CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CONTAINING FURTHER ANECDOTES RELATING TO THE CHILDREN ON WRETCHEDNESS.

Dinner being cheerfully discussed, and our adventurer expressing an eager desire to know the history of the male and female who had acted as squires or seconds to the champions of the King’s Bench, Felton gratified his curiosity to this effect:

“All that I know of Captain Clewline, previous to his commitment, is, that he was a commander of a sloop of war, and bore the reputation of a gallant officer; that he married the daughter of a rich merchant in the city of London, against the inclination and without the knowledge of her father, who renounced her for this act of disobedience; that the captain consoled himself for the rigour of the parent, with the possession of the lady, who was not only remarkably beautiful in person, but highly accomplished in her mind, and amiable in her disposition. Such, a few months ago, were those two persons whom you saw acting in such a vulgar capacity. When they first entered the prison, they were undoubtedly the handsomest couple mine eyes ever beheld, and their appearance won universal respect even from the most brutal inhabitants of the jail.

“The captain, having unwarily involved himself as a security for a man to whom he had lain under obligations, became liable for a considerable sum, and his own father-in-law being the sole creditor of the bankrupt, took this opportunity of wreaking vengeance upon him for having espoused his daughter. He watched an opportunity until the captain had actually stepped into the post-chaise with his lady for Portsmouth, where his ship lay, and caused him to be arrested in the most public and shameful manner. Mrs. Clewline had like to have sunk under the first transports of her grief and mortification; but these subsiding, she had recourse to personal solicitation. She went with her only child in her arms, a lovely boy, to her father’s door, and, being denied admittance, kneeled down in the street, imploring his compassion in the most pathetic strain; but this hard-hearted citizen, instead of recognising his child, and taking the poor mourner to his bosom, insulted her from the window with the most bitter reproach, saying, among other shocking expressions, ‘Strumpet, take yourself away with your brat, otherwise I shall send for the beadle, and have you to Bridewell.’

“The unfortunate lady was cut to the heart by this usage, and fainted in the street, from whence she was conveyed to a public-house by the charity of some passengers. She afterwards attempted to soften the barbarity of her father by repeated letters, and by interesting some of his friends to intercede with him in her behalf; but all her endeavours proving ineffectual, she accompanied her husband to the prison of the King’s Bench, where she must have felt, in the severest manner, the fatal reverse of circumstance to which she was exposed.

“The captain being disabled from going to sea, was superseded, and he saw all his hopes blasted in the midst of an active war, at a time when he had the fairest prospects of fame and fortune. He saw himself reduced to extreme poverty, cooped up with the tender partner of his heart in a wretched hovel, amidst the refuse of mankind, and on the brink of wanting the common necessaries of life. The mind of man is ever ingenious in finding resources. He comforted his lady with vain hopes of having friends who would effect his deliverance, and repeated assurances of this kind so long, that he at length began to think they were not altogether void of foundation.

“Mrs. Clewline, from a principle of duty, recollected all her fortitude, that she might not only bear her fate with patience, but even contribute to alleviate the woes of her husband, whom her affection had ruined. She affected to believe the suggestions of his pretended hope; she interchanged with him assurances of better fortune; her appearance exhibited a calm, while her heart was torn with anguish. She assisted him in writing letters to former friends, the last consolation of the wretched prisoner; she delivered these letters with her own hand, and underwent a thousand mortifying repulses, the most shocking circumstances of which she concealed from her husband. She performed all the menial offices in her own little family, which was maintained by pawning her apparel; and both the husband and wife, in some measure, sweetened their cares by prattling and toying with their charming little boy, on whom they doated with an enthusiasm of fondness. Yet even this pleasure was mingled with the most tender and melancholy regret. I have seen the mother hang over him, with the most affecting expression of this kind in her aspect, the tears contending with the smiles upon her countenance, while she exclaimed, ‘Alas! my poor prisoner, little did your mother once think she should be obliged to nurse you in a jail.’ The captain’s paternal love was dashed with impatience; he would snatch up the boy in a transport of grief, press him to his breast, devour him as it were with kisses, throw up his eyes to heaven in the most emphatic silence, then convey the child hastily to his mother’s arms, pull his hat over his eyes, stalk out into the common walk, and, finding himself alone, break out into tears and lamentation.

“Ah! little did this unhappy couple know what further griefs awaited them! The smallpox broke out in the prison, and poor Tommy Clewline was infected. As the eruption appeared unfavourable, you may conceive the consternation with which they were overwhelmed. Their distress was rendered inconceivable by indigence; for by this time they were so destitute, that they could neither pay for common attendance, nor procure proper advice. I did on that occasion what I thought my duty towards my fellow-creatures. I wrote to a physician of my acquaintance, who was humane enough to visit the poor little patient; I engaged a careful woman-prisoner as a nurse, and Mr. Norton supplied them with money and necessaries. These helps were barely sufficient to preserve them from the horrors of despair, when they saw their little darling panting under the rage of a loathsome pestilential malady, during the excessive heat of the dog-days, and struggling for breath in the noxious atmosphere of a confined cabin, where they scarce had room to turn on the most necessary occasions. The eager curiosity with which the mother eyed the doctor’s looks as often as he visited the boy; the terror and trepidation of the father, while he desired to know his opinion; in a word, the whole tenor of their distress baffled all description.

“At length the physician, for the sake of his own character, was obliged to be explicit; and, returning with the captain to the common walk, told him, in my hearing, that the child could not possibly recover. This sentence seemed to have petrified the unfortunate parent, who stood motionless, and seemingly bereft of sense. I led him to my apartment, where he sat a full hour in that state of stupefaction; then he began to groan hideously, a shower of tears burst from his eyes, he threw himself on the floor, and uttered the most piteous lamentation that ever was heard. Meanwhile, Mrs. Norton being made acquainted with the doctor’s prognostic, visited Mrs. Clewline, and invited her to the lodge. Her prophetic fears immediately took the alarm. ‘What!’ cried she, starting up with a frantic wildness in her looks, ‘then our case is desperate—I shall lose my dear Tommy!—the poor prisoner will be released by the hand of Heaven!—Death will convey him to the cold grave!’ The dying innocent hearing this exclamation, pronounced these words, ‘Tommy won’t leave you, my dear mamma; if death comes to take Tommy, papa shall drive him away with his sword.’ This address deprived the wretched mother of all resignation to the will of Providence. She tore her hair, dashed herself on the pavement, shrieked aloud, and was carried off in a deplorable state of distraction.

“That same evening the lovely babe expired, and the father grew frantic. He made an attempt on his own life; and, being with difficulty restrained, his agitation sunk into a kind of sullen insensibility, which seemed to absorb all sentiment, and gradually vulgarised his faculty of thinking. In order to dissipate the violence of his sorrow, he continually shifted the scene from one company to another, contracted abundance of low connexions, and drowned his cares in repeated intoxication. The unhappy lady underwent a long series of hysterical fits and other complaints, which seemed to have a fatal effect on her brain as well as constitution. Cordials were administered to keep up her spirits; and she found it necessary to protract the use of them to blunt the edge of grief, by overwhelming reflection, and remove the sense of uneasiness arising from a disorder in her stomach. In a word, she became an habitual dram-drinker; and this practice exposed her to such communication as debauched her reason, and perverted her sense of decorum and propriety. She and her husband gave a loose to vulgar excess, in which they were enabled to indulge by the charity and interest of some friends, who obtained half-pay for the captain.

“They are now metamorphosed into the shocking creatures you have seen; he into a riotous plebeian, and she into a ragged trull. They are both drunk every day, quarrel and fight one with another, and often insult their fellow-prisoners. Yet they are not wholly abandoned by virtue and humanity. The captain is scrupulously honest in all his dealings, and pays off his debts punctually every quarter, as soon as he receives his half-pay. Every prisoner in distress is welcome to share his money while it lasts; and his wife never fails, while it is in her power, to relieve the wretched; so that their generosity, even in this miserable disguise, is universally respected by their neighbours. Sometimes the recollection of their former rank comes over them like a qualm, which they dispel with brandy, and then humorously rally one another on their mutual degeneracy. She often stops me in the walk, and, pointing to the captain, says, ‘My husband, though he is become a blackguard jail-bird, must be allowed to be a handsome fellow still.’—On the other hand, he will frequently desire me to take notice of his rib, as she chances to pass.—‘Mind that draggle-tailed drunken drab,’ he will say; ‘what an antidote it is—yet, for all that, Felton, she was a fine woman when I married her—Poor Bess, I have been the ruin of her, that is certain, and deserve to be d—ned for bringing her to this pass.’

“Thus they accommodate themselves to each other’s infirmities, and pass their time not without some taste of plebeian enjoyment—but, name their child, they never fail to burst into tears, and still feel a return of the most poignant sorrow.”

Sir Launcelot Greaves did not hear this story unmoved. Tom Clarke’s cheeks were bedewed with the drops of sympathy, while, with much sobbing, he declared his opinion, that an action should lie against the lady’s father.

Captain Crowe having listened to the story with uncommon attention, expressed his concern that an honest seaman should be so taken in stays; but he imputed all his calamities to the wife. “For why?” said he; “a seafaring man may have a sweetheart in every port; but he should steer clear of a wife, as he would avoid a quicksand.—You see, brother, how this here Clewline lags astern in the wake of a snivelling b—-h; otherwise he would never make a weft in his ensign for the loss of a child—odds heart! he could have done no more if he had sprung a top-mast, or started a timber.”

The knight declaring that he would take another view of the prison in the afternoon, Mr. Felton insisted upon his doing him the honour to drink a dish of tea in his apartment, and Sir Launcelot accepted his invitation. Thither they, accordingly repaired, after having made another circuit of the jail, and the tea-things were produced by Mrs. Felton, when she was summoned to the door, and in a few minutes returning, communicated something in a whisper to her husband. He changed colour, and repaired to the staircase, where he was heard to talk aloud in an angry tone.

When he came back, he told the company he had been teased by a very importunate beggar. Addressing himself to our adventurer, “You took notice,” says he, “of a fine lady flaunting about our walk in all the frippery of the fashion. She was lately a gay young widow that made a great figure at the court-end of the town; she distinguished herself by her splendid equipage, her rich liveries, her brilliant assemblies, her numerous routs, and her elegant taste in dress and furniture. She is nearly related to some of the best families in England, and, it must be owned, mistress of many fine accomplishments. But being deficient in true delicacy, she endeavoured to hide that defect by affectation. She pretended to a thousand antipathies which did not belong to her nature. A breast of veal threw her into mortal agonies; if she saw a spider, she screamed; and at sight of a mouse she fainted away. She could not, without horror, behold an entire joint of meat; and nothing but fricassees and other made dishes were seen upon her table. She caused all her floors to be lined with green baize, that she might trip along there with more ease and pleasure. Her footmen wore clogs, which were deposited in the hall, and both they and her chairmen were laid under the strongest injunctions to avoid porter and tobacco. Her jointure amounted to eight hundred pounds per annum, and she made shift to spend four times that sum. At length it was mortgaged for nearly the entire value; but, far from retrenching, she seemed to increase in extravagance, until her effects were taken in execution, and her person here deposited in safe custody.

“When one considers the abrupt transition she underwent from her spacious apartments to an hovel scarce eight feet square; from sumptuous furniture to bare benches; from magnificence to meanness; from affluence to extreme poverty; one would imagine she must have been totally overwhelmed by such a sudden gush of misery. But this was not the case. She has, in fact, no delicate feelings. She forthwith accommodated herself to the exigency of her fortune; yet she still affects to keep state amidst the miseries of a jail; and this affectation is truly ridiculous. She lies a-bed till two o’clock in the afternoon. She maintains a female attendant for the sole purpose of dressing her person. Her cabin is the least cleanly in the whole prison; she has learned to eat bread and cheese and drink porter; but she always appears once a day dressed in the pink of the fashion. She has found means to run in debt at the chandler’s shop, the baker’s, and the tap-house, though there is nothing got in this place but with ready money. She has even borrowed small sums from divers prisoners, who were themselves on the brink of starving. She takes pleasure in being surrounded with duns, observing, that by such people a person of fashion is to be distinguished. She writes circular letters to her former friends and acquaintance, and by this method has raised pretty considerable contributions; for she writes in a most elegant and irresistible style. About a fortnight ago she received a supply of twenty guineas; when, instead of paying her little jail-debts, or withdrawing any part of her apparel from pawn, she laid out the whole sum in a fashionable suit and laces; and next day borrowed of me a shilling to purchase a neck of mutton for her dinner. She seems to think her rank in life entitles her to this kind of assistance. She talks very pompously of her family and connexions, by whom however she has been long renounced. She has no sympathy nor compassion for the distresses of her fellow-creatures; but she is perfectly well bred; she bears a repulse the best of any woman I ever knew; and her temper has never been once ruffled since her arrival at the King’s Bench. She now entreated me to lend her half-a-guinea, for which she said she had the most pressing occasion, and promised upon her honour it should be repaid to-morrow; but I lent a deaf ear to her request, and told her in plain terms that her honour was already bankrupt.”

Sir Launcelot, thrusting his hand mechanically into his pocket, pulled out a couple of guineas, and desired Felton to accommodate her with that trifle in his own name; but he declined the proposal, and refused to touch the money. “God forbid,” said he, “that I should attempt to thwart your charitable intention; but this, my good sir, is no object—she has many resources. Neither should we number the clamorous beggar among those who really feel distress; he is generally gorged with bounty misapplied. The liberal hand of charity should be extended to modest want that pines in silence, encountering cold, nakedness, and hunger, and every species of distress. Here you may find the wretch of keen sensations blasted by accident in the blossom of his fortune, shivering in the solitary recess of indigence, disdaining to beg, and even ashamed to let his misery be known. Here you may see the parent who has known happier times, surrounded by his tender offspring, naked and forlorn, demanding food, which his circumstances cannot afford.

“That man of decent appearance and melancholy aspect, who lifted his hat as you passed him in the yard, is a person of unblemished character. He was a reputable tradesman in the city, and failed through inevitable losses. A commission of bankruptcy was taken out against him by his sole creditor, a quaker, who refused to sign his certificate. He has lived three years in prison, with a wife and five small children. In a little time after his commitment, he had friends who offered to pay ten shillings in the pound of what he owed, and to give security for paying the remainder in three years by instalments. The honest quaker did not charge the bankrupt with any dishonest practices, but he rejected the proposal with the most mortifying indifference, declaring that he did not want his money. The mother repaired to his house, and kneeling before him with her five lovely children, implored mercy with tears and exclamations. He stood this scene unmoved, and even seemed to enjoy the prospect, wearing the looks of complacency, while his heart was steeled with rancour. ‘Woman,’ said he, ‘these be hopeful babes, if they were duly nurtured. Go thy ways in peace; I have taken my resolution.’ Her friends maintained the family for some time; but it is not in human charity to persevere; some of them died, some of them grew unfortunate, some of them fell off, and now the poor man is reduced to the extremity of indigence, from whence he has no prospect of being retrieved. The fourth part of what you would have bestowed upon the lady would make this poor man and his family sing with joy.”

He had scarce pronounced these words, when our hero desired the man might be called, and in a few minutes he entered the apartment with a low obeisance. “Mr. Coleby,” said the knight, “I have heard how cruelly you have been used by your creditor, and beg you will accept this trifling present, if it can be of any service to you in your distress.” So saying, he put five guineas into his hand. The poor man was so confounded at such an unlooked-for acquisition, that he stood motionless and silent, unable to thank the donor; and Mr. Felton conveyed him to the door, observing that his heart was too full for utterance. But in a little time his wife bursting into the room with her five children, looked around, and going up to Sir Launcelot without any direction, exclaimed, “This is the angel sent by Providence to succour me and my poor innocents.” Then falling at his feet, she pressed his hand and bathed it with her tears. He raised her up with that complacency which was natural to his disposition. He kissed all her children, who were remarkably handsome and neatly kept, though in homely apparel; and, giving her his direction, assured her she might always apply to him in her distress.

After her departure, he produced a bank-note of twenty pounds, and would have deposited it in the hands of Mr. Felton, to be distributed in charities among the objects of the place; but he desired it might be left with Mr. Norton, who was the proper person for managing his benevolence, and he promised to assist the deputy with his advice in laying it out.