University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
A SCENE IN THE LOCK-UP.

When David returneed to the store,
after letting the woman he had charge of
into the bunk-room, the captain said, with
the tone and air of a connosieur,

`Davy, that is a pretty little woman
of yours, though something pale; but
good points, good points! She seems
not to like here much. But sixty days
in the House of Commons over to South
Boston will wear off the squeamishness.'

She is a very nice woman captain,
and a very virtuous, lady-like person I
am sure, poor and bad off as she is now,'
said David, feelingly. `I hope you will
see that she is treated kindly, for she is
not used to this.'

`Don't you fear, Davy. She isn't so
young and handsome that there's any
danger I shall look at her a second time.
Yet, as I'm a gentleman, she has been
handsome. She has points! Her eye
is good and her mouth fine!'

`You are altogether too free and easy
in your talk, captain, for an officer of
the watch,' said David, in a tone of grave
reproof.

`I think, Dalton, we will have you appointed
Chaplain to our Ward, said the
captain, with a laugh.

David made no reply, but hanging his
club upon his arm by the hook, he went

out and was closing the door after him,
when the other watchmen joined him,
and together they moved along towards
their respective beats.

As soon as they had left, the lieutenant
of the watch rose to stop a loud
clamor among the men detained in the
male apartment. There was much loud
swearing and shouting, and the confusion
of a very respectable uproar. Taking a
pistol and cocking it, he opened the door
and called out in a loud, thundering tone,
for silence. There was an instantaneous
lull of the tempest. Some of the
men, for there were six or seven in all,
slunk to their berths, while the rest stood
quiet and gazed upon him.

`What an infernal noise,' he cried, in
a stern voice. `If I hear any thing more
like it, I will blow somebody's brains
out! So mind your eyes there among
you. Some of you devils, I see, have
been hoping to get out; but I'll just publicly
express my private opinion in a
personal way to you, my dears, that
there's no kind o' use trying on't! It's
no use! You can't come it! Stronger
men than any o' you mean looking scoundrels
here, and more of 'em too, have
tried the same game with a rush, but it
didn't hang well—not a bit! They had
to bite their thumbs, just as I adwise you
to do, and go to bed. If I hear any
more of sich a catawampus, I'll make
some o' ye wish Dick Crabtree (that's
my name, gentlemen) hadn't been born
afore you was well dead. So now you've
got my private 'pinion of the case, you
know which side your bread is buttered.'

With this brief and characteristic
speech, Mr. Crabtree slammed the door
too, dropped across it a very heavy iron
bar, uncocked his pistol and hung it
upon a peg by the side of it.

`Captin' dear!' cried a sort of boatswain's
voice with the asthma, through
a crevice in the door leading to the women's
lodge.

`There's the women now. It's as
much as a man's conscience is worth to
keep such a place. What do you wan't
in there?'

`It's me. It's Bess!'

`I don't thank you fur the information
—you've been here till you're no stranger.
What do you want, Bess?' he de
manded, though not in such a gruff tone
as he had at first pitched his voice.—
And as he put the question, he unlocked
the door.

`I want a little whiskey, if you please,
Captin'.'

`Not a drop this night for love nor
money. It's agen' the law, Bess!'

`I don't want it for myself, Captin'.
The woman is faintin' and I'm 'fraid
she'll die.'

`What woman?'

`The slender, thin cove as come in
last? Don't you see her layin' with her
head on the beach? If you don't believe
me, see with your own eyes.'

`It's all a flam, got up between ye to
get rum.'

`I swear to jubilee it out, Crabtree!
She's goin' off like a gaspin' fish.'

`I'll see—I'll see! I knows sham
from natur!' and the stout Captain
forced his round, puncheon-like body
through the much too small door and approached
the fallow form of the poor
woman whom David had brought in.—
She was lying upon the floor, with her
head upon the bench from which she
had sunk down. She seemed to have
fainted, for her eyes were half closed
and glassy, and her face as white as marble.
Near her stood the young girl who,
as Bess was talking with the Captain had
been very diligently, under color of aiding
her, foraging in the pockets of the
poor woman's dress for whatever she
might be so fortunate as to find; but to
her surprise and disappointment they
contained absolutely nothing to reward
her charitable activity.

`You have done this, Bess,' said the
lieutenant of the watch, as he saw that
it was `natur' and no sham. `You've
been fighting and knocked her down.'

`As I have a soul to be saved—'

`Doubted! You needn't swear it.—
How was it, Juley, girl!'

`I don't know I'm sure. It was all at
once. We were talking, Ben and I,
about William Wilson and his killing
young Henry Temple, when all at once,
when we wern't sayin' any thing to her,
she kind o' gave a sigh, and down she
went there just as you see her.'

`That's the livin' truth, Crabtree, I'll
take my oath on it,' asserted Bess, with

round emphasis, and a rounder oath that
cannot be here recorded.

`I dare say she's half starved and
grieved to death,' said the lieutenant with
more sympathy than was promised from
his previous exhibitions of character.—
`I'll get some rum and we'll try to bring
her to!' he added, going to the officer,
and returning with a portly jug. He
stooped down, and poured some into her
mouth, while Bess and Juley bathed her
head and hands, pouring some of the
liquid into their palms, and then carrying
the well-filled socket of the hand
thrice to their own thristy lips, while they
gave her head and hands the benefit of
the rest.

At length the poor woman revived,
and looked around with a fearful and
uncomprehending gaze. The burly figure
of the captain of the watch, the vice-impressed
countenances of the woman Bess
and the young girl, brought at once the
whole force of her condition to her mind.
She groaned deeply, and murmured—

`Oh, my poor children! What have
I done so wicked as to bring me to this?'

`Cheer up, marm, cheer up,' said
Crabtree, with a disposition to assuage
the miserable woman's grief. `I have
seen worse cases than yours—you'll only
be hauled up afore his honor in the
mornin,' and perhaps at the outside, be
sent up for sixty days.'

`She's a mere green 'un, said Bess,
with a toss of her head. `I never saw
a woman have so little grit. I'm blessed
if I ever felt so bad for being here, as
I don't, if I'd let the officer see it, and
expose myself so afore him. Come, be
a man, or what is better, be a woman,
and snap your fingers at them as I do.'

Hereupon the amazon suited the action
to the word, and caused Dick Crabtree
to step back, to save a smart rap
with the nimble ends of her fingers upon
the cheek.

`I'll have a pair of bracelets on your
wrists, Bess, if you are not civil,' answered
the captain, with an oath. I
don't mean to have my dignity treated
with despise by any o' your tramps. So
keep quiet. You know me, Bess, and
I know you.'

Here he caused his staff to perform
sundry evolutions above her head, at
which she neither moved nor winked,
while the girl Juley amused herself in
making mock courtesies to the officer.

`I'd like to have you both sent up for
a year, for you are both of a piece!' he
cried, with angry vexation. `They are
enough to corrupt you, marm, and I'd
advise you to have nothing to say to 'em.
You seem to be a pretty decent body,
and I dare say wont be in here again in
a hurry.'

`Indeed, sir, I was not aware that I
was doing any thing to bring me into such
a place!' said Mrs. Wilson, shuddering.
`I feel I have done nothing, and I know
the judge will acquit me.'

`Well, that's his look out. Mine is to
take care of such folks as is brought here
till the judge sends for them. So good
night, all. Bess, if I hear from you
again, it shall be the last time. If they
trouble you, marm, just sing out to me.
That's all.'

With this quiet menace, the Captain
of the watch took up his lantern and left
the lock-up, firmly securing the door as
he shut it. Bess contented herself with
shaking her huge masculine fisl after him
—while Juley turned a pivouette, as if
glad to get rid of his presence.

`Now, we have the coast clear,' said
Bess, walking with long strides up and
down the apartment, with her arms akimbo.
`If I had seven women like myself,
I'd drive every watchman out of this
watch-house, and keep the ground too,
till I was killed or taken. Juley, it takes
a woman for fightin'. But not such a
mealy-faced thing as that ere one,' she
added, pointing with her right elbow towards
Mrs. Wilson. `It is sitch soft
one's as that as destroys our sex, and
makes the men think they can rule over
us. Juley, you are young now, and
many years maybe is afore ye. Let me
give ye one piece o' advice, as will be o'
use to you as long as you live.'

`Well, Bess, what is it?' asked the
young girl, stopping after one or two
more whirls upon her toe a la Elssler.

`Always hit first!'

`I'll remember it, Bess,' answered
her pupil, executing a pas that would
have excited the envy of Taglioni.

`Now, Juley, let's sit down, and talk
with this ere woman, and see what she

is,' and she instantly approached the poor
woman.

`I beg you will not disturb me, good
people,' she said, shrinking. `I am not
well.'

`Send for the Doctor, Bess,' cried
Juley, with unfeeling raillery.

`Pra'ps, sheld like the parson best,
seein' as she looks sert o' religious. Well,
let her alone; for she'll up and yell,
and then old Crabtree 'll be in here, and
put the mittens on us. So let's be quiet.
Put some wood into the stove, Juley,
for its gettin' as cold here as a rich man's
garret.'

The order was obeyed and the two
females drew near to the stove, and began
to court its genial warmth. Mrs.
Wilson would have gladly drawn nigher
to it, for she was suffering, but she preferred
to be chilly as she was, to being
in the society of such depraved persons
of her own sex; for their brutality and
oaths shocked her modest, pure mind; for
though poor she was virtuous and moral,
and a stranger to the vices that, alas!
too often are the attendants upon poverty.
In a little while she sank into a sort of
dreamy state, half sleep, half wakefulness,
but a state of mental consciousness
of suffering. The two females at the
stove soon began to talk together, as if
not heeding her or supposing her to be
asleep, yet she heard every word they
said, and when she heard her husband's
name uttered, she was all ear and the
keenest attention.

They spoke low and cautiously, but as
she was within five feet of them behind,
she heard distinctly.

`Then you think he will be hanged if
he is taken, Bess!'

`Yes, Juley; and nothin' on the roun'
earth can save his neck.'

`But he'll say he did it in defendin'
himself,' said the young girl.

`That won't help him. Don't you
know in law-courts, the prisoner ant allowed
to say nothin' for or agen himself.
He ant bleived if he says he's guilty;
and much more if he says he's innocent.
Courts is curus things, gal, as you'll find
when you've had as much 'sperience of
om as this ere hoss!'

`I'd like to find Wilson and get the
three hundred that has been offered for
him.'

Here the poor woman started, but instantly
recovered her appearance of
sleep, and listened with the most painful
intensity, to every word that followed.

`Who wouldn't? But there's the difficulty.
No body knows where he is;
though Dick Nevers said yesterday he
believed he was hid somewheres in the
city. Well, that Henry Temple was a
proper nice young man, though he had
a good deal too much devil in him when
he had the wine in. You know'd him,
though, Juley.'

`Didn't I? He gave me and two
others a champaigne supper ony the night
afore but one that he was killed.'

`Was Ann Wilson among you?' asked
the woman, taking out a short smoke
burnt pipe from her deep bosom and filling
it with tobacco from a tortoise shell
box drawn from the same ample receptacle.

`No, not that night; I never saw her
but once.'

`When was that?'

`Out to the races at Cambridge? Harry
had her in his phæton along side of
him. She was veiled close all the time,
except once the wind took her veil right
up and blowed it over the top of her
bonnet. My! how quick she got hold
of it and pulled it down and looked as
blushy as a red-herrin'.'

`Was she as handsome as they say
she is?' asked Bess, taking up a bright
coal with the bowl of her pipe, and
placing the short bit of stem in her
mouth.

`Yes, she was handsome and no mistake,
Bess. But Temple seemed plaguey
ashamed she was seen; for he meant no
body should know but she was a tip-top
lady he had with him.'

`He might have knowed, rich as he
was, no genteels would ride with him,
he'd got to be so dissipated. I wonder
where he hid her? It's the strangest
thing neither she nor her father has been
found since Harry's murder, and it's now
most six weeks.'

`I shouldn't wonder if she had been
made way with, Bess.'

`I shouldn't either. It's a pity if she
has; for with her face she'd ha' made

her fortin. I don't blame her father
much for killin' him. It was nat'ral for
a man who had his daughter seduced
away by a rich young fellow that way,
to want satisfaction.'

`I don't think so, Bess. She was ony
a poor sewing-girl, and he ought to have
felt himself honored that sich a respectable
young gentleman as Harry Temple
noticed her at all.'

`Well, Juley, I hopes they'll catch
him, coz; I'd like to hear how it all
came out on the trial. They do say as
how the father of Ann Wilson was pecooliarly
agawated to do what he did.
Some say as how Harry passed himself
off as a young journeyman printer, and
so won her affections. Coz, she'd have
been shy on him if he'd come in his
kids and gold chains, and driven his
buckish horse and baroosh up to her
father's door.'

`Yes, Harry was always cute. I
heard he did something o' the kind.'

`Well, if he did, he deserved what he
got. I can't stand one o' your men
under false colours. I like every thing
fair and above board. Every one in
his own skin, I say. If a man is a sinner
let him swear! If a man is pious
let him pray! But none of your cross
handed fire for me. I never disguises
myself; I'd scorn it. What I am all
the world knows, and the devil too! I
always act out my nat'ral character,
and would be ashamed to pass myself
off for a vartuous woman, when I knows
I aint one. If Henry Temple come it
over the father of Ann Wilson that way,
as people say he did, he got his desarts,
and the old man aint to blame! Still
I hopes he'll be cotched, coz, as I told
you afore I want to read the trial.'

`Well, Bess, I'm sleepy,' ejaculated
Miss Juley with a yawn.

`So am I! so let's bunk. There's
that pale-faced flummock as fast as a
turnkey after dinner.'

With these remarks the two ladies
rose, and each finding an empty bunk
got into it; and in a little while the
lock-up was perfectly quiet.