by John Marsden
The men lost interest in me. They started talking of arson. ‘It’s a funny thing,’ the most talkative one said, ‘how when you don’t want a fire it’s no trouble at all to start one, and when you do want one, you can be at it an hour before it’ll light.’
‘Aye, you should have brought flints for all of us,’ the tall man said, by which I deduced they were guilty of the crime with which they had been charged.
After a little longer, when they had tired of talking, one of them crouched beside me and said in a more serious tone: ‘Do you have anyone who can speak to your character? It can make a big difference in a case at law.’
‘Only my employer, sir, and he’s now my accuser.’
‘There’s no one else?’
‘No, sir.’ The man shook his head and whistled through his teeth, then turned back to his companions. He had failed to bring me any comfort.
After some time they were taken up to have their case heard and I did not see them again. Despite my predicament I was now feeling weak with hunger, having been there many hours. It was not until darkness began to settle over the city that a gaoler handed a small bucket through the bars, which upon investigation I found contained a type of soup, or gruel. There were a few slivers of meat in it, which I particularly savoured, and some onions, and some potatoes roughly cut and not fully cooked.
It has been my life’s experience to take quite a number of meals in prison, and I would say now, looking back, that this first one was by no means the worst; indeed, I had on occasions suffered worse meals when free and living in the streets of London.
As the night went on, more men were admitted to my cell. All seemed to be drunk, several snored prodigiously, and two vomited all over themselves and their neighbours. The stench became so fetid that I began to feel nauseous myself and so stood as close as I could get to the window grille, giving up any thought of sleep in favour of as much fresh air as I could breathe.
I welcomed the first smudges of grey light in the sky, as the prelude to another day. How wretched must a man be if the coming of dawn fails to ignite hope in his heart? No matter the awfulness of the circumstances in which we find ourselves, the morning light is Nature’s reminder that a new day brings promise. I wondered whether a condemned man in his cell, hearing the stirrings of the first spectators arriving to witness his execution, and waiting for the awful tread of the chaplain proceeding down the corridor, still welcomed dawn’s light. It would be understandable that he might not.
Despite the lack of space in the cell, I sat down against the wall, my knees drawn up, and dozed a little before some bread and water were brought us for breakfast.
It was somewhat puzzling to me that there had been no further progress apparent in my case. When the Runners left the court with Mrs Ogwell the day previously I had been under the impression that I would be summoned back within an hour or so, when they returned with the objects they had been commanded to fetch. That had not happened, and I still waited in vain for someone to come for me. The day’s hearings had evidently commenced in the courtroom above, because as the morning wore on gaolers took various of the malfeasors who had been admitted during the night. The traffic backwards and forwards was considerable, but I sat languishing against the wall most of the time, getting up restlessly at intervals to prowl around the small space. It seemed inconceivable that anyone could exist in such a place for more than a day without going mad. Yet soon enough I estimated that a full day had elapsed since my imprisonment, and still the hours continued to pass. The hope that had risen in me at the dawn bid fair to be extinguished again as the day dragged towards its weary close.
Hunger gnawed at my vitals for most of the morning and all through the afternoon. I was no stranger to hunger, but there was so little else to think about, sitting there in the gloom, that it was difficult to concentrate on any other topic.
Late in the afternoon I was alone again in the cell, which I preferred. Across the corridor this time were a couple of boys not much older than I, who ignored me most of the time, except for an occasional jeering comment flung in my direction. Then I heard the now-familiar heavy tread of the gaoler coming down the corridor, and the rattling of his keys. I hoped he was coming for me, because, after just a day and a half, I had reached the stage where I thought I would prefer to be the recipient of bad news than be left languishing any longer. Indeed he had come for me. He flung open the door as though in a bad temper. ‘Get yourself up there,’ he said.
I scurried past him and made my way along the same route as the day before. Within moments I was back in the dock, with this difference, that the magistrate was already sitting there, in position. It was the man they called Sir Henry Matthews, the one who had led my arrest. I was relieved to see that the fat one was not there and Sir Henry was on his own.
Sir Henry was writing and did not look up. Minutes passed. I dared not sit down. I glanced around the room and saw only a few people, but no one I recognised. At last Sir Henry placed his quill in its well and leaned back in his chair. He glared at me. ‘Has anyone made the boy aware of the developments in his case?’ he asked the courtroom.
As hardly anyone was present, I was not sure to whom his question was addressed. But the grey-headed man spoke up. ‘Not so far as I know, sir,’ he said, rising and bowing to the bench.
‘Well then,’ Sir Henry said, turning his piercing gaze back to me. ‘There have been developments, there have indeed.’
I gulped. I did not know whether this presaged good or ill for me. Sir Henry leaned forward. ‘When the officials of the court went with the mother of the child to their premises to secure the bedding and night attire, as per my instructions yesterday, to which I believe you were privy . . .’
He stared at me and I realised I was expected to respond, so I said: ‘Yes sir, I do recall.’
‘. . . they found that all the articles they sought had disappeared.’
I reeled, and had to clutch the railing of the dock for support. What mystery was this? Was I now suspected of stealing the bedclothes of the little girl? I stared at the magistrate. I could read nothing in his face.
‘This morning the father of the unfortunate child was seen throwing certain items into the river. They have now been retrieved and have been identified as the missing bedding and nightclothes. As the father, who has proved elusive throughout the day but has just been discovered, seems unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for his activities, he has been taken into custody and will be appearing before me within the hour.’
I gaped at him. I must have looked like an idiot. He said to me in the most threatening tone: ‘Do you have any further light to shed on this affair?’
‘No, sir,’ I said. ‘I still don’t understand a single thing about it.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I thought not. I am dismissing the charges against you. You are free to go.’
Chapter 12
Thus ended my first encounter with the law, and greatly did I respect Sir Henry Matthews in consequence. However, I was now in a parlous state, not only without a position, considering the arrest of Mr Ogwell, but also soon to find that every man’s hand was turned against me, and every woman and child’s too. For I found that my acquittal mattered naught to the folk in Hell. In that den of iniquity, where the angels could search in vain for one soul that was not foully corrupted, I, who had been declared innocent by the law of the land, was found guilty of some unspecified crime by a jury whose numbers vastly exceeded twelve and whose reputation for vice was rich indeed. When I walked down the street, people turned their faces away in evident contempt, and those who turned towards me did so only to spit.
I was bewildered and frightened by this change to my life, which was as unexpected as the arrest and hearing had been. I did not know which way to turn, or whom to trust. Within a couple of days I was spending most of my time skulking in St Martin’s, experiencing a new kind of solitude.
As abruptly as I had become notorious, however, things changed again, suddenly and quite soon. One morning Quentin came to me in a state of high excitement, waving a broadside of the type that frequently infested the streets. Quentin could barely read, but I had been teaching him his letters and he was making good progress. ‘Barnaby,’ he cried, ‘here’s a name you know.’
I took the sheet from him. It was one of the penny publications printed in haste when a public execution was to take place. I read it with a growing sense of horror and dread. It had been about six weeks since the arrest of Mr Ogwell, and the broadside proclaimed in detail the events attendant upon his capture.
On Saturday afternoon, the Recorder made his report to the King in Council, concerning the unhappy man who was capitally convicted at the last Old Bailey sessions. Isaiah Mayhew Ogwell has been ordered for execution on Friday next at Newgate.
The prisoner pleaded not guilty to three indictments, of rape upon his own daughter, a four-year-old infant, of attempted murder of a lad employed by him in East Smithfield, and of wilfully destroying evidence.
The horrible crime of Rape was discovered by the unfortunate mother of the victim whose attention was attracted by the crying of the child one morning and who, upon going to her aid, found her much distressed and with injuries upon the nether regions which could only have been inflicted in an attack by one with the most evil intentions. The case was prosecuted by Serjeant Stevens who told the jury that upon hearing the evidence they would have no doubt of the guilt of the accused, who had compounded his crime by attempting at first to lay the blame for the offence at the door of an innocent lad employed by the defendant, a boy who had previously shown goodwill towards the child by making keepsakes for her in the form of dolls. What bitter thanks for he who had acted only from the purest of intentions! For the prisoner, having led the magistrate, no less a personage than Sir Henry Matthews, accompanied by the Bow-Street Runners, to the lad, thereupon launched a savage attack upon him, which was undoubtedly intended to put an end to his life and to prevent him establishing his innocence. The name of the unfortunate boy would have been forever tarred with guilt, for a crime committed by his would-be murderer!
Ogwell’s attack was thwarted thanks to the swift action of Sir Henry and the Runners, but the boy was immediately arrested and taken before Sir Henry, assisted by that renowned jurist Sir Bennett Cousins. Sir Henry, having the gravest doubts as to the boy’s culpability, and doubting that one of such a tender age could be capable of the injuries complained of, acted in his usual decisive fashion and ordered the seizure of bedclothes and nightwear belonging to the victim, to be examined for evidence of the age of the perpetrator. Bow Street officers proceeded to the prisoner’s house in company with the prisoner’s wife and found the property inexplicably missing. A neighbour to the prisoner was interviewed, however, who had observed the prisoner fleeing with the desired articles just before the Runners arrived. This occasioned much astonishment, as it was the first time suspicion had fallen on the father of the victim. The prisoner was subsequently pursued by the Bow-Street Runners but not found, evidently having become aware of the search for him, and finding refuge in a place unknown.
In the morning, the prisoner was observed throwing bedclothes and a child’s nightwear into the River Thames, which were then retrieved by a couple of boatmen, in no fit state to be examined, as all possible evidence had been destroyed by the actions of the river. The defendant being apprehended by the Runners later that day hiding in the basement of his shop was taken up by the Runners, conveyed to the magistrates’ court, and there arraigned for trial by Sir Henry Matthews.
Serjeant Stevens produced witness MRS ELIZABETH ADAMS, who swore that she had seen the prisoner hurrying from the premises with an armful of bedclothes shortly before the arrival of the court officials and that he had knocked her aside in his rush. Witnesses MR THOMAS PURCELL and MR ADAM MCADAMS testified that they had seen the defendant engaged in throwing the articles into the water, and they subsequently identified the defendant in court. The prisoner upon being invited to question the witnesses asked only one question, to Mrs Adams, to wit, ‘How do you know it was me and not someone else you saw with the bedclothes?’ to which she replied, ‘Why I’ve been your neighbour for eight years. I should think I’d know you well enough by now.’
The Old Bailey jury, having heard the evidence last Thursday morning, took just twenty minutes to return a finding of guilty. The prisoner appeared stricken and in a state of collapse following the announcement of the verdict. When asked whether he had anything to say, he remained mute. The judge, Mr Baron Farrow, then addressed the prisoner, saying that he was a most wicked and unhappy man who had committed a crime which would cause the utmost feelings of revulsion in all honest men, and he must look now to He who alone has the power of forgiveness if he is to have any hope of eternal life. His Honour advised the wretched man that he must henceforward think of himself as one no longer of this earth, but must do all that was within his power in his short time remaining to cleanse his soul and prepare to meet his Maker. Mr Baron Farrow then pronounced sentence of death, ordering that the prisoner be taken to the place of execution next Friday and there hanged by the neck until he was dead, and his body afterwards to be dissected and anatomised pursuant to the statute.
Upon the sentence being pronounced, an awful silence pervaded the court, which was crowded with spectators. The wife of the prisoner was not in the court but is believed to have removed herself to the home of her father and mother, which is in Dover, where she is attending assiduously to the child who was the subject of the outrage.
A large concourse of people attended the Condemned Sermon last Sunday given by the Revd Mr Ambleside who preached from Ezekiel xviii 24: ‘But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.’
The condemned man has been an apothecary in the city of London with his own premises these fourteen years past, and up until these events has borne a good character, which however, as according to the words of the prophet Ezekiel so tellingly pronounced by the Revd Mr Ambleside, doth avail him not in the light of the terrible attack made upon his own child. He is now to be submitted to the awful mercy of his Creator, and let his fate be a warning to those who deviate from the paths of righteousness. O sinner, every day you are spared is but one day of respite to you. There is one whose all-seeing gaze is witness to our every act, and His retribution is swift but certain! BE SURE YOUR SIN WILL FIND YOU OUT.
I had seen these broadsides with their dying statements many a time and must admit had perused them avidly, sometimes even reading them aloud to Quentin, but now I flung this one from me with disgust and vowed never to look at such a thing again. Yet wherever I went that morning I saw crowds of people reading copies of it and talking over the contents, and suddenly I found that I was redeemed, that however I had been reviled before, so was I lauded now, and everywhere I went people were anxious to tell me how ill-used I had been and how they had never for a moment doubted my innocence. Thus I learned the power of the printed word, and learned too, if I had not known it before, the fickleness of humanity.
Chapter 13
The thoug
ht of Mr Ogwell being hung from the neck until death haunted me. I could hardly credit that a man so strictly insistent upon the highest standards of behaviour, and apparently living a moral and Christian life, could end his days dangling ignominiously from the gibbet while the usual crowd of ruffians and drunks hurled rubbish and insults at him.
Though I had, as I said, read Dying Declarations, as the broadsides were called, many a time, yet I could not reconcile the kind of villains described in them with what I knew of Mr Ogwell. He was, to the best of my knowledge, not a Sabbath breaker nor a bad liver. In fact, far from being a Sabbath breaker, he attended church two or three times on a Sunday. In the dark reaches of London that we inhabited, he stood out for his righteousness.
I had never myself been to a public execution, shrinking from exposing myself to such brutality. Something within me retained some sensitivity of feeling I suppose, despite the degraded circumstances in which I lived. I thrilled to sports like cockfighting but the thought of watching men, and women too, being marched up to the drop and having the noose put around their necks before being consigned into Eternity sent a coldness coursing through my body which perhaps in some way mirrored the last moments of these poor benighted souls. And so, as the tide of humanity coursed through the streets towards Newgate on the days of executions, I had invariably beaten against it. It was more than enough for me to hear the roar of the crowd as the deed was done – which, on occasions, amounted to as many as six or seven separate roars when a number of executions were undertaken on the same morning.
Though I had been exposed to much that was sordid and untimely in my short life, I had, thanks to my youth, only a limited ability to conceive of the nature of the act perpetrated upon the little girl Josephine Ogwell. I did not allow myself to dwell upon it; I only knew that it was an act which must challenge even the Divine to exercise His mercy. Similarly, I did not allow myself to dwell upon the way in which Mr Ogwell had attempted to implicate me in the dreadful deed. It bewildered me that Josephine had apparently named me as her attacker; I could only surmise that in her state of terror she could not bring herself to point an accusatory finger at her father, who indeed had a powerful and dominating manner, even to his customers, and certainly to me, his employee. To his wife and daughter then, how much more powerful and dominating must he have seemed?
