Chapter LVIII
Worse and worse—If out of gaol, it will be to go out of the world—I am resolved to take my secret with me.
The handcuffs were now put on without resistance on my part, and I was led away to Hounslow by the two constables, while the others returned to secure the wounded man. On my arrival I was thrust into the clink, or lock-up house, as the magistrates would not meet that evening, and there I was left to my reflections. Previously, however, to this, I was searched, and my money, amounting, as I before stated, to upwards of twenty pounds, taken from me by the constables, and what I had quite forgotten, a diamond solitaire ring, which I had intended to have left with my other bijouterie for Timothy, but in my hurry, when I left London, I had allowed to remain upon my finger. The gaol was a square building, with two unglazed windows secured with thick iron bars, and the rain having beat in, it was more like a pound for cattle, for it was not even paved, and the ground was three or four inches deep in mud. There was no seat in it, and there I was the whole of the night walking up and down shivering in my wet clothes, in a state of mind almost bordering upon insanity. Reflect upon what was likely to happen, I could not. I only ran over the past. I remembered what I had been, and felt cruelly the situation I then was in. Had I deserved it? I thought not. "Oh! father—father!" exclaimed I, bitterly, "see to what your son is brought—handcuffed as a felon! God have mercy on my brain, for I feel that it is wandering. Father, father—alas, I have none!—had you left me at the asylum, without any clue, or hopes of a clue, to my hereafter being reclaimed, it would have been a kindness; I should then have been happy and contented in some obscure situation; but you raised hopes only to prostrate them—and imaginings which have led to my destruction. Sacred is the duty of a parent, and heavy must be the account of those who desert their children, and are required by Heaven to render up an account of the important trust. Couldst thou, oh! father, but now behold thy son! God Almighty!—but I will not curse you, father! No, no"—and I burst into tears, as I leant against the damp walls of the prison.
The day at last broke, and the sun rose, and poured his beaming rays through the barred windows. I looked at myself, and was shocked at my appearance; my smock-frock was covered with black mud, my clothes were equally disfigured. I had lost my hat when in the water, and I felt the dry mud cracking on my cheeks. I put my hands up to my head, and I pulled a quantity of duck-weed out of my matted and tangled hair. I thought of the appearance I should make when summoned before the magistrates, and how much it would go against me. "Good God!" thought I, "who, of all the world of fashion—who, of all those who once caught my salutation so eagerly—who, of all those worldly-minded girls, who smiled upon me but one short twelve months since, would imagine, or believe, that Japhet Newland could ever have sunk so low—and how has he so fallen? Alas! because he would be honest, and had strength of mind enough to adhere to his resolution. Well, well, God's will be done; I care not for life; but still an ignominious death—to go out of the world like a dog, and that too without finding out who is my father." And I put my fettered hands up and pressed my burning brow, and remained in a sort of apathetic sullen mood, until I was startled by the opening of the door, and the appearance of the constables. They led me out among a crowd, through which, with difficulty, they could force their way, and followed by the majority of the population of Hounslow, who made their complimentary remarks upon the footpad, I was brought before the magistrates. The large stout man was then called up to give his evidence, and deposed as follows:—
"That he was walking to Hounslow from Brentford, whither he had been to purchase some clothes, when he was accosted by two fellows in smock-frocks, one of whom carried a bundle in his left hand. They asked him what o'clock it was; and he took out his watch to tell them, when he received a blow from the one with the bundle (this one, sir, said he, pointing to me), on the back of his head; at the same time the other (the wounded man who was now in custody) snatched his watch.—That at the time he had purchased his clothes at Brentford, he had also bought a bag of shot, fourteen pounds weight, which he had, for the convenience of carrying, tied up with the clothes in the bundle, and perceiving that he was about to be robbed, he had swung his bundle round his head, and with the weight of the shot, had knocked down the man who had snatched at his watch. He then turned to the other (me) who backed from him, and struck at him with his stick. (The stick was here produced, and when I cast my eye on it, I was horrified to perceive that it was the very stick which I had bought of the Jew, for three-pence, to carry my bundle on.) He had closed in with me, and was wresting the stick out of my hand, when the other man, who had recovered his legs, again attacked him with another stick. In the scuffle he had obtained my stick, and I had wrested from him his bundle, with which, as soon as he had knocked down my partner, I ran off. That he beat my partner until he was insensible, and then found that I had left my own bundle, which in the affray I had thrown on one side." He then made the best of his way to Hounslow to give the information. His return and finding me with the other man is already known to the readers.
The next evidence who came forward was the Jew, from whom I had bought the clothes and sold my own. He narrated all that had occurred, and swore to the clothes in the bundle left by the footpad, and to the stick which he had sold to me. The constable then produced the money found about my person and the diamond solitaire ring, stating my attempt to escape when I was seized. The magistrate then asked me whether I had anything to say in my defence, cautioning me not to commit myself.
I replied, that I was innocent; that it was true that I had sold my own clothes, and had purchased those of the Jew, as well as the stick: that I had been asked to hold the horse of a gentleman when sitting on a bench opposite a public-house, and that some one had stolen my bundle and my stick. That I had walked on towards Hounslow, and, in assisting a fellow-creature, whom I certainly had considered as having been attacked by others, I had merely yielded to the common feelings of humanity—that I was seized when performing that duty, and should willingly have accompanied them to the magistrate's, had not they attempted to put on handcuffs, at which my feelings were roused, and I knocked the constable down, and made my attempt to escape.
"Certainly, a very ingenious defence," observed one of the magistrates; "pray where—!" At this moment the door opened, and in came the very gentleman, the magistrate at Bow Street, whose horse I had held. "Good morning, Mr Norman, you have just come in time to render us your assistance. We have a very deep hand to deal with here, or else a very injured person, I cannot tell which. Do us the favour to look over these informations and the defence of the prisoner, previous to our asking him any more questions."
The Bow Street magistrate complied, and then turned to me, but I was so disguised with mud, that he could not recognise me. "You are the gentleman, sir, who asked me to hold your horse," said I. "I call you to witness, that that part of my assertion is true."
"I do now recollect that you are the person," replied he, "and you may recollect the observation I made, relative to your hands, when you stated that you were a poor countryman."