CHAPTER II
“Look round thee, young Astolpho; here's the place Which men (for being poor) are sent to starve in;— Rude remedy, I trow, for sore disease. Within these walls, stifled by damp and stench, Doth Hope's fair torch expire, and at the snuff, Ere yet 'tis quite extinct, rude, wild, and wayward, The desperate revelries of fell Despair, Kindling their hell-born cressets, light to deeds That the poor Captive would have died ere practised, Till bondage sunk his soul to his condition.” The Prison.—Act I. Scene III.
TRAVERSING the streets, without having in view any particular object, other than the observance of Real Life in London, such as might occur from fortuitous incident; our two perambulators skirted the Metropolis one fine morning, till finding themselves in the vicinity of Tothill-fields Bridewell, a place of confinement to which the Magistrates of Westminster provisionally commit those who are supposed to be guilty of crimes. Ingress was without much difficulty obtained, and the two friends proceeded to a survey of human nature in its most degraded state, where, amidst the consciousness of infamy and the miseries of privation, apathy seemed the predominant feeling with these outcasts of society, and reflection on the past, or anticipation of the future, was absorbed in the vacuum of insensibility. Reckless of his destiny, here the manacled felon wore, with his gyves, the semblance of the most perfect indifference; and the seriousness of useful retrospection was lost in the levity of frivolous amusement. Apart from the other prisoners was seated a recluse, whose appearance excited the attention of the two visitants; a deep cloud of dejection overshadowed his features, and he seemed studiously to keep aloof from the obstreperous revelry of his fellow-captives. There was in his manner a something inducing a feeling of commiseration which could not be extended to his callous companions in adversity. His decayed habiliment indicated, from its formation and texture, that he had seen better days, and his voluntary seclusion confirmed the idea that he had not been accustomed to his present humiliating intercourse. His intenseness of thought precluded the knowledge of approximation on his privacy, until our two friends stood before him; he immediately rose, made his obeisance, and was about to retire, when Mr. Dashall, with his characteristic benevolence, begged the favour of a few moments conversation.
“I am gratified,” he observed, “in perceiving one exception to the general torpitude of feeling which seems to pervade this place; and I trust that your case of distress is not of a nature to preclude the influence of hope in sustaining your mind against the pressure of despondency.”
“The cause of my confinement,” answered the prisoner, “is originally that of debt, although perverted into crime by an unprincipled, relentless creditor. Destined to the misery of losing a beloved wife and child, and subsequently assailed by the minor calamity of pecuniary embarrassment, I inevitably contracted a few weeks arrears of rent to the rigid occupant of the house wherein I held my humble apartment, when, returned one night to my cheerless domicil, my irascible landlord, in the plenitude of ignorance and malevolence, gave me in charge of a sapient guardian of the night, who, without any enquiry into the nature of my offence, conducted me to the watch-house, where I was presently confronted with my creditor, who accused me of the heinous crime of getting into his debt. The constable very properly refused to take cognizance of a charge so ridiculous; but unluckily observing, that had I been brought there on complaint of an assault, he would in that case have felt warranted in my detention, my persecutor seized on the idea with avidity, and made a declaration to that effect, although evidently no such thought had in the first instance occurred to him, well knowing the accusation to be grossly unfounded. This happened on a Saturday night, and I remained in duresse and without sustenance until the following Monday, when I was held before a Magistrate; the alleged assault was positively sworn to, and, maugre my statement of the suspicious, inconsistent conduct of my prosecutor, I was immured in the lock-up house for the remainder of the day, on the affidavit of perjury, and in the evening placed under the friendly care of the Governor of Tothill-fields Bridewell, to abide the issue at the next Westminster sessions.”
“This is a most extraordinary affair,” said the Squire; “and what do you conjecture may be the result?”
“The pertinacity of my respectable prosecutor,” said the Captive, “might probably induce him to procure the aid of some of his conscientious Israelitish brethren, whom 1 never saw, towards substantiating the aforesaid assault, by manfully swearing to the fact; but as I have no desire of exhibiting myself through the streets, linked to a chain of felons on our way to the Sessions House, I believe I shall contrive to pay the debt due to the perjured scoundrel, which will ensure my enlargement, and let the devil in due season take his own!”
“May we enquire,” said Dashall, “without the imputation of impertinent inquisitiveness, what has been the nature of your pursuits in life?”
“Multitudinous,” replied the other; “my life has been so replete with adventure and adversity in all its varieties, and in its future prospects so unpropitious of happiness, that existence has long ceased to be desirable; and had I not possessed a more than common portion of philosophic resignation, I must have yielded to despair; but,
“When all the blandishments of life are gone, The coward sneaks to death,—the brave live on!”