And every day, among the visitors stood my Lord of Brockenhurst, foremost in sympathy and truest in friendship. He was, indeed, as Jenny had assured me, the most loyal of the gentlemen and the most sincere of friends.
It must be added that Jenny's time in prison was not wholly spent in converting a cell into a drawing-room of fashion. The unfortunate women, her fellow-prisoners, were much worse off than the men; they had fewer friends; they were suffered to starve on the penny loaf a day, the allowance of the prison. They lay for the most part in cold and starvation; in rags and dirt and misery overwhelming. Jenny went into their yard and among them. There was the poor creature who had caused her arrest. She was half starved now. Jenny gave her food and spoke to her friendly without reproach; she sent food to others who were starving. She not only fed them; she talked to them, not about their sins, because poor Jenny knew nothing about sins except so far as that certain deeds are punished by the law; but she talked to them about being clean and neat: she revived the womanly instinct in them: made them wash themselves, dress their hair, and take pleasure again in making themselves attractive. Never had a woman a keener sense of the duty of women to be beautiful. She made them in a week or two so civilized that they left off fighting: there was not a black eye in the place; and while Jenny was in the ward there was hardly so much as a foul word. It was pretty to see how they loved her and welcomed her and would have worked themselves to death for her. Poor lost souls—if indeed they are lost! They must all be dead now. The horrible gallows has killed some; the gaol fever, others; the fever of bad food and bad drink and bad air, others, yet until the day of death I am sure that all remembered Jenny. Notably, there was her accuser. She was sullen at first; she was revengeful; next she was ashamed and turned aside; then she wept; and then she became like a tame kitten following her through the ward, hungering and thirsting for one more word—one more word of friendship—from the very woman whom she had brought to this place.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FALLEN ALDERMAN
Let me return to the wretched man who had caused this trouble. I learned that, although his two fellow-prisoners declared openly that Mr. Merridew's power was gone and that he would never again have the power to hang anybody, some of his credit was still maintained: he pretended that the books—of which he spoke often and with pride, were still kept up, and that every man's life and liberty were in his hands: and many poor rogues, thinking to curry favour, waited upon him daily, bringing him presents of wine, tobacco and (secretly) rum, so that he was able to be drunk and to forget his anxieties for the greater part of the day. The two rebels against his authority, the Bishop and the Captain, carried themselves bravely: there is, indeed, in the profession of the rogue something of the soldier, in that they both brave dangers without fear. The battle field is covered with the dead and wounded: but there are plenty left standing unhurt: every soldier thinks he will escape: the rogue's field of honour is covered with whipping-posts, stocks, pillory, and gallows. It is far more dangerous than the field of battle. Yet every rogue hopes to escape, and carries himself accordingly. Perhaps it is better so. One would not wish such a crew to be whining and snivelling and pretending repentance and imploring pity.
One day I met, coming out of the prison, one whose face and appearance I knew. He was old and bent, and in rags: his woollen stockings were in holes: the elbows of his coat were gone: his hat was too limp to preserve its shape: his buttons were off his coat—he wore the old jasey with a broken pigtail. I touched him on the shoulder.
'You are Mr. Probus's clerk?' I said.
'If I am, Sir,' he replied, 'is that a crime?'
'No—no—no. But you remember me? You bade me once go throw myself into the river with a stone about my neck.'