It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 77

"He is one of those men to whom veracity is natural. He would hardly know how to tell a falsehood. They fly about him in this place like hailstones, but I never saw one come from him."

"Stay! does he side with you or with Mr. Hawes in this unfortunate difference?"

"With me!" cried Mr. Hawes eagerly. Mr. Eden bowed a.s.sent. "Hum!"

"This honest Nero is zealous according to his light; he has kept a strict record of the acts and events of the jail for four years past; i.e., rather more than two years of Captain O'Connor's jailership, and somewhat less than two years of the present jailer. Such a journal, rigorously kept out of pure love of truth by such a man is invaluable.

There no facts are likely to be suppressed or colored, since the record was never intended for any eye but his own. I am sure Mr. Fry will gratify you with a sight of this journal. Oblige me, Mr. Fry!"

"Certainly, sir! certainly!" replied Fry, swelling with importance and gratified surprise.

"Bring it me at once, if you please." Fry went with alacrity for his journal.

"Mr. Lacy," said Mr. Eden, with a slight touch of reproach, "you can read not faces only but complexions. You read in my yellow face and sunken eye--prejudice; what do you read here?" and he wheeled like lightning and pointed to Mr. Hawes, whose face and very lips were then seen to be the color of ashes. The poor wretch tried to recover composure, and retort defiance; but the effort came too late. His face had been seen, and once seen that look of terror, anguish and hatred was never to be forgotten.

"What is the matter, Mr. Hawes?"

"W--W--When I think of my long services, and the satisfaction I have given to my superiors--and now my turnkey's journal to be taken and believed against mine."

(Chorus of Justices.) "It is a shame!"

Mr. Eden (very sharply). "Against yours? what makes him think it will be against his? The man is his admirer, and an honest man. What injustice has he to dread from such a source?"

Mr. Lacy. "I really cannot understand your objection to a man's evidence whose bias lies your way; and I must say, it speaks well for Mr. Eden that he has proposed this man in evidence."

At this juncture the magistrates, after a short consultation, informed Mr. Lacy that they had business of more importance to transact, and could give no more time to what appeared to them an idle and useless inquiry.

"At all events, gentlemen," replied Mr. Lacy, "I trust you will not leave the jail. I am not here to judge Mr. Hawes, but to see whether Mr.

Eden's demand for a formal inquiry into his acts ought to be granted or refused. Now unless the evidence takes some new turn I incline to think I must favor the inquiry; that is to say, should the chaplain persist in demanding it."

"Which I shall."

"Should a royal commission be appointed to sit here, I should naturally wish to consult you as to the component members of the commission; and it is my wish to pay you the compliment usual in such cases of selecting one of the three commissioners from your body. But one question, gentlemen, before you go. Have you complied with No. 1 of these your rules? Have you visited every prisoner in his or her cell once a month?"

"Certainly not!"

"I am sorry to hear it. Of course, at each visit, you have closely examined this the jailer's book, a record of his acts and the events of the jail?"

"Portions of it are read to us; this is a form which I believe is never omitted--is it, Mr. Hawes?"

"Never, gentlemen!"

"'Portions!' and 'a form!' what, then, are your acts of supervision? Do you examine the turnkeys, and compare their opinions with the jailer's?"

"We would not be guilty of such ungentlemanly behavior!" replied Mr.

Williams, who had been longing for some time to give Mr. Lacy a slap.

"Do you examine the prisoners apart, so that there can be no intimidation of them?"

"We always take Mr. Hawes into the cells with us."

"Why do you do that, pray?"

"We conceive that nothing would be gained by encouraging the refuse of mankind to make frivolous complaints against their best friend." Here the speaker and his mates wore a marked air of self-satisfaction.

"Well, sir! has the present examination in no degree shaken your confidence in Mr. Hawes's discretion?"

"Not in the least."

"Nor in your own mode of scrutinizing his acts?"

"Not in the least."

"That is enough! Gentlemen, I need detain you no longer from the business you have described as more important than this!"

Mr. Lacy shrugged his shoulders. Mr. Eden smiled to him, and said quietly:

"As they were in the days of Shakespeare so they were in the days of Fielding; as they were in the days of Fielding so they are in the days of light; and as they are now so will they remain until they are swept away from the face of the soil. (Keep your eye on Mr. Hawes, edging away there so adroitly.) It is not their fault, it is their nature; their const.i.tution is rotten; in building them the State ignored Nature, as Hawes ignores her in his self-invented discipline."

"What do you mean, sir?"

"That no _body_ of men ever gave for nothing anything worth anything, nor ever will. Now knowledge of law is worth something; zeal, independent judgment, honesty, humanity, diligence are worth something (are you watching Mr. Hawes, sir?); yet the State, greedy goose, hopes to get them out of a body of men for nothing!"

"Hum! Why has Mr. Hawes retired?"

"You know as well as I do."

"Oh! do I?"

"Yes, sir! the man's terror when Fry's journal was proposed in evidence, and his manner of edging away obliquely to the direction Fry took, were not lost on a man of your intelligence."

"If you think that, why did you not stop him till Fry came back with the book?"

"I had my reasons; meantime we are not at a stand-still. Here is an attested copy of the journal in question; and here is Mr. Hawes's log-book. Fry's book intended for no mortal eye but his own; Hawes's concocted for inspection."

"I see a number of projecting marks pasted into Fry's journal!"

"Yes, sir; on some of these marks are written the names of remarkable victims, recurring at intervals; on others are inscribed the heads of villainy--'the black-hole,' 'starvation,' 'thirst,' 'privation of exercise,' 'of bed,' 'of gas,' 'of chapel,' 'of human converse,' 'inhuman threats,' and the infernal torture called the 'punishment-jacket.' Somewhat on the plan of 'Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica.' So that you can at will trace any one of Mr. Hawes's illegal punishments, and see it running like a river of blood through many hapless names; or you can, if you like it better, track a fellow-creature dripping blood from punishment to punishment, from one dark page to another, till release, lunacy, or death closes the list of his recorded sufferings."

Aided by Mr. Eden, who whirled over the leaves of Mr. Hawes's log-book for him, Mr. Lacy compared several pages of the two books. The following is merely a selected specimen of the entries that met his eye:

MR. FRY. MR. HAWES.

Joram.Writing on his can--bread and Joram.Refractory--bread and water. water.

Joram.Bread and water.

Joram.Bread and water. Joram.Refractory--crank; bread and water.