And Meg looked up at the gateway of the great prison, "the worst managed prison in England,"[1] where the scum and refuse of that human tide flowed constantly, and where, evil being most rampant, that cross that was originally raised between outragers of the public safety, was being raised again now by the hand of the Quaker lady, whom many yet unborn should call "blessed".
They passed under the fortress-like entrance, which Meg was to know well, in rain and snow, as well as in the autumn sunshine, which first softened its gloom to her, and stood among the crowd of prisoners' friends, who, on the whole, were a much more cheerful, not to say jovial set, than might have been expected.
The gatekeeper was exchanging jokes and winks with a noisy band of unbonneted girls, who were linked together arm in arm, and had "pals" inside.
Meg's soft heart warmed to one of them, who looked little more than a child, and who demanded permission to see her husband, Bill Jenkins, convicted of shop-lifting, and under sentence of death.
"I hope he will be reprieved," Meg said aloud. "She looks so very young to have a husband," she added apologetically to Tom, who was not over-pleased at her speaking to the girl.
There was a shout of laughter when some one who had overheard it repeated the remark.
"Bless your innocence, we've all got 'usbands, my dear," said one of the band. But it was not till later that the preacher's wife understood the meaning of their merriment.
The convicted were supposed to see only their wives, and that but once a week. "So I've never known a single man among 'em," the gatekeeper remarked with a grin. "Even the boys is all married,—every one on 'em!"
Meg could hardly have told what she had expected to encounter;—long stone passages, and a miserable cell, and Barnabas in heavy irons, and darkness, perhaps! She had been prepared to cheer and encourage him; but this noisy crew she was not prepared for, and her heart sank when she found that she was not admitted into the interior of the building; but could only take her place with the others on one side of a double row of iron railings, which interposed grimly between the prisoners and their friends.
Her strongest earliest impressions of a place she was to become familiar with during three long months were beer and bad language. The smell of the former assailed her nostrils; the sound of the latter, her ears; the place seemed reeking with both combined. She looked rather wistfully at the vendor of beer, who, coming straight from the public-house, fortunate enough to have secured Newgate's patronage, was greeted with acclamations, and allowed instant entrance to the wards.