Prisoner for Blasphemy

by G. W. Foote

CHAPTER. XIII. PARSON PLAFORD.

The Gospel of Holloway Gaol, with which Judge North essayed my conversion, produced the opposite effect. Parson Plaford, the prison chaplain, was admirably adapted by nature to preach it. I have already referred to his gruff voice. He generally taxed it in his sermon, and I frequently heard his thunderous accents in the depths of my cell, when he was preaching to the other half of the establishment. His personal appearance harmonised with his voice. His countenance was austere, and his manner overbearing. The latter trait may have been intensified by his low stature. It is a fact of general observation that there is no pomposity like the pomposity of littleness. Parson Plaford may be five feet four, but I would lay anything he is not five feet five. I will, however, do him the justice of saying that he read the lessons with clearness and good emphasis, and that he strove to prevent his criminal congregation from enjoying the luxury of a stealthy nap. He occasionally furnished them with some amusement by attempting to lead the singing. The melody of his voice, which suggested the croak of an asthmatical raven, threw them into transports of sinister appreciation; and the remarkable manner in which he sometimes displayed the graces of Christian courtesy to the schoolmaster afforded them an opportunity of contrasting the chaplain with the Governor.

Parson Plaford's deity was an almighty gaoler. The reverend gentlemen took a prison view of everything. He had a habit, as I learned, of asking new comers what was their sentence, and informing them that it ought to have been twice as long. In his opinion, God had providentially sent them there to be converted from sin by the power of his ministry. I cannot say, however, that the divine experiment was attended with much success. The chaplain frequently told us from the pulpit that he had some very promising cases in the prison, but we never heard that any of them ripened to maturity. When he informed us of these hopeful apprentices to conversion, I noticed that the prisoners near me eyed him as I fancy the Spanish gypsies eyed George Borrow when they heard him read the Bible. Their silence was respectful, but there was an eloquent criticism in their squint.

After one of his frequent absences in search of health, Parson Plaford related with great gusto a real case of conversion. On one particular morning a prisoner was released, who expressed sincere repentance for his sins, and the chaplain's locum tenens had written in the discharge book that he believed it was "a real case of conversion to God." That very morning, I found by comparing notes, also witnessed the release of Mr. Kemp. All the parson-power of Holloway Gaol had failed to shake his Freethought. His conversion would have been a feather in the chaplain's hat, but it could not be accomplished. The utmost that could be achieved was the conversion of a Christian to Christianity.

On another occasion, Parson Plaford ingenuously illustrated the character of prison conversions. An old hand, a well-known criminal who had visited the establishment with wearisome frequency, was near his discharge. He had an interview with the chaplain and begged assistance. "Sir," he said, "I've told you I was converted before, and you helped me. It wasn't true, I know; but I am really converted this time. God knows it sir." But the chaplain would not be imposed upon again. He declined to furnish the man with the assistance he solicited. "And then," said the preacher, with tears in his voice, "he cursed and swore; he called me the vilest names, which I should blush to repeat, and I had to order him out of the room." "Oh," he continued, "it is an ungrateful world. But holy scripture says that in the latter days unthankfulness shall abound, and these things are signs that the end is approaching. Blessed be God, some of us are ready to meet him." These lachrymose utterances were the precursors of a long disquisition on his favorite topic—the end of the world, the grand wind-up of the Lord's business. We were duly initiated into the mysteries of prophecy, a subject which, as South said, either finds a man cracked or leaves him so. The latter days and the last days were accurately distinguished, and it was obscurely hinted that we were within measurable distance of the flaming catastrophe.

Over forty sermons fell from Parson Plaford's lips into my critical ears, and I never detected a grain of sense in any of them. Nor could I gather that he had read any other book than the Bible. Even that he appeared to have read villainously, for he seemed ignorant of much of its contents, and he told us many things that are not in it. He placed a pen in the fingers of the man's hand which disturbed Belshazzar's feast, and gave us many similar additions to holy writ. Yet he was singularly devoid of imagination. He took everything in the Bible literally, even the story of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles in the shape of cloven tongues of fire. "They were like this," he said, making an angle with the knuckles of his forefinger on the top of his bald head, and looking at us with a pathetic air of sincerity. It was the most ludicrous spectacle I ever witnessed.

During the few visits he paid me, Parson Plaford was fairly civil. Mr. Ramsey seems to have been the subject of his impertinence. My fellow-prisoner was informed that we deserved transportation for life. Yet at that time the chaplain had not even seen the publication for which we were imprisoned! However, his son had, and he was "a trustworthy young man." Towards the end of his term Mr. Ramsey found the charitable heart of the man of God relent so far as to allow that transportation for life was rather too heavy a punishment for our offence, which only deserved perpetual detention in a lunatic asylum.

For the last ten months of my term Parson Plaford neither honoured nor dishonored my cell with his presence. Soon after I was domiciled in the A wing he called to see me. I rose from my stool and made him a satirical bow. This greeting, however, was too freezing for his effusiveness. Notwithstanding the opinion of us he had expressed to Mr. Ramsey, and with which I was of course unacquainted, he extended his hand as though he had known me for years.

"Ah," he said, "this is a sorry sight. Your trouble is mental I know. I wish I could help you, but I cannot. You are here for breaking the law, you know." "Yes," I replied, "such as it is. But the law is broken every week. Millions of people abstain from attending church on Sunday, yet there is an unrepealed law which commands them to."

"Yes, and I'd make them," was the fiery answer from the little man, as the bigot flamed in his eyes.