CHAPTER XXII.
MR. EDEN, when he reappeared in the prison, was sallow and his limbs feeble, but his fatal disease was baffled, and a few words are due to explain how this happened. The Malvern doctor came back with Susan within twenty hours of her departure. She ushered him into Mr. Eden's room with blushing joy and pride.
The friends shook hands. Mr. Eden thanked him for coming, and the doctor cut him short by demanding an accurate history of his disorder, and the remedies that had been applied. Mr. Eden related the rise and progress of his complaint, and meantime the doctor solved the other query by smelling a battalion of empty phials.
“The old story,” said he with a cheerful grin. “You were weak—therefore they gave you things to weaken you. You could not put so much nourishment as usual into your body—therefore they have been taking strength out. Lastly, the coats of your stomach were irritated by your disorder—so they have raked it like blazes. This is the mill-round of the old medicine; from irritation to inflammation, from inflammation to mortification, and decease of the patient. Now, instead of irritating the irritated spot, suppose we try a little counter-irritation.”
“With all my heart.”
The doctor then wetted a towel with cold water, wrung it half dry, and applied it to Mr. Eden's stomach.
This experiment he repeated four times with a fresh towel at intervals of twenty minutes. He had his bed made in Mr. Eden's room. “Tell me if you feel feverish.”
Toward morning Mr. Eden tossed and turned, and the doctor rising found him dry and hot and feverish. Then he wetted two towels, took the sheets off his own bed, and placed one wet towel on a blanket; then he made his patient strip naked, and lie down on this towel, which reached from the nape of his neck to his loins.
“Ah!” cried Mr. Eden, “horrible!”
Then he put the other towel over him in front.
“Ugh! That is worse; you are a bold man with your remedies. I shiver to the bone.”
“You won't shiver long.”
He laid hold of one edge of the blanket and pulled it over him with a strong, quick pull, and tucked it under him. The same with the other side; and now Mr. Eden was in a blanket prison—a regular strait-waistcoat—his arms pinned to his sides. Two more blankets were placed loosely over him.
“Mighty fine, doctor; but suppose a fly or a gnat should settle on my face?”
“Call me and I'll take him off.”
In about three quarters of an hour Dr. Gulson came to his bedside again.
“How are you now?”
“In Elysium.”
“Are you shivering?”
“Nothing of the kind.”
“Are you hot?”
“Nothing of the sort. I am Elysian. Please retreat. Let no mere mortals approach. Come not near our fairy king,” murmured the sick man. “I am Oberon, slumbering on tepid roses in the garden whence I take my name,” purred our divine, mixing a creed or two.
“Well, you must come out of this paradise for the present.”
“You wouldn't be such a monster as to propose it.”
Spite of his remonstances, he was unpacked, rubbed dry, and returned to his own bed, where he slept placidly till nine o'clock. The next day fresh applications of wet cloths to the stomach, and in the evening one of the doctor's myrmidons arrived from Malvern. The doctor gave him full and particular instructions.
The next morning Mr. Eden was packed again. He delighted in the operation, but remonstrated against the term.
“Packed!” said he to them; “is that the way to speak of a Paradisiacal process under which fever and sorrow fly and calm complacency steals over mind and body?”
A slight diminution of all the unfavorable symptoms, and a great increase of appetite relieved the doctor's anxiety so far that he left him under White's charge. So was the myrmidon called.
“Do not alter your diet—it is simple and mucilaginous—but increase the quantity by degrees.”
He postponed his departure till midnight. Up to the present time he had made rather light of the case, and as for danger he had pooh-poohed it with good-humored contempt. Just before he went he said:
“Well, Frank, I don't mind telling you now that I am very glad you sent for me, and I'll tell you why. Forty-eight hours more of irritating medicines, and no human skill could have saved your life.”
“Ah! my dear friend, you are my good angel—you can have no conception how valuable my life is.”
“Oh, yes, I can!”
“And you have saved that life. Yes! I am weak still, but I feel I shall live. You have cured me.”
“In popular language, I have. But between ourselves nobody ever cures anybody. Nature cures all that are cured. But I patted Nature on the back; the others hit her over the head with bludgeons and brick-bats.”
“And now you are going. I must not keep you or I shall compromise other lives. Well, go and fulfill your mission. But first think—is there anything I can do in part return for such a thing as this, old friend?”
“Only one that I can think of. Outlive me, old friend.”
A warm and tender grasp of the hand on this, and the Malvern doctor jumped into a fly, and the railway soon whirled him into Worcestershire.
His myrmidon remained behind and carried out his chief's orders with inflexible severity, unsoftened by blandishments, unshaken by threats.
In concert with Susan he closed the door upon all harassing communications.
One day Evans came to tell the invalid how the prisoners were maltreated. Susan received him, wormed from him his errand, and told him Mr. Eden was too ill to see him, which was what my French brethren call une sainte mensonge—I a fib.
A slow but steady cure was effected by these means: applications of water in various ways to the skin, simple diet, and quiet. A great appetite soon came; he ate twice as much as he had before the new treatment, and would have eaten twice as much as he did, but the myrmidon would not let him. Whenever he was feverish the myrmidon packed him, and in half an hour the fever was gone. His cheeks began to fill, his eyes to clear and brighten, only his limbs could not immediately recover their strength.
As he recovered, his anxiety to be back among his prisoners increased daily, but neither Susan nor the myrmidon would hear of it. They acted in concert, and stuck at nothing to cure their patient. They assured him all was going on well in the prison. They meant well; but for all that, every lie, great or small, is the brink of a precipice the depth of which nothing but Omniscience can fathom.
He believed them, yet he was uneasy; and this uneasiness increased with his returning strength. At last one morning, happening to awake earlier than usual, he stole a march on his nurses, and taking his stick walked out and tottered into the jail.
He found Josephs dead under the fangs of Hawes, and the whole prison groaning.
Now the very day his symptoms became more favorable it so happened that he had received a few lines from the Home Office that had perhaps aided his recovery by the hopes they inspired.
“The matter of your last communication is forwarded to the 'Inspector of Prisons.' He is instructed to inquire strictly into your statements and report to this office.”
The short note concluded with an intimation that the tone in which Mr. Eden had conveyed his remonstrances was intemperate, out of place, and WITHOUT PRECEDENT.
Mr. Eden was rejoiced.
The “Inspector of Prisons” was a salaried officer of the crown, enlightened by a large comparison of many prisons, and, residing at a distance, was not open to the corrupting influences of association and personal sympathy with the governor, as were the county magistrates.
Day after day Mr. Eden rose in hope that day would not pass without the promised visit from the “Inspector of Prisons.” Day after day no inspector. At last Mr. Eden wrote to him to inquire when he was coming.
The letter traveled about after him, and after a considerable delay came his answer. It was to this effect. That he was instructed to examine into charges made against the governor of —— Jail; but that he had no instructions to make an irregular visit for that purpose. His progress would bring him this year to —— Jail in six weeks' time, when he should act on his instructions, but these did not justify him in varying from the routine of his circuit.
Six weeks is not long to wait for help in a matter of life and death, thought the eighty pounders, the clerks who execute England.
Three days of this six weeks had scarce elapsed when two prisoners were driven a step each farther than their wretched fellow sufferers who were to follow them in a week or two. Of these, one, “a mild, quiet, docile boy,” was driven to self-slaughter; and another, one of the best-natured rogues in the place, was driven to manslaughter.
This latter incident Mr. Eden prevented. I will presently relate how; it was not by postponing his interference for six weeks.
When Mr. Eden rose from his knees beside the slaughtered boy he went home at once and wrote to the Home Secretary. On the envelope he wrote “private,” and inside to this effect:
“Two months ago I informed you officially that prisoners are daily assaulted, starved, and maltreated to the danger of their lives by the governor of —— Jail. I demanded of you an inquiry on the spot. In reply you evaded my demand, and proposed to refer me to the visiting justices.
“In answer I declined these men for referees on two grounds, viz., that I had lodged an appeal with a higher jurisdiction than theirs, and that they were confederates of the criminal; and to enforce the latter objection I included your proposed referees in my charges, and once more demanded of you in the queen's name an examination of her unworthy servants on the instant and on the spot.
“On this occasion I warned you in these words:
“'Here are 180 souls, to whose correction, care and protection the State is pledged. No one of these lives is safe a single day; and for every head that falls from this hour I hold you responsible to God and the State.'
“Surely these were no light words, yet they fell light on you.
“In answer you promised us the 'Inspector of Prisons,' but you gave him no instructions to come to us. You fooled away time when time was human life. Read once more my words of warning, and then read these:
“This morning a boy of fifteen was done to death by Mr. Hawes. Of his death you are not guiltless. You were implored to prevent it, you could have prevented it, and you did not prevent it. The victim of jail cruelty and of the maladministration in government offices lies dead in his cell.
“In three days I shall commit his body to the dust; but his memory never—until he is avenged and those who are in process of being murdered like him receive the protection of the State.
“If in the three days between this boy's murder and his burial your direct representative and agent does not come here and examine this jail and sift the acts of those who govern it, on the fourth day I lay the whole case before her majesty the queen and the British nation, by publishing it in all the journals. Then I shall tell her majesty that, having thrice appealed in vain to her representatives, I am driven to appeal to herself; with this I shall print the evidence I have thrice offered you of this jailer's felonies and their sanguinary results. That lady has a character; one of its strong, unmistakable features is a real, tender, active humanity.
“I read characters; it is a part of my business; and, believe me, this lady once informed of the crimes done in her name will repudiate and abhor alike her hireling's cruelty and her clerks' and secretaries' indifference to suffering and slaughter. Nor will the public hear unmoved the awful tale. Shame will be showered on all connected with these black deeds, even on those who can but be charged with conniving at them.
“To be exposed to national horror on the same column with the greatest felon in England would be a cruel position, a severe punishment for a man of honor, whose only fault perhaps is that he has mistaken an itch for eminence for a capacity for business, and so serves the State without comprehending it. But what else can I do? I, too, serve the State, and I comprehend what I owe it, and the dignity with which it intrusts me, and the deep responsibility it lays on me. I therefore cannot assent to future felonies any more than I have to past and present, but must stop them, and will stop them—how I can.
“So, sir, I offer you the post of honor or a place of shame. Choose! for three whole days you have the choice. Choose! and may God enlighten you and forgive me for waiting these three days.
“I have the honor to be, etc., etc.”
To this letter, whose tone was more eccentric, more flesh and blood, and WITHOUT PRECEDENT, than the last, came an answer in a different hand from the others.
“—acknowledged receipt of the chaplain's letter.
“Since a human life has succumbed under the discipline of —— Jail, an inquiry follows immediately as a matter of course. The other inducements you have held out are comparatively weak and something more than superfluous. How far they are in good taste will be left to your own cooler consideration. A person connected with the Home Department will visit your jail with large powers soon after you receive this.
“He is instructed to avail himself of your zeal and knowledge.
“Be pleased to follow this course. Select for him the plainer facts of your case. If on the face of the business he sees ground for deeper inquiry, a commission will sit upon the jail, and meanwhile all suspected officers will be suspended. You will consider yourself still in direct correspondence with this office, but it is requested, on account of the mass of matter daily submitted to us, that your communications may be confined to facts, and those stated as concisely as possible.”
On reading this Mr. Eden colored with shame as well as pleasure. “How gentleman-like all this is!” thought he. “How calm and superior to me, who, since I had the jaundice, am always lowering my office by getting into a heat! And I to threaten this noble, dignified creature with the Times. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. Yet what could I do? I had tried everything short of bullying and failed. But I now suspect —— never saw my two first letters. Doubtless the rotten system of our public offices is more to blame than this noble fellow.”
Thus accusing himself Mr. Eden returned with somewhat feeble steps to the jail. One of the first prisoners he visited was Thomas Robinson. He found that prisoner in the attitude of which he thought he had cured him, coiled up like a snake, moody and wretched. The man turned round with a very bad expression on his face, which soon gave way to a look of joy. He uttered a loud exclamation, and springing unguardedly up, dropped a brickbat which rolled toward Mr. Eden and nearly hit him.
Robinson looked confused, and his eyes rose and fell from Mr. Eden's face to the brickbat.
“How do you do?”
“Not so well as before you fell ill, sir. It has been hard times with us poor fellows since we lost you.”
“I fear it has.”
“You have just come back in time to save a life or two. There is a boy called Josephs. I hope the day won't go over without your visiting him, for they are killing him by inches.”
“How do you know that?”
“I heard him say so.”
Mr. Eden groaned.
“You look pale, my poor fellow.”
“I shall be better now,” replied the thief, looking at him affectionately.
“What is this?”
“This, sir—what, sir?”
“This brick?”
“Well! why—it is a brick, sir!
“Where did you get it?”
“I found it in the yard.”
“What were you going to do with it?”
“Oh! I wasn't going to do any ill with it.”
“Then why that guilty look when you dropped it. Come, now—I am in no humor to be hard upon you. Were you going to make some more cards?”
“Now, sir, didn't I promise you I never would do that again;” and Robinson wore an aggrieved look. “Would I break a promise I made to you?”
“What was it for then?”
“Am I bound to criminate myself, your reverence?”
“Certainly not to your enemy! but to your friend, and to him who has the care of your soul—yes!”
“Let me ask you a question first, sir. Which is worth most, one life or twenty?”
“Twenty.”
“Then if by taking one life you can save twenty, it is a good action to put that one out of the way?”
“That does not follow.”
“Oh! doesn't it? I thought it did. There's a man in this prison that murders men wholesale. I thought if I could any way put it out of his power to kill any more what a good action it would be!”
“A good action! so then this brick—”
“Was for Hawes's skull, your reverence.”
“This, then, is the fruit of all my teaching. You will break my heart among you.
“Don't say so, sir! pray don't say so! I won't touch a hair of his head now you are alive; but I thought you were dead or dying, so what did it matter then what I did? Besides, I was driven into a corner; I could only kill that scoundrel or let him kill me. But you are alive, and you will find some way of saving my life as well as his.”
“I will try. But first abandon all thoughts of lawless revenge. 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.' Come, promise me.”
“Now, sir, is it likely I would offend you for the pleasure of dirtying my fingers with that rascal's blood? Don't let such a lump of dirt as him make mischief between you and me, sir.”
“I understand! with you any unchristian sentiment is easily driven out—by another. Hatred is to give way to contempt.”
“No, sir, but you are alive, and I don't think of Hawes now one way or other—with such scum as that out of sight is out of mind. When did you begin to get better, sir? and are you better? and shall I see your blessed face in my cell every day as I used?” And the water stood in the thief's eyes.
Mr. Eden smiled and sighed. “Your mind is like an eel—Heaven help the man that tries to get hold of it to do it any lasting good. You and I must have a good pray together some day.”
“Ah! your reverence, that would do me good soul and body,” said Mr. Supple.
“Let me now feel your pulse; it is very low. What is the matter?”
“Starvation, overwork, and solitude. I feel myself sinking.”
“If I could amuse your mind.”
“Even you could hardly do that, sir.”
“Hum! I have brought you a quire of paper and one of Mr. Gillott's swan-quill pens and a penny ink-bottle.”
“What for?”
“You are to write a story.”
“But I never wrote one in my life.”
“Then this will be the first.”
“Oh, I'll try, sir. I've tried a hundred things in my life and they none of them proved so hard as they looked. What kind of story?”
“The only kind of story that is worth a button—a true story—the story of Thomas Robinson, alias Scott, alias Lyon, alias etc.”
“Then you should have brought a ream instead of a quire.”
“No! I want to read it when it is written. Now write the truth—do not dress or cook your facts. I shall devour them raw with twice the relish, and they will do you ten times the good. And intersperse no humbug, no sham penitence. When your own life lies thus spread out before you like a map, you will find you regret many things you have done, and view others with calmer and wiser eyes; for self-review is a healthy process. Write down these honest reflections, but don't overdo it—don't write a word you don't feel. It will amuse you while you are at it.”
“That it will.”
“It will interest me more than the romance of a carpet writer who never saw life, and it may do good to other prisoners.”
“I want to begin.”
“I know you do, creature of impulse! Let me feel your pulse again. Ah! it has gained about ten.”
“Ten, your reverence? Fifty, you mean. It is you for putting life into a poor fellow and keeping him from despair. It is not the first time you have saved me. The devil hates you more than all the other parsons, for you are as ingenious in good as he is in mischief.”
In the midst of this original eulogy Mr. Eden left the cell suddenly with an aching heart, for the man's words reminded him that for all his skill and zeal a boy of fifteen years lay dead of despair hard by. He went, but he left two good things behind him—occupation and hope.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE inexperienced in jails would take for granted that the death of Josephs gave Mr. Hawes's system a fatal check. No such thing. He was staggered. So was Pharaoh staggered several times, yet he always recovered himself in twenty-four hours. Hawes did not take so long as that. A suicide was no novelty under his system. Six hours after he found his victim dead he had a man and a boy crucified in the yard, swore horribly at Fry, who, for the first time in his life, was behind time, and tore out of his hands “Uncle Tom,” which was the topic that had absorbed Fry and made him two minutes behind him; went home and wrote a note to his friend Williams informing him of the suicide that had taken place, and reflecting severely upon Josephs for his whole conduct, with which this last offense against discipline was in strict accordance. Then he had his grog, and having nothing to do he thought he would see what was that story which had prevailed so far over the stern realities of system as to derange that piece of clock work that went by the name of Fry. He yawned over the first pages, but as the master hand unrolled the great chromatic theory, he became absorbed, and devoured this great human story till his candles burned down in their sockets and sent him to bed four hours later than usual.
The next morning soon after chapel a gentleman's servant rode up to the jail and delivered a letter for Mr. Hawes. It was from Justice Williams. That worthy expressed in polysyllables his sorrow at the death of Josephs after this fashion:
“A circumstance of this kind is always to be deplored, since it gives occasion to the enemies of the system to cast reflections, which, however unphilosophical and malignant, prejudice superficial judgments against our salutary discipline.”
He then went on to say that the visiting justices would be at the jail the next day at one o'clock to make their usual report, in which Mr. Hawes might be sure his zeal and fidelity would not pass unnoticed. He concluded by saying that Mr. Hawes must on that occasion present his charges against the chaplain in a definite form, and proceedings would be taken on the spot.
“Aha! aha! So I shall get rid of him. Confound him! he makes me harder upon the beggars than I should be. Fry, put these numbers on the cranks and bring me your report after dinner.”
With these words Mr. Hawes vanished, and to the infinite surprise of the turnkeys was not seen in the jail for many hours. At two o'clock, as he was still not in the prison, Fry went to his house. He found Mr. Hawes deep in a book.
“Brought the report, sir.”
“Give it to me. Humph! No. 40 and 45 refractory at the crank. No. 65 caught getting up to his window; says he wanted to feel the light. 65—that is one of the boys, isn't it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How old is the young varmint?”
“Eleven, sir.”
“No. 14 heard to speak to a prisoner that was leaving the jail, his term being out. What did he say to him?”
“Said 'Good-by! God bless you!'”
“I'll shut his mouth. Confound the beggars! how fond they are of talking. I think they would rather go without their food than without their jaw.
“No. 19 caught writing a story. It is that fellow Robinson, one of the parson's men. I'll write something on his skin. How did he get the things to write with?”
“Chaplain gave them him.”
“Ah! I am glad of that. You brought them away, of course?”
“Yes, sir; here they are. He made a terrible fuss about parting with them.”
“What did he say?”
“He said Heaven was to judge between me and him.”
“Blaspheming dog! —— him! I'll break him. What else?”
“'Get out of my sight,' said he, 'for fear I do you a mischief.' So then down he pops on his knees in a corner and turns his back on me, like an ignorant brute that he is.”
“Never mind, Fry, I'll break him.”
“I suppose we shall see you in the prison soon, shan't we, sir? The place looks strange to me without you.”
“By-and-by—by-and-by. This confounded book sticks to me like a leech. How far had you got when you lent it me?”
“Got just to the most interesting part,” said Fry dolefully, “where he comes under a chap called Legree; and then you took it away.”
“Well, you'll have it again as soon as I have done with it. I say, what do you think of this book? is it true do you think?”
“Oh! it is true—I'd take my oath of that.”
“Why how do you know?”
“Because it reads like true.”
“That is no rule, ye fool.”
“Well, sir, what do you think?”
This question staggered Hawes for a moment. However he assumed an oracular look, and replied, “I think some of it is true and some isn't.”
“Do you think it is true about their knocking down blackee in one lot, and his wife in another, and sending 'em a thousand miles apart?”
“Oh, that is true enough! I daresay.”
“And running them down with bloodhounds?”
“Why not; they look upon the poor devils as beasts. If you tell a Yankee a nigger is a man he thinks you are poking fun at him.”
“It is a cursed shame!”
“Of course it is! but I'll tell you what I can't swallow in this book. Hem! did you ever fall in with any Yankees?”
“One or two, sir.”
“Were they green at all?”
“That they weren't. They were rather foxy, I should say.”
“Rather. Why one of them would weather upon any three Englishmen that ever were born. Now here is a book that as good as tells me it is a Yankee custom to disable their beasts of burden. Gammon! they can't afford to do it. I believe,” continued this candid personage (who had never been in any of the States), “they are the cruelest set on the face of the earth, but then they are the 'cutest (that is their own word), and they are a precious sight too 'cute to disable the beast that carries the grist to the mill.”
“Doesn't seem likely—now you put it to me.”
“Have a glass of grog, Fry.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And there is the paper. Run your eye over it and don't speak to me for ten minutes, for I must see how Tom gets on under this bloody-minded heathen.”
Fry read the paper; but although he moistened it with a glass of grog, he could not help casting envious glances from his folio at Mr. Hawes's duodecimo.
Fibs mixed with truth charm us more than truth mixed with fibs.
Presently an oath escaped from Mr. Hawes.
“Sir!”
“Nothing, it is only this infernal—humph!”
Presently another expletive. “I'll tell you what it is, Fry, if somebody doesn't knock this thundering Legree on the head, I'll put the book on the fire.”
“Well, but if it isn't true, sir?”
“But it is true, every word of it, while you are reading it, ye fool. What heathens there are in the world! First they sell a child out of his mother's arms. She cuts sooner than be parted. They hunt her and come up with her; but she knows what they are, and trusts her life and the child to one of their great thundering frozen rivers as broad as the British Channel sooner than fall into their hands. That is like a woman, Fry. A fig for me being drowned if the kid is drowned with me; and I don't even care so much for the kid being drowned if I go down with him—and the cowardly vermin dogs and men stood barking on the bank and dursn't follow a woman; but your cruel ones are always cowards. And now the rips have got hold of this Tom. A chap with no great harm in him that I see, except that he is a —— sniveler and psalm-singer, and makes you sick at times, but he isn't lazy; and now they are mauling him because he couldn't do the work of two. A man can but do his best, black or white, and it is infernal stupidity as well as cruelty to torment a fellow because he can't do more than he can do. And all this because over the same flesh and blood there is the sixteenth of an inch of skin a different color. Wonder whether a white bear takes a black one for a hog, or a red fox takes a blue one for a badger. Well, Fry, thank your stars that you were born in Britain. There are no slaves here, and no buying and selling of human flesh; and one law for high and low, rich and poor, and justice for the weak as well as the strong.”
“Yes, sir,” said Fry deferentially—“are you coming into the jail, sir?”
“No,” replied Hawes sturdily, “I won't move till I see what becomes of the negro, and what is done to this eternal ruffian.”
“But about the prisoners in my report, sir,” remonstrated Fry.
“Oh, you can see to that without my coming,” replied Hawes with nonchalance. “Put 40 and 45 in the jacket four hours apiece. Mind there's somebody by with the bucket against they sham.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Put the boy on bread and water—and to-morrow I'll ask the justices to let me flog him. No. 14—humph! stop his supper—and his bed—and gas.”
“And Robinson?”
“Oh, give him no supper at all—and no breakfast—not even bread and water, d'ye hear. And at noon I'll put him with his empty belly in the black-hole—that will cow him down to the ground—there, be off!”
Next morning Mr. Hawes sat down to breakfast in high spirits. This very day he was sure to humiliate his adversary, most likely get rid of him altogether.
Mr. Eden, on the contrary, wore a somber air. Hawes noticed it, mistook it, and pointed it out to Fry. “He is down upon his luck; he knows he is coming to an end.”
After breakfast Mr. Eden went into Robinson's cell. He found him haggard. “Oh, I am glad you are come, sir; they are starving me! No supper last night, no breakfast this morning, and all for—hum.”
“For what?”
“Well, sir, then—having paper in my cell, and for writing—doing what you bade me—writing my life.”
Mr. Eden colored and winced. The cruelty and the personal insult combined almost took away his breath for a moment. “Heaven grant me patience a little longer,” said he aloud. Then he ran out of the cell, and returned in less than a minute with a great hunch of bread and a slice of ham. “Eat this,” said he, all fluttering with pity.
The famished man ate like a wolf; but in the middle he did stop to say, “Did one man ever save another so often as you have me! Now my belly is full I shall have strength to stand the jacket, or whatever is to come next.”
“But you are not to be tormented further than this, I hope?”
“Ah, sir!” replied Robinson, “you don't know the scoundrel yet. He is not starving me for nothing. This is to weaken me till he puts the weight on that is to crush me.”
“I hope you exaggerate his personal dislike to you and your own importance—we all do that.”
“Well,” sighed Robinson, “I hope I do. Any way now my belly is full I have got a chance with him.”
The visiting justices met in the jail. The first to arrive was Mr. Woodcock. In fact he came at eleven o'clock, an hour before the others. Had Mr. Hawes expected him so soon, he would have taken Carter down, who was the pilloried one this morning; but he was equal to the emergency. He met Mr. Woodcock with a depressed manner, as of a tender but wise father, who in punishing his offspring had punished himself, and said in a low, regretful voice, “I am sorry to say I have been compelled to punish a prisoner very severely.”
“What is his offense?”
“Being refractory and breaking his crank. You will find him in the labor-yard. He was so violent we were obliged to put him in the jacket.”
“I shall see him. The labor-yard is the first place I go to.”
Mr. Hawes knew that, Mr. Woodcock.
The justice found Carter in that state of pitiable torture, the sight of which made Mr. Eden very ill. He went up to him and said, “My poor fellow, I am very sorry for you; but discipline must be maintained, and you are now suffering for fighting against it. Make your submission to the governor, and then I dare say he will shorten your punishment as far as he thinks consistent with his duty.”
Carter, it may well be imagined, made no answer. It is doubtful whether the worthy magistrate expected or required one. An occasion for misjudging a self-evident case of cruelty had arrived. This worthy seized the opportunity, received an ex-parte statement for Gospel, and misjudged, spite of his senses.
Item. An occasion for twaddling had come, and this good soul seized it and twaddled into a man's ear who was fainting on the rack.
At this moment the more observant Hawes saw the signs of shamming coming on. So he said hastily, “Oh, he will come to soon, and then he will be taken down;” and moved away. Mr. Woodcock followed him without one grain of suspicion or misgiving.
The English State has had many opportunities of gauging the average intellects of its unpaid jurists. By these it has profited so well that it intrusts blindly to this gentleman and his brethren the following commission:—
They are to come into a place of darkness and mystery, a place locked up; a place which, by the folly of the nation and the shallow egotists who are its placemen and are called its statesmen, is not subject to the only safeguard of law and morals—daily inspection by the great unprejudiced public. They are to come into this, the one pitch-dark hole that is now left in the land. They are to come here once in two months, and at this visit to see all that has been done there in the dark since their last visit. Their eagle eye is not to be hoodwinked by appearances got up to meet their visit. They are to come and comprehend with one piercing glance the past months as well as the present hour. Good. Only for this task is required, not the gullibility that characterizes the many, but the sagacity that distinguishes the few.
Mr. Woodcock undertook not to be deceived as to what had been done in the jail while he was forty miles distant—and Hawes gulled him under his own eyes.
What different men there are in the world, and how differently are the same things seen by them! The first crucifixion Eden saw he turned as sick as a dog—the first crucifixion Woodcock saw he twaddled in the crucified's ear, left him on the cross, and went on his way well pleased.
Hawes, finding what sort of a man he had to deal with, thought within himself, “Why should I compromise discipline in any point?” He said to Mr. Woodcock, “There is another prisoner whom I am afraid I must give an hour in the dark cell.”
“What has he been doing?”
“Scribbling a lot of lies upon some paper he got from the chaplain.”
Mr. Hawes's brief and unkind definition of autobiography did Robinson's business. Mr. Woodcock simply observed that the proposed punishment was by no means a severe one for the offense.
They visited several cells. Woodcock addressed the prisoners in certain words, accompanied with certain tones and looks, that were at least as significant as his words, and struck the prisoners as more sincere.
The words.
“If you have anything to complain of here, now is the time to say so, and your complaint shall be sifted.”
The tones and looks.
“I know you are better off here than such scum as you deserve, but you have a right to contradict me if you like; only mind, if you don't prove it to my satisfaction, who am not the man to believe anything you say, you had better have held your tongue.”
Meantime Mr. Hawes said nothing, but fixed his eye on the rogue, and that eye said, “One word of discontent and the moment he is gone I massacre you.” Then followed in every case the old theatrical business according to each rogue's measure of ability. They were in the Elysian fields; one thing alone saddened them; some day or other they must return to the world.
Fathers, sent by your apprehensive wives to see whether Dicky is well used at that school or not, don't draw Dicky into a corner of the playground, and with tender kisses and promises of inviolable secrecy coax him to open his little heart to you, and tell you whether he is really happy; leave such folly to women—it is a weakness to wriggle into the truth as they do.
No! you go like a man into the parlor with the schoolmaster—then have Dicky in—let him see the two authorities together on good terms—then ask him whether he is happy and comfortable and well used. He will tell you he is. Go home rejoicing—but before you go into the drawing-room do pray spend twenty minutes by the kitchen fire, and then go upstairs to the boy's mother—and let her eat you, for you belong to the family of the Woodcocks.
“We are passing one cell.”
“Oh! that one is empty,” replied Hawes.
Not quite empty; there was a beech coffin standing in that cell, and the corpse of a murdered thief lay waiting for it.
At twelve o'clock the justices were all assembled in their room. “We will send you a message in half an hour, Mr. Hawes.”
Mr. Hawes bowed and retired, and bade Fry to take Robinson to the dark cell. The poor fellow knew resistance was useless. He came out at the word of command, despair written on his face. Of all the horrors of this hell the dark cell was the one he most dreaded. He looked up to Hawes to see if anything he could say would soften him. No! that hardened face showed neither pity nor intelligence; as well appeal to a stone statue of a mule.
At this moment Mr. Eden came into the jail. Robinson met him on the ground-floor, and cried out to him, “Sir, they are sending me to the black hole for it. I am a doomed man; the black hole for six hours.”
“No!” roared Hawes from above, “for twelve hours; the odd six is for speaking in prison.” Robinson groaned.
“I will take you out in three,” said Mr. Eden calmly. Hawes heard and laughed aloud.
“Give me your hand on that, sir, for pity's sake,” cried Robinson. Mr. Eden gave him his hand and said, firmly, “I will take you out in two hours, please God.”
Hawes chuckled. “Parson is putting his foot in it more and more. The justices shall know this.”
This momentary contact with his good angel gave Robinson one little ray of hope for a companion in the cave of darkness, madness, and death.