It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 61

"My mother will fret--but I can't help it. Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear! I hope some one will tell her what I went through first; and then she will say, 'Better so than for my body to be abused worse than a dog every day of my life.' I can't help it! and I should be dead any way before the fourteen days were out.

"Now is as good a time as any other; no one is stirring, no. Please forgive me, mother. I couldn't help it. Please forgive me, G.o.d Almighty, if you care what a poor boy like me does or is done to--I couldn't help it."

IL EST DEUX HEURES; TOUT EST TRANQUILLE; DORMEZ, MAITRES, DORMEZ!

CHAPTER XXI.

IT was a bright morning. The world awoke. The working Englishman, dead drunk at the public-house overnight, had got rid of two-thirds of his burning poison by the help of man's chief nurse, sleep; and now he must work off the rest, grumbling at this the kind severity of his lot.

Warm men, respectable men, among whom justices of the peace and other voluptuous disciplinarians, were tempted out of delicious beds by the fragrant berry, the balmy leaf, snowy damask, fire glowing behind polished bars--in short, by multifarious comfort set in a frame of gold.

They came down.

"How did you sleep, dear sir?"

"Pretty well," said one with a doubtful air. "Scarce closed my eyes all night," snarled another.

Another had been awakened by the barking of a dog, and it was full half an hour before he could lose the sense of luxurious ease in unconsciousness again. He made an incident of this, and looked round the table for sympathy, and obtained it, especially from such as were toadies.

Now all these had slept as much as nature required. No. 1, ar hyd y nos--like a top. No. 2, eight hours out of the nine. The ninth his sufferings had been moderate; they had been confined to this--a bitter sense of two things; first, that he was lying floating in a sea of comforts; secondly, that the moment he should really need sleep, sleep was at his service.

In ---- Jail, governor, turnkeys, chaplain, having had something to do the day before, slept among Cla.s.s 1, and now turned out of their warm beds as they had turned into them, without a shade of anxiety or even recollection of him whom they had left last evening at eight to pa.s.s the livelong night in a sponge--upon a stone.

Up rose refreshed with sleep that zealous officer, Hawes. He was in the prison at daybreak, and circulated with inspecting eye all through it.

Went into the kitchen--saw the gruel making--docked Josephs and three more of half their allowance; then into the corridors, where on one of the snowy walls he found a speck; swore; had it instantly removed.

Thence into the labor-yard, and prepared a crank for an athletic prisoner by secretly introducing a weight, and so making the poor crank a story-teller, and the prologue to punishment. Returning to the body of the prison, he called out, "Prisoners on the list for hard labor to be taken to the yard."

He was not answered with the usual alacrity, and looked up to repeat his summons, when he observed a cell open and two turnkeys standing in earnest conversation at the door. He mounted the stairs in great heat.

"What are you all humbugging there for, and why does not that young rascal turn out to work? I'll physic him, ---- him!"

The turnkeys looked in their chief's face with a strange expression of stupid wonder. Hawes caught this--his wrath rose higher.

"What d'ye stand staring at me like stuck pigs for? Come out, No. 15, ---- you all! why don't you bring him out to the crank?"

Hodges answered gloomily from the cell, "Come and bring him yourself, if you can."

At such an address from a turnkey, Hawes, who had now mounted the last stair, gave a snort of surprise and wrath--then darted into the cell, threatening the most horrible vengeance on the bones and body of poor Josephs, threats which he confirmed with a tremendous oath. But to that oath succeeded a sudden dead stupid staring silence; for running fiercely into the cell with rage in his face, threats and curses on his tongue, he had almost stumbled over a corpse.

It lay in the middle of the cell--stark and cold, but peaceful. Hawes stood over it. If he had not stopped short his foot would have been upon it. His mouth opened but no sound came. He stood paralyzed. A greater than he was in that cell, and he was dumb. He looked up--Hodges and Fry were standing silent, looking down on the body. Fry was grave; Hodges trembled. Part of a handkerchief fluttered from the bar of the window. A knife had severed it. The other fragment lay on the floor near the body, where Hodges had dropped it. Hawes took this in at a glance and comprehended it all. This was not the first or second prisoner that had escaped him by a similar road. For a moment his blood froze in him. He wished to Heaven he had not been so severe upon the poor boy.

It was but for a moment. The next he steeled himself in the tremendous egotism that belongs to and makes the deliberate manslayer.

"The young viper has done this to spite me," said he. And he actually cast a look of petulant anger down.

At this precise point the minds that had borne his company so long began to part from it. Fry looked in his face with an expression bordering on open contempt, and Hodges shoved rudely by him and left the cell.

Hodges leaned over the corridor in silence. One of the inferior turnkeys asked him a question dictated by curiosity about the situation in which he had found the body. "Don't speak to me!" was the fierce, wild answer.

And he looked with a stupid wild stare over the railings.

So wild and white and stricken was this man's face that Evans, who was exchanging some words with a gentleman on the bas.e.m.e.nt floor, happening to catch sight of it, interrupted himself and hallooed from below, "What, is there anything the matter, Hodges?" Hodges made no reply. The man seemed to have lost his speech for some time past.

"Let us go and see," said the gentleman; and he ascended the steps somewhat feebly, accompanied by Evans.

"What is it, Hodges?"

"What is it?" answered the man impatiently. "Go in there and you'll see what it is!"

"I don't like this, sir," said Evans. "Oh! I am fearful there is something unfortunate has happened. You mustn't come in, sir. You stay here, and I'll go in and see." He entered the cell.

Meantime a short conference had pa.s.sed between Hawes and Fry.

"This is a bad business, Fry."

"And no mistake."

"Had you any idea of this?"

"No! can't say I had."

"If the parson ever gets well he will make this a handle to ruin you and me."

"Me, sir! I only obey orders."

"That won't save you. If they get the better of me you will suffer along with me."

"I shouldn't wonder. I told you you were carrying it too far, but you wouldn't listen to me."

"I was wrong, Fry. I ought to have listened to you, for you are the only one that is faithful to me in the jail."

"I know my duty, sir, and I try to do it."

"What are we to do with him, Fry?"

"Well, I don't think he ought to lie on the floor. I'd let him have his bed now, I think."

"You are right. I'll send for it. Ah! here is Evans. Go for No. 15's bed."

Evans, standing at the door, had caught but a glimpse of the object that lay on the floor, but that glimpse was enough. He went out and said to Hodges, "Wasn't it you that took Josephs' bed away last night?" The man cowered under the question. "Well, you are to go and fetch it back, the governor says." Hodges went away for it without a word. Evans returned to the cell. He came and kneeled down by Josephs and laid his hand upon him. "I feared it! I feared it!" said he. "Why he has been dead a long time. Ah! your reverence, why did you come in when I told you not? Poor Josephs is no more, Sir."

Mr. Eden, who had already saluted Mr. Hawes with grave politeness, though without any affectation of good-will, came slowly up, and sinking his voice to a whisper in presence of death said in pitiful accents, "Poor child! he was always sickly. Six weeks ago I feared we should lose him, but he seemed to get better." He was now kneeling beside him. "Was he long ill, sir?" asked he of Hawes. "Probably he was, for he is much wasted. I can feel all his bones." Hardened as they were, Hawes and Fry looked at one another in some confusion. Presently Mr. Eden started back. "Why, what is this? he is wet. He is wet from head to foot. What is the cause of this? Can you tell me, Mr. Hawes?"

Mr. Hawes did not answer, but Evans did.

"I am afraid it is the bucket, your reverence. They soused him in the yard late last night."

"Did they?" said Mr. Eden, looking the men full in the face. "Then they have the more to repent of this morning. But stay. Why then he was not under the doctor's hands, Evans?"