Fashion and Famine Part 53

In the day time the prisoners, who inhabit these various cells, take exercise and air upon the galleries. Even those committed for the highest crimes often enjoy this privilege, for the ponderous strength of the walls, and the vigilance of the authorities, render a degree of freedom safe here, which could not be dreamed of in less secure buildings.

I do not know that there is any rule requiring that persons charged with capital crime should be confined in the upper cells, but usually they are found somewhere in the third gallery, enjoying some degree of liberty till after sentence; but closed between that time and death, as it were, in a living tomb. Thick walls encompa.s.s them on every side.

Doors of ponderous iron bolted to the stone, shut them in from the galleries. A slit in the walls, five or six feet deep, lets in all the breath and light of heaven which the wretched man must enjoy till he is violently plunged into a closer cell, whence breath and light are for ever excluded. A narrow bed, and perhaps a small, rude table, are all the furniture that can be crowded in with the prisoner. But books are seldom if ever denied him; and occasionally these little cells take a domestic air that renders them less prison-like, and less gloomy as the tastes and habits of the inmates develop themselves.

Old Mr. Warren was placed in one of these cells the day of his examination. He followed the officers along those dizzy galleries, submitting to the curious gaze of his fellow-prisoners with unshrinking humility, that won upon the kind feelings of his keepers. He entered the cell, looked calmly around, and then with a grateful and patient smile, thanked the officer for giving him a place so much better than he had expected.

The officer was touched by the grateful and meek air with which he spoke these simple thanks, and replied kindly, "that he was willing to render any comfort consistent with the prison rules." After this he looked around to see that everything was in order, and went out, closing the heavy door with a kind regard to the noise, shooting the bolt as softly as so much iron could be moved.

And now the old man was alone, utterly alone, locked and bolted deep into that solitude which must be worse than death to the guilty soul. At first his brain was dizzy; the tragic events that cast him into prison had transpired too rapidly for realization. They rose and eddied through his mind like the phantasmagoria of a dream. He could not think--he could not even pray.

He sat down on the hard pallet, and bowing his forehead to his hands, made an effort to realize his exact situation. His eyes were bent on the floor. Once or twice his lips moved with a faint tremor, for in all the confusion of his ideas he could recollect one thing vividly enough. His wife and grandchild--the two beings for whom he had toiled and suffered, were torn from his side. His poor old wife--her cry, as she strove to follow him, still rang in his ear. She had not even the comforts of a prison.

He looked around the cell--it was clean and dry--the walls snowy with whitewash--the stone flags swept scrupulously. In everything but size it was more comfortable than the bas.e.m.e.nt from which the officers had taken them. True, it was but a hole dug into the ponderous walls of a prison, but if she had been there the poor old man would have been content--nay, grateful, for as yet he had found no strength to realize the terrible danger that hung over him.

Thus, hour after hour went by, and he sat motionless, pondering over all the incidents of his examination like one in a dream. None of them seemed real--but the voice of his wife--the wild, white face of his grandchild as she was borne away through the crowd--these things were palpable enough. He tried to conjecture where his wife would go; what place of refuge she would find; not to their old home, the floor was still red with blood. She was a timid woman, dependent as a child.

Without his calm strength to sustain her, what could she do? Perish in the street, perhaps; lie down, softly, upon some door-stone, and grieve herself to death.

There is nothing on earth more touchingly holy than the tenderness which an old man feels for his old wife. The most ardent love of youth is feeble compared to the solemn devotion into which time purifies pa.s.sion.

The mere habit of domestic intercourse is much, independent of those deeper and more subtle feelings which give us our first glimpses of Paradise through the joys of home affection. It was not the prison--it was not the charge of murder that held that old man spell-bound and motionless so long. His desolation was of the heart; his spirit fled out from those huge walls, and followed the lone woman who had been thrust rudely from his side, for the first time in more than thirty years.

It was not with this keen anguish that he thought of Julia, for in her character there was freshness, energy, something of moral strength beyond her years. She might suffer terribly, but something convinced the grandfather that the sublime purity of her nature would protect itself.

She was not a feeble, broken-spirited woman like his wife. Yet his heart yearned as he thought of this young creature so pure, so beautiful, so full of sensitive sympathies, among the inmates of that gloomy dwelling.

It was of these two beings the old man pondered, not of himself. After awhile, this keen anxiety goaded him into motion. He stood up and began to pace back and forth in his cell. A narrow strip of the floor lay between his bed and the wall, and along this a little footpath had been worn in the stone by former prisoners.

Who had thus worn the prints of his solitary misery into the hard granite? What foot had trodden there the last sad step of destiny! This question drew the old man's attention for a moment from those he had lost. He became curious to know something of his predecessor--what was his crime? How did he look? Had he a wife and child to mourn? Did he leave the cell for liberty, other confinement, or death?

The word death brought a sense of his own condition for the first time before him. He became thoroughly conscious that a terrible charge had been made against him, and that appearances must sustain that charge.

From that instant he stood still, with his eyes bent upon the floor, pondering the subject clearly in his mind. At length a faint smile parted his lips, and he began to pace the narrow cell again, but more calmly than before.

I will tell you why that old man smiled there, alone, in his prison cell, because it will convince you that nothing but guilt can make one utterly wretched. He had thought over the whole matter--the charge of murder--the impossibility of disproving a single point of the evidence.

Nothing could be more apparent than the danger in which he stood--nothing more certain than the penalty that would follow conviction. But it was this very truth that sent the smile to those aged lips. What was death to him but the threshold of heaven? Death, he had never prayed for it, for his Christianity was too holy and humble for selfish importunity, even though the thing asked for was death. He was not one to cast himself at the footstool of the Almighty, and point out to His all-seeing wisdom the mercies that would please him best. No--no, the religion of that n.o.ble old man--for true religion is always n.o.ble--was of that humble, trusting nature that says, "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done." He was only thinking when he smiled so gently, how much greater sorrow he had encountered than death could bring.

This gave him comfort when he thought of his wife also. She would go with him, he was certain of that as he could be of anything in the future. He remembered, with pleasure, that old people, long married, and very much attached, were almost certain to die within a few weeks or months of each other. How many instances of this came within his own memory. It was a comforting theme, and he dwelt upon it with solemn satisfaction.

The keeper, when he came to bring the old man's dinner, gazed upon his benign and tranquil features with astonishment. Never in his life had he seen a prisoner so calm on the first day of confinement. It was impossible for philosophy or hardihood to a.s.sume an expression so gentle, and full of dignity.

"Tell me," said the old man, as the keeper lingered near the door, "tell me who occupied this cell last? It is a strange thing, but with so much to distract my thoughts, a curiosity haunts me to know something of the man whose bed I have taken."

The officer hesitated. It was an ominous question, and he shrunk from a subject well calculated to depress a prisoner.

"I have made out a portion of the history," said the prisoner; "enough to know that he was a sea-faring man, and had talent."

"And how did you find this out?" inquired the officer.

"There, upon the wall, is a rough picture, but one can read a great deal in it!"

The old man pointed to the wall, where a few unequal lines, drawn with a pencil, gave a rude idea of waves in motion. In their midst was a ship, with her masts broken, plunging downward, with her bows already engulfed in the water.

"Poor fellow! I thought it had been whitewashed over," said the officer.

"He did that the very week before--before his execution."

"Then he was executed?"

"Yes; nothing could have saved him."

"Was he guilty, then?"

"It was as clear a case of piracy as I ever saw tried; the man confessed his guilt."

"Guilty! Death must be terrible in that case--very terrible!" said the old man, with a mournful shake of the head.

"He was a reckless fellow, full of wild glee to the last, but a coward, I do believe. I found his pillow wet almost every morning. The last month he kept a calendar of the days over his bed there, pencilled on the wall. The first thing every morning he would strike out a day with his finger; but if any one seemed to pity him, he frequently broke into a volley of curses, or jeered at sympathy that he did not want."

"Have you ever seen an innocent man executed?" said the prisoner, greatly disturbed by this account; "that is, a man who met death calmly, neither as a stoic, a bravo, or a coward?"

"I have no doubt innocent men have been executed again and again, all over the world; but I have never seen one die, knowing him to be such."

The officer went out after this, leaving the old man alone once more.

His face was sad now, and he watched the closing door wistfully.

"Why should I seek other examples?" he said, at length. "Was not _he_ executed innocently? Is it not enough to know how my Lord and Saviour died?"

It was a singular thing, but, from the first, old Mr. Wilc.o.x never seemed to entertain a hope of escaping from the prison by any means but a violent death. It was to this that all his Christian energies were bent from the earliest hour of confinement.

The night came on, but its approach was perceptible only by the shadows that crept across the loop-hole which served as a window. In the darkness that soon filled the cell the old man lay down in his clothes and tried to sleep. Now it was that his soul yearned toward the poor old wife who had been so long sheltered in his bosom; the fair grand-daughter too--it seemed as if his heart would break as their condition rose before him in all its fearful desolation.

Deep in the night he fell asleep, and then his brain was haunted with dreams, bright, heavenly dreams, such as irradiate the face of an infant when the mother believes it whispering with angels. But this sweet sleep was of brief duration. He awoke in the darkness, and, unconscious where he was, reached out his arm. It struck the cold, hard wall, and the vibration went through his heart like a knife. She was not by his side.

Where, where was his poor wife? He asked this question aloud; his sobs filled the cell; the miserable pillow under his head soaked up the tears as they rained down his face. A dread of death could not have wrung drops from those aching eyes; but tears of affection reveal the strength of a good man. There are times when the proudest being on earth might be ashamed not to weep.

He did not close his eyes again that night, but wept himself calm with broken prayers. Low, humble entreaties for strength, for patience and for charity, rose from his hard bed. Slowly the cell filled with light, and then he saw, for the first time, a book lying on a small shelf, fastened beneath the window. He arose, eagerly, and took it down. A glow spread over his face. It was one of those cheap Bibles, which the Tract Society scatters through our prisons. As he opened the humble book, a sunbeam shot through the loop-hole, and broke in a shower of light over the page. Was it chance that sent the golden sunbeam? Was it chance that opened the book to one of the most hopeful and comforting pa.s.sages of Scripture?

He took an old pair of steel spectacles from his pocket, and sat down to read. Hours wore away, still he bent over those holy pages as if they had never met his eyes before. And so it really seemed, for we must suffer before all the strength and beauty of the book of books can penetrate the heart. A noise at the door made him look up. His breath came fast. It required something heavier than that iron door, to lock out the sympathies of two hearts that had grown old in affection. His hands began to tremble; he took off the spectacles, and hastily put them between the pages of his Bible. It was of no use trying to read then.

The bolt was shot, the door swung open with a clang, and there stood a group of persons ready to enter.

"Husband! oh, husband!" cried old Mrs. Wilc.o.x, reaching both hands through the door as she stooped to come in.

The prisoner took her hands in his, and kissed them as he had done years ago, when those poor withered fingers were rosy with youth. The door closed softly then, for old Mrs. Gray was not one to force herself upon an interview so mournful and so sacred.

CHAPTER XXV.

LITTLE GEORGIE.

As ivy clingeth round a ruin, Still green within the darkest cleft, The human soul in its undoing Has still some lingering virtue left.