The Fishguard Invasion by the French in 1797

by Margaret Ellen James

  CHAPTER XII.INSIDE THE GOLDEN PRISON.

  I went at Easter to pay a short visit to two maiden aunts who lived atPembroke, where they kept a little millinery—shop I had almost said, butthat would have vexed their gentle hearts—establishment. They weresisters of my mother, who came from this district, often called “LittleEngland beyond Wales,” the people who live there being in fact Flemings,not Cymri, and the language they speak, being a Saxon dialect, is worthstudying, not from its beauty, but from its quaintness and originality.Welsh is utterly unknown “down below,” as the North Pembrokeshire folkscall the southern half of the county. My mother had great difficulty inacquiring even a superficial knowledge of Welsh, and she was alwaysregarded as a stranger in Fishguard, though she lived there nigh uponfifty years. It was probably my early acquaintance with English (of asort) that made my father decide to bring me up for the ministry.

  However, to resume my story—which was strangely mixed up with that of theFrench prisoners—one of my chief pastimes during my visit to the worthyspinsters consisted in hanging about the entrance to the Golden Prison.The foreigners were allowed to employ their clever fingers in themanufacture of knick-knacks, made of straw, bones, beads, and othertrifles, which they sold in order to provide themselves with anythingthey might require beyond the bare necessaries of life. My good aunts,Rebecca and Jane Johnson, permitted these articles to be exhibited on alittle table in their show-room, where ladies while idling away theirtime in choosing and trying on finery, might perchance take a fancy tosome little object, and bestow some of their spare cash in helping thepoor prisoners. What made my aunts first think of doing this kindly actwas the representations of their assistant, a pretty young girl namedEleanor Martin, a daughter of the gaoler of the Golden Prison, who hadhad such a sudden accession to his numbers and his responsibilities.

  One day Nellie had occasion to go to the prison with the money producedby these trifles, and she asked me if I would like to accompany her andsee the Frenchmen at work. My answer may be readily imagined. So we setforth, and the first person whom we saw when we reached the limbo ofincarcerated bodies, if not of despairing souls, was not by any means arepulsive object, being a remarkably pretty young woman, as like Nellieas two peas are like each other.

  “Is’t thee, Fan?” asked Nellie. “Where be feyther?” Then, rememberingher manners, she added, “My sister Frances, Master Dan’l.”

  Frances and I were speedily friends, in fact, the young woman saw toomany strangers to be troubled by shyness.

  “Feyther’s main busy, and mustn’t be spoke to,” she observed, with rathera knowing look at her sister. “But the turnkey’ll let us in. It’s amort easier to get in nor to get out of this old coop, Mas’r Dan’l.”

  I quite assented to this proposition, but remarked that I hoped theturnkey would not make any mistake about us.

  “No fear,” said Frances, “I was born here and knows the ways on it.”

  “What’s that straw for, Frances?” I asked, for I loved to acquireinformation.

  “For the Frenchers to make hats of. I brings them this much most days,”she answered, looking down on her big bundle.

  I must really have been growing up lately, for (for the first time in mylife) an instinct of gallantry seized me, and I offered to carry it forher. She declined in rather a hurried manner.

  “I’d liefer car’ it myself, thanking you the same. It’s no heft at all,and maybe ye’d shed it about.”

  “Not I,” said I, indignantly, my gallantry gone. “Do you think I’venever carried a truss of straw before? That’s just like a girl. Butwhat’s that in the middle of the bundle?” I continued, eyeing itcuriously. “Why, it’s a bone, I believe!”

  Frances threw the corner of her apron over the bundle in a very pettishmanner, and to my great surprise grew as red as a poppy. What was thereto blush about in a bone? Nell struck in hurriedly—

  “Yes, of course it’s a bone, Dan. And what could they make their buttonsand ivory boxes out of but bone?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” I said, not liking to suggest “ivory” for fear,as tempers were ruffled, they might leave me outside.

  “Then don’t go for to ax silly questions,” retorted Nell. “Can us go in,Roche?”

  “Ay, my honies,” returned Roche, the turnkey, whom we had now reached.“Leastwise you and Fan can, in the coorse of natur; but who be this youngcrut?” {209}

  “Oh, missus’ nevvy he be, as wants to see the Frenchers at work. ’Tisonly a young boy, but we’d just as lief let him stay if you’d liefer notlet him in.”

  I did not feel grateful to my young friend for this suggestion, which,however, was probably dictated by the wiliness of woman.

  “Oh, take him in there, and leave him if you’ve a mind, my beauty. Ireckon one more won’t make no odds in there.”

  This he seemed to consider a first-class joke, for he guffawed till wewere out of hearing.

  After passing through a guard-room, in which there were several soldierssmoking and lounging about, who offered no opposition to our passing, Fanand Nell being of course well known in the prison, we found ourselves ina large and very dreary hall, paved with flag-stones and almost devoid offurniture. The inmates, however, seemed pretty cheery on the whole;there were apparently about a couple of hundred of them, of whom somewere working, some singing, some playing cards or dominoes—_all_ talking.Yes, even the singing ones talked between the verses. The springsunshine came through the iron-barred, skied-up windows, and, in spite ofother discouraging circumstances, these children of the South were (whatwe never are) gay as larks.

  They clustered around my companions with every mark of respect andadmiration. I naturally didn’t understand their jabber, but one remarkwhich was, I rather think, meant for English, caught my ear. “Zayare—some angels out of—ciel!”

  “They say you’re angels out of the ceiling. What on earth do they mean?”I inquired.

  “We knows what they mean well enough, don’t you trouble, my honey,”answered Nell, who was more friendly to me than her sister was.

  I don’t think Fan had got over her annoyance about the bone; she stillcarried the bundle of straw with her apron thrown over it.

  We now went to the part of the room where the men were busy with theirmanufactures, and here I had really cause for astonishment. With notools except some wretched little penknives, these skilful-fingeredfellows were turning out most lovely work in bone, wood, and slate. Someof them executed beautiful mosaic work by letting-in pieces of variouscoloured stones on a bed of slate; they afterwards ground and polishedthe whole till it resembled the far-famed Florentine mosaic. I perceiveda grindstone in the corner of the room, which the leniency of theauthorities permitted them to have and to use.

  Others of the prisoners were deftly plaiting the straw in many fancifuldevices, these plaits again being rapidly transformed into hats for men,women, and even dolls. A great many toys were to be seen in variousstages of their formation, wooden whistles, ships, dolls, windmills, andmany other objects of delight to childhood.

  I scanned eagerly the faces of all I saw to discover the countenances ofany of my more particular assailants; but I did not succeed inrecognising one of them. There was such a remarkable similarity amongthem, each man was as like his neighbour as could be; all haggard, allunwashed, all unshaven. They excited pity, even in a boy’s unsentimentalheart; and withal, now that they were not drunk with greed and brandy,they were so lively and merry. I was quite sorry I could not understandtheir jokes.

  Fan did not make over her straw to any of these men, as I fully expectedthat she would; nor did they seem to expect it. I heard a great deal oftalk about Monsieur le Commissaire, and there was a good deal of pointingof fingers and something about “chambre voisine.”

  As Fanny sheered off I followed.

  “Can’t I come into the voisin chamber?” I asked, not knowing the meaningof the word, “and see Mounseer the Commissary?”


  Fan looked at me in a startled way, but Nell interposed hastily—

  “Let him come, he’s main quick and might help; he’s not a cursed boy.”

  I must explain that in this dialect cursed means malicious orill-natured; it has the meaning, in fact, which Shakespeare followed whenhe spoke of “Kate the curst” in his “Taming of the Shrew.”

  Frances looked doubtful, but went on, Nellie and I following. As weentered the little adjoining room a young man jumped up, and, running toNellie, took her hand and kissed it with much fervour.

  “Hallo!” I cried, “what d’you let that common fellow kiss your hand for?”

  “He isn’t a common fellow—he’s an engineer!” cried Nell, angrily, “andyou’re nothing but a dull young boy not to know a gentleman when you seesone!

  “Beg pardon, mounseer,” said I, for Frenchy was bowing to me, and Iwished to show we Welsh knew manners. But though he might be agentleman, I still hold to it, he was grimy.

  “I’ve brought you the money for the things sold in missus’ shop,”continued Nell; then turning to me, “This gentleman, as is an engineer,is main clever, and manages all the accounts.”

  The engineer seemed to me to have been clever enough to have managed morethan accounts; however for once discretion prevailed and I held mytongue. Then Nellie and this mounseer fell to their accounts, and seemedto have a great deal to say to each other in a mixture of French andEnglish, which, not understanding very well, I found stupid, and turnedto look for Fanny and her friend, another grimy individual, who proved tobe the commissary himself.

  They also seemed much taken up with each other, and were conversing inthe same lingo. I noticed that Fan had made over her bundle of straw tothis man, and she seemed very busy talking over some arrangements. Iapproached, being willing to know what it was all about.

  “Who ze plague is zis garçon?” asked the commissary.

  “Oh, a young boy from down town—veal, savez-vous? Nong mauvais—a smartyoung chap obligant. Can portey kelke chose, vous savez.”

  “Bon!” said the Frenchman, letting the word fly out like a shot, “we afsome drifles to make car out of zis.”

  I perceived at once that he had acquired his knowledge of English fromFrances, as “car” for “carry” is pure Pembrokeshire.

  “I shall be very glad to be of use,” I remarked. “What sort of things,Frances—gimcracks, I suppose?”

  “Vat says he, là?” inquired the commissary.

  “Yes, gimcracks of a sort—rather heavy, though, we find them,” said Fan,not stopping to translate. “If you’ll lend a hand, we’d get alongbetter.”

  “All right,” said I.

  “Zey is kep’ in ze bockat,” remarked Mounseer, luckily indicating somepails in the corner by a gesture of his hand.

  “Adoo, Pierre, I think we’d better alley,” remarked Fan. This, I mustsay, was the sort of French I liked.

  “To nex’ time, my cabbage!” said Pierre.

  Then while they were busy over the buckets I turned suddenly and beheldthe engineer bestowing on Nellie an unmistakable kiss.

  “Hallo!” I said.

  “It’s only their foreign ways; like as if we was to shake hands,” criedNellie, running forward and looking very rosy. “Come, catch a hoult onthese pails, Dan’l; they’re main weighty for we maids.”

  I did catch hold of a couple of pails, one in each hand, and found thatthe last part of Nell’s remark was true.

  “Just feel the heft of un!” remarked Fanny.

  I did feel it a good deal before I had done with it. Nellie also carrieda pail, and Frances a large bundle, done up in some old sacking.

  “What’s all that?” I inquired, as we made our way out of the prison.

  “Dirty clothes,” said Frances, sharply. “They must have some cleanlinen, I suppose, though they are Frenchmen!”

  It seemed to me that they managed to exist without it, but as the pointwas not material, and Frances appeared touchy, I held my tongue.

  “This young boy has giv’ a hand with the sweepings, Roche,” said Frances,as we passed that functionary.

  “Ay? Well, you and Nell be pretty well weighted too, surely,” drawledRoche.

  “Oh, gimcracks, and clothes for the wash-’us (house),” answered the girllightly, and in another moment we were in freedom—in the open air.

  “Oh, poor chaps; how good it is!” said Nellie, drawing a long breath.

  We went round to a piece of untidy waste land behind the prison.

  “I’ll be bound your arms aches,” said Frances. “Drop the buckats, Dan’l,and thank ye.”

  “Here!” said I, “drop your gimcracks on this dirty place—what for?”

  “Oh, never mind what for; don’t argufy, my boy, them’s prison sweepings;the gimcracks is in Nellie’s pail.”

  “Oh, I thought these were mighty heavy gimcracks. Well, let me carryNell’s pail to the shop.”

  “No, no!” cried Nell, stepping back, “I’d liefer car my own, don’t youtrouble.”

  “Then I’ll take your dirty linen,” said I, making a sudden grab atFrances’ bundle.

  To my great surprise some bits of stone and a cloud of mortar flew out.

  “Hallo!” I said.

  “Look here, Dan’l,” said Fan, firmly, “we are greatly beholden for yourhelp, but we don’t want no more at present. You go on with Dan’l, Nell,and leave me here to empt the buckats.”

  Nell put down her pail, took my arm, and marched me off. I was inclinedto be offended, but she soothed me down as any woman can when shechooses. She assured me that both the engineer (whom she calledJack—probably Jacques was his name) and the commissary had taken a greatfancy to me, and would undertake to teach me French if I would only gooften enough.

  I had not the least objection to going, as I found prison experiencesamusing, but I could not quite understand the bucket-carrying part of it.

  However, neither flattery nor a curiosity stimulus were unpleasing to me,so I went frequently.

  CHAPTER XIII.AWAY! AWAY!

  A couple of weeks passed away thus, when one morning we were awakenedearly by a clamour in the street. All Pembroke was in an uproar. Allthat I could distinguish of the cries was one exclamation, “The French!”

  Had they broken out, and were they going to sack the place? The panicreminded me of our feelings at Fishguard in the spring, but seemed morestrange to me now, for in the interim I had become comparatively intimatewith the foreigners, and had lost my fear of them. I jumped out of bed,dragged on a garment or two, and flung open my little lattice window.

  “Where are the French?” I yelled.

  “Away, away!” came the answer. “Clean gone.”

  The idea occurred to me that if they had gone away clean they must havebeen in a very different state to their usual condition; however, myreflections were disturbed by the sudden appearance of my Aunt Jane; sheburst in head foremost.

  “Where’s Eleanor?” she gasped.

  “Where are the French?” I answered lightly, “Away, away!”

  “Are ye cursëd, boy, or only dull?” {223} queried my angry relative.“What d’ye mean?”

  “Nothing,” I answered; “only I know no more about Nell than I do aboutthe French. Isn’t she in the shop?”

  “In the shop! My patience—she isn’t in the house, nor hasn’t been forhours. Her bed is cold; I doubt she never got into un, onlytopsy-turvied un a bit.”

  “Nellie really gone!” I was beginning to grasp the situation. “Oh, AuntJane; she must have gone with Jack.”

  “Who’s Jack, name o’ fortune? I heard tell of a Billy and a Tommy, butnorra Jack.”

  “Oh, this wasn’t a Pembroke Jack, but Mounseer Jacques Roux, Esq., anengineer.”

  “A Mounseer!” Words failed my venerable relative; she sat down and wentoff into hysterics, which brought Aunt Rebecca to the rescue, and in theconfusion I sidled down the stairs and escaped.

  I made my way through the c
rowd to the Golden Prison, and here a lightdawned, and many things became clear to me. A crowd of people werestanding at what appeared to me to be a hole in the ground, about sixtyyards from the wall of the prison. I edged myself through the lookers-ontill I had reached the hole; it was one end of a subterranean passage,the other end of which doubtless emerged—but a sick qualm came over me,and to make matters worse at this moment I espied—and was seen by—Rochethe turnkey. He was looking very small, but assumed an air of blusterwhen he perceived me.

  “Arrest that young chap there,” he ordered his assistants. “He was ahelping o’ they sneaking scoundrels; I see un.”

  In another moment the two men had me in tow, and being also propelled bythe crowd in a few minutes, I found myself inside the Golden Prison. Idid not find the place at all entertaining this time. However, therewere some magistrates there, and one of them, a Dr. Mansell, ordered themen to loose their hold while he questioned me.

  I told all I knew, and at the end was relieved, but mortified to hear himsay, “There is no occasion to detain him, the boy evidently knew nothingabout it. He was a young ass, but he is not the first of us who has beenbefooled by a woman.”

  At this there was a general guffaw in which I tried to join, but I feltas small as Roche the turnkey. It appeared that all those pails andbundles had been full of earth, stones, and mortar, which the men hadscraped out in making the tunnel. I went into the little inner room, andthere in the floor, just behind where Pierre Lebrun used to sit,surrounded with bundles of straw, blocks of wood, etc., was the other endof the subterranean passage. They had absolutely scratched through thethick wall of the prison, and then grubbed like moles through sixty yardsof earth, with no other implement than the bones of horses’ legs.

  I did not care for the remarks of the bystanders, and I got out of thatgaol as quickly as I could, but not before Dr. Mansell had asked meanother question or two.

  “I hear Frances Martin has absconded,” he said. “Can you tell meanything about Eleanor? She lives with your aunts, I think.”

  “She is not to be found, sir,” I answered. “She is off with Jack, nodoubt.”

  “Jack?”

  “Mounseer Jacques Roux, the engineer.”

  “Ah, the fellow who managed the tunnelling. Why do you pitch upon him?”

  “I didn’t—she did, because he used to kiss her.”

  “Kiss! By George, didn’t that rouse your suspicions?” cried the doctor.

  “No, sir, they said it was the French way of shaking hands.”

  “Go along, softy!” cried the crowd, and I went. But as I went I heardthe stentorian voice of Dr. Mansell proclaim—

  “Five hundred guineas reward for the recovery of those two young women,dead or alive!”

  In a few hours handbills to this effect were posted all over the place,and, as soon as practicable, in every town in the kingdom; by which thenames of Frances Martin and Eleanor Martin must have become well known.Whenever I saw one of these placards it seemed to me as if I had hadsomething to do with a great crime, and that part of the five hundredguineas would perhaps be given for my body some day—dead or alive.

  I walked down to the shore to a little port on the outside of the town,the very place to which I had been on the previous Sunday with Nell. Iremembered, with another qualm, the interest which she had taken in theshipping, and how she had even begged me to ask some questions of thesailors, who, as usual, lounged about where they could smell tar. Shesaid it was awkward for a girl to talk to these rough fellows, but thatit was a pleasant variety for a young man. So, of course, I asked allthe questions she desired about incoming sloops. I, thinking thesequestions referred to some sailor sweetheart, took no account of thematter at all. As we looked and talked we perceived a sloop in theoffing coming in. The men said she would be in shortly, and that she wasbringing culm for the use of Lord Cawdor’s household.

  Nellie seemed very pleased and happy as she watched the sloop comingrapidly nearer, a brisk breeze from the south filling her sails andurging her onwards. The only boat actually in the harbour was LordCawdor’s yacht.

  His lordship’s yacht was now nowhere to be seen; the sloop was stillthere, for owing to the breeze and the sailors’ hurry to get ashore onSunday, they had run her aground, and there she was hard and fast, butnot in the same state as on Sunday. A hundred Frenchmen had made theirescape, creeping through their tunnel and jumping out at the other endlike so many jack-in-the-boxes. Some of the fugitives made at once forthe yacht, some for the sloop, which, to their great disappointment, theyfound aground. They boarded it, lashed the sailors’ hands and feet(these men now recounted the story, each man to a listening crowd, whichwe must hope was a slight solace for their sufferings)—they took compass,water casks, and every scrap of food and clothing they could find; thenconveyed them aboard the yacht which they launched, and off they were.The tied-up sailors had seen nothing of any women, but between darknessand surprise it was a wonder they had noted as much as they had.

  This was all that we could gather at the time; it was only enough to makeus very uncomfortable about the fate of the two rash girls. My positionwas not made more comfortable by the constant reproaches of my two oldaunts, who seemed to think me in some way responsible for Nell’sescapade. Altogether I was not sorry that it was decided to send me backat once to St. David’s; school was better than scorn. But the very nightbefore I left Pembroke, my uncomfortable feelings were doomed to bedeepened. The stern of the yacht was washed ashore with other timbers,on one of which his lordship’s name was inscribed. There could be littledoubt of the fate of those on board. The weather had been rough andfoggy, and these French soldiers were probably little skilled innavigation. So I departed to St. David’s with a heavy heart.

  Some weeks passed in the usual course of classics and mathematics rammedin by main force, when one day there came a letter to me in Aunt Jane’shandwriting. I was surprised, for my aunts were not given tocomposition; but on opening the envelope I found Aunt Jane hadwritten—nothing. She had merely enclosed, oh, greater surprise, aforeign letter. I had never had, and never expected to have, a foreigncorrespondent. What language would he write in—a quick hope flashedthrough me that it might not be Latin, any other I would give up quietly.

  I opened the letter and perceived it was in English. It ran as follows:—

  “DEAR MASTR DANL,—I hope as this finds you well as it leaves me at present. You was main good to we, so I pens this line to say as I am no longer Eleanor Martin but Madam Roux. [Oh joy! I didn’t care what her name was as long as she wasn’t drowned.] Yes, me and Jack have married, only he likes it writ Jacques which is a mort of trouble. Howsomever we gets along lovely so likewise do Frances and her young man Peter which were a commisser and she is now Madam Lebrun. We did a main lot for they lads—which they was grateful. Praps you’d like to hear that after we got safe away in his ludship’s yat, after you’d kindly helpd we to burrow out o jail, we come in for three days fog. Short commons there was till we overtook a brig, gave out as we was shiprackt and was took aboord, Fan and me dressed as lads. That night we was too many for the crew of the brig, as nocked under and us made them steer for France, so here we be. The brig had corn aboord, so we wasnt clemmed. We let the yat go. Hoping to see you soon, I remains,

  “Your humbel servant to command, “NELLIE.”

  Her ending wish was granted some years after, when peace was settledbetween England and France. Nellie and her husband, the engineer, cameback to Wales and settled for a time in Merthyr, where they opened alarge inn, he following his profession in the mines, both he and his wiferoasting me unmercifully when I went to stay with them (a full-fledgedcurate), on the assistance I had once rendered to the French prisoners ina mining operation; but I hope all will understand that this assistancewas unintentional on my part
, and that I greatly condemn the unpatrioticconduct of the sisters.

  * * * * *

  The Gresham Press.

  UNWIN BROTHERS, CHILWORTH AND LONDON.

  NOTES.

  {14} Laws, “Little England beyond Wales.”

  {18} These letters are given in the narrative.

  {26} “Biographie de Lazare Hoche,” par Emile de Bonnechose. Hachette,Paris.

  {36} Laws, “Little England beyond Wales.” Mason, Tenby.

  {51} Cawl—leek broth.

  {52} Cwrw da—good ale.

  {80} “Taws pia hi,” a Welsh proverb.

  {115} Dear Davy.

  {129} A fact.

  {154} Now in the possession of Mr. Brett, the well-knownartist.—EDITOR’S NOTE.

  {209} _Crut_, probably a contraction of _creature_.

  {223} _Dull_, stupid.