Chained in the prison cell

I stumbled across an antique drawing yesterday of a woman, her ankle chained, alone in a bare cell. My instinctive reaction was to think of myself as the gaoler, fetching her to her flogging – picturing the lass tied to the post in the prison courtyard, or bound and exposed over a birching bench.

But then I had a better idea. She’d be a girl in my keeping – one of inmates of my workhouse, say, or a maid in my employ.

Shocked by her arrest, I’d have hurried to speak to the authorities. The warder would lead me down long, cold corridors to the cell, keys jangling; her look of hope on recognising my familiar face would vanish into fear when I informed her that I had negotiated her release, subject to agreeing to whip her soundly immediately I’d taken her home.