Gordon turned back and approached the dingy portal. “I have a fancy to see the inside of the old rookery, warden,” he said. “Perhaps these visitors may enter with me.” His hand was in his pocket and a jingle caught the warden’s acute ear. The gruff demeanor of the custodian merged precipitately into the obsequious. He pushed open the gate with alacrity and preceded them into the foul area of the prison.
Mary threw Gordon a quick glance of gratitude as she passed into the warden’s office—to return without the little rosewood box. Across the look had flitted a shudder at the shouts and oaths that tainted the inclosure, and as she emerged he caught the gleam of relief with which she saw him still in the court.
A moment later the bailiff, who had figured in the scene before Godwin’s shop, was leading the way along a noisome gallery. It was littered with refuse of vegetable and provision-men who cried their wares all day up and down. At one side gaped a coffee-house, at the other an ordinary, both reeking with stale odors and tobacco-smoke, and a noisy club was meeting in the tap-room. Laughter and the click of glasses floated in the air, a suffocating atmosphere of tawdry boisterousness.
Jane Clermont stole more than one sidelong glance as Gordon’s uneven step followed. At length the bailiff paused and unlocked a barred door. Mary knocked, but there was no answer; she pushed the door open and the girls entered.
From his station in the background, Gordon saw a dingy chamber, possessing as furniture only a cot, a chair, and a narrow board mantel, on which a candle was burning, stuck upright in its own tallow. Standing before this breast-high impromptu table, a pamphlet spread open, upon it, his shoulders stooped, his eyes devouring the page, was the room’s solitary occupant. He had thrown off the long coat with the lamb’s-wool trimming, his collar was open leaving his throat unfettered, and his long locks hung negligently about his face.
“Bysshe!” cried Mary, ecstatically.
The figure by the mantel turned, flinging back his tumbled hair as if to toss away his abstraction.
“Mary!” he echoed, and sprang forward. “What are you doing here?”
“We’ve come for you. The debt is cancelled. To think of your being shut up here!” she said with a shiver, as a burst of noises rose from the court below.
“Cancelled!” he repeated with a hesitating laugh. “Your father would better have let me stay, Mary. I shall be just as bad again in a month. I couldn’t resist buying a book if it meant the gallows!”