Into the Highways and Hedges

by F. F. Montrésor

"I want to stay," she said. "Barnabas, don't you see that I want to? You think I am saying this because I ought—for your sake. It is for my own. Ah, don't send me away; I want to stay."

He stood a moment silent; then: "Stay then," he said; "and God keep ye safe. Happen, after all, He knows how to as well as I do."

There was no time for more; she had to go, but the preacher drew a deep breath, as one amazed; the bolts and bars that divided them had also brought Margaret nearer to him. He had had need of some consolation.

The Gaol Acts laid down many most excellent rules, which the governors of Newgate seemed to consider were, like dreams, "to be read by contraries". Barnabas had found himself flung into an assembly where tried and untried—the boy accused of stealing a loaf, and the hardened old vagabond in for the tenth time—were all mixed up together, making a fine forcing bed for crime.

In the pursuit of his calling the preacher had been oftenest and most deeply attracted to places where evil was most prevalent; but it was one thing to attack the foul fiend of his own free will (and it must be owned Barnabas was seldom backward at assault), and another to be allowed no escape from the unclean presence by day or by night; no breathing space alone, even for a moment.

The unbearable sense of eyes always on him, the longing for fresh air, and, still more, for solitude, if only for five minutes, grew with a force that took all his strength to keep in bounds.

There had always been something gipsy-like in his restless impatience of walls and roofs. As a boy he had many a time crept out in order to sleep by preference with nothing between him and the sky. He held his very thoughts in check now, and durst not let them dwell on downs or sea, lest a mad passion for these should seize on him; but he ate with difficulty, forcing himself to swallow, loathing food, like some wild animal held in captivity; and sleep forsook him.

It was not till he had been in the gaol for a week that he began to discover a method in the madness of the prison arrangements; and the method roused him to protest so vigorous and unpopular as nearly to cost him his life.

To run atilt against established privileges, to refuse to let sleeping dogs lie, had always been main characteristics of the preacher; they never came out more strongly than in Newgate.

There are disadvantages in preaching righteousness while under accusation of attempted murder, and in attempting to right other people's grievances while a prisoner oneself; but such considerations never weighed with Barnabas. Where he saw his enemy, there he would "go" for him, whatever the situation might be.