Black slime of sins past wept from every brick of Newgate Prison. Moonlight strained through the bars. In the shadows hunched a large shackled man, thick chains running from his ankles to his wrists, too short to accommodate his height. His eyes closed, and his head resting peacefully on his knees. His broad frame seemed to swallow the narrow cell.
The echoing crunch, crunch, crunch of fleas and bedbugs crushed between shoe and stone floor told of a visitor’s approach. The crunching steps slowed as they came closer to the condemned cell, and then stopped.
“I am appointed, sir, as Ordinary of Newgate Prison. It is my duty to spend with you the last few hours you have left on this earth. I shall pray for your wretched soul and beseech you to confess all so that you may be delivered into the bosom of Heaven.” The Ordinary waited for a response, as was customary, but met none, so perched his hefty round body on a wooden bench, his dark clergy robes hitched up to expose spindly legs that barely reached the ground.
The Ordinary, Newton Sprunt, skirted the fringes of spiritual devoutness. He had served as chaplain at Newgate for more than twenty years, working, ostensibly, to redeem the souls of the convicted and the condemned, entreating them to say their confessions. He had grown fat on these confessions, selling the notorious and salacious to newspapers, and then there were those who would pay him good money to keep their confessional secrets. Looking at the condemned man he felt a swell of determination; he knew the details of this one were kept from the public as much as possible. This case threatened the enlightened core of civil society and the details would pay handsomely.
His bulging eyes glanced furtively at the man in the cell, darting away before being drawn back again to the tranquil figure. Occasionally his slender tongue slowly licked the thin lips of his broad toothless mouth.
A taut silence hung over them, broken only by the nearby spitting torches and intermittent conversations of rats. In the distance the muffled sounds of the general prison provided a background hum of drunken singing, women caterwauling, men shouting, dogs barking and children squawking. The figure in the cell glanced towards his visitor.
“What?” came the gruff voice from the cell. “What is it?”
The Ordinary jumped. “Nothing.” He retorted indignantly.
“You been watching me for hours. Man can’t sleep when he’s being watched.”
“How can you? Sleep I mean. You’re hanged in the morning, you got the weight of all them souls on you, how can you sleep?”
“The guilty ones always do, you should know that, y’been ‘ere long enough.”
“It’s true, but none have known the evil and wretchedness you ‘ave. If it were me, I’d be fearin’ the eternal flames o’Hell. If it were me I’d want to make my peace, cleanse m’soul.” He placed his hands together, as if in prayer and looked to the Heavens, and with great fervor continued, “I would renounce m’errors and ask pardon of our good and gracious God. Kneel and entreat me God our Saviour to welcome you into the bosom of the Kingdom of Heaven.”
A sharp accusatory glare through scraggly auburn eyebrows stabbed the Ordinary, “’Ave a pie did ya?”