Fortunately, her hands were full of work; she had little time for meditation. She had been seized with a sudden inspiration to take up again one of the few accomplishments of her girlhood, and her efforts had been crowned with unexpected success. She had been clever at modelling and colouring wax fruit; and the sight of her old tools, which had somehow come into Laura's possession, had suggested a possible means of making money.
The sum that her father had left her would have paid for her board and lodging, but she saved every penny she could for the preacher's defence.
She worked hard, allowing herself little rest, and going out only to the prison grating, or for actual necessities. Her room was at the very top of a tall narrow house close to the gaol. Tom had left her there with many misgivings on his part, but with no apparent sinking of courage on hers. She wrote occasionally to him and to her father-in-law, and her letters were always cheerful. "I am taking care of myself beautifully. I am learning all sorts of things," she wrote.
The last sentence was very true. Meg learnt many things during those long months of waiting for the assizes.
She became a familiar figure in the "prison crowd." Most of the habitués of the outer yard knew her by sight, and many of them knew her story as well (though she could not imagine how it had got about), and they would stare at the "lydy," with amused and generally very kindly curiosity.
At first, the rough crowd rather alarmed her. In the midst of this mighty city, on which she looked from her skylight window, she felt the sense of isolation more deeply than on any mountain top.
For some weeks she did not speak to any one when on her way to or from the gaol; but, by degrees, her sympathy went out to the women who, like herself, were waiting anxiously.
On the first occasion when Barnabas failed to come to the grating, she had, as we have seen, made a fruitless attempt to get into the ward by an appeal to headquarters; but a second failure increased her uneasiness. She was turning from the bars disheartened, when a scrap of paper was thrust into her hand by the girl next her, who remarked by the way: "You weren't 'alf spry, lydy. You'd never 'ave got it if it 'adn't been for my Bill and me."
The scrap had been wrapped round a bone, and dexterously thrown through the bars. The writing was the preacher's, but so shaky that Meg found it barely legible.
"Ye've no call to be scared, my lass. I've had a bit of a fight, but am all right. Only my face is a sight, and I'd not have you startled by it, so I've kept away—and don't you come for a week or two.
"Barnabas."