to the watch-house!'

`Yet you like to have lost your place
for not doing it when the head captain of
the watch knew it,' said the lieutenant.

`But I did'nt lose it, lieutenant after
the captain heard all the case.'

`But in this case old Jarvey would'nt
take pay, oh?'

`No. He made me follow the track
of the woman and went himself with me,
and I found the house, and the shutter
half-burned up on the hearth. But it
was such a wretched place and the family
seemed to suffer so that I felt that I
should rather take two dollars and give
to the poor woman to buy wood and
food rather than take her off. But
Feather Few insisted she should be arrested
and brought here or he would
complain of me, he said, for winking
at theft. So I had to bring her. But I
mean to see the Judge early in the
morning, and I know I shall get her
clear in spite of Jarvey who means to be
there to prosecute her!

`There ant no use talking to the
Judge, Davy,' answered the Captain,
knocking the ashes from his pipe; and
looking into it and seeing that it had
gone out he said, pompously, `No 3,
give me a coal if you please.'

No 3 took up a coal in a small pair of
iron tongs and dropped it respectfully into
the bowl of the Captain's pipe.

`There ant no use blarneying his
honor,' he resumed when he found that
his pipe drew again; `he is case hardened
to such things. And it's natral he
should be seein' as many as from ten to
twenty brought up every morning. He,
by and by, begins to think they are all
alike and lump 'em all together.'

`I don't believe the Judge is such a
man,' answered David, warmly. `He
has the reputation of being a humane
and just Judge!'

`Well, you try him to-morrow. He 'll
ask you did the woman take the shutter
and carry it off. You must say yes.
Jarvey will swear that he saw it half
burned up on her fire, and the Judge, as
a matter of course, will send her up for
sixty days, or three months, and call the
next case. You may tell him she was
poor and freezing. He will answer you
that of course she was, he supposed that,
or she would'nt have taken the shutter.
So, good woman,' said the Captain, with
a sort of patronizing majesterial air,
`you may look upon yourself as hooked
for sixty days and your board paid out of
the public purse!'

The poor woman who had listened
with intense interest in this conversation,
buried her face in her hands and sobbed,
audibly, `My poor children!'

`Do not despair, ma'am,' said David
kindly, going up to her and laying his
hand upon her arm. `Things won't be
vuite so bad, if they be I'll see that your
children wont suffer, if I have to eat only
half a meal myself.'

`Oh, sir, God in Heaven will reward
you!' cried the poor woman in thrilling
tones of gratitude.

`If the prisoner is got warm and comfortable,
Davy, you can show her in to
the lodging room; for I guess you've
been off your're beat about long enough.
Come, woman, get up and foller him into
that door!'

This command issued from the lieutenant
as he sat at his case with his feet
raised upon an iron fender that surrounded
the stove. She rose tremblingly and

looked at David with an air of helplessness.

`She don't seem to feel at home,' observed
No. 3, coarsely. `I guess she
ha'nt slept in a watch-house afore. But
ma'am, you'll find comfortable quarters
and no mistake. We provide well for
the town's children while they is under
our particular charge!'

`Come, ma'am, I will show you the
room,' said David.

`Oh, do not leave me!' she cried,
pressing his arm and looking round
alarmed upon the harsh unfeeling brows
of the three men.

`You will be safe, here! No one will
harm you, ma'am,' answered David,
opening one of the two doors that were
on the back side of the room.

It was a greasy, dirty looking door,
and one of the panels had been replaced
by a rough piece of board nailed upon
the mounting. Over this door was the
words, `Female Apartment,' and over
the one next to it a similar sign, having
upon it the words, `Male Apartment.'

Both doors opened into long narrow
rooms, separated by a plank partition;
and walls of the room were seats and
`bunks,' or low berths for the persons
detained through the night. Into the
male apartment the two watchmen, at the
stove, had just turned in two men whom
they had caught prying about a shop
window, under circumstances of suspicion,
and upon whom they found burglars
tools. These men were now very
noisy and were banging at the door, and
were calling upon the watchmen to bring
them something to drink. The sound
of their voices was so near that the poor
woman thought she was about to be
placed with them.

`I hope I am not to be put with those
men, good Mr. Dalton!' she cried, drawing
back as he opened the door.

`No, ma'm. Do you see these words?'
he added, pointing to the sign over the
door. `You will find only women in
here!'

`Thank you, sir!' she said, entering
the dimly-lighted room with a sort of
cheerful alacrity, and appeared as if
much relieved from her fears.

`Good night, ma'am. I'll be here
right and early, and go up to the court
with you,' said David. `Old Jarvey
shant have his wish, be assured of it.
You will at once be dismissed as soon as
the judge sees you, and hears what I've
to say about you.'

`God will bless you, sir, for your goodness,'
answered the woman, gratefully,
as David gently closed the door upon
her.

What a sinking of the heart: what a
dying away of hope she felt as the pleasant
and sympathising face of this friend
disappeared. She realised for the first
time all her destitution and the horrors
of her situation. She was a poor helpless
female in the hands of rude men,
and she was to be arraigned in the
morning for a crime! Crime? She
felt she had committed none. She felt
that in the eye of Heaven and of humane
beings she was innocent. In her own
heart and intent she was innocent. But
still she trembled. She knew that if the
judge listened to the Iron-monger's tale,
that she would be sentenced. She knew
well that the law in its stern impartiality
took no account of the circumstances
that led the guilty to do crime. She
knew that the law took cognizance only
of the fact—the asked fact. If, therefore,
Jarvey could make out to the satisfaction
of the judge that she stole the shutter,
all David's influence would not benefit;
nay, she felt that, on the contrary, every
word he should speak in her favor might
injure himself, as it would be regarded
by the court as an effort to exculpate his
conduct in not pursuing and arresting
her in the outset.

The room was lighted by a japanned
lamp, hanging against an upright beam
in the centre of the long-room. The
funnel from the stove in the front apartment
traversed the room along the ceiling
and warmed the air of it. By the
faint muddy light of the lamp, she saw
that two of the bunks were occupied by
women of the most wretched appearance.
One had her head bound up, and the
other was intensibly drunk. Upon a
bench sat a short stout female and a
young girl of fourteen. The elder individual
had a bloated face, and looked
like a virago. The girl who was about
fourteen, had a handsome face, but it
bore a reckless, dissipated expression as

if she had been early initiated into vice.

The stout woman, seeing the new
comer stop and regard her, and hesitate
whether to advance to the bench, cried
out in a coarse way,

`Go, don't be afraid cozzy; we aint
goin' to whip yer. Forge along here on
your thin shanks, and take a seat. What,
have the Charlies got you in jar?'

`Charlies, marm?' repeated the woman,
taking a seat rather as a measure
of securing herself from insult than as
desirable in such suspicious company.

`Charlies are Hookies, woman. You
are a green one! Never was here afore,
I'll swear.'

`No, I never was!' sighed the poor
female.

`Well, you're here now, and there's
always a first time, though you've waited
till you're pretty old. Why I was in a
watch 'us afore I was sixteen!'

`I ain't fifteen yet, Bess,' cried the
girl with a tone of decided self-approbation
and triumph at having beat her mature
friend by a year or more.

`What have they got you up for, they?'
demanded rather than inquired Bess,
looking at her with a hard eye and a superior
kind of air, as if she took in at
once what a poor, sickly, meek, virtuous
being was in her presence.

`I am accused of stealing,' answered
the poor woman, faintly. `But I did
not steal!'

`So every thief says. It's a mean
game, stealin', unless one can lay her
flippers on coin—then it's an honor!—
Now, this young girl was taken up for
taking a watch and a purse to-night from
a youngster that called to see her.'

`And what a row he made when he
found it out, interrupted the young girl,
laughing. `He hollared to the watch
till he had a dozen round, but I have hid
the jumbles where he won't be the wiser,
though they've got me!'

`They'll send you up for six months,
Juley,' said Bess, in a careless but encouraging
tone,' and then when you
have served your time honestly out, you
can have your watch and money to go
upon.'

`That I mean to do,' answered the
youthful thieveress, in a very decided
tone, confirming her resolution with a
very round oath.

`I suppose you'd like to know what I
am in for,' said the stout woman to the
stranger, who had listened with a shrinking
heart, shocked beyond measure, at
being in the presence and contact with
such depravity.

`Indeed, I am not anxious to know.'

`Well, I'll tell you, so if you have a
husband, you'll know whose example to
foller. I'm tuck up jist for givin' my
old 'un a confounded whippin'. I keeps
a tavern, ye see! and he must come and
borry money from the till without leave,
sir! and I gives him a backhander and
he hits me a tipper under the peepers!
I breaks his head with a porter bottle,
and he hollers murder, and then there's
the devil to pay! Charlies run in. I
fight hard. No use! They fight harder,
three to one, and here I is!'