It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 49

And his reverence turned his back on the moral butchers, and crept away to his own room. There he sank into a chair and laid his brow upon the table with his hands stretched out before him and his whole frame trembling most piteously.

Eden and Hawes are not level antagonists--one takes things to heart, the other to temper.

In this bitter hour it seemed to him impossible that he could ever counteract the pernicious Hawes.

"There is but one chance left for these poor souls. I shall try it, and it will fail. Well! let it fail! Were there a thousand more chances against me than there are I must battle to the last. Let me mature my plan;" and he fell into a sad but stern reverie.

He lay thus crushed, though not defeated, more than two hours in silence. Had Hawes seen him he would have exulted at his appearance.

"A man from the jail to speak to you, sir."

A heavy rap at the parlor door, and Evans came in sheepishly smoothing down his hair. Mr. Eden turned his head as he lay on the sofa and motioned him to a seat.

"I couldn't sleep till I had spoken to you. I obeyed your orders, sir.

We have undone your work."

"How did the poor souls bear it?"

"Some cried, some abused us, one or two showed they were better than we are."

"How?"

"They prayed Heaven to forgive us and hoped we might never come to know what they felt. I wish I'd never seen the inside of a jail. Fry got a scratched face in one cell, sir."

"I am sorry to hear that. I shall have to scold her; who was it?"

"You won't scold her; you won't have the heart."

"I will scold her whether I have the heart or not. Who was it?"

"No. 57, a gal that had some caterpillars."

"Silkworms!"

"Yes, sir, silkworms, and it seems she has got to be uncommon fond of them, calls 'em her children, poor soul. When we came in and went to take them away she stood up for 'em and said we had no right--his reverence gave them her."

"Well?"

"Well, sir, of course they made short work and took them away by force.

Then I saw the girl turn white and her eye getting wildish; however, I don't know as it would have come to anything, but with them s.n.a.t.c.hing away the leaves and the grubs one of them fell on the ground. The poor girl she goes to lift it up and Fry he sees her and put his foot on it before she could get to it."

"Ah!"

"I dare say he didn't stop to think, you know; but I don't envy him having done it. Well, sir, he paid for it. The girl just gave one sort of a yell--you could not call it anything else--and she went right at his head, both claws going and as quick one after another as a cat. The blood squirted like a fountain--I never saw anything like it. She'd have killed him if it hadn't been for Hodges and me."

"Killed him? nonsense--a great strong fellow!"

"No nonsense at all, sir. She was stronger than he was for a moment or two and that moment would have done his business. She meant killing.

Sir," said Evans, lowering his voice, "her teeth were making for his jugular when I wrenched her away, and it was like tearing soul from body to get her off him, and she snarling and her teeth gnas.h.i.+ng for him all the time."

Mr. Eden winced.

"The wretched creature! I was putting her on the way to heaven, and in one moment they made a fiend of her. Evans, you are not the same man you were a month ago."

"No, sir, that I am not. When I think of what a brute I used to be to them poor creatures, I don't seem to know myself."

"What has changed you?"

"Oh, you know very well."

"Do I? No; I have a guess; but--"

"Why your sermons, to be sure."

"My sermons?"

"Yes, sir. Why, how could I hear them and my heart be as hard as it used? They would soften a stone."

A faint streak of surprise and simple satisfaction crossed Mr. Eden's sallow face.

"But it isn't your sermons only--it is your life, as the saying is.

I was no better than Hawes and Fry and the rest. I used to look on a prisoner as so much dirt. But when I saw a gentleman like you respect them, and say openly you loved them, I began to take a thought, and says I, Hallo! if his reverence respects them so, an ignorant brute like Jack Evans isn't to look down on them."

"Ah! confess, too, that half hour in the jacket opened your eyes and so your heart."

"It did, sir; it did. I was like a good many more that misuse prisoners.

I didn't know how cruel I was."

"You are on my side, then?"

"Yes, I am on your side, and I am come here mainly to speak my mind to you. Sir, it goes to my heart to see you lost and wasted in such a place as this."

"You think I do no good here?"

"No! no! sir. Why I am a proof the other way. But you would do more good anywhere else. Everybody says you are a bright and a s.h.i.+ning light, sir. Then why stay where there is dirty water thrown over you every day?

Besides, it is killing you! I don't want to frighten you, sir; but if you could only see how you are changed since you came here--"

"I do feel very ill."

"Of course you do; you are ill, and you will be worse if you don't get out of this dreadful place. If you are so fond of prisons, sir, you can go from here to another prison. There is more than one easy-going chaplain as would be glad to change with you.

"Do you think so?" said Mr. Eden faintly, lying on his back on the sofa.

"Not a doubt of it. If it warn't for Hawes you would convert half this prison; but you see, the governor is against you, and he is stronger than you. So it is no good to go wasting yourself. Now, what will be the upshot? Why, you'll break your heart to begin, and lose your health; and when all is done, at a word from Hawes the justices will turn you out of the jail--and send me after you for taking your part."

"What do you advise?"

"Why, cut it."