# The Vicar of Wakefield/Volume 2/Chapter 26

CHAP. VII.
The next morning early I was awakened by my family, whom I found in tears at my bed-side. The gloomy strength of every thing about us, it seems, had daunted them. I gently rebuked their sorrow, as­suring them I had never slept with greater tranquility, and next enquired after my eldest daughter, who was not among them. They informed me that yesterday's uneasi­ness and fatigue had encreased her fever, and it was judged proper to leave her be­hind. My next care was to send my son to procure a room or two to lodge the ​family in, as near the prison as conveniently could be found. He obeyed; but could only find one apartment, which was hired at a small expence, for his mother and sisters, the gaoler with humanity consenting to let him and his two little brothers lie in the prison with me. A bed was therefore pre­pared for them in a corner of the room, which I thought answered very convenient­ly. I was willing however previously to know whether my little children chose to lie in a place which seemed to fright them upon entrance.
"Well," cried I, "my good boys, how do you like your bed? I hope you are not afraid to lie in this room, dark as it appears."
"No, papa," says Dick, "I am not afraid to lie any where where you are."
​"And I," says Bill, who was yet but four years old, "love every place best that my papa is in."
After this, I allotted to each of the fa­mily what they were to do. My daughter was particularly directed to watch her de­clining sister's health; my wife was to at­tend me; my little boys were to read to me: "And as for you, my son," continu­ed I, "it is by the labour of your hands we must all hope to be supported. Your wages, as a day-labourer, will be full sufficient, with proper frugality, to main­tain us all, and comfortably too. Thou art now sixteen years old, and hast strength, and it was given thee, my son, for very useful purposes; for it must save from famine your helpless parents and fa­mily. Prepare then this evening to look out for work against to-morrow, and bring home every night what money you earn, for our support."
​Having thus instructed him, and settled the rest, I walked down to the common pri­son, where I could enjoy more air and room. But I was not long there when the execrations, lewdness, and brutality that invaded me on every side, drove me back to my apartment again. Here I sate for some time, pondering upon the strange in­fatuation of wretches, who finding all man­kind in open arms against them, were, however, labouring to make themselves a future and a tremendous enemy.
Their insensibility excited my highest com­passion, and blotted my own uneasiness a while from my mind. It even appeared as a duty incumbent upon me to attempt to reclaim them. I resolved therefore once more to return, and in spite of their con­tempt to give them my advice, and conquer them by perseverance. Going therefore among them again, I informed Mr. Jenkin­son of my design, at which he laughed, ​but communicated it to the rest. The pro­posal was received with the greatest good-­humour, as it promised to afford a new fund of entertainment to persons who had now no other resource for mirth, but what could be derived from ridicule or debau­chery.
I therefore read them a portion of the service with a loud unaffected voice, and found my audience perfectly merry upon the occasion. Lewd whispers, groans of contrition burlesqued, winking and cough­ing, alternately excited laughter. Howe­ver, I continued with my natural solemnity to read on, sensible that what I did might amend some, but could itself receive no contamination from any.
After reading, I entered upon my ex­hortation, which was rather calculated at first to amuse them than to reprove. I previ­ously observed, that no other motive but ​their welfare could induce me to this; that I was their fellow prisoner, and now gained nothing by preaching. I was sorry, I said, to hear them so very prophane; because they got nothing by it, but might lose a great deal: "For be assured, my friends," cried I, "for you are my friends, how­ever the world may disclaim your friend­ship, though you swore twelve thousand oaths in a day, it would not put one penny in your purse. Then what signi­fies calling every moment upon the de­vil, and courting his friendship, since you find how scurvily he uses you. He has given you nothing here, you find, but a mouthful of oaths and an empty belly; and by the best accounts. I have of him, he will give you nothing that's good hereafter.
"If used ill in our dealings with one man, we naturally go elsewhere. Were it not worth your while then, just to try ​how you may like the usage of another mas­ter, who gives you fair promises at least to come to him. Surely, my Friends, of all stupidity in the world, his must be greatest, who, after robbing an house, runs to the thieftakers for protection. And yet how are you more wise? You are all seeking comfort from him that has already betrayed you, applying to a more malicious being than any thieftaker of them all; for they only decoy, and then hang you; but he decoys and hangs, and what is worst of all, will not let you loose after the hangman has done."
When I had concluded, I received the compliments of my audience, some of whom came and shook me by the hand, swearing that I was a very honest fellow, and that they desired my further acquain­tance. I therefore promised to repeat my lecture next day, and actually conceived ​some hopes of making a reformation here; for it had ever been my opinion, that no man was past the hour of amendment, every heart lying open to the shafts of reproof, if the archer could but take a proper aim. When I had thus satisfied my mind, I went back to my apartment, where my wife had prepared a frugal meal, while Mr. Jenkinson begged leave to add his dinner to ours, and partake of the pleasure, as he was kind enough to express it, of my conversation. He had not yet seen my family, for as they came to my apartment by a door in the narrow pas­sage, already described, by this means they avoided the common prison. Jenkinson at the first interview therefore seemed not a little struck with the beauty of my young­est daughter, which her pensive air con­tributed to heighten, and my little ones did not pass unnoticed.
"Alas, Doctor," cried he, "these chil­dren are too handsome and too good for such a place as this!"
​"Why, Mr. Jenkinson," replied I, "thank heaven my children are pretty tolerable in morals, and if they be good, it matters little for the rest."
"I fancy, sir," returned my fellow pri­soner, "that it must give you great com­fort to have this little family about you."
"A comfort, Mr. Jenkinson," replied I, "yes it is indeed a comfort, and I would not be without them for all the world; for they can make a dungeon seem a palace. There is but one way in this life of wounding my happiness, and that is by injuring them."
"I am afraid then, sir," cried he, "that I am in some measure culpable; for I think I see here (looking at my son Mo­ses) "one that I have injured, and by whom I wish to be forgiven."
​My son immediately recollected his voice and features, though he had before seen him in disguise, and taking him by the hand, with a smile forgave him. "Yet," continued he, "I can't help wondering at what you could see in my face, to think me a proper mark for deception."
"My dear sir," returned the other, "it was not your face, but your white stock­ings and the black ribband in your hair, that allured me. But no disparagement to your parts, I have deceived wiser men than you in my time; and yet, with all my tricks, the blockheads have been too many for me at last."
"I suppose," cried my son, "that the narrative of such a life as yours must be extremely instructive and amusing."
"Not much of either," returned Mr. Jenkinson. "Those relations which de​­scribe the tricks and vices only of man­kind, by increasing our suspicion in life, retard our success. The traveller that distrusts every person he meets, and turns back upon the appearance of every man that looks like a robber, seldom arrives in time to his journey's end."
"Indeed I think from my own experi­ence I may say, that the knowing one is the silliest fellow under the sun. I was thought cunning from my very child­hood; when but seven years old the la­dies would say that I was a perfect little man; at fourteen I knew the world, cocked my hat, and loved the ladies; at twenty, though I was perfectly ho­nest, yet every one thought me so cun­ning, that not one would trust me. Thus I was at last obliged to turn shar­per in my own defence, and have lived ever since, my head throbbing with ​schemes to deceive, and my heart pal­pitating with fears of detection."
"I used often to laugh at your honest simple neighbour Flamborough, and one way or another generally cheated him once a year. Yet still the honest man went forward without suspicion, and grew rich, while I still continued tricksy and cunning, and was poor, without the consolation of being honest."
"However," continued he, "let me know your case, and what has brought you here; perhaps though I have not skill to avoid a gaol myself, I may ex­tricate my friends."
In compliance with his curiosity, I in­formed him of the whole train of acci­dents and follies that had plunged me into my present troubles, and my utter in­abilty to get free.
​After hearing my story, and pausing some minutes, he slapt his forehead, as if he had hit upon something material, and took his leave, saying he would try what could be done.