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Here I kept behind the group, and went boldly after the stout sister. No one seemed disposed to suspect the well-dressed gentleman in gray. I went by the turnkey, keeping my face the other way. I was some fifteen feet from the great barred outer door. The two sentries stepped back to let the sister go by. Meanwhile the gate-keeper, with his back to me, was busy with his keys.
"You must speak with this wench, Rat this Effie Deans you must sift her a wee bit; for as sure as a tether she will ken Robertson's haunts till her, Rat till her without delay." "Craving your pardon, Mr. Sharpitlaw," said the turnkey elect, "that's what I am not free to do." "Free to do, man? what the deil ails ye now? I thought we had settled a' that?"
Let me have them so I can set things in motion before I leave town." I wondered why he kept jerking his head around to look over his shoulder as he talked, and why the turnkey jingled his keys and waited. But the time for indecision on my part was past and I reached under the blanket for the two papers.
Young John drew tears from his eyes by finishing the picture with a tombstone in the adjoining churchyard, close against the prison wall, bearing the following touching inscription: 'Sacred to the Memory Of JOHN CHIVERY, Sixty years Turnkey, and fifty years Head Turnkey, Of the neighbouring Marshalsea, Who departed this life, universally respected, on the thirty-first of December, One thousand eight hundred and eighty-six, Aged eighty-three years.
"Shentlemans to speak wi' her," replied Dougal, resuming the true dogged sullen tone of a turnkey, in exchange for the shrill clang of Highland congratulation with which he had welcomed my mysterious guide; and, turning on his heel, he left the apartment.
"You must mistake me for some other person. My name is Reuben Butler, preacher of the gospel." "I ken that weel eneugh," said the turnkey. "Well, then, if you know me, I have a right to know from you in return, what warrant you have for detaining me; that, I know, is the right of every British subject."
"See, this sheet of paper; it consists but of a few lines which, since they would not furnish me with writing- materials, I have written with my blood on this sheet of paper, which I found yesterday in the garden during the promenade. The turnkey will give this letter to-day to Tallien. He has given me his word, and I have promised him that Tallien will recompense him magnificently for it.
I'm sure it was not from me; that is if you be mine, which is a rather problematical circumstance; for I take it you are as likely to be the descent of some rascally turnkey or hatchman, and be hanged to you, as mine." "Is it true, Val," persisted the former querist, "that young Hartley pulled Phil's nose?" "We have come here for other purposes, Dick," said Val.
A wondrous sympathy for the hapless woman had taken possession of my soul; I felt as if she belonged to me, and I to her, and I believed in her, even when the turnkey had told me in coarse language that she had lived with a Roman at the old woman's, and had defrauded her of a large sum of money.
What a farce is kept up by the parade of visiting magistrates, who pass through a gaol, for instance, once a month, "like a cat over a harpsichord;" inquiring, most likely, in the presence of the gaoler or turnkey, if any of the prisoners have any complaint to make to the magistrates! Oh what a horrible farce is this.
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