The Quality of Mercy

24



“Lookin’ at it another way,” Sullivan said to the man working beside him, “I had the woman before they took me off, so me money was not lost an’ obliterated intoirely, I had some value from it. I am not the man to deny that, though the pleasure was fleetin’.”

“No regrets, that’s my motto,” the man said. “I never ’ave no regrets. There is bad things that happen, but we still got our arms and legs, ain’t we?”

“I was expectin’ her to tell them misbegotten creatures that the money belonged to the both of us, that it was joint stock, to use the language of commerce. But she kept mum, she had no scrap of a notion of sharin’. If she had spoke up, I would niver have found meself here in this workhouse.”

“Well, whores is various, one from another. They have all got the same thing between their legs, but their character is widely different. No regrets—next time you might come across a good ’un.”

Side by side at their task of plaiting strands of hemp fiber into rope, they spoke in low tones so as not to attract the attention of the overseer.

“This work is takin’ the skin off me fingers,” Sullivan said. “It will reduce the power of me music. I will have the law of them for robbin’ me of me livelihood. I am not the man to deny that there is always the prospect of a rainbow just round the corner, but what I am sayin’ is that them watchmen would niver have fetched me here if that woman had shown a drop or two of the milk of human kindness.”

His companion was a thinly clad, emaciated man with a light of fever in his eyes. “Them was not reg’lar watchmen,” he said now. “Far from it. You won’t find reg’lar watchmen goin’ round at night lookin’ for vagrants, you will find them at home by the fire.”

“I thought as much. I knew there was somethin’ about them fellers that didn’t tally. I suspected somethin’ from the start. I wasn’t born yesterday, I told them, show me your badge of office, I said, but of course there was no answer forthcomin’.”

“What it is, you see, they farms it out. The watchman what is appointed by the parish has the task of bringin’ in vagrants wherever he can find them. He gets fourpence a head. So he hires two men to do the rounds in his place, an’ for every one they brings in he gives them a penny each. He halves his fee, but he stays at home out of trouble. An’ he gets his wages in any case, a shillin’ a day.”

He paused here for a series of racking coughs, and the man on the other side of Sullivan, who had drawn near enough to hear these last words, now broke in. He was a stocky man with reddish hair and a rhetorical style of speech. “What are we doin’ here?” he said. “We are wearin’ our fingers to the bone, makin’ rope. Do we get paid for our labor? No, we don’t. What do we get to eat? Stale bread an’ thin gruel. Who makes the profit? Them that sells the rope an’ them that runs the workhouse.”

“He is right,” the other said, having recovered from his fit of coughing. “I been in bridewells before, more than once. I get brought in for diff’rent reasons—this time it was for beggin’. No regrets. But it is always the same story once you get here. They will set you to work. I been set on to makin’ candlewick for the chandlers, pickin’ feathers for the mattress makers, beatin’ old bricks to dust for the brickmakers. I can’t do heavy work no more, because of my chest—it was the brick dust done that. An’ never a penny for any of it.”

“No choice an’ no pay an’ benefitin’ only the manufacturers,” Sullivan said. “That is forced labor an’ I will denounce it to the proper authorities once I get free from here.”

“Don’t do that,” the red-haired man said. “Why not? Because you will end up in prison. On what charge? Bein’ a public nuisance. Punishment? A good whippin’ an’ a term of hard labor.”

“One hand washes the other,” the other man said. “Mootual benefit they calls it. The manufacturers give somethin’ out of their profits to them that run the workhouse.”

“I see well they have worked out a good system. I know somethin’ of the law, bein’ a traveled man, an’ I know that you cannot keep a man confined without lawful cause. How can empty pockets be a lawful cause? There is a paper you can get, with writin’ that says you have got the body in captivity, show reason or deliver it up. But how can you get hold of a paper like that when you are the body that has to be delivered up?”

“What is a vagrant?” the red-haired man demanded. “He is someone down on his luck. Who has the right to call his fellow man a vagrant? No one. Why do they do it? They do it so they can own that man an’ sell his labor.”

“It is the same when they cart you off from here,” the other said. “You are a charge on this parish where you are now. When you have done your time here, it is for them to remove you to your own parish an’ pay the cost. But a lot of us ain’t got no parish, or none that will own to us. No regrets. An’ nobody wants to spend money on us in any case. So they gives you a pass that takes you to the next parish an’ they carries you there on a cart. The constable that gets paid for the cartin’ farms it out to others what will do it for less. If he gets twopence a head for the people in the cart, the one that does the cartin’ might get a ha’penny or three farthings. An’ all you gets is a ride to the next parish, where they will be waitin’ to put you in the workhouse again. Everyone is makin’ money on you. Vagrants is very good for business.”

“When they asks you where is your place of settlement,” the man on the other side of Sullivan said, “what do you tell them? You tells them you want to return to Ireland an’ start your life anew. Why do you tell them that? Because you know that they will never send you back there, not in a hundred years. Why not? Because it costs too much. So what do they do? They takes you to the nearest county border an’ dumps you there.”

“The nearest county border is the border of Durham County, if I am not mistaken,” Sullivan said. “Holy Mother, you don’t mean to say that they will take me on a cart to Durham free of charge?”