Walter Besant
The Orange Girl
CHAPTER XX
THE HONOURS OF THE MOB
It was far from my intention to witness the reception of my friends in Pillory from the sympathizing mob. I was, however, reminded that the day had arrived by finding in my morning walk from Lambeth to the Old Bailey the Pillory itself actually erected, in St Martin's Lane, somewhat above St. Martin's Church. It was put up in the open space where Long Acre runs into St Martin's Lane, very nearly in the actual spot where the assault was delivered and the plot carried out A just retribution. Even now, after thirty years, only to think of the villainy causes my blood to boil: nothing surely could be bad enough for these creatures, vilest of all the vile creatures of this wicked town. At the same time when I saw the preparations that were making for the reception of the criminals, my heart sank, and I would willingly have spared them all and forgiven them all to save them from what followed.
The pillory, on a scaffold four feet high, was put up with 'accommodation' – if we may so describe it – for two persons standing side by side, so that they could not see each other. They were also so close together that favours intended for the face of one might if they missed him be received by some part of the body of the other. A vast crowd was already assembled, although the sentence would not be carried out till eleven, and it was then barely nine. The crowd consisted of the scum and off-scouring of the whole city: there was a company from Southwark. While I was looking on, they arrived marching in good form like soldiers: there were contributions from Turnmill Street and Hockley-by-the-Hole: there were detachments from the Riverside: from St. Katherine's by the Tower: from Clerkenwell: but, above all, from St. Giles's.
'Who is to stand up there to-day?' I asked one of them – a more decent-looking man than most. Of course, I knew very well, but I wished to find out what the people intended.
'Where do you come from, not to know that?' the man replied. ''Tis the thief-taker: him that makes the rogue: teaches the rogue and then sells the rogue. Now we've got him – wait till we leave him. And there's the lawyer who made the plot to hang a man. We've got him, too. We don't often get a lawyer. Wait a bit – wait a bit. You shall see what they'll look like when we leave them.'
He had his apron full of something or other – rotten eggs, perhaps: or rotten apples: or, perhaps, brickbats. The faces of all around expressed the same deadly look of revenge. I thought of the Captain's terror, and of his petition to Jenny; that he might be put up with the Bishop; it was impossible not to feel awed and terrified at the aspect of so much hatred and such deliberate preparation for revenge. A thief-taker and a lawyer! Oh! noble opportunity! Some carried baskets filled with missiles: some had their aprons full; the women for their part brought rotten eggs and dead cats, stinking rabbits, and all kinds of putrid offal in baskets and in their arms, as if they had been things precious and costly. They conferred together and laughed, grimly telling what they had to throw, and how they would throw it.
'I don't waste my basket,' said one, 'on rotten eggs. There's something here sharper than rotten eggs. He took my man before his time was up, because he wanted the money. My man was honest before he met Merridew, who made him a rogue, poor lad! – yes, made him – told him what to do – taught him: made him a highwayman: told him where to go; hired a horse for him and gave him a pistol. Then he sold him – got forty pounds and a Tyburn ticket for him and twenty pounds allowance for his own horse. Oh! If my arm is strong enough! Let me get near him – close to him, good people.'
'He took my son,' said another, 'to be sure he was a rogue, but he thieved in a safe way till John Merridew got him. If I had my strength that I used to have it wouldn't be rotten eggs; but never mind – there's others besides me. Don't waste your brickbats: throw straight: let the women get to the front. Oh! He shall look very pretty when he is carried home. He shall have a pleasant hour with his friends. We love him, don't we? We love him like a son, we do.'
This man had for years exercised absolute sway over Rogueland. He instructed the young in the various branches of the criminal's horrid trade: he led them on from pocket-picking to stealing from stalls and bulkheads: to shop-lifting; to burglary; to robbery in the street: to forgery: to coining and issuing false coin: to highway robbery and, at times, to murder. 'Twas the most accomplished and the most desperate villain that ever lived – I cannot believe that his like was ever known. No one dared to cross him or to refuse his orders. If anyone should be so presumptuous, he speedily repented in Newgate under a capital charge followed by a capital sentence. There are so many ways of getting hanged, and so few outside the law know what offences may be capital and what are not, that there was never any certainty in the mind of the smallest rogue that he was safe from such a charge. Children of fourteen on his information were hung as well as grown men: little girls of fourteen were hung on his information as well as grown women: for shop-lifting, for lifting linen from the hedge – why this devil incarnate would instigate a child to commit a capital offence and then give him into custody for the reward, careless whether the child was hanged or not. It was a terrible end that he met with. I read sometimes of dreadful punishments: of tortures and agonies: yet I cannot picture to myself a punishment more awful than to stand up before an infuriated and implacable mob; to look down upon thousands of faces and to see no gleam of relenting upon one: not one with a tear of pity: to hear their yells of execration: to see their arms springing up with one consent – Poor wretch! Poor wretch!
These people knew very well that Mr. Merridew could hang them all: that, in course of time, he would hang them all; and that, if they offended him, he would hang them all at once. It was a terrible weapon for one man to wield: nor can I believe that the laws of the land intended that any one man should be able to wield such a weapon. Why they allowed him to exist I know not – seeing their insensibility to crime, one would think that they would have murdered him long before. From wives he had taken their husbands; from mothers their sons; from girls their sweethearts: he had taken their wives and their mistresses from the men; he had taken the boys – one cannot say the innocent boys – from their playfellows; and he had hanged them all. It would be interesting to know how many he had hanged, this murderous, blood-stained villain, whose heart was like the nether millstone for hardness.
The punishment of pillory hands a man over to the people, for judgment and execution or for acquittal or for pardon. The law says practically, 'We find him guilty: we assign him a term of imprisonment: it is for the people to increase the punishment or to protest against it.' In the case of a common rogue, whose offence is in no way remarkable, a few rotten eggs, broken on his face and dropping yellow streams over the nose and cheeks, please the mob, who like this harmless demonstration in favour of virtue which does not hurt their friend and brother, the prisoner. In other cases, where the sympathy of the people is entirely with the prisoner, one hour of pillory means an hour of triumph. For they bring bands of music and welcome the criminal; they shout applause: they hang the pillory with flowers: they take out the horses and drag the carriage. This happened to Dr. Shebbeare, who came to the pillory in the sheriff's carriage and stood in front of the pillory, not in it, a man holding an umbrella over his head the whole time to keep off the rain. It is, however, the most terrible punishment that can be devised when the mob are infuriated with the prisoner. In this case the thief-taker, the Man-slayer was about to stand before them: and with him the designer of a plot to take away the life of an innocent man.
The crowd now became so dense that it was impossible to get forwards or back. Therefore, though it might seem revengeful to look on at the popular reception of these two wretches, I was fain to stay where I was, namely, on the top step of Slaughter's Coffee House. The time passed quickly while I stood looking on and listening. The crowd grew thicker: on the outskirts with me were many respectable persons. Their indignation against the crime was, like mine, tempered by the prospect of the horrible punishment that awaited the evil-doers. I would not tell them that I myself was the object of this plot, for fear of being considered as wishing to enjoy a revenge full and satisfying.
'The greatest villain of the four,' said one gentleman, 'is the attorney. He will barely escape, I think: but these people are assembled to vent their revenge upon the thief-taker. I know not whether, when he is gone, crime will decrease, but it is time that something was done to prevent the encouragement of crime with one hand, and the arrest of the criminal with the other. Such a wretch, Sir, is not fit to live.'
'And,' said another, 'unless I mistake, we are here to witness the resolution of the mob that he shall no longer live.'
At eleven o'clock there was a shout which ran all down St. Martin's Lane. 'Here they come! here they come!' followed by roars which were certainly not meant for applause and approval.
'It is an awful moment,' said my next neighbour. 'If I could get out of the throng I would go away. It will be a terrible spectacle.'
There was a force of constables round the pillory. As it appeared immediately afterwards, it was insufficient. They formed a circle standing shoulder to shoulder, to keep back the crowd and to preserve an open space round the scaffold. It is a merciful plan because the greater the distance, the better is the prisoner's chance.
The prisoners were brought in a cart. It was recognised by the crowd as a cart used for flogging unfortunates, and there were jokes on the subject, perhaps the hitching of shoulders, as it passed. It was guarded by a force of constables armed with clubs; not that they feared a rescue, but that they feared a rush of the crowd and the tearing of the prisoners to pieces.
I was standing, I say, on the highest doorstep of Slaughter's Coffee House, the windows of which were full of men looking on. Looking thus over the heads of the people, I saw that the driver and the prisoner Probus were covered already with filth and with rotten eggs. The former cursed the people. 'Why can't you wait – you?' he cried as the eggs flew about his head or broke upon his face. Mr. Probus sat on the bench bowed and doubled up. He showed no fear: he was as one who is utterly broken up, and in despair: he had lost his money – all his money: the work of his life. That was all he cared for. He was disgraced and imprisoned – he had lost his money. He was going to be pelted in the pillory – he had lost his money – nothing else mattered.
To a revengeful man this day's work was revenge indeed, ample and satisfying, if revenge ever can satisfy. I do not think it can: one would want to repeat it every day: the man in the Italian Poem who gnaws his enemy's head can never have enough of his cruel and horrid revenge. I hope, however, that no one will think that I rejoiced over sufferings, terrors, and pain unspeakable; even though they were deserved.
If Mr. Probus showed callousness and insensibility extraordinary, his companion behaved in exactly an opposite manner. For he had thrown himself down in the bottom of the cart, and there lay writhing while the execrations of the people followed the cart. When the procession arrived at the pillory it took six men to drag him out. He covered his face with his hands: he wept – the tears ran down his cheeks: he clung to the constables; it took a quarter of an hour before they had him up the steps and on the platform: it took another ten minutes before he was placed in the machine, his face turned towards the crowd on the north side with his helpless hands struck through the holes. As for the other he stood facing the south.
When both the miserable men were ready the under-sheriff and the constables ducked their heads and ran for their lives from the stage down the ladder and waited under cover.
For, with a roar as of a hungry wild beast the mob began. There was no formal or courteous commencement with rotten eggs and dead cats. These things, it is true, were flung, and with effect. But from the very beginning they were accompanied by sharp flints, stones and brickbats. The mob broke through the line of constables and filled up the open space; they pushed the women to the front: I think they were mad: they shrieked and yelled execrations: the air was thick with missiles; where did they come from? There were neither pause nor cessation. For the whole time the storm went on: the under-sheriff wanted, I have heard, to take down the men; but no one would venture on the stage to release them. Meanwhile with both of them the yellow streams of broken eggs had given way to blood. Their faces and heads were covered every inch – every half inch – with open bleeding wounds: their eyes were closed, their heads held down as much as they could: if they groaned; if they shrieked; if they prayed for mercy; if they prayed for the mercy of Heaven since from man there was none; no one could hear in the Babel of voices from the mob. It was the Thief-taker, the Man-slayer, who was the principal object of the crowd's attention: but they could not distinguish between the two and they soon threw at one head or the other impartially. It was indeed a most dreadful spectacle of the popular justice. Just so, the Jews took out the man who worshipped false idols, and the woman who was a witch and stoned them with stones, so that they died. For my own part I can never forget that sight of the two bowed heads at which a mob of I know not how many hundreds crowded together in a narrow street hurled everything that they could find, round paving stones, sharp flints, broken bricks, wooden logs, with every kind of execration that the worst and lowest of the people can invent. From the south and from the north: there was an equal shower; there was no difference.
For a whole hour this went on. The pillory should have been turned every quarter of an hour. But no one dared to mount the stage in order to turn it – besides it was safer to let one side exhaust their artillery than to tempt the unspent stores of the other side.
At last the hour of twelve struck. There was a final discharge: then all stopped. The heads hung down inanimate, motionless. Had the mob, then, killed them both?
The under-sheriff mounted the stage: one of the constables cleared it of the miscellaneous stuff lying at the feet of the prisoners; then they took out the men. Both were senseless; they were carried down the steps and placed in the cart. The driver went to the horse's head; the constables closed in: the show was over.
In five minutes the whole crowd had dispersed; they had enjoyed the very rare chance of expressing their opinion upon a Thief-taker and an Attorney. They went off in great spirits, marching away in companies each in its own direction. Those from Clare Market I observed, were headed by music peculiar to that district played by eight butchers with marrow-bones and cleavers.
The horrid business over I thought I would learn how the other two fared in Soho Square. The pillory was still standing when I got there, but the business of the day was over. From a gentleman who had been a spectator I learned that the two men were turned to the four quarters in the pillory, that their friends on the St. Giles's side would not pelt them; but that on the other three sides they received a liberal allowance of eggs and such harmless gifts, together with a more severe expression of opinion in stones and brickbats. They were taken out wounded and bleeding, but they could walk down the ladder and were carried off in their right senses, at least.
I went on to Newgate. There I learned that the man Merridew was already dead: he was found dead in the cart when he was brought in. It was not wonderful. His skull was battered in; his cheek-bones were broken: his jaw was fractured: for the last half-hour it was thought he had been already senseless if not dead. The case of Mr. Probus was nearly as bad. He was breathing, they told me, and no more. It was doubtful if he would recover.
The Captain and the Bishop were, as I have said, more fortunate. They escaped with scars which would disfigure them for life. But they did escape, and since their master the Man-slayer was dead, they might begin again, once out of prison, with another rope much longer, perhaps, than the first.
I suppose they are long since hanged, both of them. No other lot was possible for them. I have not seen them or heard of them, since that day.
CHAPTER XXI
"GUILTY, MY LORD"
The days slipped away. Visitors came, gazed, and departed. Our attorney exhorted Jenny every day to consider her decision and to prepare a defence.
'Consider, Madame,' he urged earnestly, 'you will stand before a Court already prepossessed by the knowledge of your history, in your favour. There will be no pressure of points against you. It will be shown, nay, it is already well known, that you have, by your own unaided efforts, defeated a most odious conspiracy and made it possible for the conspirators to be brought to justice. This fact, further, assigns reasons and motives for the persecution and the malignity of their friends. I am prepared to show that at the time when you are charged with receiving stolen property you were occupying a fine position; that you were solvent because you were receiving large sums of money: that you were the last person to be tempted even to receive stolen goods especially those of a mean and worthless character. Those who might otherwise be ready to perjure themselves against you will be afraid to speak since this last business. You have this protection brought about by your own action. It will be impossible to prove that you had any knowledge of the property found on your premises.'
'All that is true. Yet, dear Sir, I cannot change my mind.'
'It is so true that I cannot believe it possible under the circumstances for a jury to convict: you are also, Madame, which is a very important feature in the case, possessed of a face and form whose loveliness alone proclaims your innocence.'
'Oh! Sir, if loveliness had aught to do with justice! But could I, even then, rely upon that claim?'
'Let me instruct Counsel. He will brush aside the evidence! Good Heavens! What evidence! A woman swears that she saw the property carried into your house during the whole of a certain night. That is quite possible. Certain shopkeepers have been found to swear to some of the articles found in your rooms as their own. How do they know? One bale of goods is like another. That kind of evidence is worth very little. But if the things are theirs how are you to be connected with them? I shall prove that you lived in a great house with many servants: that it was quite easy to carry things in and out of that house without your knowledge: I shall call your servants, who will swear that they know nothing of any such conveyance of goods. I will prepare a defence for you in which you will state that you had no knowledge of these things: nor do you know when, or by whom, they were brought into the house: you will point to your troop of servants, including footmen, waiters, carvers, cooks, butlers and women of all kinds: you will ask if a manager of any place of entertainment is to be held responsible for what was brought under his roof – that you were not in want of money and that if you were the rubbish lying in your garrets would be of no use to you. And so on. There could not possibly be found a better defence.'
'I know one better still,' said Jenny quietly.
'Tell me what it is, then.'
'I have already told you. Once more then. My mother has long been notorious as a receiver of stolen goods. The people used to bring their plunder to the Black Jack by a back entrance: under the house there are stone vaults and a great deal of property can be stored there. When I understood that we should want the evidence of my mother I was obliged to offer her a large sum of money as a bribe before she would consent. When she found that I would give no more, she accepted my offer but on conditions. 'Remember,' she said. 'None of us will ever be able to show our faces at the Black Jack any more. We should be murdered for sure, for going against our own people.'
'Well,' said Mr. Dewberry, 'doubtless she was right. But what were the conditions?'
'They were connected with the stolen goods. The vaults contained a great deal of property which could not be sold at once. If I would suffer her to store that property in my house, she would consent Sir, at that time, and in order to defeat those villains, I would have consented to anything. It was agreed that my mother and sister should move the things by night after the Black Jack was shut up. I suppose the woman watched. So you see, unfortunately, I did consent without thinking.'
'You did consent – oh!' he groaned. 'But, after all, your mother and sister will not give evidence. Where is the evidence of your consent? Are they out of sight? Good. Let them keep out of sight.'
'But there is more. Dear Sir, you will say I am very imprudent. When it was arranged for my mother to go away after the trial and lie snug for awhile, she could not bear to think of losing all her property, and so – still without thinking of consequences – I bought the whole lot.'
'You bought! Oh! This, indeed, I did not expect. You bought the whole! However, one comfort, no one knows except your mother.'
'And my sister. Now, Sir, Doll will not allow my mother to suffer alone. If she is accused of receiving I shall be charged with buying the property.'
'I wish the mob had burned the place.'
'Nobody can wish that more than myself. Now consider. If I plead "Not Guilty" and am acquitted, my mother will certainly be arrested. There will be a Hue and Cry after her, and I shall then be charged again with buying stolen property, knowing it to be stolen. No, Sir, my mind is quite made up. I shall plead Guilty. If the evidence is only what we know, there will be no further inquiry after the property. So, at least, my mother will be safe.'
Mr. Dewberry said nothing for a while. 'Would your mother,' he asked, 'do as much for you?'
'I dare say she would. We have our virtues, we poor rogues, sometimes.'
He remonstrated with her: he repeated over and over again his assurance that her defence was as perfect as a defence could be. She could not be examined or cross-examined. The evidence of the woman would be confined to one point. It was all in vain: she was obstinate.
'I shall plead Guilty,' she said.
Finally he went away and left me alone with her.
'Jenny,' I said, 'sometimes I believe you are mad so far as your own interests are concerned.'
'No, Will – only crafty. Now listen a little. I have one firm, strong, powerful friend – I mean Lord Brockenhurst. If a woman wants a man to remain in love with her, she must keep him off. He knows all about me, he says: he has made up the prettiest tale possible. And he actually believes it.'
'Made up a tale, Jenny?'
'It was a very pretty story that he wrote called the "Case of Clarinda," This is a prettier story still. It appears that I am the lost and stolen child of noble parents. My birth is stamped upon my face. Never a gipsy yet was known to have light hair like mine, and blue eyes like mine. I have been brought up in ignorance of my parentage, by a woman of dishonest character who stole me in infancy. She made me, against my wish (for a person of my rank naturally loathes employment so menial) an Orange Girl of Drury Lane Theatre. Then I rose above that station by the possession of parts inherited, and became an actress and the Toast of the Town. The woman clung to her pretended daughter still. Then I left the stage in order to be married: when I found my husband little better than a sordid gambler, I left his house and opened the Assembly-room: the woman, for her own safety, made, unknown to me, a storehouse of my garrets. That is his story. But the end is better still. My true nobility of soul, inherited from my unknown illustrious ancestors, prompts me to plead Guilty in order to save this pretended mother. Now, Will – '
'How does the story help?'
'Because it has already got abroad. Because it will incline everybody's heart to get me saved.'
'Yes – but an acquittal is so easy.'
'Will, you can never understand what it means to belong to such a family as mine. Suppose I get my acquittal. Then – afterwards – '
'What will follow afterwards?'
'Do you think that they will let me return to the stage? I must face the revenge of the family – the family of St. Giles's. Through me the Bishop and the Captain have been put in pillory and are now in prison. They belong to the family – my family, and I have brought them to ruin – I myself. One of themselves. Can they forgive me? Nay, Will, I was brought up among them: it is their only point of honour. Can I expect them to forgive me? Never – until – unless – ' She stopped and trembled.
'Unless – what?'
'Unless I pay for it, as I have made those two rogues pay for it. Unless I pass through the fiery furnace of trial and sentence, even if it leads me to the condemned cell. After that, Will, I may perhaps look for forgiveness.'
A man must be a stock or a stone not to be moved by such words as these. 'Oh, Jenny!' I said, 'you have brought all this upon yourself – for me.'
'Yes, Will, for you and for yours. I have counted the cost. Your life is worth it all – and more. Don't think I never flinched. No. I had thoughts of letting everything go. Why should I imperil myself – my life – to defeat a villain? It was easy to do nothing. Then one night I saw a ghost – oh! a real ghost. It was Alice, and in her arms lay your boy.' Jenny rose slowly. The afternoon was turning into early evening: the cell was already in twilight. She rose, and gradually, so great is the power of an actress, that even though my eyes were overcast, I saw the narrow cell no longer. There was no Jenny. In her place stood another woman. It was Alice. In the arms of that spirit lay the semblance of a child. And the spirit spoke. It was the voice of Alice. 'Woman!' she said, solemnly, 'give me back my husband. Give the boy the honour of his father. Murderess! Thou wouldst kill the father and ruin the son. There shall be no peace or rest or quiet for thee to the end. Save him – for thou must. Suffer and endure what follows. Thou shalt suffer, but thou shalt not be destroyed.' Alice spoke: it was as if she came there with intent to say those words. Then she vanished. And with a trembling of great fear, even as Saul trembled when he saw the spirit of Samuel, I saw Jenny standing in the place where Alice had been.
She fell into her chair: she burst into tears – the first and the last that ever I saw upon her cheek: she covered her face with her hands.
I soothed her, I assured her of all that I could say in gratitude infinite: perhaps I mingled my tears with hers.
'Oh, Will,' she cried. 'Do not vex yourself over the fate of an orange-wench. What does it matter for such a creature as myself?'
The Old Bailey never witnessed a greater crowd than that which filled the court to witness the trial of Mistress Jenny Wilmot, charged with receiving stolen goods knowing them to be stolen. Her assumed name of Madame Vallance was forgotten: her married name of Halliday was forgotten: on everybody's tongue she was Jenny Wilmot the actress: Jenny Wilmot the Toast of the Town: Jenny Wilmot of Drury Lane. They spoke of her beauty, her grace, her vivacity: these were still remembered in spite of her absence from the stage of nearly two years. Now two years is a long time for an actress, unless she is very good indeed, to be remembered. But the 'Case of Clarinda' was by this time known to every club and coffee-house in London: not a City clerk or shopman but had the story pat, with oaths and sighs and tears. My Lord Brockenhurst had done his share in changing public opinion, and the later story, that of the noble origin of the stolen girl, was also whispered from mouth to mouth.
The court, I say, was crowded. Behind the chairs of the Lord Mayor and Judge, the Aldermen and the Sheriffs, were other chairs filled with great ladies: the public gallery was also filled with ladies who were admitted by tickets issued by sheriffs: the entrances and doorways and the body of the court were filled with gentlemen, actors and actresses mixed with an evil-looking and evil-smelling company from St. Giles's.
The witnesses, among whom I failed to observe the revengeful woman, consisted, I was pleased to see, of no more than the two or three shopkeepers who were waiting to swear to their own property. They stood beside the witness-box, wearing the look of determined and pleased revenge common to those who have been robbed. The Jury were sworn one after the other, and took their seats. I could not fail to observe that the unrelenting faces with which they had received me, the highwayman, were changed into faces of sweet commiseration. If ever Jury betrayed by outward signs a full intention, beforehand, of bringing in a verdict of Not Guilty, with the addition, if the Judge would allow it, that the lady left the dock without a blemish upon her character, it was that jury – yet a jury composed entirely of persons engaged in trade, who would naturally be severe upon the crime of receiving stolen goods.
When the Court were ready to take their places the prisoner was brought in, and all the people murmured with astonishment and admiration and pity, for the prisoner was dressed as for her wedding day. She was all in white without a touch of any other colour. Her lovely fair hair was dressed without powder over a high cushion with white silk ribbons hanging to her shoulders: her white silk frock drawn back in front, showed a white satin petticoat: white silk gloves covered her hands and arms: she carried a nosegay of white jonquils: a necklace of pearls hung round her neck: her belt was of worked silver. She took her place in the dock: she disposed her flowers between the spikes, among the sprigs of rue. Her air was calm and collected: not boastful: sad as was natural: resigned as was becoming: neither bold nor shrinking: there was no affectation of confidence nor any agitation of terror. She was like a Queen: she was full of dignity. She seemed to say, 'Look at me, all of you. Can you believe that I – I – I – such as I – Jenny Wilmot – could actually stoop to receive a lot of stolen rags and old petticoats and bales of stuff worth no more altogether than two or three guineas?'
