er, Clink, or Dark Dungeon, where the Poor were confined in
wantonness, and the Stubborn were kept sometimes for punishment; for
Madam Gaoleress had a will of her own, and would brook no incivilities
from her Lodgers; so sure is it, that falling out one day on the
disputed Question of a bottle of Aquavitae on which toll had not been
paid, she calls one of the Turnkeys and bids him clap Mother Drum into
the Stocks (that stood in the Prison Yard) for an hour or two, for the
cooling of her temper. But this had just the contrary effect; for the
whilom Hostess of the Stag o' Tyne, enraged at the Indignity offered to
her, did so bemaul and bewray Madam Macphilader with her tongue, shaking
her fist at her meanwhile, that the Gaoleress in a fury clawed at least
two handfuls of M. Drum's hair from her head, not without getting some
smart clapperclawing in the face; whereupon she cries out "Murther" and
"Mutiny" and "Prisonrupt," and sends post-haste for Justice Palmworm,
her gossip indeed, and one of those trading magistrates that so
disgraced our bench before Mr. Henry Fielding the writer stirred up
Authority to put some order therein. The Justice comes; and he and the
Gaoleress, after cracking a bottle of mulled port between them, poor
Mother Drum was brought up before his Worship for mutinous conduct. The
Justice would willingly have compounded the case, for Lucre was his only
love; but 'twas vengeance the Gaoleress hankered after; and the end of
it was that poor Mother Drum was triced up at the post that was by the
Stocks, and had a dozen and a half from a cat with indeed but three
tails, but that, I warrant, hurt pretty nigh as sharply as nine would
have done in weaker hands; for 'twas the Gaoleress that played the
Beadle and laid on the Scourge.

At length, when I was quite tired out, and, knowing nothing of the
course of Law, began to think that we were doomed to perpetual
Imprisonment, His Majesty's Judges of Assize came upon their circuit,
and those whom the Fever and Want and the Duresse of their Keeper had
spared were put upon their trial. By this time I was thought well
enough, though as gaunt as a Hound, to be put in the same Gaol-bird's
trim as my companions; so a pair of Woman's fetters--ay, my friends, the
women wore fetters in those days--were put upon me; and the whole of us,
all shackled as we were, found ourselves, one fine Monday morning, in
the Dock, having been driven thereinto very much after the fashion o