Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“Richard, what will happen to me if you go?” Annemarie asked.

“I care not, madam. I did ye the honor of allowing Ceely to think ye were my wife, but I’d not have the likes of you to wife, and that is the truth. What will change for ye? Ye’re still in employment, and Ceely and I between us have seen to it that your reputation is pure.” He grinned mirthlessly. “Pure? Madam, ye’re a black-hearted whore.”

“What about me?” Willy asked, thinking of £500.

“I will be at the Cooper’s Arms. With the Excise case still coming up, we have to stick to each other.”

“Let us see ye over the hill,” Willy offered.

“No. Take madam back to her house. It is not safe.”

Thus they parted in the night, one man and the woman returning to Clifton Green Lane, the other man striding off along the Brandon Hill footpath, heedless of its dangers. Mrs. Mary Meredith stopped outside her front door, glad she had arrived, but wondering at the fearlessness of the walker, whose companions had left him. They had been talking in low voices and had seemed on excellent terms, but who they were she had no idea. Their faces were invisible on this late September evening.

Too empty to be sick, Richard stumbled home feeling the rum far more than he had in the heat of that confrontation. What a business! And what was he going to say to his father?

“But at least I can say that the fire is out,” he ended a letter to Mr. James Thistlethwaite the next day, which was the last day of September, 1784. “I do not know what came over me, Jem, save that the fellow I met inside myself I do not like-bitter, vengeful and cruel. Not only that, but I find myself in possession of the two articles I want least in the world-a steel watch and a note of hand for £500. The first I will return as soon as I can bear to set eyes upon Ceely Trevillian’s face and the second I will never present to his bank for payment. When I return the watch I will tear it up under his nose. And I curse the rum.

“Father sent a man over to Clifton for my stuff, so I have not set eyes on Annemarie, nor will I ever again. False from hair of head to hair of-I will not say it. What a fool I have been! And at six-and-thirty years of age. My father says I should have gone through an experience like Annemarie at one-and-twenty. The older the fool, the bigger the fool, is how he put it with his usual grace. Still, he is an excellent man.

“The business has made me understand much about myself I had no inkling of. What shames me is that I have betrayed my little son-thought not a scrap about him or his fate from the time I met Annemarie until today, when I woke to find her spell no longer upon me. Maybe a man has to have one fling of a sexual sort. But how have I offended God, that He should choose this time of loss and grief to try me in such a horrible way?

“Please write, Jem. I can understand that it might be very difficult to write in the aftermath of our news about William Henry, but we would all like to hear from you, and worry at your silence. Besides, I need your words of wisdom. In fact, I am in dire need of them.”

But if Mr. James Thistlethwaite intended to reply, his letter had not reached the Cooper’s Arms by the 8th of October, when two sober-looking men in drab brown suits walked into the tavern.

“Richard Morgan?” asked the one in the lead.

“Aye,” said Richard, emerging from behind the counter.

The man came close enough to him to put his right hand on Richard’s left shoulder. “Richard Morgan, I hereby arrest ye in the name of His Majesty George Rex on charges laid by Mr. John Trevillian Ceely Trevillian.”

“William Insell?” he asked then.

“Oh! Oh!” squeaked Willy, cowering in his corner.

Again the hand on the shoulder. “William Insell, I hereby arrest ye in the name of His Majesty George Rex on charges laid by Mr. John Trevillian Ceely Trevillian. Come with us, please, and do not try to make trouble. There are six more of us outside the door.”

Richard held out his hand to his father, standing thunderstruck, and opened his mouth to speak before he realized that he had no idea what to say.

The bailiff dug him sharply between the shoulder blades with the same hand he had lain upon Richard’s shoulder. “Not a word, Morgan, not a word.” He stared around the silent tavern. “If ye want Morgan and Insell, ye’ll find them in the Bristol Newgate.”

From

October of 1784

until

January of 1786

T he Briftol Newgate was two buildings down from Wafborough’s brass foundry on Narrow Wine Street. Richard and Willy Insell in their midst, the eight bailiffs made short work of the walk and entered the prison through a massively barred door not unlike a portcullis. A narrow passageway with an opening on either side was Richard’s first sight of Newgate’s interior; hardly pausing, the head bailiff hustled them through the left-hand portal with a shove from behind by his henchmen, who remained outside.

“Prisoners Morgan and Insell!” he barked. “Sign, please.”

A man lounging on a chair behind a table reached for the two pieces of paper the bailiff presented. “And where d’ye expect me to put them?” he asked, signing each paper with a large X.

“Your business, Walter, not mine,” said the bailiff smugly. “They are on a writ of habeas corpus,” he added, walking out.

Willy was weeping copiously; Richard stood dry-eyed and composed. The shock was wearing off, he was able to feel and think again, and knew himself unsurprised. What was he charged with? When would he find out? Yes, he had Ceely’s watch and note of hand, but he had told the person in the lane that Ceely would get his watch back, and he had not taken the note of hand to Ceely’s bank. Why hadn’t he thought?

Overcrowding would help him be acquitted. The practical men of Bristol’s Bench were prone these days to come to an agreement with any accused who could marshal the funds to make restitution, pay something extra by way of damages. Though he would be loaded down for the rest of his life with a debt only another war and more guns could pay off, he knew that his family would not desert him.

“A penny a day for bread,” the gaoler named Walter was saying, “until ye’re tried. If ye’re convicted, it goes up to tuppence.”

“Starvation,” said Richard spontaneously.

The gaoler came around his desk and struck Richard across the mouth so hard that his lip split. “No smart remarks, Morgan! In here ye live and die according to my rules and at my convenience.” He lifted his head and bellowed, “Shift yerselves, ye bastards!”

Two men carrying bludgeons rushed into the room.

“Chain ’em,” said Walter, rubbing his hand.

Staunching the blood with his shirt cuff, Richard walked with the blubbering Willy Insell across the passageway and into the room on the right-hand side. It looked a little like a saddler’s shop, except that the multitude of straps hanging all over its walls were made of iron links, not leather.

Leg irons were considered sufficient in the Bristol Newgate; Richard stood while the sorry-looking individual responsible for this storehouse of misery kitted him out with his fetters. The two-inch-wide band which confined his left ankle was locked, not riveted, and it was joined to the similar band on his right ankle by a two-foot length of chain. This permitted him to walk at a shuffle, but not to step out or run. When Willy panicked and tried to fight, he was beaten to the ground with bludgeons. His split lip still bleeding, Richard said and did nothing. The remark to Walter the gaoler was the last time, he vowed, that he would court abuse. It was back to his days at Colston’s-sit quietly, stand quietly, do whatever was bidden quietly, attract nobody’s attention.