flbimM*JBt» 
 
 «Hm«#«mw#»" 
 
 T ...jmi.. ■ ■ . j ■ a i i" n h ac 
 
LI B HAR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 SZ3 
 
 wrzn 
 
 V.Z 
 

IN HER MAJESTY'S KEEPING. 
 
 ^ht Stars .of a ggtbfcttt fgife. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE HON. LEWIS WINGFIELD, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 ' LADY GRIZEL,' ' MY LORDS OF STROGUE,' ETC. 
 
 Recompense Injury with Justice; and Kindness with Kindness.' 
 
 Confucius. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. II. 
 
 LONDON : 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, 
 
 P»bUsh*rs in ©rfcmars ** W** Jtofcatfi &* (Queen;. ; 
 1880. 
 L4// Rights Reserved, .] 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/inhermajestyskee02wing 
 
F33 
 
 v. 2. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 
 
 PART I. — continued.^ 
 
 'CHAPTER FAGE 
 
 XI. THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS - - 1 
 
 XII. THE ESCAPE ----- 41 
 
 XIII. SODA -__.--_ 75 
 
 XIV. THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES - - 91 
 XV. A NEW ARRIVAL - - - - - 116 
 
 XVI. WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO ? - - - 153 
 
 XVII. 57 PARTY - - - - - - 168 
 
 XVIII. MIFFY'S CHAMPION - - - - - 191 
 
 XIX, THE CRISIS ARRIVES - - - - - 218 
 
 XX. A CHANCE IN THE REGIME - - - 250 
 
 PART II. 
 
 fc THE GUARDIAN SPEAKS. 
 
 I. THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL - 301 
 
IN HER MAJESTY'S KEEPING. 
 
 P J±_ p T J # — continued. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 HE good major was always inclined 
 to placidity after an interview with 
 his most hopeful prisoner ; there- 
 fore I, being the next on the roll, escaped 
 with a reprimand. Scarraweg, true to his 
 word, had used his authority with his junior, 
 and the complaint made was merely one of 
 talking ; so the governor rapped out an 
 edifying little discourse, and sent me about 
 my business. He said he was glad to see in 
 me a slight change for the better. When I 
 vol. ii. 22 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 first came, my record was of the blackest, but 
 latterly my transgressions had been trivial, and 
 I had only misbehaved myself in small matters, 
 
 ' I observe with pleasure,' he concluded, 
 ' that you are less morose than you were at 
 first ; less inclined to secret brooding, which 
 can only have a bad result. I have per- 
 ceived, too, that chance has thrown you a 
 good deal, during your Sunday walks, in the 
 way of the man who has just gone out, and 
 that you have not repelled his advances. 
 This speaks well for you, for he is quiet and 
 steady — of a contented disposition — a strik- 
 ing example of prison reformation — and will 
 doubtless do us credit when he goes out.' 
 
 Instead of displaying gratitude, in that the 
 major had stooped to study me, I gave w T ay 
 to a derisive chuckle, and he stared with an 
 offended frown, while Scarraweg shook his 
 head. I was essentially a man of moods, 
 and my moods in many instances were alto- 
 gether beyond control. To save myself from 
 the triangles, I could not have helped laugh- 
 ing in the governor's face when he showed 
 how little he understood us, though I knew 
 he would resent the impertinence on the next 
 
THE YOUXG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 occasion when I should be brought up for 
 judgment. In the solitude of my own cell I 
 laughed again as I thought it over — a bitter 
 cachinnation, devoid of merriment, like the 
 snapping of a skull's jaws which are set on 
 springs. And again in the night I laughed, 
 as, lying awake, I started when the bull's- 
 eye flashed, and listened to the muffled tread 
 of the night-patrol in his list slippers, and 
 the gentle breathing of the guileless Jaggs 
 through the partition of corrugated iron. It 
 was all grimly funny. What could be more 
 droll than this blustering but kind-hearted 
 governor, who pretended to be a fire-eater, 
 and prided himself on his knowledge of men ? 
 He meant well, though he was for ever 
 spying through secret chinks ; yet the fact 
 that he should cultivate that habit showed 
 how false was his estimate of human nature, 
 and how unfit he was for his position. With 
 regard to the convicts under his care, he was 
 rarely in possession of la clef de Venigme, and 
 consequently could do little else than blunder. 
 It was funny how inconsistent he was ; at 
 one moment declaring that felons and warders 
 alike were a race predestined to serfdom ; at 
 
 22—2 
 
4 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 another, holding up as a model of reform one 
 whose crimes were of unusual baseness. For 
 I judged from what had passed that it must 
 be so, and that the parson had lied to me as 
 well as to the rest. 
 
 The leonine chief- warder, too, was in his 
 way grotesque. He read Tilgoe like a book, 
 and reckoned him up for one of the meanest 
 men in the whole prison ; but he did not 
 know that in the silence of his den he was 
 weaving a secret web of dastardly and subtle 
 vengeance. He did not know that he was 
 plaiting ingenious paragraphs of falsehood, of 
 which ' taxpayer ' was to be the keynote. 
 Had he known that, there is little doubt but 
 that he would have made it warm for him, 
 and for a moment I felt half inclined to drop 
 a hint. There was something so very mean 
 about it, something so disagreeably like the 
 proceedings of the midnight bravo, that I 
 considered I should have been justified in 
 warning Mr. Scarraweg. But then I remem- 
 bered that it is the way of convicts to peach 
 one upon another on the sly, and I still shrank 
 from being identified with my companions 
 down to this lowest depth. ' No/ I thought, 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 5 
 
 ' he will achieve release by-ancl-bye, and have 
 his fling possibly for a while. Yet surely his 
 malice renders him too sanguine. The public, 
 as a body, are 'gifted with common-sense. 
 Are they likely to accept so ridiculous a 
 position as that the basest of the base should 
 sit in judgment on their betters % Will they 
 for a moment permit rascals who have been 
 proved guilty of hideous offences idly to 
 impeach gentlemen of high standing and 
 blameless reputation ? Will they believe the 
 anonymous felon, without strongly-established 
 proof, when he blandly assures them that he 
 has " made a little slip," and is " more sinned 
 against than sinning V No. Mr. Bull 
 could not be so misguided : he could not so 
 gratuitously insult those whom he has placed 
 in command of his prisons — officers who have 
 served him faithfully through a lengthened 
 military career, who have won for themselves 
 names and decorations upon many a hard- 
 fought field ! The proposition was too 
 grotesque. In this instance Tilgoe's inge- 
 nuity had run away with him. He will 
 spin out his lies/ I reflected, ' and weave his 
 fabrications, only to be caught in his own 
 
6 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 net. Curiosity may induce people to peruse 
 what he has written, then, laughing, they 
 will lay it down. And after that will come 
 retribution.' The governor distinctly let 
 drop that though only one charge had been 
 investigated, there had been a dozen more 
 standing against the parson. This was not 
 his first sentence either. He had lied to me 
 from the beginning to the end. The criminal 
 career of such a miscreant was not likely to 
 conclude in middle life. In time he would 
 be certain to return to prison ; and then, with 
 governors, warders, all, arrayed against him 
 by a personal grudge, it would not be plea- 
 sant to occupy his shoes ! The last state of 
 that felon would certainly be worse than the 
 first. No amount of cant would save him. 
 I rather hoped that when the time should 
 come, I might be there to see. And yet I 
 didn't, for it would be best for him to go to 
 Chatham, there to break his back under the 
 eye of retributive guardians, in the oozy 
 mud, without hope of privilege or favour, or 
 mercy. 
 
 Ah, me ! When would that time come ? 
 And, supposing him to return to Dartmoor, 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 7 
 
 would he find me lingering still, or gone to 
 rest 1 Tempest-tossed and worn out by alter- 
 nations of despair and callousness, I really 
 showed signs of becoming genuinely indif- 
 ferent as to the future. My moods varied 
 as they were influenced either by retrospect 
 and the determination, for the sake of my 
 child's future, never to be set free ; or by the 
 revulsion caused by some sally of my com- 
 rades which was more brutal and more re- 
 volting than usual. 
 
 It seemed probable that the term of my 
 life would be a hundred instead of three 
 score years and ten. I never felt better in 
 my life than I did at Dartmoor, for the brisk 
 air and exercise suited my constitution. In 
 similar ratio as the mental power wanes from 
 disuse, so often does the body flourish. I 
 threatened to become altogether bovine and 
 fleshly, like an ordinary day-labourer ; and 
 then by fits and starts a veil was rent in 
 twain, and I saw the grim vast future in all 
 its monotonous horror. Quaking then with 
 dismay, I tore my flesh with my fingers, as I 
 used to do in the first despairing throes of 
 anguish, and cursed my health and iron 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 muscles. Why was I not like Miffy, frail 
 and weak ? Were not hundreds of opulent 
 but feeble men rushing from place to place 
 in search of health to enjoy the riches which 
 surrounded them 1 Why could not I give 
 them mine, and make an exchange which 
 would be a boon to both ? Often as I tossed 
 in the melancholy watches, I wondered how 
 time passed — and yet why should I ? Time 
 and I could have no connection any more. 
 The intervening space betwixt me and the 
 end was a dreary blank which could have no 
 real interest. But, as a matter of curiosity, 
 I did wonder, now and then, whether it was 
 weeks, or days, or years, since first I joined 
 the wretched band upon this barren heath. 
 Crusoe calculated the time by means of a 
 notched stick. My comrades kept records in 
 all kinds of ways. I had no calendar, for the 
 gradual approach of distant months whispered 
 no hope to such as I. I tried to tell off the 
 weeks by the labour done. We had dragged 
 from the quarry's flanks great heaps of rock — 
 immense heaps. Surely it must be years 
 since I entered my iron cell. How many ? 
 Was it six, or ten, or even more % My little 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 Mildred must be a great girl now — tall and 
 slender and beautiful. Yes, beautiful ; for of 
 course she did not disappoint the promise of 
 early childhood. She had put off her mourn- 
 ing ages since, and dried her tears. She was 
 very happy. 
 
 As I contemplated her, my heart seemed 
 to grow still, to flutter less and less strongly 
 against the bars which prisoned it. My 
 mind basked in the glory of her golden hair, 
 and ceased to fret — calmed by some mystic 
 agency. For her sake I had laid down my 
 identity whilst still alive, had denied myself 
 the rapture of her embrace. Of a surety 
 that sacrifice would be counted as part of an 
 atonement. Lo ! it was counted as such 
 already. My pulse was imperceptible — I 
 was in a daze — and I thanked God for His 
 goodness, for I felt I must be dying ! And 
 then across the primrose vision came a shade, 
 and the dreamer was rudely recalled to earth. 
 It was the shadow of her mother, stern and 
 harsh. What if she were cruel to my darling ? 
 
 What if Oh no! no! The thought 
 
 that the sacrifice might be in vain was 
 maddening. The insidious thought that per- 
 
io THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 chance she was miserable and yearned after 
 her father — the idea that it might, perhaps, 
 be better for her even to know that he was a 
 felon and alive, than be crushed bv a desolating 
 sense of solitude. Then I would start up and 
 gnaw my nails and pace my small domain, 
 and strike my palms against the wall, till 
 knocks from Jaggs would recall me to myself, 
 or the passing patrol would warn me to be 
 silent. These transitions told that the fire 
 was not quenched, but smouldering. My 
 mind was like an open magazine. Would a 
 match ever be applied, or was it to remain 
 dark and black and harmless ? It takes 
 seven years, they say, for the tissues of a 
 man's body to be changed. How long was 
 it to be ere my inner nature could be entirely 
 transformed 1 
 
 My daughter and my wife. They would 
 persist in haunting me, strive as I would to 
 blot out their image. Engrossed by the 
 hurry of the world's affairs, they must have 
 ceased long since to think of me. Why 
 could I not bury them in a like oblivion ? 
 To them I was like a letter tossed upon the 
 hearth — a letter scrawled all over, crossed 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. n 
 
 and recrossed with words. A flame curls 
 round it, and it smokes and darkens and 
 cracks into small fissures ; then flares and is 
 consumed and shrinks, and, after that, burns 
 to a ghastly white. No vestige of the pretty 
 sentiments remain ; they are clean wiped out, 
 as with a sponge. Having passed through 
 the ordeal of the fire, all is blank and ashen, 
 and then crumbles into dust impalpable, and 
 vanishes. So was it with me and mine. I 
 had passed from their sight for ever in this 
 world. How Ions: would thev remember me, 
 and why should I desire to be remembered ? 
 But for these occasional waves, of despair 
 or of despondency, which grew rarer and more 
 rare as time went on, I became more and more 
 like a cog in a great wheel When unstirred 
 by pictures of the past, I was simply hard 
 and indifferent. To one as desolate as I, it 
 mattered not how often I was punished. 
 What were gibes and revilings to one who 
 had been so racked ? How right was Jao-as 
 to take things so easily ; how wise was Tilgoe 
 when he exhorted me to make the best of a 
 bad job ! My heart was hard and heavy, like 
 a big stone within my breast. Evil-doing 
 
12 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 is contagious. Jagg's maxims were amusing 
 those of the Rev. Aurelius were edifying. 
 Virtue is out of place in an assemblage of 
 convicts. From our point of view, as offenders 
 against the law, whose offending hencefor- 
 ward (by the world's decree) must perforce 
 be chronic, it was well that we should unite 
 to form a happy family, and make ourselves 
 as comfortable as circumstances would permit. 
 Tilgoe was perfectly right to have inveigled 
 the young jackanapes into his power, and it 
 was vastly entertaining to watch how that 
 hapless person fretted under his tyranny. 
 Miffy and I, who were not in the compact, 
 endured the full brunt of his domineering 
 temper without murmuring. Miffy was too 
 jaded and too crushed for revolt. For my 
 part, the young warder s barbs flew harmless 
 over my head. The peach-faced swaggerer 
 was not the match which was to explode my 
 magazine. 
 
 That all-conquering discipline ! What an 
 overwhelming, overriding car of Juggernaut! 
 I see the dissolving view before me now of 
 the iron yoke under which we bowed twice 
 daily. There was no fear of our forgetting 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 13 
 
 that we were wild animals, treacherous 
 creatures who might not be trusted for a 
 moment. Returned from the quarry, we 
 stood in files for searching, as we had done 
 before going thither a few hours before ; 
 then we were marched in squads into our 
 halls, each animal retiring to his den and 
 shutting-to his door till feeding-time. But 
 the animals might be up to tricks ; they 
 might not be trusted even so far. Two or 
 even three might be huddled in one den, and 
 who could premise what they might there be 
 plotting \ Such a possibility must be pre- 
 vented ; so the doors were no sooner closed 
 than each warder in charge passed down his 
 landing, tapping at every door; in reply to 
 which summons the beast within was expected 
 to growl, ' Ay, sir !' At first this system 
 revolted and offended me, but as I became 
 callous I grew used to it, and seeing what I 
 did of my companions, while their characters 
 were disclosing themselves, I could not but ac- 
 quiesce in the expediency of the arrangement. 
 The bleak moor on which we laboured 
 turned green, then russet-red, then sable, and 
 then white — how often? I took no heed, 
 
14 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 nor cared. It rained sometimes incessantly 
 for weeks together, as though a new delude 
 was to drown us. The mists came down and 
 wrapped us like a shroud, and then it seemed 
 as if we were hung away in space, far removed 
 from earth. For days and days sometimes 
 did the fogs hang upon the plain, and being 
 kept cooped within the walls, we enjoyed a 
 rest from bodily exertion, I dreaded these 
 times, for, deprived of exercise, the past 
 preyed on me with disastrous effect ; but it 
 was not so with Jaggs or Soda, both of whom 
 detested the quarry, preferring to make a 
 pretence of furbishing up the corridors, or 
 of picking oakum within their dens. 
 
 Our quarrying party remained much the 
 same. Jaggs laboured with me as often as 
 he could, for I recked not whether he did his 
 quantum or left me to bear the brunt. Some- 
 times we had a sprinkling of yellow men, 
 sometimes of weakly ones, who struggled 
 and broke down, and were drafted to the 
 shops, leaving Jaggs torn by envy. His 
 hands, in spite of all precautions, were now 
 as horny as my own, and would require long 
 training before they could resume their 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 15 
 
 suppleness. Did it not seem cruel that a 
 master of legerdemain should have his stock- 
 in-trade broken, as it were, piecemeal ? It 
 required the exercise of all his philosophy to 
 keep his spirits and his temper in trim, and 
 many an hour of private contemplation was 
 employed by him in scheming how Scarraweg 
 might be circumvented. 
 
 Where changes were so few, and each 
 week so like its neighbour, tiny ripples on 
 our ocean seemed to us huge waves. There 
 was a change gradually creeping into the 
 relations of Miffy with his patron, which 
 exercised me no little, for lack of something 
 better wherewith to occupy my faculties. 
 The unlucky stealer of stamps was become 
 the very bondsman of Soda, without will of 
 his own, or even desire to have a will. 
 Before he was a faithful dog ; now he was a 
 doomed rabbit, watching with equanimity the 
 serpent who was about to devour him ; and as 
 he sank deeper and deeper under the fascina- 
 tion, so did his nervousness seem to increase 
 and his wits to melt. Indeed, the burly 
 scoundrel had his own way in the quarry, 
 and evaded work in quite a remarkable 
 
16 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 degree ; establishing a reign of terror there 
 from which I only appeared to be exempted. 
 Between him and me there was a sort of 
 armed neutrality. He knew perfectly well 
 that I would stand no nonsense, and that if 
 it were to come to a trial of strength, I 
 probably should come off the victor. This in 
 itself was sufficient motive for the respect of 
 a coward and a bully ; and, despite my early 
 delinquencies, he elected to be still extremely 
 friendly when he discovered that I did not 
 intend to interfere with him. It was only to 
 be expected that a gentleman lag would be 
 guilty of deplorable laches until taught 
 better. I had begun well, then had fallen 
 away into semi-propriety, but now was im- 
 proving again ; and therefore it was only fair 
 that the probationer in sin should be en- 
 couraged. It was a pity that I should be so 
 inconsistent — such a chameleon as to moods 
 ■ — but that, doubtless, would be changed in 
 course of time, long before the twenty years 
 were up when Mr. Soda was to make his 
 bow. My intimacy, too, with the astute 
 parson, of whom he stood in awe, did much 
 to increase his surly deference, so we 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 17 
 
 exchanged a nod or a remark, and worked 
 sometimes side by side, and neither his broad 
 jests not yet his foul language offended his 
 comrade any more. But it was curious that 
 Miffy should be so utterly under the thumb 
 of such as he. Everyone remarked the fact 
 as well as I, and also that the devotion of 
 the postmaster had certainly not been won 
 by kindness. Even the purblind old Scripture- 
 reader saw it, and warned his -protege more 
 than once. But he was beyond warning. I 
 once inquired of him myself wherein the 
 fascination lay ; but he merely rubbed his 
 brow as if it ached, and looked furtivelv at 
 Soda in his vacant weary way. That his 
 slavery was involuntary was evident, for he 
 seemed always to be expecting a blow, and 
 when he got one (which was often enough) 
 he would draw out his old scraps of letters 
 and croon over the well-known lines for 
 comfort. As may be supposed, his patron, 
 who since the tragical end of Blackbeetle Bet 
 had flouted the idea of constancy, was little 
 softened by such an exhibition of maudlin 
 feebleness. On the contrary, he was wont to 
 rate his serf and gibe at his home relations, 
 vol. 11. 23 
 
1 8 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 and encourage others to do likewise. Was 
 his wife pretty — was she young — was she 
 delicate ? Did he expect to find her re- 
 married on his exit, and mother of how many 
 new hrats ? Under which interrogatory 
 MifFy would shrink and cower and reply in 
 monosyllables, or make no reply at all, as if 
 pretending not to hear. One clay (we must 
 have been at Dartmoor three or four years I 
 should imagine) he began bullying him with 
 unusual persistency. 
 
 'I say, young bloke!' he jeered, turning 
 his heavy eyes upon his aide-de-camp, as 
 together we were twisting round the crane ; 
 ' so I prophesied true. Your old woman's 
 got spliced to a sodger. Do you know that ? 
 What a game !' 
 
 ' Don't !' winced MifFy. ' Please leave me 
 alone.' 
 
 'Well, but hasn't she though? Leastways, 
 she's hanging out in a new shop.' 
 
 MifFy's thin hands trembled as he glanced 
 at his patron timidly. ' How do you know 
 that V he panted. 
 
 ' How do I know that V echoed Soda, with 
 a giggle. ' I know lots of things — I'm fly. 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 19 
 
 The queen of the bloke's young affections 
 hev left her London palace for to pay a 
 wissit to her country place. Where may she 
 hev gone to, shaver V 
 
 Miffy shivered and said nothing, so, my 
 curiosity being aroused, I in my turn inquired : 
 
 ' However did you find that out, Soda V 
 
 ' What's that to yew V he retorted sulkily. 
 1 I suppose I may take an interest in the 
 bloke's young 'ooman ? How do I know ? 
 Why — I heerd him talking to the psalm- 
 patter t'other evening. Through those iron 
 cells of ourn you can hear no end of secrets/ 
 
 I record this apparently idle discourse be- 
 cause it was a link in the chain of events 
 which not long afterwards brought about an 
 unexpected denouement. The effect of it at 
 the moment was seriously to agitate the post- 
 master, who did not recover himself all day. 
 That his fellow gaol-birds should talk lightly 
 of his wife was the one thing that could stir 
 Miffy's remains of reason. Socla knew it ; 
 which may have been the motive for his 
 pressing him so constantly upon the point. 
 Was it merely to gratify his propensicy for 
 bullying, or had he a more distinct purpose ? 
 
 OO o 
 
20 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 I knew it ; but what was it to me by this 
 time that Miffy should be harassed or not ? 
 The purblind old Scripture-reader knew it, 
 and he, finding hints to be vain, resolved to 
 speak plainly, and if possible, put a spoke into 
 the wheel. Now, it was the practice of that 
 stupid, but well-intentioned man to take the 
 prison hall by hall, and call upon each prisoner 
 separately. 
 
 After Mr. Tilgoe's complaint (years back 
 now) as to being deprived of spiritual conso- 
 lation, the governor had suggested to the 
 chaplain that he might perhaps, with advan- 
 tage, attend more strictly to his duties ; and 
 the chaplain, resenting the interference, had 
 quarrelled with his chief, whereby, society 
 being limited, the social joys of Dartmoor 
 were not much enhanced. It was outrageous 
 he declared, for anybody to interfere. The 
 pay was absurdly small, and to converse with 
 habitual criminals was waste of time and also 
 debasing. If they sent to him he would see 
 them, not otherwise, for all the governors in 
 creation ; moreover, there were so many that 
 it would not be possible to visit all ; why, 
 therefore, do a thing unevenly ? For by a 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 21 
 
 recondite sum in arithmetic he had persuaded 
 himself, to the relief of conscience, that he 
 could not in three hundred and sixty-five days 
 have a profitable talk with each one of a 
 thousand captives, and also enjoy the requi- 
 site amount of private recreation. ' If we 
 give out/ he argued, ' we must also take in, 
 or else we become a mere empty vessel.' 
 Therefore the original arrangement was 
 simple and satisfactory, and must be adhered 
 to, whereby he elected to sit daily for a cer- 
 tain time in the dignified retirement of his 
 office, to be summoned by a warder if his 
 company was pined for. As it happened, 
 few people pined for that advantage ; so 
 he trimmed his fingers in seclusion with a 
 neat pair of scissors, and yawned prodigiously, 
 and wrote erudite Sunday discourses which 
 were over the heads of his congregation ; 
 and the real burden of his cure of souls fell 
 upon the pursy little gentleman with the fat 
 and dingy hands, for whom at our first meet- 
 ing I had evinced so sovereign a contempt. 
 In that matter, as I had discovered long 
 since, I was wrong ; for his heart was in his 
 occupation, and he strove hard to do his 
 
22 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 Master's work. On the evening which fol- 
 lowed the above conversation he turned 
 his attention to our landing ; and buzzed 
 about like a stout bee, from cell to cell, 
 whilst the men underwent their weekly hair- 
 cropping. 
 
 In his reckoning up of us he, by a simple 
 reasoning, placed Soda and myself on the 
 same pedestal. Soda was a dangerous man 
 — a third lag — who in his sojourn at Chat- 
 ham had earned for himself the worst of re- 
 putations. I, too, was a desperate character, 
 who, as my penal record clearly showed, had 
 flown at my keepers at Pentonville ; who, 
 here, had been sulky and unruly ; had ven- 
 tured to argue with my spiritual pastors and 
 masters ; and had by no means essayed to 
 put into practice the ' duty to your neighbour' 
 of the catechism. Ebenezer Anderson did 
 not love his neighbour as himself — else why 
 had he banged in the head of his neighbour 
 with a pewter-pot ? He did not honour or 
 obey the queen — in the person of the 
 ' screws.' He did not order himself humbly 
 or reverently to anybody whatsoever. It 
 was clear as ditchwater that he was a 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 23 
 
 shocking reprobate, matriculating for Party 
 57 — a brand who declined to be snatched 
 from the burning — who refused with con- 
 tumely to rend either his heart or his gar- 
 ment. Stay ! More than once before I be- 
 came indifferent, I had torn up my clothes, 
 and also my blankets ; but that was during 
 the frantic paroxysms of my soul's agony, and 
 had nothing to do with the text in question. 
 When, with bland unction, I had been exhorted 
 to remember that only by good conduct could 
 I hope for eventual release, I had scoffed in un- 
 becoming fashion, making the unusual declara- 
 tion that I didn't wish for release, and grinding 
 my teeth when told to take Tilgoe for a model 
 — the lost sheep over whose return to the fold 
 all the angels in paradise were weeping. 
 There was no doubt about it in the mind of 
 the worthy ' psalm-patterer,' that there was 
 no difference, save in degree, between my 
 villany and that of Soda ; therefore the ex- 
 cellent fellow was so nervous when on a visit 
 to either of us, that we were not likely to 
 gain much by his ministrations. It was 
 otherwise with the others in our vicinity. 
 Jaggs was so quaint in his ideas, and so 
 
24 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 genteel in his deportment, as fairly to take in 
 the little man. He had a slow way of pushing 
 forward his stool, as though it was as heavy as 
 a chair of state — of giving it a dry rub with 
 his handkerchief — which caused his lecturer 
 unconsciously to reverse situations with him 
 in a way he would never do with me. 
 
 As for the Reverend Aurelius (who occu- 
 pied, it will be remembered, the next cell to 
 him on our landing) he never left that shrine 
 with a dry optic. The case of that peccant 
 clergyman was truly edifying. He was a 
 male Magdalen, shamefully bereft of the pic- 
 turesqueness which goes with dishevelled hair. 
 The hair of Tilgoe could not become dis- 
 hevelled — it was as vain to rub it up with the 
 regulation tooth-brush as to rub it down. 
 Yet, deprived as he was of a powerful source 
 of theatrical effect, that ingenious man could 
 play upon the emotions of the Scripture- 
 reader as upon an organ, and discourse 
 eloquent music out of him at his will and 
 pleasure. But Miffy was the stout gentle- 
 man's pet captive, so far as the birds upon 
 our bough were concerned. He was genuinely 
 sorry for his deplorable condition — anxious 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 -o 
 
 as much as might be to ameliorate his 
 state. Therefore it was with heartfelt glad- 
 ness that, this evening, he could bring him 
 news from home in the shape of a fresh letter 
 from his wife. The effect of the unexpected 
 gift was such that a light invaded the grop- 
 ing intellect of the Scripture-reader. These 
 letters touched the fount of tears, and con- 
 vulsed the form of this poor fellow, who was 
 usually listless and apathetic. By means of 
 letters such as this, then, he might be worked 
 upon for good. His pursy friend would make 
 use of the spell thus discovered; or was the 
 close of happiness likely to be too strong for 
 one so frail ? Miffy, on perceiving the letter, 
 flung himself on his knees, in an over- excited 
 manner, and burst into sobs ; and then, when 
 the old gentleman offered to read the note 
 aloud, checked his emotion with an effort be- 
 gotten of fear, and implored his astonished 
 listener with a tremor of alarm to hush his 
 voice to whispers, lest his neighbour should 
 overhear. Wrung by the dread of that 
 awful neighbour, his muscles quivered like 
 autumn leaves — he cowered and writhed 
 about the floor ; and surveying his excite- 
 
26 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 ment over his glasses, the worthy man finally 
 settled in his mind that this sort of thing 
 could not go on, that his protege must be 
 removed from baleful surroundings before his 
 brain quite withered — from the neighbour- 
 hood, in fact, of Soda and myself. 
 
 ' I will speak to the chaplain, who will 
 draw the attention of the governor to your 
 case,' he observed kindly ; ' or stay, I will 
 put your name down to see the chaplain, 
 and then you can speak for yourself.' 
 
 MifFy, crushing his letter in his quivering 
 lingers, looked up with a white face which 
 was swollen and soiled by tears. 
 
 ' This can't go on — now do be calm I 
 Why should you be so singularly moved ? 
 You've been over long in the quarry — that 
 must be it, and the heavy work has proved 
 too much for your physique. The men 
 you've been thrown amongst, too, have done 
 you harm. I do wish that some other 
 arrangement could be invented ! I'll see if 
 you can't be put into the bakehouse or the 
 kitchen, or something, if only for a time ; 
 and you must go down on to another landing 
 — Ebenezer Anderson on one side and Soda 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 27 
 
 on the other, are enough to drive stronger 
 men than you out of their seven senses !' 
 
 Curioush T enough, Miffy, when the notion 
 of leaving the quarry was propounded, had 
 heaved a sigh of relief: but when it was 
 further suggested that he should change his 
 sleeping-place, he had started up with a moan 
 of terror, and crawling on his knees had 
 clasped the fat ankles of the Scripture-reader 
 in mute supplication. That worthy in his 
 surprise nearly fell off the stool upon which 
 his corpulence was balanced, and I too was 
 entirely taken aback — (I was peering through 
 a hole in the iron, drilled by some ingenious 
 predecessor). 
 
 ' No ! Oh no ! Please don't !' implored 
 Miffy, with straining eyes. ' Please do not 
 interfere — please do not ! I am miserable 
 enough. Do not make my fate worse. Leave 
 me alone ; that is all I beg ! Don't ask 
 questions — I'm quite comfortable. Pray — ■ 
 oh pray — don't interfere !' 
 
 There was so genuine a ring about his 
 distress that his interlocutor was puzzled. 
 
 6 How difficult these convicts are to com- 
 prehend !' he muttered, scratching his head 
 
28 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 and pushing up his glasses as he rose to 
 depart. ' Well, well ! I'll see what can be 
 done for you in the matter of change of 
 occupation. As to change of berth, I'll say 
 nothing about it since you are so singularly 
 determined ; but it would be for your good 
 to go. What a wayward child it is !' 
 
 When he was gone, I observed Miffy hold 
 his close-shorn pate as though it would split, 
 then steal to his ventilator and pass his hand 
 over it with stealth. Then with a start he 
 turned his back on it, and stood erect, for 
 he was summoned suddenly to pass under 
 the steward's eye, to be fitted with new 
 clothing. 
 
 All this amazed me considerably, and the 
 next time I walked with Aurelius I broached 
 the subject to him. But at first he was too 
 much engrossed with manifold arran cements 
 of his own, to o-ive attention to my clack. 
 For some reason or another he was bubbling 
 o'er with human kindness, and in excellent 
 spirits. The governor favoured him more 
 and more — took friends who came to view 
 the prison into his cell to survey the edifying 
 culprit. 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 29 
 
 ' This fellow,' the chief was wont to say in 
 his big voice, pointing with a cane at the 
 male Magdalen, as if an interesting member 
 of a menagerie, ' was a bad un — a regular 
 bad un, sir — and look at him now ! You 
 read your Bible, I think, every morning ?' 
 
 e Morning and evening,' whispered the en- 
 gaging specimen. 
 
 1 Ah ! morning and evening — and attend 
 sacrament, I think ? Very proper. You 
 mean to be honest and laborious when you 
 go out, and earn a respectable living V 
 
 ' I do indeed, sir; thanks to you.' 
 
 (Down went the lowly head.) 
 
 ' Um ! that is right, and very satisfactory,' 
 and, strolling along the gallery, he would 
 point out to his visitor that contamination in 
 prisons was all gammon. 
 
 ' Why, sir, that man lives in close com- 
 panionship with two of the greatest ruffians 
 in the place ! Do you suppose they succeed 
 in leading him astray 1 Not a bit, sir, not a 
 bit ! Though I've not the smallest doubt 
 that they try hard enough.' 
 
 In this much he was right at least — I cer- 
 tainly did not contaminate the .Reverend 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 Tilgoe ; I understood him pretty well by this 
 time, thanks to the candour of our inter- 
 course. I knew that it would be difficult to 
 be more corrupt — that he was without grati- 
 tude, without a humanising spark of pity or 
 mercy or sympathy ; and yet I cultivated his 
 society, for the time was gone when in- 
 stinctively I shrank from vice. He could be 
 very entertaining. His theories were always 
 worth examining — they were so deftly 
 crooked, so plausibly awry. The sublimely 
 lurid light of his master Lucifer was to him 
 a nimbus. There was no end to the glitter- 
 ing facets of his wickedness. Though with 
 me he forbore now to prate of the little 
 slip, I never could learn what his crime 
 had been. It was apparently something so 
 very mean as to linger in the memories of 
 those whose business it was to know it, and 
 who in the multitude of criminals under their 
 care were unlikely to remember such details. 
 What could the offence have been, committed 
 by this clerical gentleman of polished de- 
 meanour, which could be remembered where 
 murder and rape and garrotting were for 
 gotten 1 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 31 
 
 Well, well, I thought, perhaps I may learn 
 some day, perhaps never ; but any way he is 
 an interesting companion, and that is enough 
 for me. 
 
 He was jubilant, for the great book got on 
 like wild-fire. His servant, as he chose 
 playfully to dub his gaoler, fully earned his 
 wages. He had quarrelled with Soda lately, 
 because somehow the funds from without 
 had ceased in that quarter. How they ever 
 existed was a marvel to both of us. The 
 temporary supply, however, had apparently 
 ceased for the present, and so the peach- 
 faced one, not having been properly compro- 
 mised, had turned upon his bungling em- 
 ployer, or would have done so if his more 
 acute master, Tilgoe, had not come to the 
 rescue. 
 
 In obedience to that powerful lord's 
 behests, he was still moderately civil to the 
 ruffian. 
 
 ' But,' remarked Tilgoe carelessly, whilst 
 speaking contemptuously of him, ' he is an 
 insolent varlet, aid I soon shall be obliged 
 to throw hir 1 overboard. The fact is, that as 
 regards the book I've nearly done with him. 
 
32 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 The book is complete, to all intents and pur- 
 poses. I have hardly anything to add. 
 Polishing touches can be done by-and-by. 
 Thanks to the varlet, it has passed by driblets 
 into the hands of Eloise. She will get it 
 ready for publication so soon as ever I get 
 out, which will be soon. Eloise % Yes, 
 Eloise ; she's my chere amie. What % Haha ! 
 You thought me too respectable to have a 
 chere amie f 
 
 ' Then do you expect to get out soon V I 
 asked, surprised. ' Your time's not up for 
 several years.' 
 
 1 1 may, and I may not,' he returned with 
 mystery. ' That is my secret. My Eloise 
 expects me. I am to be her Abelard, and 
 we are to bill and coo in a sweet little cottage 
 home, with clematis and honeysuckle and 
 woodbine, and all that sort of thing ; and we 
 shall be as happy as two turtle-doves on the 
 proceeds of the great work. Eloise is a 
 pretty name, isn't it ? But never mind her at 
 this moment,' he broke off abruptly, and peer- 
 ing up into my face. ' You were talking about 
 Miffy's strange behaviour — what wouldyou say 
 if I could give you the answer to the rebus V 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 33 
 
 * You !' I ejaculated. 
 
 He decidedly was a remarkable man. 
 
 ' Yes — I. But tell me,' he inquired 
 dreamily, kicking the pebbles before him as 
 he walked with hands clasped behind. ' We 
 are different, you and I, from the rack, you 
 know. But as to contamination, there can 
 be no two opinions. Even the governor 
 admits that he feels somewhat contaminated 
 — that his sense of right and wrong is not so 
 lucid as it used to be, and that his quality of 
 mercy is watered. The effect too on myself 
 is quite deplorable. Don't laugh. Now I 
 wonder how far you are contaminated V 
 
 What was he driving at % Something im- 
 portant evidently, for he had donned his most 
 engaging manner, and was trying to read my 
 soul as he stared at me, with head on one 
 side. 
 
 I answered by the scornful, jarring laugh 
 which was become habitual to me : 
 
 ' The governor,' I returned dryly, ' says that 
 you were a bad un — though you are very 
 close, by-the-b ye, as to what you did — and 
 that now you are an angel of light. Well, 
 with me it's t'other way. I was as good as 
 
 vol. 11. 24 
 
34 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 most men once ; now there's not a worse, I'm 
 proud to swear, on this establishment/ 
 
 This answer seemed to disconcert Tilgoe r 
 who reflected ere he replied : 
 
 ' What I mean is, how far are you imbued 
 by the convict's vice % I don't mean lying — 
 that's common enough outside — but I mean 
 peaching. If I were to divulge a secret 
 which concerns somebody on our landing, 
 would you instantly tell the governor or the 
 croker or the psalm-patterer, regardless of the 
 harm you might do, in order to gain some 
 advantage for yourself?' 
 
 1 No/ I returned, with a whimsical flicker 
 of virtue. i Low as I have sunk, I have not 
 come down to that.' 
 
 ' There spoke my good friend/ gushed 
 Tilgoe, overjoyed; 'you are to be trusted, I 
 am certain of it. You would never betray 
 anybody \ I was certain of it. Well, then, 
 I will tell you the cause of MifTy's incompre- 
 hensible demeanour. He is acting under 
 orders from one he fears — has a responsibility 
 upon his feeble shoulders which bears him 
 
 down. The fact is ■' Here the Reverend 
 
 Aurelius peered cautiously round, then 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 35 
 
 murmured : ' Haven't you heard odd 
 noises V 
 
 ' No ! Where V 
 
 ' On our landing. Then you must sleep 
 precious sound. After all, these iron cells of 
 ours have their advantages. Their reverbe- 
 ration is so excessive, that when, a door slams 
 the whole place re-echoes like a discharge of 
 musketry ; and even when we're quiet there's 
 a constant humming jar, which would conceal 
 — shall we say a little scratching V 
 
 1 Scratching ?' 
 
 1 Yes/ pursued the parson, ' the fact is 
 that Soda has been busy for a long while 
 with all sorts of devices ; that he means to 
 escape ; and that Miffy is his chosen accom- 
 plice. The poor creature wouldn't split if his 
 life depended on it ; and he, if he can, will 
 escape too. It's a bold experiment ; but 
 what will not men risk in pursuit of liberty ? 
 They will have to descend from a third- story, 
 cross a yard, swarm up a wall, drop nine-and- 
 twenty feet on the other side, and then make 
 across the bog ; not a cheerful look-out. 
 It's fifteen miles, to Okehampton as the crow 
 flies, without the vestige of a house after 
 
 24—2 
 
36 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 passing the squatters' cottages hard-by ; and 
 as soon as the escape-gun is fired the 
 cottagers will be out and scour the country — 
 the wretched paupers — in hopes of gaining 
 the reward. Upon my word, a man must be 
 very sick of life before he'd risk it.' 
 
 ' But how get down from the third story V 
 I inquired, my breath quite taken away by 
 the thrilling intelligence. ' They'll break 
 their necks or legs at starting.' 
 
 1 Soda has seen to that, and I'm happy to 
 say I was able to do him a good turn. With 
 laborious caution, such as only prisoners and 
 elephants are capable of, he has been secret- 
 ins: bits of oakum and horsehair this longf 
 time past, which he has plaited into a rough 
 rope of the required length, and manufactured 
 into other things. This my servant — you 
 know who I mean — discovered yesterday 
 among his bedding. He would have made 
 his report and blown the gaff at once if my 
 authority had not supervened. He does not 
 dare beard w,e. I told him roundly that he 
 must not muddle the affair, and after a sharp 
 tussle he shut up. It would be too bad if 
 we, their pals, were to decrease the chances, 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 37 
 
 which are already small. So they'll make the 
 attempt at any rate, and nobody will inter- 
 fere from our side. I wish them success with 
 all my heart. Miffy's a fool, for his sentence is 
 a short one ; but with Soda it is different, he's 
 in for twenty stretch.' 
 
 So this was the cause of Miffy's wild in- 
 consequence ; he was acting against his flicker- 
 ing better judgment in obedience to a will 
 stronger than his own. I saw now why he 
 feared to change his cell. The hole that he 
 was making in his outer wall would instantly 
 have been detected : that would have entailed 
 punishment from the authorities, which would 
 be nothing to the vengeance of his tyrant in 
 the adjoining cell. Poor Miffy ! his case was 
 indeed a hard one. Fervently I joined my 
 prayer to that of Tilgoe, and hoped that the 
 two might get away. 
 
 I was glad to perceive that under the stern 
 regimen of that wonderful man whom I called 
 friend, the insolent young jackanapes, our 
 keeper, was to him at all events quite sub- 
 missive. True, the years that had passed 
 over our heads rnight perhaps have wrought 
 as great a change in him as in me. Yet no ; 
 
38 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 his aspect now was sheepish and crestfallen, 
 the result not of half a decade, but of having 
 grievously overreached himself; of having 
 been caught in a trap and not knowing how 
 to get out again. He hung about the land- 
 ing, casting wobegone glances at the door of 
 him who held him in his grip, who — wonder- 
 ful man ! — ignored his sighs and took no 
 notice of his grunts, but who, when called 
 out to clean the landing, went down upon his 
 knees in silence, leering up and grimacing at 
 his perspiring and anxious guardian, who, 
 whilst pretending to command, was beseech- 
 ing him and imploring mercy under his 
 breath. 
 
 But Tilgoe was one of those who delighted 
 in giving a serpent if anyone begged him for 
 a fish. The results of his machinations to 
 breed trouble between the public and the 
 authorities were certain of bearing ample 
 fruit, he thought, all in due season. Then 
 would come the feast. This was a sort of 
 ' snack' that he was enjoying now. Vainly 
 the unhappy young warder prayed for mercy, 
 for the sake of his sick sister, if not for his own. 
 If he failed to report what he knew, there 
 
THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 39 
 
 would be no end to future trouble. But the 
 Beverend Aurelius would not let him inter- 
 fere. 
 
 1 If you dare speak a syllable/ he said in a 
 distinct whisper, as he meekly scrubbed his 
 floor, I'll divulge all our transactions to the 
 governor; aye, and another I wot of with 
 regard to Miffy's wife,' he added, with a dark 
 leer, ' which would obtain for you a becoming 
 sort of dress like mine. Keep your counsel 
 and all will be right. You haven't got eyes 
 in the back of your head, I suppose, as the 
 governor pretends to have ; and convicts are 
 notoriously artful. You'll get fined maybe, 
 or some such rubbish, for want of vigilance, 
 or more likely receive a reprimand ; both of 
 them together though are better than penal 
 servitude.' 
 
 At mention of Miffy's wife the peachen 
 cheek grew sallow. Its owner collapsed, and, 
 wringing his hands, he knew that the clergy- 
 man was pitiless. Then he tried his rhetoric 
 on the doll's-eye polisher himself, pleading 
 that it was very hard that he should get him 
 into trouble, considering that he had not 
 received a ' mag' from him this long while. 
 
40 THE YOUNG WARDER REPENTS. 
 
 To this appeal Soda likewise replied some- 
 thing about Miffy's wife, adding with a spark 
 of the bestial cunning which distinguished 
 him : 
 
 ' Cheer up, old pal. You've had little 
 blunt of late, but you shall soon. She's 
 changed her address, but w T e']l find it some- 
 how ; and Miffy's too great a loony to get 
 clear off as I shall — he's bound to be retaken — 
 so youll have him under your hand, for a 
 longer term too, since he'll forfeit all his 
 remission. The golden goose who's feci 
 your dear little sister won't be killed yet, no 
 fear.' 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 we were all in the secret of this 
 attempt, and upon the even drab- 
 ness of our lives the excitement 
 which it caused, shining like a gleam of sun- 
 shine, turned it to orange. Night after 
 night I heard the scratching, and marvelled 
 that the patrol did not ; was seized with 
 nightmares of the major ' on the prowl ;' 
 seemed to detect his dapper figure in a 
 chintz dressing-gown, peering through cran- 
 nies, gliding along the landings in gum- 
 shoes. Jaggs was in the secret, and became 
 as nervous as myself, which took me aback 
 rather, considering what I knew of his selfish- 
 ness. But we were taken by an epidemic of 
 loyalty. We tossed about and kicked, and 
 
42 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 bumped against the partitions in order to 
 cause the iron to reverberate and so smother 
 suggestive sounds ; and Jaggs even took to 
 snoring, which, as a babe, was not one of his 
 accomplishments. This was so unnatural 
 that I felt it could not last. Somebody 
 would certainly peach. Why not Jaggs ? 
 Neither he nor *I cared sixpence as to 
 whether Mr. Virgin broke his neck or not. 
 If he did, the world would be the sweeter to 
 those who walked abroad in it. But I was 
 truly distressed for Miffy ; and it struck me 
 as queer that Jaggs, who had starved him 
 without the smallest compunction, and I, the 
 morose, cynical black sheep, who was capable 
 of untold infamies, should be so much inter- 
 ested all of a sudden in his frail and insignifi- 
 cant existence. I suppose that his wistful 
 longing after home was at the bottom of it, 
 and that this one touch of nature unadorned 
 — this solitary floweret in the wilderness — had 
 softened us thus much. At any rate, I was 
 convinced in my own mind that, so long as 
 the generous impulse lasted, Jaggs would no 
 more betray the prospective fugitives than 1 
 or Tilgoe would ; and as we lived in a row, 
 
THE ESCAPE. 43 
 
 with the two adventurers who were about to 
 risk their lives at the extreme end of our 
 landing, it was possible to keep the secret in 
 few hands. 
 
 The warder in charge was tied leg and 
 arm, so there was no danger to be expected 
 from him. It really was quite possible that 
 the affair would turn out a success. It was 
 disconcerting to discover that so much of the 
 human element within me remained unbrutal- 
 ised. I could gain nought by the success of 
 the plot. Now, in a certain superficial way, 
 which was not worth taking into account, 
 Tilgoe could ; for an escape would produce a 
 rumpus and a wigging all round from the 
 Home Office, which would be nuts to him. 
 Decidedly I was a failure and a fraud, and 
 would never do justice to my training ; and yet 
 the companionship of fellow-labourers in the 
 quarry was, I was proud to think, not irk- 
 some ; the recital of clever burglaries was 
 moving to the blood. I could even hearken 
 to lewd anecdotes with a savage kind of 
 pleasure. The devil was doing his work, 
 though the slowness of his progress was 
 blameworthy on his part. Well, well ! 
 
44 THE ESCAPE. ' 
 
 'Vogue la galere.' There was no doubt of 
 my soul's ultimate haven. Society's edict 
 had gone forth against me long since. At its 
 door, not mine, must lie the responsibility. 
 
 As I listened with sharpened hearing for 
 ' the major on the prowl,' or sank into 
 feverish dreams through which I heard the 
 scratching (was it never to cease ? — how it 
 jarred the nerves !), tales of horror connected 
 with escapes, which had been stored up in 
 some unremembered pigeon-hole since my 
 childhood, poured forth to frighten me. I 
 remembered one specially dreadful case 
 which took place at Port-au-Prince in 1833. 
 It related to two men, both of whom w T ere 
 under sentence of death, and who were in- 
 carcerated in adjoining chambers within one 
 building, with this difference, that the cell of 
 Eriaz looked only on the corridor and was 
 pitch dark, while that of Dardeza was 
 lighted by a barred window with a view of 
 the sea beyond. They were given provisions 
 for three days, at the end of which time they 
 were to die ; and Eriaz (a mulatto of Her- 
 culean force) determined that in the interval 
 he would give Jack Ketch the slip. Which 
 
THE ESCAPE. 45 
 
 wall was the outer one he was at a loss to 
 discover, so he took his chance, and grinding- 
 away with the manacles that bound his wrists, 
 succeeded at length in creating an impression 
 on the partition. Night and day he worked, 
 regardless of food, or sleep, or the passage 
 of time ; and at last, to his joy, the big 
 stone moved, then rolled into twilight! 
 and passing through the opening he found 
 himself — in the next cell I Undaunted by 
 disappointment, he shook up his fellow 
 sufferer, who was groaning on a mattress, 
 and exhorted him to rouse himself for the 
 behoof of both. Surely the two of them 
 could manage it. Dardeza's window- bars 
 were thick and strong, the manacles of each 
 were weighty ; yet it was worth while to 
 make a supreme attempt to escape the chilly 
 hand of the executioner. The important 
 question was — how m ich of the three clays 
 had elapsed — how much was still before 
 them ? Now Dardeza, having given himself 
 up to despairing contemplation, had been able 
 to reckon up the hours, and, after a moment's 
 thought, announced that the sun which was 
 sinking into the waters was the last which 
 
46 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 should ever set for them, for that early on 
 the morrow their last sand would have 
 dripped away. This was bad, but the case 
 was not so hopeless as at first appeared, for 
 he, Dardeza, had a watch-spring concealed 
 about him which he had not had the energy 
 to use. Eriaz clutched it with fierce joy, and 
 between them they soon sawed through a 
 bar and beheld a square open space through 
 which a man's body might pass, with a fall 
 of sixty feet down to the rocks against which 
 the sea lashed and gurgled into foam. 
 Manacled as they were, hand and foot, 
 such a fall meant instant dea/th; but, un- 
 shackled, the descent was by no means diffi- 
 cult, for there was a tree a long way down 
 on which an agile man might perch. Time 
 sped swiftly on. They could not both use 
 the spring at once, and it soon became 
 evident that one only of the twain would 
 have time to saw through his irons. Then 
 arose a dreadful discussion. Dardeza held 
 the spring, and was about to go to work 
 upon his own manacles, when Eriaz made a 
 dash to snatch it from him. A hideous fight 
 took place for the talisman between these 
 
THE ESCAPE. 47 
 
 two malefactors who were both condemned 
 to death, and who both refused to die ; and 
 the mulatto, bearing the more slender mur- 
 derer down, demanded the treasure with 
 curses. But Dardeza, if weaker, was not 
 less wicked than his adversary. He made 
 an attempt to fling it out of window. Being 
 foiled in that, he cried : - If I can't escape, 
 by heaven ! no more shall you !' And with 
 a supreme effort swallowed it. Eriaz sank 
 distracted in one corner of the dungeon, 
 Dardeza tottered into another and fell down 
 choked. 
 
 All was not yet lost ! Eriaz was delivered 
 of an idea. Two lives at any rate should 
 not pay the forfeit. Flinging himself with 
 all his weight upon his comrade he strangled 
 him with his fingers, and hammered his head 
 against the floor, and then plunging a hand 
 down his throat, recoveied the implement of 
 freedom. In an hour more his irons had 
 fallen off. With the dress of Dardeza torn 
 into shreds and twisted, he made a rope of 
 sufficient length to land him on a tree-branch. 
 When in the morning the gaolers came to 
 conduct the two murderers to the scaffold 
 
48 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 they found but one — fearfully mutilated — 
 dead ! 
 
 This story passed through my mind while 
 the scratching still went on. It had gone 
 on for many nights, and I became so abnor- 
 mally excited that my skin broke into a pro- 
 fuse cold sweat. This was too awful ! It 
 was too shocking that the half-witted creature 
 should be deliberately immolated on the pyre 
 of George Virgin's liberty ! If it had been 
 anyone else than that vulgar ruffian ! It 
 was but a more modern rendering of the 
 tale of Dardeza and Eriaz. I thought of the 
 consumptive wife and helpless little ones of 
 whom he was always dreaming, and springing 
 out of bed, resolved to interfere. But how ? 
 I could not — no, I could not make up my 
 mind to play the sneak — to write a warning 
 on the slate for Scarraweg to see, or scratch 
 the history upon the bottom of the dinner- 
 tin after the usual convict fashion. More- 
 over, that would only entail punishment on 
 Miffy. No, there was yet time. I would 
 find an opportunity of speaking seriously 
 to-morrow, and conjure him to consider what 
 he did. Although he no longer worked with 
 
THE ESCAPE. 49 
 
 us, there would be little difficulty about that, 
 for, as it happened, I was dinner-orderly, and 
 it would be one of my duties to take the 
 dinner-barrows of our hall out of the charge 
 of the cook's assistants, one of whom the 
 stamp- stealer now was, thanks to the 
 kind offices of his friend the Scripture- 
 reader. 
 
 The more I thought it over, the more 
 evident it was that for his wife's sake he 
 must abandon so hazardous and foolhardy 
 an attempt. Why ; a little patience, and 
 his time would be up, and he would rejoin 
 her, a free man on license. What an 
 amazing hold it was that this illiterate, cun- 
 ning scoundrel exercised over one who was 
 fairly educated. An infatuation — nothing 
 less ! Verily, those who made the law had 
 much to answer for in fusing two such 
 elements together ! 
 
 Biding my time, with an artfulness of which 
 in old days I should never have deemed my- 
 self capable, I got hold of Miffy for a 
 moment, and severely lectured him. But 
 he took no notice ; remaining listlessly silent 
 whilst he picked at the bread which he was 
 
 vol. 11. 25 
 
5 o THE ESCAPE. 
 
 carrying with a sulky frown that must have 
 been like my own. 
 
 1 It has to be done, and I can't help it/ 
 was all he answered, as though repeating a 
 lesson. ' There ain't no use talking, so hold 
 your tongue, please. He says it's to be, so 
 it will be. If we're seen palavering, we shall 
 both be in a bother.' Then, with a febrile 
 sparkle in his watery eyes, he added : 
 
 ' Thanks, all the same. I do want to 
 kiss the little ones. It'll be to-night, I 
 think. Ain't the suspense dreadful ? Good- 
 bye — and wish us well. When he says a 
 thing's to be, it must, you know.' 
 
 This was despairing. The unhappy dupe 
 was marching to inevitable mishap, and was 
 sustaining his courage by a vain hope of 
 speedily embracing his family. I felt so dis- 
 turbed by a presentiment of approaching 
 evil that I could scarce swallow my food, 
 and returned to work in the quarry quite out 
 of sorts. There I found that Jaggs took a 
 different view of the matter. 
 
 ' Bless your heart/ he said cheerfully, ' if 
 the thing's kept dark, and no one splits, 
 there's no reason why they shouldn't get off. 
 
THE ESCAPE. 51 
 
 There's a fog rising too, and, so far as I can 
 make out, the secret lies in half-a-dozen 
 hands at most. That young screw's in a 
 rare way. Ha ! ha ! Isn't he just ! The 
 parson's a fly fellow to hold him so well in 
 tow. Personally, it don't matter to me a 
 buttonshank whether they break their legs 
 or whether they don't, except that if they do 
 manage to escape, it'll be a slap in the face 
 for Scarraweof, and make him wild. That's 
 enough for me for the present.' 
 
 Then, perceiving that we were watched, 
 he hummed between his teeth the refrain of 
 an old romance : 
 
 i Le bon Dieu est tout puissant et l'argent son lieutenant,' 
 
 and became mightily engrossed in the moving 
 of a block of stone. 
 
 Perhaps he was right and I was wrong. 
 I hoped so ! His conjecture was just about 
 the fog. It was barely three o'clock of a 
 sultry autumn day when the semaphore 
 signalled those in charge to bring in the 
 outlying parties ; and heavy drops of rain 
 began to fall before we reached shelter. 
 'For to-night' Miffy had said. Well, the 
 
 25—2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSE OF ILLINOIS 
 
52 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 weather was propitious, at all events. Roll- 
 ing mountains of thunderous cumuli were 
 passing along the horizon, and thin white 
 mist, like water, marked the tumbling waves 
 of the vast moor. If once they were over 
 the outer wall, and screened by that vapour, 
 there were ten chances to one against the 
 fugitives being caught. 
 
 Arrived at my landing, I found Tilgoe, 
 whilst pretending to polish the railing, listen- 
 ing with a sarcastic grin to the hapless jack- 
 anapes, who was speaking low and earnestly. 
 Flushed and nervous, almost whimpering, he 
 endeavoured to work upon the clergyman's 
 compassion. It was a forlorn hope. 
 
 1 Haven't I always done as you wished V 
 he was saying. ' Why, then, can't you let 
 me be this once ? If any of you, now, were 
 to round on me, I'd be a ruined man, and 
 someone '11 round — I know he will. As it is, 
 my life's a burthen, with all the things you 
 force me to. I wish I'd never set eyes on 
 you, that I do, for with all your soft ways 
 you've no pity for a man, and would drive 
 him over a cliff with his eyes open !' 
 
 ' Don't be an ass !' was Ti]goe's contemp- 
 
THE ESCAPE. 53 
 
 tuous reply. ' It'll be all right if you only 
 keep your own infernal tongue between your 
 foolish teeth, you puling, gabbling baby ! 
 Nobody wants to round on anybody ; make 
 your mind comfortable as to that. As I've 
 told you twice, and I shan't repeat it again, 
 there's no reason on earth why you should 
 know anything about it at all !' 
 
 1 Yes there is. 1 ought to have noticed 
 them loose bricks. Oh dear ! oh Lord !' 
 whined the peach-faced one. 
 
 * No there isn't,' retorted the other sharply, 
 4 for the place is cleverly concealed with cob- 
 webs rolled in lime. I've seen it.' 
 
 ' One of the bar-staples is missing in 
 No. 2,' groaned the warder. ' Suppose Mr. 
 Scarraweg were to come round, or the 
 governor. They'd be safe to notice it. I 
 wish I were dead, I do F 
 
 1 Please yourself about that,' scoffed the 
 scornful parson. ' No one's going to pry 
 into No. 2, for the best of reasons that there's 
 no one to pry at in the daytime. You know as 
 well as I do that MifFy won't be out of the 
 kitchen until dark, and then, you double- 
 distilled donkey, who's to see if there's a 
 
54 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 staple gone or not ? You can't loosen bricks 
 by looking at 'em. He's broke the staple, or 
 would have put it back. You're beginning 
 to drivel, and I shall have to get you turned 
 off. They'll break out in the night, I tell 
 you, when you'll be off duty. If anybody's 
 to blame it'll be the night-patrol. Now don't 
 stand grumbling there. I shall get out 
 myself very soon, I have reason to hope, and 
 then you won't be sorry,, you ungrateful chap, 
 that you ever set eyes on me. Come, don't 
 jaw ; be off!' 
 
 He was a wonderful man. I must have 
 misjudged him with regard to the labyrin- 
 thine byways of his turpitude. He, like the 
 rest of us, could have generous impulses. 
 It was really kind thus to throw the segis of 
 his powerful protection over the adventurers. 
 
 But he was wrong about Miffy. His cell- 
 door was open, and the kind Scripture-reader 
 was standing on the threshold. He was not 
 one, however, to take note of missing staples. 
 Peering through a hole in our partition, I 
 perceived Miffy leaning against the end wall, 
 haggard and wan, a prey to violent agitation. 
 
 ' Thank goodness !'*[I thought. c Common 
 
THE ESCAPE. 55 
 
 sense has prevailed. He has spoken, or is 
 about to speak.' But I was mistaken. It 
 was the old man who spoke, whilst Miffy, 
 with tears pouring down his hollow cheek, 
 and his moist lips trembling, was twisting in 
 nervous fingers those dearly-loved bits of 
 crumpled paper. 
 
 I could have shaken that fat old man 
 with the silver hair. The years which had 
 whitened his locks had not endowed him 
 with experience. The precious opportunity 
 was flitting by which, once out of reach, 
 might never be caught up. Why, instead 
 of droning platitudes about the virtue of 
 patience, did he not go straight to that 
 tempest-racked brother, and placing a hand 
 upon his shoulder, say : ' You must trust in 
 me. You have something on your mind. I 
 know you have, so don't deny it. Out with 
 it at once !' I have no doubt that if he had 
 spoken thus the half crazy fellow would have 
 confessed. But no ; the last chance was 
 nearly out of sight, and I felt in some sort 
 as if I were myself responsible. 
 
 Presently, at his wits' end how to calm the 
 mental storm 1 whose first cause he was too 
 
THE ESCAPE. 
 
 blundering to fathom, he sat down, and in 
 an exasperating drone read a chapter, while 
 the patient grew with each moment more 
 and more hysterical. Then, finding that the 
 effect of his ministration was not soothing, he 
 sighed and put his Bible and spectacles away 
 with slow deliberation, and crossing his fat 
 hands on his fat stomach, shook his head and 
 departed, muttering as he passed my cell : 
 
 ' That fellow must be placed under super- 
 vision. I'll get the doctor to hang a medical 
 ticket over his door to-morrow, with a view 
 to Woking. ' 
 
 To-morrow ! Much use that would be. 
 My tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. 
 He was going, and for the life of me I could 
 not stop him. The opportunity was lost. 
 Call it a false sense of honour if you will, but 
 though I heard the rustle of his coat on the 
 woodwork as he passed, I could not stop the 
 postmasters only friend. He turned in for 
 a polemical skirmish with Tilgoe, and having 
 shivered a lance or two, trotted away ; and 
 I knew that the course of events was to be 
 shaped by other hands than ours. 
 
 Eight o'clock. Lights out. The hall was 
 
THE ESCAPE. 57 
 
 wrapped in a dim twilight. All the cells 
 were dark. Peering through my observa- 
 tion-hole, the outside lid of which had been 
 inadvertently left raised, I saw that the fog 
 must be very dense without, for it had even 
 invaded the interior of the great building. 
 A couple of dim figures were gliding like 
 disembodied ghosts along the landings, paus- 
 ing at this door or that, to see with a bull's- 
 eye what such an one was doing, then passing 
 on, or turning back, as fancy prompted. 
 These were the night patrol in their list 
 slippers. Pray heaven that they would leave 
 our corner unvisited ! 
 
 One flitted away into extreme distance ; 
 the other loomed large and more large. Was 
 he coming our way ? He was ! Better now 
 than later; and I jumped quickly into bed, 
 for if he found me up when I ought to have 
 been asleep, I should be haled before the 
 martinet upon the morrow to answer for so 
 grave a delinquency. I closed my eyes and 
 snored, for, velvet-footed though it was, long 
 practice had taught me to detect the cat-like 
 tread. A ray of light flashed upon my face ; 
 then it shot through into the next cell, and 
 
58 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 then into the last, and then he descended the 
 iron stair and vanished. All was well ! 
 
 I listened for the scratching. Jaggs tapped 
 gently on his partition, and signalled : 
 
 1 Do you hear anything V 
 
 ' No/ I answered. 
 
 Nor could I. The gathering* cumuli had 
 burst ; the rain was pouring down in such 
 noisy torrents as effectually to mask a little 
 scratching. On tiptoe I stole to the chink. 
 It was pitch dark. I could see nothing. 
 Then I placed my ear to it. Was the at- 
 tempt postponed ? A pity, if it were indeed 
 to be made, for the weather was most pro- 
 pitious. The guards without would be 
 close wrapped up, with eyes and ears muffled 
 against the blinding storm. Once over the 
 wall, they would be safe. Was Miffy asleep ? 
 No ; I could distinctly make out a knocking. 
 Poor, devoted wretch ! Pray Heaven no 
 harm might come to him ! 
 
 Hist ! what was that ? Footsteps ? not 
 those of the patrol ? Were they after all 
 betrayed \ With a warning rap against the 
 iron I tumbled into bed, shivering from top 
 to toe, expecting I scarce knew what. Foot- 
 
THE ESCAPE. 59 
 
 steps were approaching. Was it the major 
 1 on the prowl V I heard the voice of Tilgoe 
 say, in crystal accents, intended evidently as 
 a warning : 
 
 ' Good-night, Mr. Scarraweg.' 
 
 Scarraweg ! What was he doing here at 
 this hour? Was anything wrong? He very 
 rarely went round the galleries at night. 
 He stopped for an instant, and a few words 
 passed between him and Tilgoe ; then he 
 came on. This was awful ! But Jaggs was 
 equal to the occasion. He was resolved that 
 the men should escape, and that Scarraweg 
 should in consequence get into disgrace. It 
 was all the better that the chief warder 
 should come round, if only he could be 
 thrown off the scent. Begardless, therefore, 
 of future bread and water, bent only on 
 driving away the foe, he lifted up his voice 
 and began a jeremiad about his aunt. 
 
 a Oh, Uncle Scarraweg," he blubbered, in 
 low and dolorous accents, 'you know that aunt 
 ought not to be left at night. She'll burn 
 the bed-clothes and injure her dear skin — I 
 know she will ! Do you say you've locked 
 up the bottle ? Oh, too confiding uncle ! 
 
6o THE ESCAPE. 
 
 She has a secret one. You'll find her in bed 
 with her boots on — suffering from an attack 
 of trimins. It lacerates my heart, uncle ! it 
 does, upon my honour, to think what you've 
 to put up with from my poor dear mother's 
 only sister/ 
 
 His ruse was successful; at any rate, it 
 seemed so, for, with growls and threats and 
 subdued imprecations, Mr. Scarraweg turned 
 abruptly and went upon his way, and his 
 steps were heard echoing faintly in the 
 distance. 
 
 What did he come round for to-nio-ht ? 
 I conjectured, in doubt. Could he suspect 1 
 Why should he % A. guilty conscience was 
 making a fool of me. The stealthy knock- 
 ing recommenced, and I reflected, in a self- 
 examining sort of way, as was my habit, that 
 it was curious that I should be so excited 
 over the escape of these two men. I, who, 
 for my own part, had no desire but to remain 
 quietly where I was. If Scarraweg were to 
 fling wide the gates and tell me I might go, 
 I should beg to be allowed to stay. What 
 had Ebenezer Anderson to do with liberty ? 
 He whose very name came into being under 
 
THE ESCAPE. 61 
 
 the influence of duress ? Why was T so ex- 
 cited \ Was it that these two were going back 
 into the world — the world I should never see 
 again ; and did this gild them with the aureole 
 of the unattainable % Hardly. It was a last 
 relic of my old self, and I looked at it with 
 the que'er kind of idle curiosity with which 
 we gaze at fusty bits of faded ribbon out 
 of a desk. It was pleasant to reflect that 
 however base and hard we may become as 
 regards ourselves, there is always left some- 
 where upon us one print of our better angel 
 ere she took to flight — one glorious mark of 
 where she kissed us ere she flew away, and 
 whispered as she kissed, that we never are 
 quite lost. It was not Soda or even Miffy 
 who had so roused my interest in the suc- 
 cess or failure of the attempt. It was the 
 thought of Miffy 's wife, of the pale, fragile 
 thing who counted the days of her husband's 
 punishment, and who possibly, after all, was 
 never to see him more. 
 
 Yes. For her sake, though I had never 
 looked on her, I hoped they might get 
 away ; and that set me thinking of the pre- 
 cautions they had taken. Miffy's part lay 
 
62 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 chiefly in the making of a hole, of loosening 
 the iron square which held his window, and 
 a row of bricks at the side of it, so as to 
 allow of the passage of a man. Soda under- 
 took the rest, and wonderful and mysterious 
 had the labour been with which he had 
 occupied his time for months. His rolled- 
 up mattress masked secrets during the day 
 which, but for Tilgoe's generous interference, 
 would long since have been held up for the 
 admiration of the governor. How curious 
 it was that in his case brutality of an ex- 
 treme order should walk hand in hand with 
 the most nimble-fingered dexterity. He had 
 coaxed one of the horse-drivers (a red-collar 
 man) to pluck hairs out of his charge's tail. 
 This he made into a net, and wove on it in 
 and out some strands of the oakum from 
 which his rope was fashioned, with such 
 marvellous neatness that at a short distance 
 it looked very like a wig. Out of an old 
 bread-bag he made two caps ; out of his 
 sheets a coat and trousers, the Government 
 red mark being obliterated by sewing the 
 cloth above and below together with cotton 
 from his bed-tick. These clothes he was to 
 
THE ESCAPE. 63 
 
 put on under his ordinary garments, and, I 
 presume, had made a similar suit for his 
 companion. Once away, all would probably 
 go well, for he would trust to his own impish 
 cunning to change the temporary clothing 
 so soon as a fair chance should offer. Of 
 
 course he 
 
 Hark ! what was that ? I leapt from my 
 bed to see. Miffy's window-pane was out. 
 The wind rushed through the chink and 
 brought water into my eye. His dim out- 
 line leaned through the opening — black 
 against scudding clouds — as, tapping on 
 Soda's pane, he gave the signal. Now I 
 perceived, with admiration, why that worthy 
 had been so anxious to make keys ; and yet 
 my heart stood still, for Miffy's sake, as I 
 saw what a selfish calculator he had been. 
 It was out of Miffy's window they were to 
 escape. Miffy was to run all the risk of 
 discovery whilst the affair was en train. If 
 Scarraweg or the governor had missed the 
 broken staple, or had remarked the loosened 
 bricks, it was Miffy alone who would have 
 suffered ; for Soda's wall was intact, there 
 was no reason to suppose him to be a con- 
 
64 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 federate. Poor postmaster ! what a com- 
 panion to follow out into the world ! 
 
 A cautious scraping ; another ; and Soda, 
 opening both doors ajar, had slid into his 
 neighbour's cell. There was a whispering, 
 and then a scraunch which sent my heart 
 into my mouth, it seemed so preternaturally 
 loud. More scraping, and pitch darkness for 
 a minute, which seemed an hour ; then Miffy 
 stood upright and alone, and was hauling up 
 a slackened rope. The patrol were talking- 
 together in the fog at the other end of the 
 hall — how fortunate ! Then came a long 
 pause, during which the postmaster stood 
 irresolute, and my nerves tingled so that I 
 could scarce help calling out ' Be quick I' 
 He was passing his hands over his head in 
 an aimless, troubled way. Did his courage 
 fail him at the last moment ? Better, per- 
 haps, that it should do so ; present punish- 
 ment would be better for him in the end than 
 Soda's tyranny for life. With quivering, un- 
 certain fingers I saw him fix the rope about 
 his waist, and attach the other end securely 
 to a ring" where once had hun^ a hammock. 
 Then he leaned out of the aperture, disap- 
 
THE ESCAPE. 65 
 
 peared, feet upwards, and then his head 
 bobbed up, while with one arm he steadied 
 himself by the window-sill. He was preparing 
 to let himself down hand overhand. Holding 
 my breath, while my pulse seemed to stop, 
 I watched — heavens, how eagerly ! — the taut 
 movement of that rope. It was roughly 
 made, but strong. If it had bravely borne 
 the strain of Soda's carcase (that first 
 scraunching must have been caused by his 
 bulky body forcing itself through a narrow 
 opening), then it was pretty certain not to 
 snap under the burthen of slender MifTy. 
 All was going well — admirably ; another 
 second and he would reach the ground. The 
 rope — oh, what was that ? 
 
 A loud scream, which sent all my blood 
 rushing the wrong way. A shout, a rush 
 of feet, a din of voices in the yard below. 
 The sharp, short, decisive accents of the 
 governor. The roar of the leonine Scar- 
 raweg, his faithful second, as he rapidly re- 
 peated his instructions. A shuffling and 
 running hither and thither. A rattle of 
 keys and banging of doors. A struggle. 
 Low moaning from Miffy, as he was being 
 
 vol. 11. 26 
 
66 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 borne away. More rattling of keys ; then 
 silence. The rope was swinging loosely in 
 the wind. 
 
 Presently came a rap from Jaggs. 
 
 ' They're done/ he telegraphed. ' That 
 old varmint Scarraweg will make capital out 
 of this, damn him ! instead of getting into 
 a mess. The sly fox must have known of it 
 all along/ 
 
 Did he ? I could scarcely believe that — 
 though it was extraordinary that in the storm 
 the hanging figures should have been seen — 
 for his weather-beaten lion face was not good 
 at the concealment of his thoughts. Who 
 could have told him \ Somebody must. 
 Unfortunate Miffy ! What would be his 
 punishment \ Was Soda taken too ? I had 
 not heard his voice in the melee. 
 
 Boom ! The escape gun. Then Soda had 
 managed to get off. As usual, the guilty 
 triumphed, the innocent suffered. Yet, was 
 it not well that Miffy should be wrenched from 
 his evil influence, even though, as must now 
 be the case, he had lost all marks and all re- 
 mission \ But perhaps I was hasty. Perhaps 
 Soda had not escaped. How about that fall 
 
THE ESCAPE. 67 
 
 of nine -and- twenty feet ? The poverty- 
 stricken cottiers of the district would be out 
 in a trice to scour the plain in hopes of earn- 
 ing a convict's blood-money. 
 
 The lonely bogs are honeycombed with quag- 
 mires. Even if he escaped the pitfalls on the 
 moor, and evaded his pursuers, was it likely 
 that he would trouble the world for long? He 
 would look like a pierrot in those garments 
 made of sheets. Those blue-and-red stockings 
 would betray him ; or would he break into 
 some lonely hut, and, by committing a new 
 crime, matriculate for a new lagging ? 
 
 Search-parties were out all through the 
 night. The governor in person mounted a 
 horse, and placing a revolver in his pocket, 
 galloped off on his own account on a wild- 
 goose chase. His favourite steed — which, he 
 valued more highly than many convicts — 
 nearly broke his own leg and his master's 
 neck in a boghole. The major came home 
 again at dawn in a towering passion, having 
 caught nothing except a cold ; and ordering 
 me to be brought into the presence, roared 
 out that I had best tell all T knew without 
 
 26—2 
 
68 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 prevaricating, or it would be the worse for 
 me. 
 
 I was confronted with Miffy, who shook, 
 and wailed, and wrung his hands ; for not 
 only would he not see his cherished darlings 
 now so soon as he had hoped, but in the 
 surprise of his capture he had dropped his 
 letters — his precious letters — more precious 
 than ever now that the chasm which divided 
 him from his beloved was widened. 
 
 The governor was mightily enraged at the 
 audacious attempt of these two villains. It 
 proved, he vowed, that there were not enough 
 spyholes. Warders and convicts were not 
 watched half enough. Scarraweg himself 
 must have been dozing not to have discovered 
 the plot without being told of it. He went 
 about and rubbed up the cudgels, and broken 
 pots, and chisels, and other woeful specimens 
 of the amenities of convict life, and caressed 
 them, murmuring before each : 
 
 ' You brute ! You tried to take my life 
 with a bit of tin, did you % But you cried 
 Peccavl afterwards, thank goodness ! You 
 struck at me with the leor of a table which 
 you were actually manufacturing for my 
 
THE ESCAPE. 69 
 
 dining-room, you insolent varlet ! and you 
 repented it, too ; I should think so. These 
 nimble-witted rascals never leave one any 
 peace. I vow that a governor ought to have 
 six thousand pounds a year instead of paltry 
 hundreds. Charon, whan he has deposited 
 his load upon the other side of Styx, washes 
 his hands of the scamps. Not so with us. 
 When the rascals are locked up, then our 
 troubles begin. I'd like to know what they'd 
 say of me at Whitehall, if two of my men 
 escaped. They wouldn't say a word if my 
 head were dinged in ; but that's just like 
 the ingratitude of the great. What with 
 the people who want to get me out of the 
 way, and the others who want to get out of 
 the way themselves, my life's a pleasant 
 one/ 
 
 Being brought up to a proper pitch by an 
 affectionate scrutiny of the museum, he 
 glowered at me, and thumping his desk with 
 a book, shouted out : 
 
 ' Now, you sirrah ! Remember who you 
 are, and where you are, and what you are, 
 and what you are likely to remain; and just 
 tell us all about it.' 
 
yo THE ESCAPE. 
 
 I held my peace. Much I cared about his 
 threats ! 
 
 * You won't do yourself any good, you 
 know, by holding your tongue/ he went on. 
 1 You've held your tongue too much alto- 
 gether. I don't mean as to speaking to 
 fellow-prisoners, of course,' he corrected him- 
 self; ' but as to your morose and objection- 
 able conduct. Oh, you surly scoundrel ! r 
 The governor, being thoroughly out of 
 temper, was floundering. ' I mean that there 
 are times when it's your duty to speak out. 
 It's an extraordinary thing, but when you 
 men are forbidden to talk, you're always at 
 t ; and when you're invited to speak, you're 
 as dumb as the sphinx !' 
 
 ' I have nothing to say, sir,' I responded 
 quietly. ■ I am a felon, and any information 
 I can give must in natural sequence be worth- 
 less. What's a prisoner's word against a 
 warder's ? He's put on his honour ; I am 
 not. I tell you plainly that if I did speak I 
 should certainly tell you lies.' 
 
 Scarraweg glanced at me from under his 
 penthouse brows, and it seemed as if he ap- 
 proved of my independent bearing ; though, 
 
THE ESCAPE. 71 
 
 from mere force of habit, he clicked im- 
 passibly : 
 
 ' Left turn — quick march !' 
 
 ' Bring up Tilgoe !' roared the governor. 
 ' His frame of mind is better. He's told us 
 a good deal already, but possibly can tell 
 more. Unfortunately, he's taken up with 
 this incorrigible scoundrel, Anderson, on 
 Sundays, and may be growing contaminated. 
 I do wish they'd give us a careful classifica- 
 tion of prisoners. The sheep and the goats 
 are most bewilderingly mixed !' 
 
 I was marched back to my cell, and on the 
 way came face to face with the Rev. Aurelius, 
 who had been sent for because I was recal- 
 citrant. Good heavens ! What could the 
 governor mean ? ' Told us a good deal 
 already /' Was it really possible that, whilst 
 pretending to befriend them, this miscreant 
 — worse even than I supposed — had been 
 making capital all the while out of the 
 would-be fugitives ? Was it possible that he 
 could be so base as that ? I remembered as, 
 open-eyed and open-mouthed, I sat on my 
 bed-place considering the matter, that he had 
 distinctly pumped me with reference to the 
 
72 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 line which I myself should be likely to adopt. 
 Was this done to be sure that none but him- 
 self would reap the benefit of turning evi- 
 dence ? Of course it was. For the same 
 reason he forbade the young warder to speak, 
 and encouraged Soda and Miuy in their 
 undertaking. He had evidently laid the 
 train — taken care that no difficulties were 
 likely to check the explosion — and then, on 
 the sly, had warned the authorities of what 
 was taking place. And what had he done it 
 for ? Was it merely a can-can of fiendishness 
 that he was dancing ? No. Calculating men 
 of his kidney do nothing without a reason. 
 He wanted his liberty — had thrown out 
 hints, indeed, that he might soon be free — 
 and why ? To superintend the production of 
 the great work — the apple of discord — which, 
 as regards the officials of the prison, was to 
 set everybody by the ears. Consummate 
 hypocrite and schemer ! He had egged on 
 three wretches to commit themselves (of 
 course he had denounced the young warder 
 too), in order that, by making a merit of 
 betraying them, he might obtain greater 
 facilities for striving to betray in turn those 
 
THE ESCAPE. 73 
 
 before whom he professed to be so meek. If, 
 by the disclosures he had just made, he could 
 obtain a shortening of his sentence, why so 
 much the sooner would his vengeance fall, in 
 the shape of his grand book, upon those who 
 had dared to keep him caged ! What were 
 the ruffianism of Soda, the cold-blooded 
 selfishness of Jaggs, to the sublime and 
 elaborately built-up villainy of a devil such 
 as this ? And so clever was he, he had so 
 life-like and deft a way of weaving lies with 
 truth, that I felt half convinced now that his 
 statements would be believed. I was sorry, 
 though, as I sat all day in my cell and 
 thought over it, that I had given him any 
 assistance in his book. It was humiliating 
 to be mixed up with so despicable a black- 
 guard. I did it in idle mischief, as a safety- 
 valve for my own bitterness. I was sorry 
 that I had ever had anything to do with 
 him at all — his conduct was really too low ! 
 And then I wondered, for the thousandth time, 
 what the crime of the gentleman had been who 
 was seduced into being guilty of a little slip ? 
 MifTy was shut up in the punishment- cells. 
 We were all agog as to what had become of 
 
74 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 Socla. The Scripture-reader came and sat 
 opposite me in my domain, and exhorted me 
 with renewed energy to reform my ways. 
 ' My ally and co-ruffian, Soda/ he said, i was 
 certainly dead by this time — drowned in a 
 quaggy tarn — gone to his proper place. Why 
 would I not take this awful example to 
 heart, reform my ways, and become a peni- 
 tent like Tilgoe % Why had I declined to 
 assist the governor, by being so obstinate and 
 so impertinent V 
 
 What answer could I give to this good man 
 who worried me ? I was saved the trouble of 
 begging him to go his ways by a noise down- 
 stairs. The slightest sound now drove us 
 half wild with curiosity. Was it Soda 
 brought back in triumph, or was it his 
 corpse ? 
 
 The pursy little Scripture-reader bustled 
 out to see. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SODA. 
 
 HE burly ruffian had calculated 
 cunningly when he planned to 
 make of Miffy his confederate. He 
 had forced him to undertake the dangerous 
 and arduous work of breaking through the 
 wall, had held over him an avalanche of threats 
 of the dreadful things which would happen if 
 he dared to disobey, or to forget, or otherwise 
 to lose his head. Then, the cat's-paw's part 
 accomplished, and himself safely deposited 
 upon the ground within the yard, he left the 
 postmaster in mid-air at the first alarm, with- 
 out a ripple of distress, as a bait — like cheese 
 suspended in a mouse-trap — and, taking ad- 
 vantage of the mist and the confusion, 
 swarmed on to a postern-gate, then climbed 
 
76 SODA. 
 
 up a wall by means of a water-pipe, then 
 dropped (hoping that his loosely-knit limbs 
 would save his bones), from a height of nine 
 and twenty feet into a wet ditch ; and after 
 lying in a huddled heap, half stunned, for a 
 moment, staggered up and dashed straight 
 before him, over dell and plain and hollow, 
 trusting to luck for a direction. By the time 
 the gun was fired, he had got beyond the 
 cordon of cottages, and, considering the wet 
 blanket wherein nature was enveloped, seemed 
 to have a fair chance of avoiding capture. 
 
 After an hour's run, during which he 
 stumbled over boulders, in the dense obscu- 
 rity, many times, and bruised himself no 
 little, he stopped for breath, and mopping 
 the perspiration from his face, paused to con- 
 sider. Not a sound ! not even the cry of a 
 wild-bird. Mr. Virgin, at the best of times, 
 was never fond of solitude, and the immen- 
 sity and gloomy stillness of this hard-earned 
 freedom frightened him. It struck him for 
 the first time to be sorry, as he paused to 
 collect his hazy thoughts, that Miffy should 
 not have been as successful as himself. His 
 company for a time at least would have been 
 
SODA. 77 
 
 a comfort. It would have revived his oozino* 
 courage and kept up his spirits, to have 
 pinched and kicked him. He might, too, 
 have been despatched as a scout, a few yards 
 in advance, to give warning of approaching^ 
 danger, or, in the event of hot pursuit, have 
 been employed to produce a diversion. This 
 silence was intolerable — unearthly ! What a 
 pity that the fugitive did not dare to sing"! 
 At first, egged on by shouts, he had run for- 
 ward, not caring where he went. Now he 
 was alone in the sea of vapour, and, as he 
 toiled on more slowly, revolved in his mind as 
 to what was the next thing to be done. The 
 night air was fresh and sharp, although it was 
 mid-autumn, and Soda's thoughts began to 
 dwell unpleasantly on the bread and cocoa 
 which no orderly would bring him on the 
 morrow. The first thing to be seen' to was the 
 arrangement of his costume. That did not 
 take long. The mustard jacket and fustian 
 knickerbockers were off in an instant, and 
 buried in a hole with fierce delight. The un- 
 gainly trousers were pulled down over the tell- 
 tale stockings, the wig and cap placed on the 
 bullet-head, and the complacent scoundrel 
 
yS SODA. 
 
 turned round and round to look at himself in 
 order to see if there was anything that he 
 could improve. 
 
 No. Homely and awkward as the suit 
 was, it would answer as a makeshift till 
 something better could be obtained. The 
 wet ditch that had received him an hour ago 
 was thick with mud and slime. That was 
 well, for these white garments must be 
 thoroughly stained somehow, then dried, 
 before their wearer could venture into a 
 village. In which direction was he going, 
 he wondered, as, satisfied with a last survey, 
 he started on again ; and how far was he 
 from a village ? There was no road visible. 
 It would not do to follow roads. Here was 
 a path ; did it lead to Tavistock, or Horra- 
 bridge, or Plymouth, or Okehampton 1 It 
 signified little which ; one was as good as 
 another for his purpose ; though, if he had 
 been asked to choose, he certainly would 
 have selected Plymouth. The path led no- 
 where. It stopped abruptly at a pool, into 
 which the fugitive was in danger of falling 
 headlong in the darkness. Starting off at 
 haphazard, he groped away into the mist again. 
 
SODA. 79 
 
 He wandered on till the day broke, stum- 
 bling, tripping, falling down, and anathema- 
 tising his fate with ingenious curses, in that he 
 should ever have been removed so far from the 
 gay metropolis. What a stretch there lay be- 
 tween this horrible, endless desert, and the joys 
 of the Seven Dials ! The accursed fog was 
 stifling, but it was a friendly fog. By-and-by, 
 no doubt, it would lift a little — not too much, 
 for mists lie heavy and long upon the moor — 
 and then the wayfarer would be able to gauge 
 his surroundings and organise some plan for 
 future guidance. Meanwhile he must crawl, 
 with exceeding caution, through the gloom, 
 keeping a sharp look-out, lending an attentive 
 ear lest — though this was unlikely now — some 
 oaf more persevering than the rest should out- 
 strip his fellows, and track the convict down. 
 
 He trudged miles and miles, uncertain 
 whether he walked straight or was moving 
 in a circle. Onward he struggled, he who 
 loved so dearly to do nothing, till his knees 
 felt weak, and there was a pain at the top 
 of his spine to which he was a stranger, 
 since it arose from genuine fatigue. Tired, 
 hungry, solitary— -free ! There was enough in 
 
80 SODA. 
 
 that tiny monosyllable to make up for all the 
 rest. Alone on the vast moor, well beyond 
 the reach by this time of cottiers as well as 
 of searching-parties. Stay ! what was that 
 which, on a flatter piece of ground than he 
 had yet passed over, was watching him % 
 An animal was it, or a human bein^ ? A 
 man, curse him ! but with his back turned, 
 which was a consolation. He was not 
 watching ; had naught in common with 
 prison searching-parties ; yet might he, if 
 evilly disposed, give an alarm. Had he seen 
 the wanderer or not \ Were others within 
 hail ? Was he armed or defenceless % His 
 clothes — the clothes of the work-a-day world 
 — would be worth a little risk ; and besides, 
 he might have money in his pocket. This 
 was no time for mincing matters — the man 
 was off his guard — and Soda (for cowards, 
 like rats, can be goaded into bravery) looked 
 round for a weapon of offence. A jagged 
 stone — the very thing ! Dropping on his 
 knees, then on his belly, the ruffian crawled 
 towards his prospective victim like some 
 great white reptile ; then rising, made a rush, 
 and pounding down his weapon with all his 
 
SODA. Si 
 
 might, overthrew the stranger, and fell with 
 him, prone. No cry, no struggle. Somewhat 
 surprised at so facile a victory, Soda peered 
 forward and discovered that his antagonist 
 was a scarecrow — a worn and ragged suit 
 spread wide upon two crossed sticks. A 
 laughable incident this, though the convict 
 was little inclined for merriment ; and yet a 
 lucky one. If dead men will tell no tales, 
 still less will a ravished scarecrow. To don 
 the ragged disguise over his white one was 
 the work but of a few minutes ; the battered 
 hat was worth a thousand of the bread-bag 
 cap. This w T as indeed a stroke of fortune. No 
 danger now in creeping into the nearest ale- 
 house. Where was there one ? No matter. 
 Buoyed with new hope, the fugitive wandered 
 on again. He wandered all day, striving to 
 pierce the fog, in vain. Not a vestige of man 
 or beast — not a sound. He slept, and woke 
 refreshed, but hungry. Morning came again, 
 grey and cheerless, and the mist showed no 
 signs of clearing. Soda groped on and on, 
 like the children of Israel doing penance in 
 the desert, ignorant of whither he was going, 
 faint from lack of food, exhausted with 
 vol. 11. 27 
 
82 SODA. 
 
 fatigue, trembling with fear in that awful 
 silence. Oh for a tin of that comforting 
 hot porridge — for a portion of that bread of 
 which he daintily had been accustomed to 
 complain ! This was worse, far worse, than 
 anything he had ever suffered. Was he to 
 die of starvation like a dog, and have his 
 bones picked piecemeal by the crows % With 
 a sentimental feeling due to terror and an 
 empty stomach, Soda sat upon the ground 
 and wept at his own unhappy fate ; for was 
 it not a melancholy prospect for a man in the 
 best of health — who had always lived well 
 and copiously at the expense of others — to 
 be destined for so pitiful an exit 1 There 
 was not a pocket with sixpence in it for miles 
 and miles — not a woman with a watch or so 
 much as a pocket-handkerchief — not a pawn- 
 shop or a gin-shop within a da} 7? s journey at 
 least. With futile and abortive ra^e he wished 
 himself back again at Princetown, and heaped 
 curses upon curses on Miffy's head for having 
 left him, as he considered, in the lurch. 
 
 All through this day he tottered on, 
 stretching sometimes both palms in front to 
 sweep the opaque veil aside, which choked 
 
SODA. 83 
 
 his throat and caused his eyes to smart, 
 sinking down now and again in abject 
 despondency, to rise up in an instant or so 
 with veins swelling like whipcord, as, blas- 
 pheming, he shook his fists at heaven. Then 
 he grew light-headed, and the white mist 
 seemed rainbow-hued, and crawling about in 
 search of berries, he essayed to mitigate 
 internal pangs and gnawing by filling his 
 mouth with grass. 
 
 As he grew weaker he became a prey to 
 horrid visions. Surely that was Blackbeetle 
 Bet, standing with face buried in her hands 
 and weeping as if her heart would break, as 
 he saw her when first he became a felon. 
 Why did she not bring him food as in days 
 gone by she used to do ? Then she looked 
 up into his face and was gaunt and green, with 
 black circles round her blazing eyes, as he 
 had pictured her when news was brought to 
 Chatham that she was dead through him. 
 In those days he had suffered much from 
 nightmare ; she had stood over him without 
 mercy, and he had writhed under her grasp 
 in vain. Now she was more gruesome, more 
 tall, more thin, more gauntly haggard; an 
 
 27—2 
 
84 SODA. 
 
 awful shade, as her darkling form hid out the 
 misty curtain and towered far up into the 
 vault. 
 
 He shrieked in unreasoning terror, and, 
 unheedful of bruises, fled on — and on — and 
 ever on — for a period that seemed like weeks, 
 with intervals of coma which were not sleep, 
 till, catching his foot in something, he tottered 
 and fell face forward against a wall. Yes ! a 
 ivall ! By some fortunate hazard he was out 
 of the desert, within hail of the abodes of 
 men, and when he beheld the wall, with its 
 trim coping-stone, the sight of it gave fresh 
 courage and fresh strength. 
 
 The mist was gone now. It had served 
 his turn, masking him from his pursuers, and 
 it was well that it should disappear in order 
 that he might ascertain to what manner of 
 place he had arrived. It was a high wall, 
 like that of a park. He was too weak to try 
 and scale it, so, supporting himself against 
 its rugged surface, he dragged his unwilling 
 limbs along a ditch that was bedded with 
 moss and brambles. Suddenly he was con- 
 fronted by a man — a real man this time — 
 whose aspect set his jarred nerves in a 
 
SODA. ' 85 
 
 tremor, as he perceived that the uniform 
 was blue. It was a member of the rural 
 police, who, catching a glimpse of a cowering 
 figure half concealed by brambles, made a 
 dash at the rasped coat-collar, and dragged 
 its owner into the light. 
 
 ' Oh ! I've £ot voil have I, at last V cried 
 the constable. ' I've been after you this 
 long while, day and night, you miscreant ! 
 All the police of Okehampton have been 
 bothering after you. Where's your gun? 
 So you bag other folks pheasants, do you ? 
 But never no more, my friend. Come, don't 
 be lazy, that won't serve your turn, you 
 hound ! Step out, and don't you try to 
 escape. The gamekeeper and his men have 
 only just gone home. You're going along of 
 me to the station.' 
 
 Here was a mistake. Soda — bewildered, 
 jaded, stupefied — could see that at once. He 
 was taken for some poacher. Well, that 
 was better than that it should be suspected 
 what he really was ; and yet it would not 
 do to be marched off to a police-station just 
 at present. Rewards would of course be out 
 for the escaped convict, and bills posted. 
 
86 SODA. 
 
 How long had he been wandering ? Was it 
 one day and night, or seven ? Hunger and 
 exhaustion caused his murky brain to work 
 even more slowly than usual. 
 
 ' I'm not a poacher/ he stammered, scarce 
 able to articulate. ' I'm so hungry and so 
 tired that ' 
 
 ' Hallo !' responded the constable, who, 
 perceiving by the worn and haggard look, 
 the unshorn chin and wobegone sodden visage, 
 and muddy suit of rags, that this Avas not his 
 man, cried out : ' Who are you, and what are 
 you doing here ? Stand up, and let's have a 
 look at you. Take off your hat. Take it 
 off, I say !' 
 
 Soda, to whom with renewed hope and the 
 vicinity of man had come a desperate clinging 
 to existence, moved back a step, and the 
 constable, nettled, gave his hat a tilt with a 
 thick stick he carried, and his amazement 
 was considerable when he beheld a head of 
 hair fall with the hat at his feet, exposing to 
 the observation of himself and a rising sun, 
 the shaven crown which told its tale too 
 well. 
 
 1 Wheugh !' he whistled. ' That's it, is it % 
 
SODA. 87 
 
 You've come across the moor from Prince- 
 town. There's a description of you up at 
 our place. Very sorry, my lad, that you 
 should have had such a trudge for nothing ; 
 but make your mind easy — you shall make 
 the return journey in a carriage.' 
 
 Though Soda's instinct was blurred and 
 numb, it told him that the game was well- 
 nigh lost. What a pity ! and yet, an inner 
 voice whispered that if only he was given 
 food there might be another chance. He 
 had reached Okehampton somehow. Oh 
 for a little food, and a little time, and some 
 means of getting the best of this simple- 
 minded rustic ! It was too hard to have got 
 so nearly out of the vortex after scheming so 
 many months, only to be caught upon its rim ! 
 
 For the moment there was nothing for it 
 but to submit. The ruffian's head throbbed ; 
 he was dizzy and could hardly stand. The 
 rural constable, chattering on the while, pro- 
 duced a pair of darbies, which he kept handy 
 for the behoof of the invisible poacher, and 
 placing them on the wrists of his new prize, 
 bade him walk in front and step out. But it 
 was quite clear that the man spoke truth. 
 
88 SODA. 
 
 He was exhausted, very ill, faint from inani- 
 tion. His knees threatened to give way at 
 every step. It was some distance to the 
 station round the park-boundary, so he gave 
 him his thick stick to lean upon, and sup- 
 ported his bulky frame on the other side 
 with his own arm. Soda's cunning was 
 awakened by a sense of extreme danger, and 
 he seemed to see daylight as he limped along, 
 A narrow path wound under the park-wall 
 with no one by to see. The stick — the 
 chattering policeman who was full of his 
 grand prize ! The ruffian's cunning was wide 
 awake, and, coming to his relief, strung up 
 his nerves. It was a rash effort for one so 
 weak ; but liberty would be the guerdon of 
 success ; and he had been so near to liberty. 
 His position could not be worse than it 
 now appeared. As a few hours since he 
 had lono-ed for Princetown, so now the 
 thought of returning thither filled him with 
 a fury which was a sort of strength. Sinking 
 down on a stone, he cried with moans that 
 he would go no farther, for, crippled by hand- 
 cuffs, he could not lean upon his stick. He 
 would go quietly ; indeed, in his deplorable 
 
SODA, 89 
 
 state he could not do otherwise. What was 
 there to fear in one so utterly famished and 
 undone ? It was unheard-of cruelty. Well, 
 then, a man can't do more than he is able, 
 that's quite certain. The wanderer would 
 undertake to go quietly if the handcuffs were 
 removed, for he was dying- from lack of food ; 
 but with handcuffs he would not budge an 
 inch. What was the rural constable to do ? 
 He could not carry this mass of flesh ; neither 
 could he leave him. From Princetown to 
 Okehampton by a circuitous route ! He 
 must indeed be hungry. His protest was 
 not unreasonable. There was nothing for it 
 but to free his hands. So he took the hand- 
 cuffs off, and the convict, full of gratitude, rose 
 up, and they were enabled to proceed more 
 briskly. Despite the new-born resolution 
 bred of despair, Soda swayed to and fro 
 like a drunken man. If the thing had to be 
 done, it must be now or never, for the 
 fictitious force was fading rapidly. Could it 
 be clone ? Was aught so apparently impos- 
 sible worth the trial ? The garrulous police- 
 man was unsuspecting, and chatted merrily. 
 Pointing straight ahead as though he saw 
 
90 SODA. ' 
 
 some one, his prize called out : ' There ! a 
 man in cordurovs !' to which the constable 
 replied : ' Where ? the man I'm after !' He 
 said no more, for with a wild back-stroke of 
 the sturdy stick, his companion felled him to 
 the earth ; and reeling round himself, faint 
 with the prodigious effort, fell prostrate on 
 his body in a swoon. 
 
 Two peasants passing a few moments later 
 found the two thus lying. The constable, 
 who was insensible and bleeding freely, was 
 conveyed on a stretcher to his home ; the 
 convict, before many hours had passed, was 
 crouching, heavily ironed, and clad in his old 
 garb of yellow, in the penal quarter of 
 Dartmoor Prison. 
 
CHAPTEK XIV. 
 
 THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES. 
 
 HERE was a grand investigation 
 into the affair, which came as a 
 godsend to the Dartmoor officials, 
 who, not having the resource of hard labour, 
 were growing into zoophytes through dul- 
 ness. There were constant discussions going 
 on in the governor's room, the door of which 
 was for ever on the move. Warders stood 
 whispering outside in knots, stealing in on 
 tiptoe when summoned, as if it were Blue- 
 beard's chamber. A director came down 
 from London — the governor's own carriage 
 was sent to Tavistock to fetch him — he 
 looked solemnly through his glasses and made 
 voluminous notes ; then devoured vast quan- 
 tities of beef and pickles, and congratulated 
 
92 THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES. 
 
 the major on his pickles, and drove away 
 again. The parson's wife and the doctor's 
 lady stared at him over their blinds, and 
 waved pocket-handkerchiefs as if he had 
 been the Queen ; and made up a tiff of long- 
 standing in order that they might take tea 
 together and discuss the important event. 
 
 As to us convicts, we crept about with 
 bated breath, as though death were in the 
 house, for we knew that as far as we were 
 concerned the result of the investigation 
 would be a tightening of the reins, and the 
 making of more spy-holes ; that discipline 
 would become even sharper than heretofore ; 
 and not a few of our number were rendered 
 peevish by the reflection, that if they had 
 only known and ' peached/ they might per- 
 chance have bettered their own position. 
 
 The only individual who was radiant was 
 the Reverend Tilgoe. He had the honour of 
 being closeted with the director, who compli- 
 mented him afterwards publicly upon his 
 evidence. He had replied with becoming 
 meekness that he was only a lowly prisoner, 
 who sincerely repented of his sins ; that he 
 regretted being a burthen to his country, and 
 
THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES. 93 
 
 always endeavoured to avoid giving trouble 
 to those who were set over him ; that he 
 seized this opportunity of thanking them, one 
 and all, for their unvarying kindness and con- 
 sideration ; and was, finally, so moved by 
 excess of gratitude as to be unable to restrain 
 his tears. 
 
 The little governor was gratified and 
 affected, and blew his nose loudly while re- 
 ceiving the compliments of the director. 
 Yes, he was glad to say that, as he inter- 
 preted it, the system worked admirably. The 
 prisoner now before them was a proof of that. 
 Nothing could have been more dastardly 
 than the offence for which he was undergoing 
 servitude, yet look at him now ! The chap- 
 lain and the Scripture-reader would give him 
 the best of characters. He was a blue-collar 
 man, who would join the privileged class as 
 as possible. He never gave the least trouble ; 
 was punctual and industrious ; was a constant 
 attendant at the holy table ; had even been 
 known to employ his Sunday exercise in try- 
 ing to save, by timely exhortation, one of the 
 very blackest sheep — a man called Ebenezer 
 Anderson. He would go forth into the 
 
94 THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES. 
 
 world again, when the time came, a regene- 
 rated sinner, an honour to himself and to his 
 country ; above all, an honour to the system 
 which showed that none need be depraved by 
 evil communications. For the present he 
 might return to his work with the knowledge 
 that his guardians were pleased with him. 
 
 He tripped, smirking, up to our landing, 
 with a comical look of triumph, which turned 
 into one of disdain as he beheld, waiting 
 there, his rueful slave. 
 
 The peach -faced one, worn out by poignant 
 anxieties, had little of the peach-bloom of 
 youth about him now. All things considered, 
 he had come well out of the ordeal ; but he 
 was full of foreboding as to the future, as, too 
 nervous to remain long in one position, he 
 kicked his heels and whistled, now resting an 
 elbow on the railing, now leaning his back 
 against the wall, and then starting from it as 
 if all he touched were hot. He had been 
 fined and reprimanded for carelessness, that 
 was all ; but what was to happen next \ 
 
 Tilgoe became every day more exigeant, 
 dragged him every day a step lower with 
 ruthless grasp, forged every day a new rivet 
 
THE REVEREND AUREL1US HOPES. 95 
 
 of compromise, wherewith to strengthen his 
 chains. He was forced to bring in dainties; 
 to fetch and carry; to provide tobacco for his 
 master, who never had smoked, but which he 
 chose to distributees largess to fellow-prisoners. 
 By dint of being always well supplied with 
 ' prison currency/ Tilgoe made himself popular 
 among his mates. They did his dirty work 
 for him ; obliged him in a host of ways. As 
 the young warder became more helpless, so 
 did his lord's demands increase. His life was 
 not his own, he said, groaning to himself 
 whilst reviewing his distressing position. 
 But Tilgoe eyed him as he passed with greater 
 scorn even than usual. From motives of 
 prudence he had not betrayed him when he 
 betrayed the others ; but now he felt, as he 
 looked at him, that it was nearly time to kick 
 down the ladder. For services rendered and 
 exemplary conduct, his sentence would cer- 
 tainly be commuted, and then this varlet 
 might go to the devil. He would be free in 
 a month or two at most. Meanwhile his 
 servant must during the brief remaining 
 space be useful. So, calling him into his cell, 
 
96 THE REVEREND AUREL1US HOPES. 
 
 he gave him a paper packet, with orders that 
 it should be posted forthwith. 
 
 ■ You know I can't do it/ pleaded the un- 
 happy w T arder. ' You know that, thanks to 
 you, I'm in disgrace myself, and that I can't 
 ask leave just now. The thing can't be 
 posted here, where nobody's got anything to 
 do but to see what his neighbour does. 
 Have you no conscience V 
 
 ' Don't presume to argue !' Tilgoe retorted 
 with impatience. ' Of course your fines and 
 rubbish will be paid by Eloise, so don't worry 
 about that. You've got to do what you're 
 told, and pretty smart too, or I'll know the 
 reason why. You can send your sister in to 
 post it.' 
 
 ' What, all the way to Tavistock V ex- 
 claimed the other in desperation ; ' and she 
 so ailing that it makes a man's heart bleed to 
 look at her ! There, you'll drive me to do 
 something which we shall both regret. I'm 
 sick of it. The suspense I'm always in is 
 like the rack. I wish I'd made a clean 
 breast of it long ago. If it wasn't for her 
 sake I'd throw it up this minute, and go and 
 
THE REVEREND A U RE LI US HOPES. 97 
 
 confess to the governor — for anything would 
 be better than what you make me bear !' 
 
 His victim w T as at bay, and the Reverend 
 Aurelius surveyed him with amusement. 
 
 ' Well, well/ he sneered ; ' what a fuss to 
 be sure ! Don't w r aste your breath, there's a 
 good boy ! Keep the packet carefully — 
 don't put it in your pocket, man ! — and post 
 it as soon as may be.' 
 
 Tilgoe was quite pleased with himself, and 
 everybody was pleased with him — except one, 
 Mr. Scar raw eg, who, standing bolt upright 
 in a corner, armed with a bunch of keys and 
 a pencil, in the presence of the great man 
 from town, had watched the gambols of the 
 male Magdalen with an expression of un- 
 utterable disgust. He had accepted the con- 
 vict's information, and had acted on it, as in 
 duty bound, but did not respect, for all that, 
 the channel through which it came. That 
 the great man from town should, led by the 
 governor, be taken in by the despicable hypo- 
 crite, was a matter for wrathful reverie ; and, 
 despite the awe-inspiring presence, the old 
 sea-dog grew so angry that he could scarcely 
 keep up the deportment which should go with 
 
 vol. 11. 28 
 
98 THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES. 
 
 the wearing of state uniforms. A tantrum 
 was coming on — a very bad attack — and if it 
 were to explode like a bombshell and spread 
 dismay and disaster even in the awful 
 presence, who would presume to prophesy 
 how dire the result might be % It was all 
 very well in theory to leave your private feel- 
 ings on a door-mat, but things will happen 
 sometimes which may not be endured even 
 by the best-trained ; and so the chief warder, 
 mistrusting his equanimity, pretended that 
 his nose bled, and left the presence along with 
 the male Magdalen, when that penitent was 
 told that he might go. 
 
 He walked up and down the hall and 
 growled, as the caged lion does, till after a 
 time he felt better, and was about to return 
 to his duty, when he seemed to become con- 
 scious of high words on the third landing. 
 Talking going on — actually talking — and the 
 director on the premises. Were marvels never 
 to cease ? It was Tilgoe's voice too ; whose 
 soft and unctuous tones were so sickening to 
 the chief warder. What was up ? In his 
 irascible state Mr. Scarraweg was burning for 
 action : for something that would require tact 
 
THE REVEREND AU RE LI US HOPES. 99 
 
 and promptitude. Who was Tilgoe squab- 
 bling with ? The warder in charge came 
 down the stairs, and, scowling, sped by with 
 a swift footstep. Something was wrong. 
 The ' sea-dog,' who was good at putting two 
 and two together, had long been aware that 
 this young warder and the penitent were on 
 over-friendly terms. Were they now begin- 
 ning to disagree ? It was a fine opportunity 
 for trying a coup d'etat. 
 
 1 Here, you come along with me/ said the 
 chief, calmly. ' I just want a word with you 
 in private.' 
 
 The young man started, but answered 
 nothing, and followed his superior abstract- 
 edly, into his sanctum. Arrived there, Mr. 
 Scarraweg, with quiet deliberation, while the 
 other watched him curiously, pulled down the 
 blind, drew the curtains, lit a candle, and, 
 locking the door, placed the key with a slap 
 in his trouser-pocket. 
 
 ' Now, messmate,' he said, ' you've got off 
 precious easy over this job, and you knew 
 more about it than was quite convenient to 
 admit. Yes, you did ; but I don't want to 
 say any more about that. You've skimmed 
 
 28—2 
 
ioo THE REVEREND AU RE LI US HOPES. 
 
 by the rock ; it's got over and passed ; but I 
 can see a lighthouse through a fog as well as 
 most folks. I want you to learn a lesson 
 which will last you for life. That's about 
 what I want you to do. Don't go aground. 
 What were you and Tilgoe doing just now V 
 The young warder coloured to the roots of 
 his hair, and looked up quickly, then an- 
 swered : 
 
 ' Nothing, drat him, though he's more 
 bother than enough.' 
 
 ' Oh ! nothing, eh V retorted the chief, 
 who by this time had recovered himself and 
 was inclined to be jocular. ' You're a nice 
 young man — a very nice young man — one 
 whom to look at's to admire. What do you 
 suppose I called you in here for ? To take a 
 cup of tea ? or say a bit of tripe friendly- 
 like % or some liver and bacon with a glass of 
 bitter ? You don't expect so, eh ? Clever 
 young man, you are not wrong. I've called 
 you in here, and I've been considerate enough 
 to draw down the blind because — well, be- 
 cause I'm a going to search you." 
 
 The young man bit his lip and turned 
 deadly pale as he whispered : 
 
THE REVEREND AU RE LI US HOPES. 101 
 
 ' By what right V 
 
 ' By the right that I've got you here 
 under lock and key, and mean to keep you 
 here until I'm satisfied. That's good enough 
 for me. Come, strip !' 
 
 The young man hesitated for a moment, 
 then, looking straight at his chief, with saucy 
 lines playing about his mouth, he placed his 
 two palms on the table and vaulted on to it. 
 ' 1 warn you that you play a perilous game,' 
 he said. ' Warders protest against being 
 searched, and I trust always will, for it's an 
 indignity which lowers their self-respect. 
 Why, you'd degrade them to the level of a 
 convict ! You, who are a warder yourself ! 
 A respectable man, if he were liable to be 
 searched, would decline the office of warder 
 altogether. The Lord knows it's hard 
 enough, and ill-paid enough, without that 
 added to it.' 
 
 1 A respectable man,' retorted the sarcastic 
 Scarraweg, ' wouldn't mind being searched if 
 it strengthened the hands of the authorities, 
 because he'd know that nothing contraband 
 could be found on him.' 
 
 1 Oh ! I've no objection to being searched 
 
io2 THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES. 
 
 except on principle !' declared the other. 
 1 You're a rum old bit of sea-timber, and 
 I'm glad to humour you. You're venerable 
 enough to be my dad, you know, and I've a 
 proper feeling about respecting the whims of 
 grey hairs.' 
 
 Leaping blithely from the table, he flung 
 off with aggressive haste his tunic and waist- 
 coat, divested himself of the rest of his 
 clothing, shaking out each scrap and wring- 
 ing it like a sponge with pompous grimaces, 
 until, stripped of all but jersey and shoes 
 and stockings, he struck an attitude with a 
 peal of laughter and posed as some monu- 
 mental e^gy. 
 
 The joke, however, was lost on Scarraweg, 
 who, his shaggy brows knit and Newgate 
 frill erect, was watching with eyes like a 
 ferret's. 
 
 ' Poses plastiques ! what do you think of 
 my figure ¥ laughed the peach-skinned one. 
 
 ' So much, that I'd like to see a trifle more 
 of it,' gruffly retorted his chief. 
 
 ' Oh ! come, come !' returned the other 
 growing serious. ' A joke's a joke — but it 
 becomes a nuisance when pushed too far. 
 
THE REVEREND AVRELIUS HOPES. 103 
 
 I've humoured you for a frolic, old gent, but 
 I ain't all pie ! Here are my things. Feel 
 them yourself, but be quick about it, for it's 
 chilly.' 
 
 ' You're a good chap, messmate/ answered 
 Scarraweg, with affable and suspicious promp- 
 titude. ' If you honour father and mother 
 and the greyheaded, your days will be long 
 in the land, you know ! but if you don't, and 
 cry, "Go up,baldhead!" your days will be short 
 enough, for you'll be gobbled up by bears.' 
 
 ' I don't understand your scriptural allu- 
 sions,' his junior remarked lightly, whilst 
 slipping on his shirt. 
 
 ' Don't you % If so deuced respectful, why 
 not be obedient to your elders ? What I 
 mean is that while you think you're scudding 
 under storm-sails towards port, you're drift- 
 ing on the reefs. That there image, as you're 
 so good at imitatin', didn't wear shoes and 
 stockings, did he V 
 
 The young warder turned a shade more 
 pale, and pretended not to hear. Then 
 Scarraweg, producing his key, strode to the 
 door and stuck it in its place. 
 
 * You've sprung a leak, shipmet,' he 
 
104 THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES. 
 
 grunted. ' Unless you take off shoes and 
 stockings before I count ten,' he roared, ' I'll 
 call in a dozen of your mates to see you 
 standing thus !' 
 
 In Mr. Scarraweg, zeal took the place of 
 genius. He had accomplished his coup 
 d'etat. Trembling now, the wretched paid- 
 servant of a convict took off one boot and 
 then one stocking, and then, more slowly — 
 with deprecating murmurs — another boot. 
 Chroniclers have singular stories to tell 
 sometimes. That second boot was stub- 
 born, and declined to come off. At last it 
 did ; and in it the packet stood revealed 
 which Tilgoe had given him just now. 
 Scarraweg snorted as the proud dolphin 
 may have snorted that bore Arion on its 
 back, and pocketed the packet ; then turned 
 his sharp eyes upon the junior with mingled 
 pity and contempt. 
 
 The latter, no longer saucy, broke into 
 sobs and wrung his hands. 
 
 ' Oh, sir !' he pleaded, ' if you knew what 
 I've gone through ! My existence has been 
 a long-drawn curse since that — -that devil go$ 
 me in his power. I wanted to be kind, and 
 
THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES. 105 
 
 he seemed so good, and then we were so hard 
 up at home ! The sister was woful ill, and 
 wanted jelly and things — and all my pay was 
 swallowed up in paying fines for being late, 
 after sitting up with her all night. I'll tell 
 you all — I will, upon my word — and it'll be 
 a relief. There, I'm glad you've found me 
 out. Well, then ' (what a pitiable aspect he 
 must have presented — sobbing and gurgling 
 — standing in his shirt !), ' I was that hard up 
 that I got a few trifles for L E Y 233 and 
 Y 240 — Soda and Jaggs, you know — and this 
 parson finding it out, got me to pass papers 
 — ever so many papers — and to bring him in 
 foolscap and lead pencils. I didn't know — 
 no more than the dead — what it was all 
 about. A book, I think he said, that he 
 w^as writing ; and he's awful sharp, sure 
 enough ! Weil, one thing led to another, 
 as things will, and I was so wretched that I 
 take my Bible oath I'm glad you've caught 
 me. I am — honour ! Bat you don't want 
 to ruin me, do you % You're a kind-hearted 
 old sort — I know you are. For my poor 
 sister's sake, who's in a decline, you wouldn't. 
 It'd be the end of her.' 
 
106 THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES. 
 
 In his anxiety the young culprit laid a 
 beseeching hand upon the arm of his superior, 
 which the latter did not shake off. 
 
 ' It's the old story/ Scarraweg said at last. 
 ' You impudent young shavers, as ignorant 
 as sucking-pigs — only just born, as I may 
 say — think yourselves fit to cope with the 
 spawn of the London dens — with the acute 
 blackguards whose noses the devil himself 
 has sharpened with his best file, and natu- 
 rally enough you come to grief. Now I 
 ought to take this packet instantly to the 
 governor, and tell him the whole business. 
 I ought — but come, all hands to the pumps ! 
 For your sisters sake — God forgive me ! — I 
 won't do it. She's a poor frail body, and, as 
 you sa} r , it'd be the end of her. I'll keep 
 your secret on this condition. You'll go this 
 instant to the governor, and say the winds 
 are too strong for your sister's health, and 
 ask to be transferred. The only thing for 
 your complaint is change of air. I'll back 
 you up, and so you'll have another chance. 
 Come, put on your things, and go to him at 
 once/ 
 
 The convict's luckless drudge kissed, in 
 
THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES. 107 
 
 his gratitude, the gnarled hand of Scarraweg, 
 and presented himself — a happier fellow than 
 he had been for many a day — before the 
 governor. 
 
 ' You want to leave us — why V the latter 
 inquired. ' You're smart enough, if inclined 
 to be flighty ; but that will wear off. You 
 are annoyed, I suppose, at not having ferreted 
 out that escape. But you're young, you see, 
 and no match for scamps who began with the 
 reformatory.' 
 
 Then, seeing that the young man hung his 
 head and looked confused, he dismissed him 
 gravely, and said, an hour later, to Scar- 
 raweg : 
 
 1 That fellow's a trafficker, I'll swear ; but 
 he's sorry for it, and wishes to give it up. 
 I've written to Captain Jardine, who'll take 
 him on at Portland, and set a watch on him. 
 Yet Captain Jardine isn't watchful enough. 
 The accursed race needs watching — oh, how 
 it needs watching: ! These fellows who have 
 burned their fingers make the best warders 
 in the end — for burnt children dread the fire. 
 Tobacco, I suppose, and so forth. I wish 
 the Home Office would allow tobacco as the 
 
io8 THE REVEREND AU RE LI US HOPES. 
 
 Yankees clo, and find no special ill-effect 
 arise ; it would save a deal of bother. By- 
 the-bye, some new prisoners will arrive by the 
 late train. See to it.' 
 
 Mr. Scarraweg returned to his sanctum, 
 again locked his door, and, producing his 
 spectacles, sat down to read. What had the 
 Reverend Aurelius been writing \ Not a 
 treatise on the Thirty-nine Articles, certainly. 
 What was this % The concluding chapter of 
 a book. A sort of graceful obeisance to the 
 public before ringing down the curtain. 
 Whatever could his book be about ? Was it 
 affecting ? would its title be ' Confessions of 
 a male Magdalen V So this had been Mr. 
 Tilgoe's occupation whilst pretending to be 
 divided between a hymn-book and a Commen- 
 tary on the New Testament. Stay ! Here was 
 a scrap, scrawled on the back of a picture, 
 torn from some illustrated magazine. A 
 letter — addressed to a lady. ' My dearest 
 Eloise, — Again I take up my pen, or rather 
 my pencil, to give last directions.' He 
 was in the habit, then, of writing to this 
 lady — once a week possibly, or more, and 
 always on pictures filched from library books. 
 
THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES. 109 
 
 Eloise ! that was not his wife's name — the 
 gently-nurtured lady to whom he wrote four 
 times a year, by permission, and who had 
 fainted when she first visited him on the 
 other side of a barred window. Evidently a 
 former mistress this, with whom he pro- 
 posed to live again — the velvet-tongued 
 scoundrel ! What did he say in this letter ? 
 
 ' By the divine grace, I shall soon be out, 
 for I have been permitted to do the autho- 
 rities a favour for which, in spite of them- 
 selves, they'll have to be grateful. I hate 
 them — I hate them, one and all. The 
 governor, because he's an ass ; the chief 
 warder, because he's a cross old curmudgeon. 
 Herewith, I send the last pages of the book. 
 i" void to you that every word is true, though 
 it must have lacerated your sympathetic soul 
 as you read the atrocities to which I am 
 subjected. The public are kept out of these 
 places, so they don't know what goes on. I 
 mean to tell them from my point of vieiv. 
 The way I'm used here is simply a scandal. 
 
 ' No black negro in South America ever 
 was so treated. That they've not killed me 
 
1 10 THE RE VEREND A URELIUS HOPES. 
 
 outright by their barbarity is simply due to 
 their dread of the coroner, and my excellent 
 constitution. If it had not been for the nice 
 things you've sent in I should have died of 
 nothing but starvation in my moist dungeon. 
 But they'll be obliged to recognise my ser- 
 vices and set me free. A few weeks must 
 do it. 
 
 'You are always in my thoughts. You 
 — only you. Oh, how I long to commence 
 a new life in your sweet society — in the sole 
 enjoyment of your matchless love ! Write to 
 me, darling, in the usual way. Our messen- 
 ger will tell you how, in exchange for a few 
 shillings. The book will be the talk of the 
 town, T feel, because of its novelty and per- 
 fect truth. 
 
 ' I send my measure, to save time, in order 
 that you may order me a suit of clothes. 
 Consult your oivn taste. There's a man who 
 makes good cloth cheap somewhere in Brook 
 Street. If he would make these togs well, I 
 would be a constant customer to him after- 
 wards. I shall want some shirts too, and a 
 regular gentleman's rig- out. This misery 
 will soon be at an end, and your love shall 
 
THE REVEREND AU RE LI US HOPES. in 
 
 repay me for all. / live only for you, for 
 evermore! 
 
 1 Your own, own, OWN persecuted pet, 
 
 ' AlJKELIUS.' 
 
 Scarraweg rubbed the ruddy bulb at the 
 end of his nose, and, his chin buried in his 
 fists, stared at this literary effort. 
 
 ' Here's the model cove as displays the 
 beauty of the system !' he grunted aloud. 
 1 A cur — a sycophant — a hypocrite — a liar — 
 a Judas ! Why not a murderer, to make it 
 complete ? Well, he's going in for that as 
 well, it seems — a murderer of reputations. 
 " Your own, own, OWN," eh ? for how long I 
 wonder ? If this poor lass only knew this 
 man's career as I do. Let me think — what 
 was it ? At nineteen he eloped with a lady 
 from a boarding school, under promise of 
 marriage, and after a few months threw her 
 on the streets. Then he married {really this 
 time) the unlucky faithful creature who comes 
 and sees him here : who was a daughter of 
 another clergyman, brought up in the most 
 straitlaced principles. Her health gave 
 way after her second baby, and he saw a 
 
112 THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES. 
 
 means of getting rid of her, which, unhap- 
 pily for her, did not succeed. In spite of 
 her religious objections, and in spite of her 
 ill-health, he starved and beat her until 
 she consented to adopt the ballet as a 
 profession. Either she would die of the 
 draughts, he hoped, or would go to the bad, 
 as the other one had done. But she didn't, 
 so he tried to exasperate her into leaving 
 him free, or committing suicide. He took a 
 servant gal into the house, and forced his 
 wife to wait on her, and give up her jewellery 
 and fallals. And yet she's faithful and for- 
 giving ! Woman's a heavenly institushon, 
 sure-lie ! And then, the crime which brought 
 him here, and which the beak said was one of 
 the very lowest that a two-legged biped, as 
 called himself a man, could possibly commit. 
 The filthy swab ! And now he's agoin' to start 
 afresh with Eloise, is he % And he's a^oiii' 
 to lay his complaint afore the public, and 
 teach 'm what's what, when lie gets out ! 
 Ha, ha ! When he gets oat ! Sure-lie, we 
 gets rum customers in this place, which they 
 call the " Hotel." Werry rum customers; 
 but this is about the rummest ! He's a 
 
THE RE VEREND A URELIUS HOPES. 1 1 3 
 
 pictur' — what the newspapers call a silphunny 
 — more of black than white though, about 
 this here !' 
 
 Then Mr. Scarraweg rubbed his bald pate, 
 as his way was when thinking aloud, and con- 
 sidered what his method of action ought to 
 be. 
 
 ' Isn't it hard lines I can't show him up ? 
 Precious hard ! I must not show this lovely 
 dockyment to the guv'nor. No. I mustn't, 
 for I can't, without splitting on that foolish 
 young chap who's to have another chance at 
 Portland. No ! He must go on — but I'll 
 write secretly to the director and give him a 
 hint or so anonymous, on the quiet, that'll 
 prevent his getting out. Eloise '11 have to 
 keep that there suit — she might put 'em on 
 herself now and again, and practise wearing- 
 " the breeches !" And the West-end tailor, 
 to whom he's to be reg'lar customer — what 
 a lark ! And the book too. I wonder what 
 it's all about ! A black nigger, eh ! He, 
 who's in the first class, too. Ain't it a pity 
 that we can't keep the worst scamps out of 
 the best classes. It's good temper as does 
 it. They know the advantage of behaving 
 
 vol. 11. 29 
 
ii4 THE REVEREND AURELIUS HOPES. 
 
 themselves, and don't suffer enough to make 
 'em fly out. Well, well ! Let him say his 
 say. It can't do us much harm in the long- 
 run !' 
 
 To the Reverend Tilgoe's surprise, orders 
 came from the central bureau that the man 
 by whose instrumentality the daring attempt 
 to break out of Dartmoor prison had been 
 prevented, was to receive no commutation of 
 his sentence. The governor, who was con- 
 siderably nettled that his recommendation 
 should be of so little avail, made it up to his 
 favourite by bestowing on him the best berth 
 that a prisoner could have — that of hospital- 
 orderly, or head-nurse in the infirmary. Was 
 he grateful % Not he ! His cards had got 
 shuffled wrongly somehow. He was to re- 
 main as he was for several weary years — that 
 suit of clothes would be moth-eaten and out 
 of fashion ! His servant had been removed 
 to another station — no more letters — no more 
 tabacco — no more tit-bits prepared by the 
 hand of Eloi'se ! No matter. He would 
 distil fresh venom each succeeding day, till 
 his whole being was replete with gall. And 
 — yes — he would pamper himself on the 
 
THE RE VEREND A URELIUS HOPES. 1 1 5 
 
 delicacies sent in for the sick patients, and 
 would twist the shattered limb of the ' acci- 
 dent/ and poke up the pillow of the 
 moribund, if one or other dared to utter a 
 murmur of complaint. 
 
 29—2 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 HE excitement which had set our 
 tiny world agog was over, and, as 
 I expected, our bit-chains were 
 drawn in a link, and the reins were tightened 
 which guided our daily life. Soda was no 
 longer one of the quarry- gang, which was a 
 mercy ; so we enjoyed comparative peace, 
 that turbulent spirit being for a while with- 
 drawn. 
 
 The unfortunate Miffy came back to us 
 looking more weary than ever, attired in the 
 yellow escape garb, and wearing leg-irons. 
 He was a dangerous person, of course, who 
 required special watching, Had he not made 
 a daring and desperate attempt, within a few 
 weeks, too, of his liberation ? Still waters 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 117 
 
 run deep, you know ; there was no telling 
 what so rash a reprobate might not try next. 
 His dejection was painful to witness. He 
 had lost all his marks, and forfeited all his 
 remission. His sentence would have to be 
 carried out to the last tittle. Instead of 
 embracing his darlings in a month or two, at 
 latest, he must linger through another dreary 
 year ; and sighing, with the wistful, patient 
 look which was so sad in him, he returned 
 uncomplaining to his work, and dragged 
 about his barrow with a wild energy which 
 set his enfeebled sinews twitching. He had 
 lost more than all this ; for in the hustling 
 which succeeded his recapture, the precious 
 packet of letters over which he had been 
 used to pore, fell from his pocket, and disap- 
 peared. The Scripture-reader, whose protege 
 in some sort he was, found him lying on the 
 floor of the punishment-cell, motionless, mur- 
 muring that he would make away with him- 
 self, that life was too heavy a burthen to be 
 borne by one so weak as he ; and gathering 
 from his ravings what it was that grieved 
 him so, went off at once without another 
 word, and wrote to Miffy's wife. Now it 
 
nS A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 was wrong and desperately wicked of this 
 pursy old sinner to act in so sly a manner. 
 He knew it, and felt nervous for weeks after 
 in presence of the lynx-eyed governor ; but 
 he salved his conscience with the thought 
 that peculiar cases require peculiar remedies, 
 and that it behoved him to save his 'protege 
 from possible further rashness at the expense 
 of a peccadillo of his own. And who will 
 throw stones at him ? When one day he 
 trotted gaily into the cell where MifTy moaned, 
 and pressed into his hand a letter, a bran- 
 new one, indited but three days before, the 
 light came back into the glazed eyes, and 
 from that moment MifTy calmed down again 
 and grew resigned. 
 
 Somehow we all seemed to grow calmer 
 after the outbreak. Owing to the increased 
 vigilance of our guardians, the daily routine 
 proceeded with even greater precision than 
 before — the component parts of the great 
 machine, newly cleaned and oiled, answered 
 without a creak to the touch of a finder on 
 the handle. Our landing appeared especially 
 peaceful (so soon as the damage done by the 
 two culprits had been made good), for the 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 119 
 
 nagging of the peach-faced one was over — 
 his worrying voice was heard no more. The 
 two cells at the extreme end (I mean those 
 recently occupied by Miffy and by Soda) in 
 time received new inmates. The one at the 
 end fell to the lot of a countryman — a harm- 
 less creature, who never could be made to 
 believe but that the rabbits which ran alone 1, 
 the road were intended by God for the use of 
 the first comer. So pestilent a theory had 
 to be combated. Local justices — this touched 
 them on a tender point — were determined 
 that such opinions should be put down with a 
 strong hand ; and the countryman, declining 
 to be convinced by their arguments, went 
 through a series of stages, which landed him 
 at last at Dartmoor. The other cell (the one 
 next to me) was assigned to a young man 
 who annoyed me at first by singing ; but 
 after a while, the oddness of the songs he 
 crooned roused my attention, and then 
 amused me ; and tapping on the iron wall, I 
 unveiled for him the secrets of the prison 
 house, in so far as concerned the chink in our 
 partition. 
 
 He was a singular fellow was this new 
 
120 A NE W ARRIVAL. 
 
 arrival — by name Tom Spevins — gifted with 
 a contagious fund of animal spirits, which 
 even his deplorable condition could not quite 
 repress. The remarks he made were shrewd, 
 yet free from the feline trait which repelled me 
 despite myself in my intercourse with fellow- 
 convicts. Indeed, he was unusually sturdy 
 and independent, and affected me like a 
 reviving whiff from the free world ; for right 
 or wrong, he had the courage of his opinions, 
 and stuck manfully to them. He had queer 
 crotchets, which, in his present situation, 
 were outrageously out of place, for he de- 
 clined altogether to realise that he was a cog 
 in the big wheel ; and accordingly commenced 
 a war — deadly, but open and above-board — 
 with the warders and the powers that were, 
 which from its oddity compelled a species of 
 respect. 
 
 I used to observe to myself with satisfac- 
 tion, after a little stolen talk with him, that 
 the interest aroused in me by this young man 
 showed emphatically how changed I was. 
 There could be no doubt about it, thank 
 goodness ! Though slow, and checked by 
 many an internal struggle, it was radical and 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 121 
 
 complete. I, the cultured painter, who a 
 thousand years ago (it must have been a 
 thousand) was so ardent and enthusiastic, so 
 brimming with refined aspirations as to the 
 artistic elevation of the masses, could listen 
 to this fellow as to an equal — aye, and store 
 away his sayings for private brooding and 
 instruction. And yet my new neighbour was 
 sharp and caustic with the shrewdness of 
 those who have been nurtured in the dens of 
 lowest London ; and his accent was that of 
 Whitechapel. I considered the singularity 
 of all this many a time, but was in nowise 
 shocked or displeased. The brummagem 
 bearing of the gentlemanly Jaggs ; the 
 double-faced treachery of the sublime Tilgoe ; 
 were enough to sicken anyone of mock re- 
 spectability. The very jargon of the new 
 arrival was a security against that sort of 
 thing at least. If risen from the scum, he 
 made no attempt to pass brass for gold, or to 
 make himself out better than he was ; and 
 from the mass of deceit and sham innocence 
 in which I was doomed to wallow, this blunt 
 truthfulness seemed to shine forth like virtue. 
 After Tilgoe's treachery with regard to the 
 
122 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 escape, I avoided him as much as I could, 
 and managed to take my Sunday walk, when- 
 ever it was possible, with Spevins ; whereat, 
 no doubt, the governor shook his head, as a 
 sign that I was utterly incorrigible. For was 
 not Aurelius a person of superior address 
 and education, who was edify in gly repentant 
 and likely to do credit to the system % and 
 was not Spevins a stiff-necked malignant, who 
 had got his seven years for burglary ? 
 
 Yes ; my new ally was a burglar. He 
 was but a few years older than myself; a 
 tall, stalwart, fine-looking fellow, with a pair 
 of piercing black eyes which danced when he 
 laughed, and a perfect row of white teeth set 
 in a great mouth. Though this was his first 
 lagging, he had been, he admitted, a long 
 while at the game ; but his native shrewd- 
 ness, capped by the training of the Dials and 
 the New Cut, had 'saved him from the claws 
 of the police for a period of unusual length. 
 
 He began life, he told me, as a newsboy, 
 with a clientele of bachelors in chambers. 
 Now bachelors are notoriously careless, and 
 fall an easy prey to many robbers. When, 
 therefore, they missed a coat or an umbrella. 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 123 
 
 or a book, or something light and portable, 
 the blame fell, of course, upon the laundress, 
 the notorious purloiner of sugar — whose lips 
 were not unacquainted with the brandy-bottle 
 — whose fingers were familiar with the tea- 
 caddy. As the twig is bent, the tree's in- 
 clined. Hence it is not surprising that, 
 emboldened by impunity, and rendered skilful 
 by practice, Mr. Spevins's ambition should 
 have developed with his years, and that petty 
 larceny should have grown up into burglary. 
 His acquaintanceship with letters had been 
 strictly limited to the sale of the daily press ; 
 he had never learned to read or write, and 
 professed to feel this misfortune very much. 
 
 ' You can remedy that here,' I observed 
 consolingly. ' There's school, you know, once 
 a week for the illiterate. The schoolmaster 
 and the Scripture-reader attend to that, and 
 your cleverness will soon master the prelimi- 
 naries.' 
 
 ' No,' he replied, with a sigh. ' I tried it 
 on at Pentonville during my probation, but it 
 wasn't a bit of good. The whole thing's a 
 farce. What can a man learn in an hour, 
 once a week ? You've forgotten on one 
 
124 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 Monday all that you learnt the last. It's 
 bosh. If they were to go hard at it now, 
 and teach us for an hour a day all through 
 that first nine months, we might do some- 
 thing with it ; but I don't believe they want 
 us to learn. In fact, I heard a bloke once 
 say that eddication was a snare to a fellar as 
 has thoroughly gone wrong ; it on]y sharpens 
 up his wits and raises the standard of his 
 crimes. Forgery, you know, is on the in- 
 crease/ 
 
 ' Of course a new-fledged education alone 
 could not hold a man back from returning to 
 evil ways,' I admitted ; ' but, if educated 
 when young, he might be prevented from 
 falling. Every young child should be taught 
 to read and write. I've heard a project 
 mooted to force all classes to learn ; by means 
 of a school board, or some such thing.' 
 
 ' Ah ! they may do as they like about 
 that,' grunted my companion ; ' but they'll 
 never reach the stock I comes of.' 
 
 1 They talk of having inspectors,' I ex- 
 plained, ' who should go round from family 
 to family and see that the children are sent 
 to ' 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 125 
 
 ' Ha, ha !' laughed Spevins, mightily 
 tickled; ' wouldn't I jest like to see 'em 
 calling at my place, out Whitechapel way ! 
 — they'd get a warm welcome, I'm thinking. 
 No, no ! our class they'll never touch, if they 
 try till dooms-day, and more's the pity. If 
 I could read or write, I'd be up to all sorts 
 of games. But there ! we didn't ought to 
 be discontented. I'm a unedicated cove, but 
 I'm a slap-up hand at the jemmy ; you're an 
 edicated cove, and a regular out-and-outer 
 with the pen, I dare swear. By the way/ 
 he added, turning round abruptly to examine 
 my arm, then peering into my face, ' I don't 
 want to intrude, but what might you be in 
 for V 
 
 ' Murder !' I murmured sadly ; do what 
 I would, I could never get over the horror of 
 that word. 
 
 ' Murder !' echoed my companion, with a 
 long low whistle, as instinctively he shrank 
 a step away. 
 
 I scrutinised him with grim amusement, 
 as, frowning and puckering his lips, he 
 walked on in silence. Ha, ha ! what a joke 
 it was ! How much lower was I to sink — 
 
126 A h'EW ARRIVAL. 
 
 I, the gentleman ? Here was a burglar — a 
 vulgar, illiterate marauder of the night — who 
 evidently was anxious, now, to shun me as 
 too base for his companionship, and only the 
 other day I was rejoicing in that I had so 
 degraded myself as to associate on terms of 
 equality with him.' 
 
 I broke into a roar at the grisly jest, and 
 Spevins, still frowning, looked at me. But 
 as he looked, his brow grew smoother. He 
 was sharp enough to see, I suppose, that the 
 laughter was skin-deep, a mere hollow bray- 
 ing to mask a cry of pain. 
 
 ' You've a rum physog,' he mused; 'a 
 devilish rum physog. It's young, and yet 
 it ain't ; for there are lines on it as if ploughed 
 by cartwheels. Murder — whew !' 
 
 So he, too, was struck by the strange ex- 
 pression of my face. If only I could see it 
 for myself ! My comrade was much troubled 
 in his mind. 
 
 ' When breaking into houses,' I remarked, 
 carelessly — for if we were to parade side by 
 side it was only fair that we should use our 
 tongues — ' have you never been upon the 
 verge of murder ? To save your own life, 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 127 
 
 you surely would not stick at such a trifle 
 as another's V 
 
 ' I never took a life, thank the Lord !' he 
 muttered, with a puzzled air, as though 
 bothered by conflicting theories. ' I might 
 have to some day in self-defence — only in self- 
 defence — and any man is liable to that. And 
 besides, I'm not supposed to know things 
 like you, a toff/ 
 
 Then, as he gazed in my face, and studied 
 my arm-badge alternately, the frown cleared 
 quite away, and he said, more cheerfully : 
 
 e A lifer ! poor devil ! There must have 
 been peculiar circumstances. It couldn't 
 have been deliberate, or you'd have swung. 
 There's my paw, and we'll say no more about 
 it ; for I took a liking to that queer mug 
 of yours the very first time as I see'd ye. 
 We can't help things, that's sartain sure.' 
 Then perceiving that I failed to comprehend 
 this last oracular remark, he added graciously: 
 i What's to be, will be ; fight as you may to 
 make it different.' 
 
 c A fatalist T I suggested. 
 
 ' Call it what you like. The names don't 
 carry no weight with the likes of me. A 
 
128 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 clear old pal of mine once called his kid 
 Etbeldreda Susannah; but, as I said at the 
 time, no good was likely to come of that. 
 She grew up, that gal did, and robbed her own 
 par, and bolted with a crossing-sweeper.' 
 
 6 Vaulting ambition overleaps itself,' I re- 
 marked politely. 
 
 ' Them's my views, howsomedever/ he con- 
 tinued, warming with his favourite subject. 
 1 My views are as plain as my nose is. / 
 takes the odds. That's my way ; and then 
 I runs the risk. Is the prize worth running 
 for, or is it not ? If not, leave it alone. 
 There, you have it in a nutshell. That's what 
 I always say. I place myself in a periocular 
 position, and then I cries " Heads or tails !" If 
 so be as it comes up heads, so much the better 
 for me, and I'm jolly. If so be as it's tails, 
 why, then I lose, but I try to be jolly still.' 
 
 i You argue,' I answered, smiling, ( by the 
 law of probabilities.' 
 
 ' This is how it is,' returned Mr. Spevins, 
 confidentially. ' Burgling's a trade, like any 
 other trade, with certain advantages, and 
 certain drawbacks. An unjust society says 
 that certain people may have a lot of things 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 129 
 
 which I haven't got, and don't look likely 
 to have. How's that, says I \ I'm as good 
 as them — better, perhaps, barring the book- 
 learning. They got them things without 
 working for 'em, left by arnsisters, and sich 
 like, therefore surelie I have better right to 
 'em, if I do work for 'em, than they have, 
 though I've no arnsisters, as I'm aweer on.' 
 
 i That sounds incontrovertible logic,' I 
 agreed, with admiration. 
 
 1 Well, then, I studies the odds, and have 
 done so since I were a brat. Society says 
 I'm not to walk off with things as I haven't 
 got, nor ain't likely to get unless I do. If I 
 had 'em I shouldn't want any more of the 
 same sort, so I should have no call to take 
 'em, should I 1 They starts a theory. Very 
 well, I don't agree with it, that's all ; and then, 
 I says, I'll act agin your theory, and will 
 take the odds as to being found out. That's 
 the real offence — being found out. Now, 
 there's a pal of mine in the same trade — not 
 the one whose gal went off with the sweeper 
 — who's done his work, and done it well and 
 successful, and lives on the fruits of industry, 
 as a hard-working man should when he gets in 
 
 vol. 11. 30 
 
130 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 the wale of years. Now he has laboured 
 hard and constant, by the sweat of his brow 
 and of his jemmy, and has never been found 
 out. He cried " Heads 1" and it turned up 
 heads ; and he — a most respectable gent now 
 — enjoys the benefit of his luck. He bought 
 a country estate, and keeps his carriage, and 
 sits on a bench as a J. P., and is patronised by 
 the nobs as one of " nature's gentlemen." 
 He and I have acted alike — him longer than 
 I have, 'cos he's twice as old — and he enjoys 
 the favour of the upper crust, while I pick 
 oakum. That ain't fair ; but it's the cussed 
 odds as are agin me. Why should he be 
 a J. P. in clover, and I a convict ? If I 
 wasn't by natur jolly, I should be riled over 
 that ; but, I says to myself, " Better luck 
 next time. Cheer up, old ranunculus ! you've 
 done a thing" or two for a long while, and 
 not bin found out till now ! You got " seven " 
 this turn, but you can do it on yer 'ed ; 
 others have succeeded in the end, so why 
 shouldn't you. Better luck next time ; then 
 p'raps, if ye're brave and steadfast, fortun 11 
 smile at last, and success will crown your 
 efforts. Anyway, the result's worth trying 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 131 
 
 for. Maybe it'll be trumps next time — 
 maybe ill-luck will follow me right through. 
 If it do, it's not my fault ; and that'll be a 
 comfort, although it will be hard lines.' 
 
 ' Well, but,' I urged, amused by Spevine's 
 theories, ' suppose you find luck steadily 
 against you, will you give it up ? Say, for 
 instance, that, at the end of your present 
 term, you are caught again and again, and so 
 forth. Each term will be longer and longer, 
 and the end of that will be you'll be invalided 
 to Woking and die there. Is that cheerful V 
 ' That's not taking the odds/ retorted my 
 companion, poking his thumb into my ribs. 
 ' I'm thirty years old, and this is my first 
 sentence, and I shouldn't be here now if there 
 hadn't bin a muddle. There are hosts of 
 habituals who never serve more than one 
 sentence, because during that one lagging 
 they've a chance of learning such a jolly lot 
 of experience. They ain't caught twice. If 
 a few of us were to organise under the 
 direction of some one with a clear nut, there 
 wouldn't be those muddles, and we should 
 get along for ever without being caught ; 
 but never mind that now. Do you suppose 
 
 30—2 
 
132 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 this lagging hasn't taught me lots of lessons 
 already ? And do you suppose that I shan't 
 be quick to profit by them \ They won't 
 catch me the same way agin, I can tell 'em. 
 I hope still to make something nice to retire 
 on, and then turn respectable, though I ain't 
 got the edication to become a J. P. Re- 
 spectable ? who so glad as I to be re- 
 spectable if I hev' the chance ? I'll try agin, 
 and yet agin, so long as I hev' strength ; 
 and if my time comes before I turn re- 
 spectable, very well, then I've done my best, 
 and it ain't my fault, and I'll wash my hands, 
 and there's an end of it/ 
 
 Is it to be wondered at that I grew 
 interested in this man ? He opened to me 
 a new view of crime, which was refreshing in 
 that it was straightforward and founded upon 
 a logical basis. His behaviour in prison was 
 good, of course (he committed no serious 
 offences, I mean), because he was burning to 
 remedy this first faux jxts, and to recom- 
 mence a promising career with the benefit of 
 the fresh experience that he was learning. 
 Yet at the same time he waged his petty 
 warfare with the warders — so open, so 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 133 
 
 devoid of the usual convict attributes, as to 
 amaze both the governor and Mr. Scarraweg, 
 and to cause them often to look leniently 
 upon his shortcomings on account of their 
 audacity and his good-humour, and to treat 
 them somewhat as a joke. 
 
 But for all his good-humour, he chafed 
 bitterly under ' the system,' and there was 
 no doubt that he would escape a second lag- 
 ging if sharpness of wits could ensure that 
 end. Curious enough, in our two cases 
 extremes met, for it was the network of 
 small harassing knots which galled the flesh 
 of both of us. As far as I was concerned, 
 they wounded me less and less, because I 
 had arrived, or thought I had, at the final 
 condition of apathy. Not so with Spevins, 
 who, despite his oddity, was a type of one 
 class of the habitual criminal. He writhed 
 •under the monotony of his prison life as 
 under a flail. The criminal mind has a 
 tendency to be erratic, and to abhor, on 
 account of their straightness, the paths of 
 order. It was by being unable to keep to 
 the groove traced by society, that he of the 
 broad arrow came to grief; how ineffably 
 
i 3 4 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 galling, then, must a yet more direful re- 
 straint be to him who is nothing if not 
 crooked % 
 
 1 1 can't abear this !' Spevins sighed some- 
 times, in moments of dejection, through our 
 chink, as Pyramus might to a sympathetic 
 Thisbe. ' I wants summat to be different, 
 even if it were to be worse. That's what 
 smashes me !' he groaned. ' What's the good 
 of telling us we've warmth and lights and all 
 that % What's books to me as can't read 
 'em, and ain't given a fair chance to learn ? 
 And the reg'lar rotation of dinners — I hate 
 to know that on Toosday I'm to have meat, 
 and on Thursday I'm to have pudden. And 
 then church to the minute ; and, most exas- 
 perating of all, a long sermon, upon nothing 
 but bread and cheese on Sundays. If we're 
 to listen to a long jaw, which we can't under- 
 stand, and don't want, surely we should have 
 summat warm in our stommicks to comfort 
 us % Oh, golly ! ain't it dull ! And the 
 whitewashed walls with not a speck of dirt 
 on 'em. I'd rather hev' no lis; lit but that of 
 a dark lantern, with the chance of a spree in 
 a big house as is all closed up. I may get 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 135 
 
 my skull cracked — I may crack somebody 
 else's by misfortin'. It's the glorious un- 
 certainty of our trade as is so captiwatin'. I 
 hates my cell, and my clean bedding, and my 
 bright pots and cans that wink at me. 
 Always to do things at the same hour — at 
 the same minit ! It's enough to wear a man 
 to fiddle-strings. I'd as soon be a sea-an — 
 what d'ye call it ? — one of them round things 
 as look like boils more or less inflamed that 
 are stuck about the rocks in the aqueerums.' 
 
 Poor fellow ! He did chafe under the 
 routine of bells and gongs. Many a dread- 
 ful quarrel did he have with old Scarraweg, 
 because he would not fold up his blankets in 
 the required shape. 
 
 ' I ain't got no pictures to amuse me here/ 
 he used to complain, ' so I settle my things 
 different jest for variety. What can it be to 
 you — except for the sake of aggerawatin' — if 
 the blankets are folded square, or oblong, or 
 three-cornered ? It's well you've not made a 
 tailor of me. I'd sew all the coats and 
 trousers lob-sided, that I would, even 
 though I lost marks by it. The temptation 
 to create a surprise would be too strong f 
 
i 3 6 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 And old Scarraweg, though he frequently 
 had fearful tussles with my neighbour on the 
 grand subject of these same blankets and 
 pots and pans, generally had a smile lurking 
 in the neighbourhood of his. Newgate frill, 
 when he left him to come on to me. 
 
 Somehow or another the new prisoner took 
 an invincible dislike to Tilgoe, not that that 
 worthy made the smallest effort to propitiate 
 him, for he was as much too low as he was 
 much too open to please the male Magdalen. 
 Spevins even took upon himself to scold me if 
 he seemed to hear me singing with the parson 
 in chapel. Not that I cultivated that worthy's 
 society now, though ; for even if I could have 
 stomached his treachery, I should have been 
 repelled by his bad temper. Indeed, he was 
 no longer a pleasing companion ; for the chief 
 warder (remembering that letter to Elo'ise) 
 pursued him, as Orestes might have been 
 pursued by a fury in blue cloth — three 
 vengeful pursuers rolled, like Cerberus, into 
 one. He was not comfortable, and his 
 amiability suffered by reason of the Nessus 
 shirt which Scarraweg compelled him to 
 wear. The ferret eye of Scarraweg was 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 137 
 
 somehow always turned on the infirmary. 
 When delicacies were sent in for special 
 patients, with which good things the hos- 
 pital orderly would fain have comforted him- 
 self, Scarrawesj somehow would linger in the 
 ward, and engage the chief nurse in provok- 
 ing conversation till the said delicacies were 
 gone beyond his reach. It occurred some- 
 times to the latter, to wonder with mis- 
 givings whether the peach-faced one had 
 blabbed before he left. For his own sake, 
 that seemed improbable ; but be that as it 
 might, Tilgoe no longer dwelt on a bed of 
 roses, and the thorns which the ingenious 
 chief warder stuck in him were by no means 
 conducive to serenity. 
 
 I explained one day to Spevins the hopes 
 and aspirations connected with ' the book.' 
 At first he was immensely tickled, and said : 
 
 1 Good man !' Then, as he wielded his 
 pick (he was with us in the quarry), he 
 seemed not so certain about it ; and finally, 
 regardless of the attendant warder and civil- 
 guards, flung down his tool and spat upon 
 the ground. ' Let be, mate !' he sang out to 
 our guardian. ' I've a foul taste in my 
 
138 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 mouth, that's all ; don't worrit, you aggera- 
 watin' cuss !' and, after that, he avoided the 
 interesting penitent as though he had been a 
 leper. 
 
 With Jaggs, it was otherwise. They 
 sniffed at one another at first, like dogs 
 who have not been introduced ; but ulti- 
 mately got on pretty well, exchanging ex- 
 periences after a fashion which entertained 
 me no little. Both were equally incapable 
 of distinguishing meum from tuum; both 
 were equally ready to avail themselves of 
 the latter ; but as the modus operandi of 
 each was different, they were enabled 
 mutually to improve each other. 
 
 The end at which cool-headed Jao-ors was 
 in the habit of arriving by legerdemain, 
 Spevins reached by force of crowbar ; hence 
 Jaggs, in his conversations, assumed an air 
 of genteel condescension, as became an artist 
 who thought fit to be affable to an artisan, 
 which was in a high degree comical. But, 
 although they got along well enough, Spevins 
 was at heart a very different personage from 
 Jaggs. He was charitable in his dealings 
 with other prisoners — could interest himself 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 139 
 
 in their affairs from unselfish motives, and 
 was generally liked in consequence, and 
 Jaggs looked on these traits with contempt, 
 tempered by pity, as spots which marred 
 a really very promising character. 
 
 I remember the two, both of whom prided 
 themselves on good-humour, having a genuine 
 quarrel once, on the subject of Spevins's 
 brother, who, it appeared, was an honest 
 workman, who enjoyed a position of confi- 
 dence in a large warehouse. They were 
 talking in the quarry about what they would 
 do when they got out (fruitful source of con- 
 versation !), and Jaggs proposed that they 
 should join forces and employ the honest 
 brother as a ' stall.' The stalwart Spevins 
 was so enraged at the mere suggestion, that 
 he turned on the genteel one, and would have 
 done him a serious injury had I not inter- 
 vened ; then, shaking himself together as a 
 wet retriever does, he said with unusual 
 fierceness : 
 
 ' I'm a good-natured sort, I am ; but don't 
 you try them games again. I never goes 
 within a mile of my brother, cos it'd harm 
 'im to be seen with the likes o' me. He 
 
i4o A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 prefers honesty — I don't. It's a mere 
 difference of opinion — he goes his ways and I 
 goes mine, and there's no bad blood between 
 ns.' 
 
 Now conduct so indecent to one who had 
 certainly been no more than indiscreet was 
 very lamentable. Jaggs was deeply wounded, 
 and sulked awhile. Then remembering that 
 it is the prerogative of a superior being to be 
 magnanimous, he plumed his ruffled feathers ; 
 that is, he adjusted his neckcloth, and said, 
 with his light laugh : 
 
 ' Don't be so precious cross about nothing. 
 Quarrelling's vulgar. Difference of opinion, 
 eh % Then let it be a difference of opinion 
 between us also, and nothing more. What 
 suits you may not suit me, as the sick gent 
 said, whose pet cat brought him a mouse 
 every day, and sat on the quilt while he pre- 
 tended to eat it.' 
 
 The elaborate castles in the air which 
 were erected by these two masons with an 
 eye to the future, were lovely to behold ; and 
 I felt a sly pleasure in drawing them out. 
 
 ' The time during which it is your unfor- 
 tunate lot to occupy this hotel,' I observed 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 142 
 
 one day, ' is short ; and you neither of you 
 seem to appreciate its advantages. You are 
 both bright enough and energetic enough, 
 Lord knows. Why not for variety try the 
 other lay — you who so dearly love a change V 
 1 The square !' Spevins exclaimed, staring 
 as if he thought I must be mad. 
 
 1 The square !' Jaggs murmured, plain- 
 tively ; for the remembrance of that work- 
 house episode was humiliating. 
 
 ' Yes, the square,' I returned, with a com- 
 posure which it was no easy matter to main- 
 tain. 
 
 Spevins wagged his head like an indulgent 
 parent who discovers that even his swans 
 have frailties. He thought that it was sad 
 to see that ' edicated coves ' should be so 
 lacking in common sense, and was about to 
 enlighten my mind with paternal indulgence, 
 when Jaggs pensively took up his parable. 
 
 ' Ah/ he said ; ' don't remind me of that 
 past, and taunt me with my weakness. 
 Haven't I told you that when your head's 
 been cropped, it's midsummer madness to 
 think of turning honest ? The country's 
 over-populated ; the labour market's over- 
 
i 4 2 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 stocked. If men whose lives are blameless 
 can't get work, how can the blemished sheep 
 expect to do so ? " Where's your character V 
 "Haven't got one." "Then clear out, and 
 make room for the thousands who have." I 
 thought I had clearly demonstrated to you 
 once before that all a man can do who is placed 
 as you and I are, is to patch up the holes in 
 his armour, so that the police may not be 
 able to thrust in their spear. He must say 
 to himself, I can't turn honest — that's out of 
 the question ; and the knowledge that it's 
 impossible is a relief, for it saves argument. 
 But if it don't pay me to be honest, I can 
 grow leery, and that pays. The leerier I 
 grow, the more likely I am to make a success 
 in life, the less likely to be detected, and 
 the longer I shall be before returning to the 
 hotel.' 
 
 ' Hear, hear !' cried the approving Spevins. 
 ' Them's my sentiments to a T. As I always 
 says, it's a matter of being found out — 
 nothing else. I've seen heaps of cases of 
 chaps who tried to reform — but, bless your 
 soul, it was waste of precious time. Their 
 system, they make such a palaver about, don't 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 143 
 
 reform nobody. Punishment's to be de- 
 terrent, they says — go and behave yourselves ; 
 and they kick us out into the world again, 
 as we all know, without the smallest chance 
 of taking their advice. We know that, but 
 here's another thing. In some cases they do 
 wuss. An ignorant devil like me comes in, 
 we'll say, who's never had his mind dis- 
 turbed as to whether he did right or wrong, 
 and who was 'appy and contented in his 
 conscience. Then, we'll say, being confused 
 and upset by the novelty of the affair, he 
 listens to the patter of the parson, and p'raps 
 (though that's unlikely) learns to write and 
 read in quod, and goes out steadfastly pur- 
 posing, as they put it, to lead a new life. 
 What comes of it % Not only do circum- 
 stances over which, consequent on his posi- 
 tion, he's no control drive 'im back to the 
 old game ; but heving been taught 'e didn't 
 ought to do it, they've made him miserable as 
 well !' 
 
 ' Hum !' murmured the pensive Jaggs. 
 1 1 went through it all, I'm ashamed to say ; 
 and I confess it didn't make me miserable. 
 It made me laugh. If I'd got into a com- 
 
i 4 4 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 fortable berth, T daresay I should have 
 grubbed alongf without murmurinsr, for I'm 
 easily pleased ; but I didn't, and I don't 
 regret that now, though I am slaving myself 
 inside out in a draughty quarry. For those 
 who have honest proclivities the case stands 
 thus : The system isn't deterrent, and never 
 will be, so long as a fellow isn't sure that if 
 he wants to reform he has a fair chance.' 
 
 ' Hear, hear !' acquiesced the other. ' Lords 
 and ladies would be bad enough, I clessay, if 
 they had empty stommicks !' 
 
 ' The only employment which an ex- con- 
 vict has a prospect of getting,' pursued Jaggs, 
 ' is bricklaying, or trenching, or some such 
 thin 2f which demands no character, and which 
 is no less severe than what is inflicted in 
 prison as a punishment. To a person who 
 was not by trade a tiller of the soil, it's as 
 bad as hard labour, with this added — that 
 instead of being warmed and clothed and 
 fed free gratis, he's got to keep himself on 
 nothing a week.' 
 
 ' It seems a "no thoroughfare," ' I added, 
 wondering whether ThVoe had touched on 
 this in his great book. ' And yet, after all, 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 145 
 
 it isn't the system's fault, or the fault of the 
 Prisoners' Aid Societies, except in so much 
 as that they profess with a mighty blowing of 
 trumpets to do that which they can't possibly 
 accomplish. It's the fault of the public, who are 
 indignant because something isn't done which 
 can only be accomplished by themselves. 
 Their servants cannot perform miracles. If 
 they will not see for themselves after the 
 future welfare of prisoners, it's their own 
 fault if their "system" is made null and void.' 
 
 ' Oh, go along !' retorted Spevins. ' Pri- 
 soners' Aid and rubbish ! I hate cant and 
 professions. I feel with the man who never 
 picked pockets except at church or chapel ; 
 and who excused hisself by saying that 
 though he was honest on weekdays, he could 
 never help going wrong on Sunday, because 
 these people all pretend to be so much better 
 than their neighbours !' 
 
 In this wise we three grew into a habit of 
 conversing, and all equally appreciated the 
 friendly intercourse ; yet for some queer 
 reasons Spevins always showed a decided 
 partiality for me, and even listened with a 
 certain respectful deference to my remarks 
 
 vol. ti. 31 
 
146 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 which he did not do to those of others, being 
 opinionated and obstinate. But at the same 
 time he established a principle of mutual im- 
 provement, presuming to take me to task 
 pretty roundly now and then ; and, entering 
 into his humour, I always hearkened to what 
 he said. 
 
 A fruitful source of discussion was the 
 blackness of my penal sheet. Spevins, al- 
 though always breaking tiny lances with the 
 warders, rarely got reported. I was con- 
 tinually appearing before the governor, for 
 my manner was sullen ; and it was a pleasant 
 safety-valve for the warder's spleen to report 
 the ill-conditioned and morose. 
 
 ' Why not behave yourself a bit, and be 
 comfortable V my comrade urged coaxingly. 
 ' You don't mind the bells and gongs and 
 aggravatin' clockwork ways as I do ; so 
 you've no excuse. You did when you first 
 came here, eh ? And how long" a^o misdit 
 that have been ? You don't know or care ? 
 'cos you never counted % Nonsense ! That's 
 mere gammon. You must know.' 
 
 ' Well then/ I confessed, ' about four and a 
 half years, as near as I could remember.' 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 147 
 
 But what could it signify to me ? What 
 were five years out of a lifetime % — a drop in 
 the ocean of gall, which would not bear 
 thinking of. 
 
 ' And still in the third class !' he exclaimed, 
 glancing reprovingly at my black collar ; ' in- 
 stead of the first, where you might have been/ 
 
 ' Loads of time !' I said with bitterness. 
 ' Haven't I all my life before me V 
 
 ' Well — but if you behave yourself, you 
 may be out in twenty years !' 
 
 ' May be out !' I scoffed. ' Don't gabble 
 in that tantalizing way ! A pretty prospect. 
 But as it happens, I would rather stay where 
 I am.' 
 
 ' Don't want to get out !' exclaimed the 
 burglar. ' What ! Make your bed in the 
 same shape every day till you're an old man ! 
 Why's that \ You must be cracked !' 
 
 ( Mad — how I wish I were V I groaned, 
 raising my arms longingly. ' Why's that ? 
 Because four years and a half ago I died, and 
 was buried. Yet, still to my sorrow, I linger 
 on the earth !' 
 
 Spevins looked grave, and said no more ; 
 but was evidently ruminating over this whim- 
 
 31—2 
 
143 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 sical position, and turning it round in all its 
 aspects. Though morose, and generally 
 looked upon as ill-conditioned, I was at 
 this time tolerably callous, and seldom raised 
 the veil which masked the smouldering fire ; 
 and when I did, it seemed always like a fresh 
 discovery. Yet, impelled by some hidden 
 spring, I chose to raise it for this common 
 fellow ; for even at this stage the sympathy 
 of anybody was better than none. He ap- 
 peared much impressed — not to say awe- 
 stricken, by so new a spectacle as that at 
 which I permitted him to peep ; and re- 
 turned again and again to the charge, with 
 caution as though treading on cat's ice ; and it 
 did me good — all the more, perhaps, because 
 he was a vulgar burglar, nurtured in London 
 slime — to let him see the branding-iron which 
 was silently eating away my flesh. 
 
 Spevins was the direct antithesis to myself 
 — and this was perhaps the reason why we 
 cottoned to each other. He, shrewd, cheery, 
 a favourite with all, declined altoo-ether. as T 
 have said, to accept the broad lines within 
 which societv elects to be governed : and 
 having framed a code of his own, acted with 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 149 
 
 conviction according to its tenets, without 
 questioning the firmness of its basis : Dothing 
 could be more simple and plain sailing. I, 
 on the other hand, speculative and impulsive, 
 was constantly vexing my brain about causes 
 for phenomena. I knew that I was callous, 
 and yet that I was not. I knew T that the fire 
 glowed, whilst I vowed that it was ashes. 
 I deceived myself and others, partly in real 
 ignorance, partly with a morbid intention of 
 hugging my griefs. In my complex state I 
 was absolutely sure of one thing alone — and 
 that was, that I was a martyr, unjustly on the 
 rack ; and so, whilst accepting my fate as in- 
 evitable, I nourished still, as much as in my 
 days of wild despair, a fervid rage and hatred 
 against those w r ho had placed me on that rack. 
 The well-meaning Scripture-reader, smitten 
 by conscience in that he had done so little to 
 save the soul of the arch-reprobate, took to 
 paying me weekly visits, which nearly drove 
 me frantic. He kept repeating that I was 
 where I found myself through my own fault, 
 and that therefore I ought to bow in meek- 
 ness and kiss the rod which smote me. To 
 which T invariably replied that it was not so ; 
 
150 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 that I was where I was through misfortune : 
 that the crime which I had committed was 
 not murder, but the having in one evil mo- 
 ment imbibed a glass too much — whereat the 
 worthy old gentleman sighed and raised his 
 hands, and went away declaring that I was 
 hopeless. We fought this battle on an 
 average once a week, with always the same 
 result — twice a week when I flew out and 
 got into disgrace ; for when in the punish- 
 ment cells, the good man always made a point 
 of improving the occasion by a lecture and 
 by reading me some tit-bit from Jeremiah. 
 Those awful denunciations of wrath to come ! 
 The effect they produced upon me — a prisoner 
 in a darkened cell — could be none other than 
 a hardening one. The wrath for me was 
 there. I had already gone through more 
 than I deserved. The only grace I asked 
 was to be left in peace ; and that was the 
 especial one which the Scripture-reader re- 
 fused to grant me. 
 
 Spevins, to whom man}?- of my arguments 
 and speculations were mere words, embraced 
 the main points of the situation, and set himself 
 to change my state of mind. He saw that I was 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL. 151 
 
 without hope, and strove to inspire me with 
 such hope as he could give. What an incon- 
 gruous pair of propagandists ! One pointed to- 
 wards heaven; the other to the world without; 
 and both goals seemed equally unattainable. 
 
 The words of the burglar rang in my ears, 
 without convincing me. Friendless, home- 
 less, penniless, what would become of me, if 
 ever I were to get out ? What possible 
 object would be attained by so behaving as, 
 years hence, to obtain reconsideration of my 
 sentence ? Should I find myself compelled 
 to take to burglary — to join the dusky stream 
 and return here a vulgar criminal instead of 
 a martyr ? It was evident that I was right 
 in desiring to stop where I was. If society, 
 having once branded her victims, refused to 
 allow them to be honest, what was the use of 
 going through the worry of good behaviour 
 to obtain release ? Release ! To what end ? 
 No ! It was surely better to make no attempts, 
 which could only be futile and heart-breaking ; 
 but to accept the inevitable with phlegm be- 
 cause it could not be avoided, and to trouble 
 my head no whit at all about the world from 
 which I was severed. 
 
152 A NEW ARRIVAL. 
 
 Yet Spevins, though I tried to stop him,, 
 would talk to me about it in his illiterate 
 way, and unconsciously, as he rambled on, I 
 found myself dreaming of the world — its 
 pangs, its joys, its beauty — and had to mut- 
 ter between my teeth, ' Vacle retro sathanas !' 
 more and more frequently, till, losing my en- 
 forced calm, I became well-nigh as tempest- 
 tossed as of yore ; and lost grain by grain my 
 hardly- won repose. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO ? 
 
 SEES it all !' Spevins used to say ; 
 'and I don't wonder at yer goin 7 
 queer in yer nut ; but ye're wrong, 
 for if we're hunted down we ought to die 
 game, and ye're not dying game. If a bloke 
 gives me one in the optic, do I lie dow r n and 
 howl ? Too much of a Britisher I hope for 
 that, if a humble one. What do I do % Why, 
 I gives him that one back agin, and just 
 another little un in the bread-basket, to re- 
 mind 'im not to do it no more.' 
 
 This was a new view, which had not oc- 
 curred to me. And, perceiving that I w T as 
 interested, Mr. Spevins's beady eyes danced,, 
 and he showed his even white teeth as he 
 proceeded with his rdle of respectful Mentor. 
 
154 WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO? 
 
 The gist of his counsel was, that being a 
 victim of ill-usage, I was bound in self-defence 
 to retaliate upon my persecutors — not the 
 warders ; he didn't mean that, though he 
 hated them for their exactitude with a 
 deadly hate — but upon society in general. 
 My line, he urged, should have been from the 
 beginning to have behaved admirably, to have 
 got my temper well under control. (' Had I 
 not done so beyond my expectations'?' I cried. 
 He had never seen the peach-faced jack- 
 anapes who had been so great a torment to 
 me.) This done, he said, I ought to have got 
 some one to petition Government, in order 
 that my case might be reconsidered on account 
 of my angelic conduct ; and as it really was 
 a peculiar and unusual case, it was quite upon 
 the cards that if I had made friends with 
 those above me, they might have drawn the 
 attention of the Home Secretary to it, even 
 before the regulation twenty years were up. 
 Then, proceeded Mentor, would come the 
 time for my revenge. Set free on license, I 
 would make it my business to plant myself as 
 a thorn in the flank of those who had ill-used 
 me — not by the cowardly means whereby 
 
WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO f 155 
 
 Tilgoe proposed to arrive at the same end — 
 but by good wholesome warfare. I had great 
 abilities, he was kind enough to assure me ; 
 from habit of thought I could think out a 
 thing quickly, which would be a battle to a 
 less cultured brain ; could combine and dove- 
 tail apparently incongruous elements with 
 ease (these are my words, not his), and might 
 therefore become, if so resolved, a very serious 
 enemy to the champions of law and order. 
 
 ' If, for example,' Spevins said, l you chose 
 to come down our way and be a commander- 
 in-chief, there's many a cracksman as'd be 
 too glad to serve under a clever bloke like 
 you. You'd be the 'ed and we the arms, as 
 it were ; and then see what a lot we could 
 do by orgauisin'. You'd be the string to bind 
 the sticks together. It'd be your place to 
 keep dark — precious dark, so as not to be 
 nabbed ; but you'd direct the business from 
 under the table, so to speak, and 'ave spies 
 about as'd tell you where the plate was, and 
 my lady's jewel-box. For instance we'd soon 
 raise the blunt to put you in a pub. Not a 
 low public-house, but summat spicy and slap- 
 up, with plate-glass and lots of gas, in the 
 
156 WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO? 
 
 quarter where the nobby footmen live. We 
 couldn't do that sort of thing ourselves, you 
 see — we'd be spotted immediate ; the nobby 
 footmen wouldn't consort with the likes of us 
 —they're altogether too nobby and refined 
 for that. But a toff like you'd be the very 
 article. They'd be honoured and proud to 
 know yer; and butlers even'd be flattered 
 when you dined with 'em in th' room ; and 
 you'd not know us at all, bein' such a high- 
 faluting bar-keeper, and so mortal stuck-up 
 and aristocratic as you'd be. So the pleece, 
 drat 'em, would never suspect the admired of 
 the butlers and walleys of anything shady, 
 and you'd get to know 'ow the land lay in 
 every slap-up 'ouse in the West-end, and 
 the numbers of the servants, and hour 
 of dining, and all the rest of it ; and you'd 
 jist take a saunter of a summer evening 
 down to the East-end, smoking of a sixpenny 
 Havannah, and I or some one else would 
 meet you quite by accident, and you'd give 
 us a straight tip which would be the making 
 of the lot of us. You might even go farther/ 
 concluded this brilliant genius, whose inven- 
 tion grew with the food it fed on. ' You 
 
WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO ? 157 
 
 might make a dead set at the Secretary of 
 State hisself, and the Chairman and Direc- 
 tors of the Prisons Department — them as 
 make all our lives so miserable — and we'd 
 not leave so much as a silver salt-spoon 
 among the lot, or a ring or an earring 
 among their old gals ? My jimminy — 
 what a squallin' and a yelpin' there'd be ! 
 That'cl be revenge, wouldn't it ? Golly, 
 just /' 
 
 Mr. Spevins's ingenious word-pictures 
 filled me, despite the warnings of reason, 
 with wild longings, and caused my heart to 
 leap up and show that it was alive, even 
 while I tried to persuade myself that it was 
 dead. But this was a wild dream — nothing 
 more ; a nocturnal vision starting from false 
 premises, as nocturnal visions have a way of 
 doing. Twenty years hence ! What signified 
 it what should occur twenty years hence ? It 
 was too far off to look forward to. Where 
 would this Mentor be by that time — he who 
 proposed to set all this machinery in motion \ 
 His own sentence would be up in six years ; 
 I should have served about eleven ; half the 
 allotted twenty, before my case could even be 
 
153 WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO ? 
 
 reconsidered ! That idea of making friends 
 with my keepers, with a distinct if distant 
 object, was of a piece with the rest. Spevins 
 would go out and come back again, perhaps, 
 with a fresh lagging, or get hanged for killing 
 some one in a burglary. How futile it all 
 was ; and yet I was surprised to find how 
 sorry I was that it should be so. The ad- 
 verse fate which had made of me a willing 
 companion of felons, had developed the 
 savage element which is at the bottom of all 
 our natures. With such an object I felt that 
 I really could have mustered courage to face 
 the world again. How strange ! Less than 
 five years ago I was an artist and a gentle- 
 man. Now I found myself thirsting to 
 become a burglars' fence, a betrayer of honest 
 confidence, a seducer of confiding men, a 
 devourer of precious souls, a scourge where- 
 with to lash those who, as I considered it, 
 had crushed and broken my own life. 
 
 Only in vague theory though ; such a thing* 
 could never be put into practice. It was an idle 
 vision that my friend Spevins was conjuring 
 up to comfort me, and to pour upon my 
 wounds the balm of hope. What had I — 
 
WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO? 159 
 
 the lifer — to do with Hope ? It was a cruel 
 kindness to disturb my peace. 
 
 Jaggs, of course, heard all about this, and, 
 whilst applauding the ingenuity of the notion, 
 affected to touch it with supercilious digits. 
 
 1 I don't believe in burglaries,' he observed 
 sententiously. ' They are indelicate and in- 
 artistic ; besides, you admit that, thanks to 
 the increased efficiency of the police and the 
 earlier closing of public-houses, burglaries 
 become more and more difficult to accomplish 
 satisfactorily, They lead to bloodshed, too — 
 dirty, as well as dangerous. I look on the 
 trade as a fine art, and regret that it should 
 be degraded by the doings of commonplace 
 delinquents. No doubt/ he added, with a 
 polite inclination of the head, ' our friend 
 here would, if opportunity offered, add refine- 
 ment and polish to the business ; but really, 
 crowbars and jemmies, and such things, and 
 hats with masks attached — I declare quite 
 like the Middle Ages ! This is an age of pro- 
 gress : we ought to have risen above that.' 
 
 When Jaggs assumed this tone, Spevins 
 grew riled. 
 
 ' You're all wick and no fat, like a farden 
 
s6o WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO? 
 
 dip P he cried, with indignation. ' You think 
 a deal of yourself, you chatterbox, because 
 your fingers are like sarpints. I see no dif- 
 ference myself, in the way of art, between a 
 man who can bust open an iron safe and walk 
 off with the goods, and have a bit of supper and 
 leave all clean and ship-shape, without waking 
 so much as a cat ; and another man who picks 
 a pocket without its owner a-feelin' of it.' 
 
 ' Don't talk like that,' implored Jaggs, with 
 the sudden access of innocence which always 
 came over him when he heard spades called 
 spades : ' that's not it at all. It's mental 
 aberration combined with a rare sense of 
 touch. Don't we all do things unconsciously 
 — put something down on a table, for in- 
 stance, and then look everywhere for it 
 except in the proper place ? Involuntary 
 action of the mind. Why not the same with 
 me when I find some one else's watch in my 
 own pocket by mistake ? There's where the 
 injustice comes in. If I were a duchess, it 
 would be called kleptomania ; why was I not 
 born a duchess ? In my case they don't even 
 j)Sij homage to the talent of the unconscious 
 artist. Disgusting f 
 
WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO? 161 
 
 1 1 take it you know little about our branch 
 of the profession,' pursued Spevins, dog- 
 gedly ; for he, too, was in his way an artist, 
 and had no idea of being put upon by Jaggs. 
 4 Middle Ages, indeed ! Some of our instru- 
 ments are tip-top. When I saw the knives 
 and scissors in the International Exhibition, 
 I thought they were nothing to our things, 
 and felt almost sorry some of us hadn't sent 
 a case — a case of jemmies, and another of 
 skeleton-keys. It would have been novel 
 and entertaining ; though after all it's as 
 well, perhaps, to let 'em see the results, 
 rather than 'ow it's done — like the conjurors 
 and spirit-mediums. The patent instrument 
 for turning window-latches, for instance, is a 
 pretty toy ; so are the expanding centre-bits 
 which, by turnin' of a little screw, '11 make a 
 hole in a door in a jiffy, either to let your 
 arm in or a boy through, as may be most 
 convenient. Why, I've a jemmy of my own 
 — or had, till the coppers prigged it (and 
 they call us thieves !) — which is a perfect 
 pictur. It's made of the finest tempered 
 steel, and unscrews into short lengths which 
 fit in special pockets, under the arms and 
 
 vol. ii. 32 - 
 
162 WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO f 
 
 inside the legs, like bits of baccy-pipe. No 
 one would dream as you had a jemmy on yer. 
 Now, in the old days we used to be obliged 
 to have a woman with us to carry the pieces 
 under her crinoline, and it's best to have no 
 woman in these matters, for they squall and 
 have hysterics. Then there's a new thing — 
 werry simple, but effective, and sweetly 
 pretty — a kind of leaden mallet, square, and 
 fearful heavy, with a peculiar leather flap- 
 arrangement on the striking side, which you 
 must wet well before using. If you keep it 
 oozy, you may strike tremenjous blows with- 
 out fear of bein' overheard, or waking up 
 a fly. Did yer have all that in the dark 
 ages, I'd like to know V 
 
 ' Anything neat in ladders now V suggested 
 Jaggs, whose vanity was tickled by the pro- 
 test his diatribe had aroused. ' Say some- 
 thing light and springy — hickory tipped with 
 steel, and your brass-plate and address com- 
 plete r 
 
 ' Oh, ladders f responded the other, with 
 contempt. ' You're a nice one to lay down 
 the law, if you don't know better than that I 
 Ladders ain't fashionable now ; that is, we 
 
WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO? 163 
 
 can get on without 'em, unless the winder as 
 we're coming out of is breakneck 'iofh. Of 
 course a ladder's never used to get into a 
 'ouse with. But if you've settled to leave 
 by a perticklar bedroom, say, it's as well to 
 put a ladder outside and a wedge under the 
 door ; so that, if you're disturbed, you can 
 slide comfortably down while the people are 
 grumblin' in the passage. That's ABC 
 work, that is.' 
 
 ' Is that so V I asked ; for the arrange- 
 ment seemed of classical simplicity to my 
 ignorant mind. 
 
 ' In course it is/ grunted the burglar. ' If 
 people, when they find a door locked on the 
 inside, were immediately to run round to 
 where the winder is, instead of cackling like 
 geese in the passage, and trying the door- 
 handle, there'd be more of us caught than 
 what there is. But it 'ud come to the 
 same in the end, for we should have to set 
 our wits to work and do different/ 
 
 ' I admit you are smart,' cried Jaggs, with 
 approval — ( uncommon smart and quick. 
 There are pretty points in your branch of 
 the profession which are new to me, and 
 
 32—2 
 
1 64" WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO t 
 
 yet To be sure, your hands are too 
 
 wide, and your fingers too stumpy, ever to 
 achieve excellence in mv line : not but what 
 practice will do a deal. The effect of practice 
 is quite unexpected sometimes.' 
 
 ' That was true,' I thought to myself. ' To 
 wit, Miffy's case, when the genteel one 
 starved him merely to keep his hand in.' 
 
 ' By-the-bye,' Spevins said, throwing down 
 his pick to indulge more freely in a sudden 
 shout of merriment, ' you know that, though 
 I'm an old un at the game, this is my first 
 stretch ? Do you know how I once got off 
 when the beak was aofoin' to commit me for 
 trial ? It was only a short offence — a matter 
 of pouring some 'ot water over my old 'ooman 
 — which were an accident, becos' I really 
 didn't know it was so werry warm ; but then 
 it was important I shouldn't be committed, 
 for I couldn't get bail, and when a cove's 
 locked up his business goes wrong, and things 
 crop up that want a sharp eye to keep 'em 
 quiet. So what did I do, do you suppose % 
 That was smart, I can tell you. I borrowed 
 all the pawn-tickets I possibly could from the 
 cabmen on the rank outside the pleece-court 
 
WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO? 165 
 
 — they allers have lots about 'em — and when 
 the beak was agoing to make a speech, I 
 began to cry like the deluge, and whipped my 
 handkercher out of my pocket, and, with it, 
 all the pawn-tickets. One shawl, a shilling ; 
 one sheet, a penny ; one pair of boots, with 
 the sidesprings out, three-halfpence, and so on. 
 Sensation in court ! " Poor fellow !" cried 
 the women, who knew the look of them 
 tickets too well. " What's all that V cried 
 the beak, startled. " Why, blow'd," he Fays, 
 "if the man ain't pawned all he's got!" 
 Then I gurgled and said I begged the ladies' 
 and gents' pardons, and 'umbly begged 'em 
 to forgive me for being so mortal poor, though 
 I always did my best, to hide it, being proud ; 
 but it was wexin' to the temper, which must 
 account for the 'ot water. And then there 
 was a murmur of pity all round, and the beak 
 let me off cheap, with something from the 
 poor-box to get the blanket out of pawn, 
 while the lovely creaturs in the body of the 
 court poured their 'alfpence into my cap !' 
 
 ' Yes, you certainly are smart — uncommon 
 smart,' admitted the sententious Jaggs, with 
 curves of admiration puckering his thin 
 
1 66 WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO ? 
 
 cheeks. ' I really don't know — 'pon my 
 honour and word — whether it might not, 
 indeed, be better to amalgamate when we go 
 out. I've turned the question over and over, 
 and I think it really would. Any way, we've 
 lots of time, worse luck, to think about it.' 
 
 It was amusino- to me to mark that the 
 burglar could wind the last speaker round 
 his finger, for all his vapouring patronage. 
 
 ' I wish Y 122 could join us as well,' ob- 
 served Spevins. glancing at me with bright 
 kindly eyes, as he stood leaning on his pick. 
 ' It seems a cruel shame that he should never 
 get out of this.' 
 
 Jaggs shrugged his shoulders with indif- 
 ference. 
 
 c What's that to you % It's his own look- 
 out. If he likes to stop here, why shouldn't 
 he?' 
 
 ' Why should he not V I thought to myself, 
 as I wiped my brow to conceal my troubled 
 face. Jaggs was more sensible than Spevins 
 after all. ' Would it not be better, much 
 better, that I should stop here ? Even were 
 it really possible that I ever could get out, 
 would it not be best for me to remain under 
 
WHAT WILL EBENEZER DO f 167 
 
 watch and ward than to go out to perform 
 the mission of an iconoclast % But how 
 absurd the notion was ! Of course it could 
 never be — must never be. Although I had 
 slain one man unconsciously, his reproachful 
 features never haunted me, for T did not 
 remember having even ever looked on them. 
 It was an accident, and I a martyr. But 
 this was different. How could I go delibe- 
 rately forth to be a slayer of souls — to lay 
 pitfalls for the feet of the unwary ? to coax 
 unsuspecting servants to their ruin ? No ! 
 The role of a martyr is better than that of an 
 avenger. To conquer, some must stoop ; my 
 neck was too stiff for stooping. So I looked 
 gloomily at Spevins, and clapped him on the 
 back, and felt a queer liking for the homely, 
 unlettered fellow ; but though my mind was 
 much perturbed, I resolutely looked away 
 from the pictures he conjured up, refusing in 
 anywise to practise meekness, or to imitate 
 the penitent but now irate Tilgoe, or to move 
 so much as my little finger to propitiate the 
 powers that were. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 57 PARTY. 
 
 H E good Scripture-reader found 
 Miffy as tractable as a lamb, so 
 soon as he had touched him with 
 the talisman from home ; but it was not so 
 easy to put salt upon the tail of Soda. So- 
 soon as he found himself again in the familiar 
 yellow jacket, with irons on his sturdy legs r 
 the viler portion of his evil nature, which had 
 been dozing fitfully, suddenly woke up and 
 resumed dominion. The devil within him 
 was wide awake now. For a day or two he 
 was cowed and negatively easy to manage, in 
 consequence of the hardships and hunger he 
 had undergone ; but a little rest between the 
 blankets and a term of penal diet (excellent 
 meal porridge made with milk) restored to 
 
57 PARTY. 169 
 
 him sufficient strength to become actively dis- 
 agreeable. In the punishment-cell, where he 
 was put to crank-labour, he declined with 
 scoffs to turn the handle. 
 
 1 Not such a fool !' he cried, with a torrent 
 of blasphemy. 
 
 Scarraweg argued with him ; the governor 
 curled his white moustache and glared at 
 him, then ordered bread and water. He 
 only sat on his bed-place with massive legs 
 stretched out, shaking his irons and pouring 
 forth a volley of curses. 
 
 ' Bread and water, by all means,' he gibed, 
 ' the more the better ;' for that would play the 
 dickens with his constitution, and oblige them 
 to send him into hospital/ 
 
 ' If I might only use the cat \' muttered 
 the little martinet, as he retired to his office. 
 1 That would bring him to his bearings. 
 They don't allow us the cat half enough. 
 Well, well, this is fictitious courage. It will 
 wear off, and then ' 
 
 But it showed no sisms of wearing off. 
 There was no reason why it should. He was 
 right when he suggested that bread and water, 
 if persisted in, would land him in the in- 
 
170 57 PARTY. 
 
 firmary — the convict's heaven. He knew, 
 none better, that if he kept within certain 
 bounds he stood in no danger of whipping — 
 the convict's hell. Moreover, so soon as it 
 was decided that he was to join 57 Party, his 
 spirits rose, and he broke forth into dis- 
 cordant song, and turned up his cuffs, as it 
 were, to go to work in earnest ; for in that 
 band, wherein all the powers hostile to 
 human happiness run riot, a lurid glory 
 was to be gained, such as his brutal instincts 
 could well appreciate. It would be brave fun 
 to out-Herod Herod in the special gang, and 
 win the admiration of those demons. 57 Party 
 consisted at this time of some twenty wild 
 beasts, all of them wearing leg-irons, all clad 
 in a peculiar costume — parti-coloured mustard 
 and orange, or black and drab — to indicate 
 the nature of the latest outrage. One, a 
 fragile youth with a hang-dog visage, a shoe- 
 maker, had playfully thrust his awl, a few 
 days since, into his neighbour's flesh, instead 
 of into his shoe-leather : another had inveigled 
 a warder into his cell, and, springing at him 
 like a tiger, had sawed his throat with a tin 
 clinner-knife. A third had gnawed off the 
 
57 PARTY. 171 
 
 ear of a fellow-prisoner who had declined to 
 part with some tobacco. A fourth — but why- 
 go through the humiliating catalogue \ not 
 one of them but had fairly won his 
 spurs ; not a wretch amongst them but was 
 torn by spite, rage, lying, malice, jealousy ; 
 not a fiend among the crew but was ready to 
 go all lengths, provided he could evade the 
 cat. For many of them (those, that is, who 
 wore the black assault-dress) had tasted the 
 pleasure of the triangles ; had howled and 
 writhed and shrieked for mercy as the blood 
 ran down their backs. These had enjoyed 
 the insidious caresses of the nine knotted 
 tails, and desired not again to come within 
 their reach ; yet, banded together as they 
 were, there was no telling to what one might 
 urge another on ; for, isolated though they 
 were supposed to be, they knew each others' 
 voices and sang such things to each other, by 
 d#y in the workshop, by night from cell to 
 cell, as caused those less-depraved-ones who 
 were within hearing to shiver between their 
 sheets. 
 
 Most of them showed signs of something 
 more decided than the ordinary crookedness 
 
172 57 PARTY. 
 
 of convicts. They were clearly not lunatics, 
 being conscious of what they did, and doing it 
 deliberately. Neither were they, like Mifly, 
 half-witted. On the contrary, their wits 
 were in a wronsr direction singularly clear-cut 
 and well-defined ; yet were they undoubtedly 
 weak-minded, one and all, trembling on the 
 verge of madness — not amenable to the 
 ordinary influences which are supposed to 
 guide mankind. They were peculiarly sub- 
 ject to bursts of temper and passion, as un- 
 reasonable as beyond control, to the com- 
 mitting of strange and eccentric acts — muti- 
 lation of their own bodies nearly as much as 
 injury to fellow-prisoners. There was method 
 in their madness though, for, dangerous wild 
 beasts though they assuredly were, they had 
 been taught, save in rare instances, to keep 
 their claws from off their keepers. 
 
 The members of 57 Party occupied the 
 lowest tier of cells in one of the oreat halls. 
 By day they sojourned in a long shed, 
 wherein was a series of stalls like those in a 
 stable, with a narrow passage running along 
 the front, where a warder paraded up and 
 down. Thus they were always under his ob- 
 
57 PARTY. 173 
 
 servation, whilst they could not see each other; 
 yet this was an abortive precaution, for, as I 
 said just now, they knew each others' voices 
 and snapped their fingers at ordinary rules. 
 Why was it that, the whole band being under 
 charge of one individual, they did not rend 
 him limb from limb % Because such moles- 
 tation would have entailed the cat. That 
 was the solitary punishment which all dreaded 
 in equal degree, be their original offence what 
 it mio-ht ; and this reminds me of a curious fact, 
 of the truth of which anyone will be assured 
 who is given to the study of penal records. 
 The men who from time to time, in the 
 various convict-prisons, drift into the special 
 party, have nearly always been convicted 
 either of arson, rape, or robbery with intent. 
 Why is this ? Why not murder ? Yet no ; 
 murderers who are in for life are usually 
 quiet and well-behaved — a proof that those 
 who commute death-sentences make few mis- 
 takes. 
 
 Being in terror of the cat, the members of 57 
 Party were careful to avoid such malpractices 
 as w T ould bring them to the triangles ; but it 
 was beyond the power of their guardian to 
 
174 57 PARTY. 
 
 maintain silence or any sort of order, or even 
 to cause them to refrain from filthv lan^uaofe. 
 Any person passing by that shed during day- 
 light was sure to hear such a weird, strong- 
 lunged, foul-mouthed chorus issuing thence, 
 as would remind him, haply, of the demon- 
 choruses in ' Faust.' 
 
 Soda, in his reckless state, was a fit member 
 for such a gang, and he set himself at once 
 to do honour to his high estate. The daily 
 labour of 57 Party was light (which suited 
 him), consisting generally of oakum-picking, 
 for such a set of desperadoes could not be 
 permitted the use of sharpened instruments. 
 Yet twice he managed to evade the rule ; 
 not to kill himself or anybody else, he was 
 too cunning for that ; but merely from a laud- 
 able desire to do what was difficult, and so to 
 obtain applause. On one occasion the 
 searcher discovered in his pocket a remark- 
 ably neat stiletto, consisting of a piece of 
 wood well-sharpened, set in a handle framed 
 of twisted oakum. On another occasion he 
 found a mop-nail five inches long. When 
 taken from him he ground his teeth like a 
 hyena, swearing that he would have the 
 
57 PARTY. 175 
 
 blood of that officer some clay. Indeed, he 
 was vastly good at threats, for he knew full 
 well that no amount of abuse or threatening 
 could be taken to come within the category of 
 ' assaults.' 
 
 With the Scripture-reader he had a great 
 game, and nearly terrified that stout personage 
 out of his senses ; for one day when the 
 worthy gentleman arrived to read Jeremiah 
 to him, he sidled up quite close with a 
 hideous leer ; so close that his visitor felt his 
 hot breath, and read unutterable things in 
 the depths of his oyster eyes ; and, producing 
 a boot-heel iron sharpened like a circular 
 knife, went through a soul-harrowing and 
 blood - curdling pantomime, suggestive of 
 throat-cutting and subsequent decease, with 
 lolling tongue and accompanying gurgles. 
 Paralysed with fear, for he doubted not that 
 his hour was come, the Scripture-reader 
 remained motionless and fascinated, till Soda 
 chose to let him go ; and though he was 
 many days before recovering the shock, Mr. 
 Virgin got off scot-free ; for the Scripture- 
 reader could not conscientiously swear that 
 his life had been in real danger, and the 
 
 1 
 
i;6 57 PARTY. 
 
 convict declared loudly that his pantomime 
 had pointed to suicide. 
 
 Old Scarrawesr knew better. He was 
 certain that this was only one of the grim 
 jests for which Soda and his colleagues were 
 famous, and waxed peevish anent the folly of 
 attempting to exhort such miscreants. The 
 only thing for it was to take a leaf out of the 
 governor's book and watch, and keep the 
 arch scoundrel in the special gang, isolated as 
 much as might be from the rest ; and to see 
 that in future thin shoes were served out to 
 him, instead of boots with iron heels. This 
 jumped well with his native indolence ; so he 
 sat quite content in his stall in the long shed, 
 and screamed and yelled like an arch-fiend, and 
 courted bread and water with persuasive arts ; 
 for did he not pant for the infirmary as the 
 hart doth for the waterbrooks, with its cosy 
 beds and congenial company, its codliver oil 
 and absolute idleness \ 
 
 But the Scripture-reader, if timid, was 
 scrupulous and faithful, and truly anxious, ac- 
 cording to his lights, to do his Master's work. 
 His wage was but a pittance ; he was as 
 nervous as a woman ; yet, like many a weak 
 
57 PARTY. 1 77 
 
 woman, he was capable of heroic acts ; and, 
 though too diffident to suspect such a thing, 
 was gifted with the highest of all courage — that 
 which knows it is afraid, yet battles bravely 
 with fear. He could not conquer himself 
 sufficiently to face Soda again alone, but 
 neither would he abandon him altogether to 
 his evil courses — not at least without one 
 effort more. So, taking his courage in his 
 two hands one morning, he trotted forth with 
 his Bible under his arm and actually pene- 
 trated into the awful shed where the notorious 
 twenty were sitting in a row under care of 
 the single sentinel. 
 
 But he could make nothing of him. The 
 moment his squat little figure appeared in 
 the doorway, he was greeted with such hoots 
 and ingenious expletives as brought beads of 
 perspiration to his brow. His husky voice 
 trembled with agitation as he mopped his 
 hot face with a bandanna, and he felt like 
 a timorous amateur tamer called, without 
 previous rehearsals, to perform in a cage of 
 lions, as he tripped quickly past the mouthing 
 ruffians, who were jutting forth the tongue 
 
 vol. ii. 33 
 
178 57 PARTY. 
 
 at him and shouting derisive ditties about his 
 Master. 
 
 He stopped and sat down beside George 
 Virgin, encouraged by the presence of the 
 warder, who was reflecting in the midst of the 
 din on the low pay of prison officials. He 
 earnestly exhorted the ex-doll's eye polisher 
 to consider his latter end, whereat the bilious 
 crumpet face of that individual wrink]ed up, 
 and the heavy eyelids were raised a little from 
 the cruel eyes and dropped again, and the 
 coarse lips parted in a grin, displaying a fang 
 on either side. 
 
 ' Think of the new life/ urged the little 
 man. ' No sinner is too degraded for the 
 notice of the Lord. It is nought to Him that 
 humanity should have set you outside its pale. 
 But even on earth you are not quite lost. 
 Albeit you have become a 57, there is hope for 
 you, you know. The system deprives no man, 
 however fallen, of hope. By behaving well 
 for six months, you can be sent back to your 
 old comrades, and this grievous escapade will 
 be forgotten.' 
 
 ' I'm an old lag, and know how far to go,' re- 
 turned the other, sulkily. ' Did you say a " new 
 
57 PARTY. 179 
 
 life," master % Nobody more pleased than me 
 to have a new life ; this one ain't special lively. 
 Jest you send me to the " farm ;" there I'll be 
 quiet enough ; that's the new life I'm trying 
 for. Sarspareila! three times a day' (singing). 
 'Go back to old comrades? Oh, Jehosha- 
 phat ! Blest if that ain't a good look out ! 
 Breaking stones in the quarry, slaving like a 
 nigger and wearing myself to the bone, pull- 
 ing up and down that blooming crane or 
 hammering at bits of stone % No, thanks. 
 I've had enough of that. The privilege of 
 returning to hard labour % Oh, Susannah ! 
 you're an amoosin' cuss, you are !" 
 
 With that he banged his head three times 
 with a shank of junk, beat his open mouth 
 with his open palm three times to produce a 
 sound like the drawing of a cork, executed a 
 sitting breakdown, after the manner of a 
 Christy Minstrel corner-man, and then 
 squeaked like a pig in the agonies of death, 
 which elegant imitation was immediately 
 taken up by the occupants of all the stalls, till 
 the worthy Scripture-reader was compelled to 
 place his fingers in his ears and vanish. What 
 was to be done with a man like that ? Nothing, 
 
 33—2 
 
i8o 57 PARTY. 
 
 simply nothing ! If the governor were allowed 
 more latitude in the use of the triangles, such 
 men would be brought to order in no time. 
 The fetid lees would remain at the bottom in- 
 stead of surging to the surface ; the innately 
 vicious would assume a pretence at least of 
 decorum ; and, deprived of the exciting in- 
 fluence of bad example, the lesser lights of 
 57 Party would never blaze out at all. 
 
 So thought the stout little gentleman who 
 had just been so grievously insulted ; and in 
 the softness of his nature he came with sor- 
 row to the conclusion that he was not fitted 
 for his post. He was in no sense a leader of 
 men ; and he who would reform the most 
 abandoned class of his erring fellow T s must 
 be a leader of men. Yet was he most am- 
 bitious of doing good. What cruel destiny 
 had made of him a sower in sterile soil — 
 iron-bound earth which needs an iron hand 
 to plough it % In a low neighbourhood of 
 London, for example, he might have done 
 wonders : have read Jeremiah to poverty- 
 stricken widows till they were Niobes — all 
 tears ; have droned at them till, subdued and 
 crushed, they subsided, conscience-smitten, 
 
57 PARTY. 181 
 
 into edifying fits ; have mildly lectured 
 young artisans whose differences with ' the 
 missus ' had led them to the public-house ; 
 have been a benevolent, pursy deus ex machine! 
 in many a humble household ! The zeal 
 and earnestness were there ; but the know- 
 ledge of human nature was not. How in- 
 scrutably are round pegs placed into square 
 holes ! The chaplain, for instance, who, hedged 
 ahout with a pleasing barrier of fiction, never 
 visited anv one at all till he was sent for — 
 (faithful follower in the footsteps of Christ !) 
 — would have made a first- class country 
 squire, a respectable M.P., even a passable 
 duke ; for he was well-informed, well dressed, 
 white-handed, of polished manners ; but as a 
 chaplain he was scarcely a success. Yet from 
 his own point of view he was logically right. 
 Clearly it was better and more fair to all, 
 since the axiom was established that he could 
 not satisfactorily admonish one thousand pri- 
 soners within a year, to admonish none at all. 
 His digestion gained by the arrangement ; so 
 did his pocket, for in his gentlemanly leisure 
 he was able to write learned articles for the 
 reviews, and erudite criticisms upon books ; 
 
1 82 57 PARTY. 
 
 and I even doubt whether the prisoners suf- 
 fered much by the arrangement. 
 
 The very sight of the smug, well-dressed 
 gentleman, with well -trimmed nails and 
 suave aristocratic manners, and lips which, 
 whilst they seemed to be saying ' prunes/ 
 were dropping platitudes even more mawkish^ 
 was in itself an insult to souls in travail. 
 What could he know of all they suffered, 
 of where the shoe galled them most, of what 
 their temptations had been, of what yearn- 
 ings racked them ; or how could he gauge 
 with that sleek finger of his the depth of 
 their inner agony % No ! It was well that 
 he held aloof, and permitted his duties to be 
 performed in mole-like fashion by his pursy 
 little deputy. Peradventure, had he said 
 ' prunes ' to the morose ones, such as myself 
 and others, we might in the throes of exas- 
 peration have even defied the cat, and have 
 been condemned to don the black dress in 
 consequence. 
 
 The little man was trotting across the yard,, 
 with rueful thoughts disturbing his pure- 
 mind as to whether anything could possibly 
 be done to save Soda from perdition, when 
 
57 PARTY. 183 
 
 he came face to face with the chief warder. 
 The pair respected each other, and were firm 
 friends, though their discussions — more fre- 
 quently than not — ended in an agreement to 
 disagree. The Scripture-reader being good 
 company enough for Crusoes in the wilds of 
 Dartmoor, and being, moreover, neither flesh 
 nor fowl, often played billiards of an evening 
 in the warder's recreation-room, without being 
 considered to demean himself ; or read aloud 
 (not Jeremiah) to an assembled audience of 
 prison- officers ; was even once known (this, 
 however, must be breathed in whispers) to 
 dress himself up in a gown and night-cap, at 
 Christmas-tide, and enact the part of Mrs. 
 Bouncer in time - honoured e Box and 
 Cox.' 
 
 ' Where do you come from 1 ?' asked old Scar- 
 raw eg. i Oh, 57 Shed — mere waste of time — 
 they'll hit you on the nose some day, old 
 gent, and I'm not sure I shan't have a sneak- 
 ing fellow-feeling. I can't say that I find 
 Jeremiah comforting myself. What did you 
 go for % Soda ? Ah !' (this with a tinge of 
 artistic appreciation) f he is an out-and-outer, 
 Soda is — and no mistake. Shouldn't be sur- 
 
1 84 57 PARTY. 
 
 prised if he came to the gallows, yet. He 
 did, as near as a toucher, for that policeman 
 on the Moor ! As bad and abandoned a man 
 as there is on the establishment.' 
 
 .' They're not scarce,' sighed the Scripture- 
 reader. ' There are many enough in appren- 
 ticeship here for the black or yellow jacket ! 
 yet some, thank God, are truly penitent.' 
 
 Now this happened to be one of the topics 
 upon which the two agreed to differ. The 
 chief warder had much ado to keep his 
 irascible temper from invasion by tantrums, 
 when the Reverend Aurelius was held up as an 
 example ; did he not know Tilgoe well ; and he 
 was scarcely less annoyed when I, ' Ebenezer 
 Anderson,' was pilloried as a reprobate of the 
 first-class. As he was fond of saying of 
 himself, l he could see a light-house through 
 a fog as well as most ;' and was the only one 
 of the officials who had not misread me. 
 After that he had shook off his first suspicion 
 of me as a gentleman lag, I had received 
 from him many secret acts of kindness. True, 
 I was always in trouble. Reported for acts 
 of insubordination ; constantly being con- 
 demned to punishment ; but (and this I of 
 
57 PARTY. 185 
 
 course discovered later) it did not escape him 
 that the acts were trivial acts, resulting from 
 a fretted brain ; that I did my work well, 
 although I was continually losing marks for 
 deeds of folly, and that I had never justified my 
 reputation of being really dangerous. 'Depend 
 upon it,' he had often said to his cronies, the 
 innkeeper of the 'Duchy' hard by, and the 
 owner of the one shop where you could buy 
 anything ; ' depend upon it, that man's made 
 what he is by circumstances. He hasn't a 
 bad figurehead, though his expression's mortal 
 queer ; and I should know a bad face — haven't 
 I seen enough % It's a gloomy and downcast 
 face, with lowering eyes with ne'er a light in 
 'em ; a dusky, colourless face, like the sea 
 before a thunderstorm ; but it's not a wicked 
 one. If he was badly treated — as he would 
 have been on the hulks long ago — I grant 
 you that he might turn real bad ; for there's 
 a violent temper there, kept in check by a 
 strong will. When the guv'ner bullyrags 
 him, I've seen his lip quiver, shipmet, and 
 have had to rap his knuckles to keep his 
 fingers quiet. But, though vexing enough 
 often, he's never real exasperating ; and, if I 
 
1 86 57 PARTY. 
 
 had my way, I'm pretty sure I could pull 
 him round.' 
 
 ' You could V asked the unbelieving 
 Bouncer. ' How, pray V 
 
 ' I'd do what he's asked so often, and lock 
 him up alone ; and I'd send you in to talk in 
 a free-and-easy way ; and I'd cut Jeremiah 
 out of your Bible. He's no business in a 
 prison Bible, where the men have quite enough 
 to make 'em miserable as it is. I'm beginning 
 to have just a wee misgivin' about him now, 
 I confess, for he's palling on too much with 
 the blackguards of his party, which is bad. 
 Not that it matters to him, poor devil ; for if 
 he's never out of trouble, he'll never get out 
 of here — worse luck.' 
 
 Then, casually, in a desultory way, the 
 Scripture-reader returned to the subject of 
 Soda, and repeating his words as nearly 
 verbatim as might be, set the chief-warder 
 thinking. 
 
 ' Oh !' he murmured, his abstracted eyes 
 quite darkened by shaggy brows ; ' fetch the 
 farm — go into hospital, eh ? That he shan't, 
 I swear. The privilege of hard labour. 
 We've had enough of his pranks. He shall 
 
57 PARTY. 187 
 
 go back to the quarry next week. I'll speak 
 to the governor before I'm a day older. Hang 
 the eccentric cattle ! Some of 'em actually 
 like what we'd have 'em look upon as the 
 heaviest of punishment !' 
 
 And so it came about, to the amazement 
 and consternation of Soda, before he had 
 enjoyed his ' otiuni cum oakum ' for a fort- 
 night ! He was actually told off one morning, 
 by the unfeeling Scarraweg, to the familiar 
 but hated party, despite his evil acts, and set 
 to work in the cold blast — still in chains — 
 with an objectionable pickaxe, on a rock, 
 instead of at a hank of twist in a warm shed. 
 
 But he was not to be so easily beaten. 
 Taken by surprise at first, he made a scratch 
 or two, then, with a curse, flung down the 
 pickaxe, and sent it spinning like a quoit 011 
 the smooth stone. 
 
 ' You do your damnedest/ he hissed be- 
 tween his teeth ; ' but you'll never get another 
 ha'porth out of me !' Then, turning fiercely 
 round on his late myrmidon, who, pale of 
 aspect, trembled hard-by, clad also in the 
 orange garb and irons : ' You Miffy !' he 
 cried, with sudden frenzy. 'You shivering, 
 
1 88 57 PARTY. 
 
 shaking hound ! If I did what I ought, 
 I'd smash your head — you craven, blunderin' 
 cur ! And some day I shall.' 
 
 The unhappy postmaster shrank terrified 
 beyond his reach, and both I and Spevins 
 stood instinctively in front of him, as the 
 infuriated bully aimed a blow at his too 
 obedient slave. 
 
 ' Oh, that's your game !' he said, calming 
 down all at once, as, shrugging his shoulders, 
 he crossed his arms. ' All right. To-morrow 
 or next day '11 do as well ; but I owe him one, 
 and I like to pay my debts. Why V he went 
 on, grinding out his words with ominous rage. 
 1 Becos', but for his being such a fool, I should 
 'a bin free ; becos', when he was in the 
 kitchen, he used to give us short allowance ' 
 (he seemed to forget that when he himself 
 was in the kitchen, he used to lap up the soup 
 of others without a qualm) ; ' and becos' I 
 hate the puling idiot. That's enough !' 
 
 The warder on duty, perceiving a yellow 
 man unduly excited, summoned up several of 
 the civil guard, and sternly bade him do his 
 work. But he would not. On that point he 
 was firm, repeating constantly, whilst his 
 
57 PARTY. 189 
 
 guardians were handcuffing his wrists together 
 behind his back : 
 
 ' You can do your damnedest, one and all 
 of ye. Not a ha'porth will I do ; not a 
 ha'porth !' 
 
 This was a bad beginning. Handcuffed 
 thus, he remained all the morning — silent, 
 slouching, with his two fangs glittering, his 
 lower jaw protruded, and with the expression 
 of an underbred bulldog who has over-eaten 
 himself. With the dirty, blue-striped over- 
 smock flung awry on his round shoulders, the 
 one yellow knickerbocker, which told its tale, 
 the handcuffs and leg-irons, the cropped 
 bullet-poll and bristly, unshorn chin, it 
 would have been difficult to hit on a more 
 repulsive figure than Soda presented as he 
 stood, hour after hour, sulky and motion- 
 less. Our dapper governor seemed to think 
 so (accustomed though he was to such pic- 
 tures), as he was received on his rounds by 
 the warder in charge, who sang out with the 
 accustomed salute : 
 
 1 Twenty-three Party ! Eighteen, all cor- 
 rect. One casual f 
 
 1 One casual/ grunted the governor. ' Oh ! 
 
i 9 o 57 PARTY. 
 
 It's you, is it, again ? Which is strongest, 
 you or I 1 We shall see ; we shall see. 
 Take off the handcuffs at dinner-time/ he 
 proceeded ; ' then replace them, and take 
 care that he doesn't treat you as he did that 
 policeman. The rascal ! Oh, indeed ! You 
 want to fetch the farm, do you \ You think 
 you will ? I don't quite think it — no, not 
 quite.' Then he strutted off, half smothered 
 as he chuckled over his joke, and presently 
 we all fell in and marched back to the prison 
 for dinner. 
 
 Dinner over, the warder who came to re- 
 place the handcuffs started in alarm and 
 summoned help. 
 
 The ruffian, with the rat-like instinct which 
 stood with him for courage, had torn the 
 skin of either leg with his dinner-knife, about 
 the place where the leg-iron would tap in 
 walking. There was no help for it. He had 
 won the skirmish. For two or three days he 
 must be put to bed in hospital. But when 
 the scratch was healed — then ! 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 miffy's champion. 
 
 ODA won the first skirmish of the 
 campaign (or, as Jaggs would have 
 put it, ( scored one '), and bade fair 
 to win the second. His wound refused to heal, 
 in spite of rags and ointments ; and his 
 enemies perceived with dismay that strong 
 measures must be taken, or he would ( fetch 
 the farm ' for good. Mr. Scarraweg was as 
 indignant as the governor, for the honour of 
 the cloth forbade that a convict's canning 
 should baffle the vigilance of his keepers. 
 What were they to do ? The doctor (a new- 
 comer, a medical student, a mere youth, half 
 shy, half insolent), suggested that a nurse 
 should watch the patient and soothe him into 
 good behaviour ; or that a warder should sit 
 
1 92 MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 
 
 over him night and clay. The astute Scarra- 
 weg suggested, as less trouble and of more 
 effect, a straight-waistcoat, and the brilliant 
 measure was unanimously carried. Fancy 
 the brawny, shuffling scamp — he who recently, 
 so certain of himself, had been flin^in^ insults 
 at his Maker — who in jovial company had 
 been reviling, with foulest tongue, all that 
 was good upon the earth — who had been 
 snapping his fingers at the authorities set 
 over him — lying prone, in solitude, in a 
 canvas bag tied tightly round the neck, with 
 two sleeves knotted securely behind the 
 back ! 
 
 Now on the upper floor of the infirmary is 
 a padded room, secluded within double doors, 
 so that as few sounds from without as possible 
 may penetrate. In that room the incorrigible 
 culprit was confined — unable to move, unable 
 to touch his leg with so much as a finger-tip. 
 When the chief- warder announced to the now 
 dismal ruffian that he need not be afraid, for 
 that the chief nurse would attend to his wants 
 till his leg healed, he laughed a loud guffaw 
 as he retired, for one Tilgoe — erst a priest — 
 held the office of hospital-orderly, and, baffled 
 
M1FFVS CHAMPION. 193 
 
 himself, he had grown so exceedingly spiteful, 
 •that Scarraweg was not beset with fears lest 
 the patient should be made too comfortable. 
 No. Mr. Soda should not win the second 
 skirmish. He should not be permitted to 
 score tw T o, if the chief warder knew it ! And 
 he, the chief warder, was right in his calcula- 
 tions, for Tilgoe, visiting his new patient 
 presently, looked down w T ith a bitter sneer, 
 and said, with an abruptness in which was no 
 compassion : 
 
 ' Wei], fool, you look pretty, don't you V 
 Then he drew a chair to the bedside, and, 
 with a pen-feather delicately pointed, amused 
 himself by tickling the patient's nose till he 
 fairly bellowed for mercy. But the parson 
 was not merciful. He titillated the nasal 
 bulb till it quivered ; then tweaked it 
 .severely; and then tickled it again. Had 
 not his own misfortunes sprung from this 
 arrogant donkey's asinine attempt to escape ? 
 But for that idiotic affair he himself would 
 not have been beguiled into building false 
 hopes of pardon — have been precipitate in 
 his tyranny over the peach-faced one — have 
 come to unmitigated grief. Here was the 
 
 vol. 11. 34 
 
194 MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 
 
 primary cause of all the trouble lying helpless 
 under his hand, in a canvas bag. Was it 
 likely that one of his kind would let such an 
 opportunity go by ? No. Unhappy George 
 Virgin ! Never — if, indeed, his probable 
 condition in another state ever occurred to 
 him at all — had he dreamed of such torments 
 by- and- by, of such tribulation in the future 
 as was his in the fell present. 
 
 The hospital -orderly, carefully shutting the 
 doors lest importunate persons should disturb 
 his recreation, placed pieces of sugar on the 
 pillow to attract the flies ; then sat and 
 watched them buzzing on the crumpet-face. 
 Vainly did Soda twitch his short bulbous nose, 
 vainly did he make snaps at the insects in his 
 anguish ; every groan provoked an answering 
 chuckle from the male Magdalen, who, one 
 blue-and-red stocking crossed over his knee,, 
 poised his two elbows on it, and supported 
 his chin in his two hands. 
 
 1 You dolt ! you donkey ! you jackass ! you 
 trebly-distilled savage baboon ! you blither- 
 ing idiot ! Why were you such a fool V he 
 kept murmuring at intervals. ' Why such a 
 fool, eh ? Why such a fool V 
 
MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 195 
 
 Soda, his Dutch courage waning rapidly, 
 begged with comical humility to be told what 
 he had done. 
 
 1 You allers liked poor Soda, you did/ he 
 whined. ' You and I was allers friends. 
 Didn't you use to give me baccy many a 
 time, that I might clean your tins, and didn't 
 I do 'em first -class V 
 
 1 No, you didn't,' bluntly retorted the other. 
 ' You made Miffy do 'em, and gave him no 
 tobacco for the job. But that's not what I 
 mean — not what I mean.' And then, to the 
 increasing dread and mortification of the first 
 speaker, Tilgoe, crouched in a heap like a toad 
 of mustard hue, sat staring at him and swing- 
 ing to and fro, till it broke upon Soda all of 
 a sudden, as he marked the glittering venom 
 in his looks, that the wits of his former com- 
 rade were deranged. Then feeling how help- 
 less he was with his arms tied to his side, his 
 natural cowardice took possession of him. 
 He roared at the top of his voice for help. 
 In vain. Was not every official in the prison 
 familiar with his roaring, either in the form 
 of ribald song or of mere aggressive noise \ 
 
 ' There's that bad un at it again,' was all 
 
 34—2 
 
196 Ml 'F 'FY'S CHAMPION. 
 
 that one warder remarked to another with a 
 snigger, as they passed under the infirmary 
 wall and went their way. The hospital- 
 orderly knew this well enough, and never 
 blenched for all the roaring, till, growing sur- 
 feited with it, he put a threatening fist within 
 an inch of his victim's eye, and said with 
 calmness : 
 
 ' Just hold your accursed row, d'ye hear, or 
 it will be the worse for you.' 
 
 By-and-by he went away, and came back 
 with the patient's dinner. ' Now at least,' 
 thought Soda, ' I shall get my arms free ;' 
 but he reckoned without Scarraweg. Twice, 
 when freed from handcuffs for a moment, he 
 had done damage. Special orders had been 
 given that the patient was to be fed with a 
 spoon ; and spoon-fed he was, though not 
 precisely as intended ; for the diabolical head- 
 nurse placed the spoon almost to his lips, 
 then withdrew it with a jerk which spilled 
 some of its contents upon his flat crumpet 
 visage, from which he was unable to remove 
 it. 
 
 When Scarraweg entered the room late in 
 the evening, and turned his bull's-eye full on 
 
M IF FY'S CHAMPION. 197 
 
 him, he found his obstinacy broken ; he was 
 sobbing alone in the darkness, with greasy 
 tears dripping from the corner of each half- 
 closed lid upon the pillow. The chief- 
 warder's expectations from the head-nurse 
 were justified. Canny old sea-dog ! How 
 furious TiVoe would have been had he known 
 that, by giving vent to his inherent malice 
 upon one who could not defend himself, he 
 was playing into the hands of his enemy ! 
 Nothing could have been more neatly done — 
 more summarily, more completely. The 
 beast was tamed — was abject, grovelling, 
 fawning — was brought to bay and van- 
 quished. 
 
 1 Ah !' growled Scarraweg. ' So you won't 
 do any work, }^ou great porpoise-faced swab, 
 won't you 1 What a pity ! You'll fetch the 
 farm, will you % Well, ain't we considerate ? 
 You're not doing any work, and you are in 
 hospital, where you wished to be ; so I hope 
 you're pleased. What say ? Go along, you 
 ungrateful swine ! You didn't know we kept 
 rooms here for single lodgers — would like to 
 be in a ward with the rest 1 There's no 
 pleasin' some people, 'pon my conscience.' 
 
198 MTFFY'S CHAMPION. 
 
 Here the pock-marked visage of 57 looked 
 so wobegon e, that the Newgate frill of the 
 chief-warder expanded like fins, and, laying 
 down his lantern, he gave vent to one of 
 those loud haw-haws which sounded unnatural 
 in that place ; breezy, of the sea. 
 
 Then, amid the gurgles of his grief, did 
 Soda pour out his sorrows and complaints, to 
 which his listener hearkened with lowering 
 brow and hardening mouth. 
 
 ' Oh !' he said suddenly ; ' then you've not 
 had enough yet ? You revenge yourself by 
 telling a pack of lies of the head-nurse. Do 
 you suppose that if he had not proved his 
 reformation by good conduct, he would have 
 been promoted by the governor to this posi- 
 tion ? You tell him all that, and see how 
 much he'll believe of it. Yerv well. Good- 
 night. That leg of yours takes a long time 
 to heal. Till it does, you stop here ; that's 
 flat. Good-night, and learn to keep a civil 
 tongue between your teeth, and don't make 
 lying complaints of the excellent head-nurse/ 
 
 So Scarraweg went away ; and on the 
 morrow, keeping him still in his strait- 
 waistcoat, gave him another dose of the tor- 
 
MIFFTS CHAMPION. 199 
 
 mentor, till the abject wretch (upon whose 
 •cuticle no treatment save this, or else the 
 lash, would have had the least effect) seemed 
 prostrated to the flatness of a door-mat, and 
 whined and whimpered like a baby. 
 
 He was cowed for the time being certainly, 
 but by no means tamed. So eoon as his leg 
 was well (which it soon was when he was 
 prevented from touching it), he returned to 
 the gang and sullenly did his work — as little 
 as he dared, that is to say, as in the old days 
 — but the look of the underbred bulldog re- 
 mained on his repulsive countenance, and 
 now and again he glanced with furtive eyes 
 from under his swollen lids, in the direction 
 of the other yellow jacket, with a stealthy 
 expression which boded its wearer no good. 
 
 I observed it, and so did Jaggs, and set 
 myself to conjecture what was passing in his 
 mind. The thoughts of such men as he 
 move in a tortuous fashion which it is difficult 
 to follow, and beget unexpected results. In- 
 consequent ideas worm themselves into their 
 heads ; and finding ample room, take up their 
 permanent residence there. By some peculiar 
 reasoning of his own, he had arrived at the 
 
2oo MIFFVS CHAMPION. 
 
 conclusion that the failure of the great at- 
 tempt was in some sort Miffy 's fault, and 
 cried out for vengeance. As before he had 
 been used to bully Miffy with uncouth kicks 
 and pinches, which was his way of showing 
 good-humour to one who was not strong 
 enough to resist ; so now, abandoning air 
 notions of good-humour, he set himself to do 
 his wretched slave some grievous harm. At 
 present, opportunity lacked ; so soon as a 
 chance presented itself, I had small doubt 
 that he would seize it. 
 
 The return of the fugitive to our party 
 threw a strong shadow of foreboding over 
 me as well as over Miffy. That miserable, 
 hollow-cheeked creature trembled and shook 
 like the silver aspen when the sinister glance 
 of his lord was upon him. Was this a subtle 
 form of the occult wave which we call animal 
 magnetism, an influence of which as yet \vc 
 know so little ? How odd that Soda should 
 all at once take so violent an aversion to 
 his catspaw ! Far from rendering, by blunders, 
 of his own, the attempted escape abortive, 
 it was quite the other way. But for the 
 diversion caused by the postmaster's groans. 
 
MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 201 
 
 and struggles, attention would have been 
 fixed on his companion, and he would never 
 have escaped at all. He had conceived a 
 hate for his half-witted victim, "probably on 
 the principle that we dislike the people we 
 have injured ; and as it increased by feeding 
 on itself, so also did MifFy's terror. 
 
 As regards myself, the effect his presence 
 produced was curious. For a long while the 
 gay gabble of Jaggs and Spevins had been 
 in my ear as tinkling sheepbells. It had 
 nought to do with me — was in another field 
 — on another property, a long way off. Yet 
 it was not unpleasant to one situated as I 
 was, who was pleased to consider himself 
 out of reach of any more of Fortune's arrows. 
 Then came Spevins's scheme, with the new 
 idea it presented to me, of some day perhaps 
 doffing the felon's dress; and with it the 
 after-resolve that that could or should never 
 be. And then came Soda back a^ain — the 
 incarnate image of the lowest, vulgarest, most 
 common type of felon — worse than he used to 
 be by reason of the new bulldog aspect ; and 
 I began to feel indignant, as I used to do, in 
 that I was forced to consort with such as he. 
 
202 MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 
 
 Under his auspices the quarry became un- 
 endurable. There were many men working 
 there who had been brought to poll-cropping 
 by reason of their tempers. These Soda de- 
 lighted to set by the ears, by here a wink, 
 and there a word, craftily managing to 
 keep out of the bagarre himself ; so that there 
 was a constant under-current of anger and 
 suspicion and mutual ill-feeling, which chafed 
 us all, and lashed and fomented the bad 
 element within us. Even the lively Spevins 
 felt this, and became low and moody. 
 
 1 1 can't abear that cove,' he said, sighing 
 at times. ( Quarrying ain't so jolly as goin' 
 to the Derby, by long chalks ; but we used 
 to do what we couldn't help without too 
 much grumblin' afore he came back. He's a 
 real bad lot !' he would declare fretfully, re- 
 garding the bulldog with an eye closed, as a 
 connoisseur surveys a picture — l a disgrace 
 to our profession. What's the good of all 
 that scowling and muttering, I'd like to 
 know 1 We puts into a lottery, where there 
 are prizes and blanks. Well, I draws a 
 blank — worse luck for me ! — so all I can do's 
 to make the best of it. It's like the glass 
 
MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 203 
 
 bottles stuck along the wall-tops — as I've 
 often thought whilst getting over into a 
 gent's back garden. You put a foot within 
 my boundary, says the bit of glass-bottle, and 
 I'll tear your clothes. Do so, my hearty, if 
 you can, I says ; I must make it my business 
 to circumwent you. Well, you see, after a 
 good many years — more shame to me for 
 bein' so awkward ! — the glass-bottle did cut 
 me ; but if ever it does again, may I be 
 strung up straight off! After what I've 
 learnt since I've bin in here, I give the 
 coppers leave to try their best ! He's got 
 summat a workin' in his inside this minute, 
 that bad un has — I'd like to know what it 
 is ! As for that Miffy there, it's a sin and a 
 shame to keep him on this work. He's half 
 loony now with fear of that vagabond, and 
 consumptive too. If they don't look out, 
 he'll be worrying of 'em for an inquest.' 
 
 Months dragged on in this fashion, and we 
 were in midwinter again. "W hen for weeks and 
 weeks the cold fogs lay upon the earth we were 
 kept close, according to precedent established, 
 and enjoyed the warmth of the great stoves, 
 which glowed with ruddy heat. At such 
 
204 MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 
 
 times — indeed, at most times — it was more 
 cheerful inside the prison walls than without, 
 for there at least there was constant move- 
 ment, constant busy marching hither and 
 thither, a continual pattering of feet. With- 
 out, when the fog swirled away, hunted by 
 howling winds, the spectacle was dismal to 
 behold — the more dismal the more clear the 
 atmosphere — for the great expanse lay dead, 
 as trackless as colourless. Beyond our tiny 
 encampment no chimney sent its column 
 heavenward, telling its silent tale of warmth 
 and life. Sometimes we were snowed up for 
 days together, all communication being cut 
 off by reason of the snowdrifts, which lay 
 twenty feet deep in the gulleys ; and then 
 the ukase would go forth for a errand clean- 
 ing-up of what was as bright as could be 
 already. Then, too, would our clothing be 
 passed under survey with a maternal care 
 which, in consequence of its exactness, 
 angered Spevins ; and we would be ordered 
 to the bath for an extra wash, and spend 
 spare minutes in clipping each others 
 polls. 
 
 I did revel in the extra bath, and saw 
 
MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 205 
 
 things sometimes there which set me think- 
 ing. But my song, as I thought of what I 
 saw, had always the same refrain, ' How 
 singular is this convict world of which I have 
 become a part !' The mania for tattooing 
 among the felon class is amazing when you 
 come to think of it. One would imagine 
 that men who have particular reasons for 
 concealing their identity, would be careful 
 not to add to the means whereby they may 
 be recognised by the police. A mole, a scar, 
 a malformation goes down in the ' Black 
 Register,' and may be used as a clue some day. 
 This can't be helped, of course ; but why 
 facilitate the task of identification ? Sailors 
 are supposed to be specially addicted to 
 tattooing ; bat labourers and others, who 
 swell the majority of the penal class, beat the 
 salts out of the field. Six men out of ten 
 at Dartmoor were all over tattoo- marks. 
 Most had their initials imprinted somewhere ; 
 many, their names in full, and their addresses 
 — some, even, had a complete list of all their 
 aliases ! Some, again, were adorned with 
 the names of their lady-loves, accompanied 
 by appropriate mottoes artistically wrought 
 
2o6 MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 
 
 in blue and red. One labourer, who, if I 
 remember right, was often in for felony, was 
 a lady-killer ; for he had no less than twenty- 
 two initials engraven on his skin, besides his 
 own, with a culminating glory in the shape 
 of a sentiment, which informed those who 
 had the honour of seeing it, that ' Jane 
 Saunders was his only love, and that he 
 honoured the heart which could feel for 
 another.' 
 
 In idle talk I remarked upon this one day 
 to Jaggs, observing how impossible it would 
 be for that man who, as an habitual criminal, 
 was duly enrolled in the Black Register, ever 
 to conceal his identity ; to which Jaggs re- 
 plied, that this was an argument in favour of 
 a pet theory, which went to show how stupid 
 a creature the ordinary convict is. I could 
 not agree with him there, however, for it is 
 notorious how fertile of resource is the felon 
 instinct. I could only presume that the 
 governor might in the main be right ; that 
 the habitual criminal- class is a race apart, 
 with different ways of thought, different 
 desires, different feelings, just as it has 
 different aims and ambitions to the other 
 
MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 207 
 
 classes amongst whom it moves, against 
 whom it is ever at war. 
 
 Spevins, for instance, had nothing in 
 common with the ways of what we are 
 pleased to dub ' respectable society.' He 
 was warm-hearted, generous, gifted with a 
 quaint humour ; but there the bond of 
 similarity came to an end. How he made 
 me laugh with his morbid horror of doing 
 things in order ! When the fogs came down, 
 and the bog-parties and quarry-parties w T ere 
 told off to polish the brasswork, the stair- 
 cases, the iron cell-partitions, Spevins for an 
 hour or two would be delighted. It was 
 something new, and made him feel like a 
 sailor on board ship ; and the force of 
 imagination caused him for the time being to 
 forget that he was a captive — the slave of 
 bells and dingdongs. 
 
 One day whilst he and I were rubbing 
 windows in one of the halls, we were startled 
 by a sound of altercation in a cell close by. 
 Going thither we found Miffy and Soda — 
 the former quivering at the extreme end, the 
 latter with his evillest look in his wicked 
 eyes. 
 
208 MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 
 
 1 What are you doing to him ¥ Spevins 
 asked, with suspicion. ' If the warder found 
 you here, you'd catch it !' 
 
 ' Should I ¥ returned the other, sulkily. 
 ' I'm scrubbing the ironwork, and doin' as 
 I'm told, and minding my own business, 
 that's what I'm doin'.' 
 
 ' No, he's not !' cried Miffy, his worn face 
 more pale than usual with excitement. ' This 
 is my cell, and I found him poking about 
 among my books. What were you looking 
 for among my books ? What do you want, 
 Soda ? Oh ! Do leave me alone ! Haven't 
 I suffered enough through you already ¥ and 
 the poor fellow, with hands clasped above 
 his head, sank, moaning, down into the 
 corner. 
 
 Hearing the warder approaching, we de- 
 camped ; but Spevins was unusually thought- 
 ful all through that day, and said abruptly at 
 last, glancing up at me : 
 
 ' He means mischief. He'll worry that- 
 wretched creature into his grave. Isn't it 
 hard that we can't prevent it ¥ 
 
 1 The word of a convict ^oes for nothing !' 
 I responded, bitterly. 'The governor wouldn't 
 
MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 209 
 
 listen for a moment. 1 think I'll speak to 
 the Scripture-reader.' 
 
 I did not find a chance, however, of speak- 
 ing to him for a day or two ; but, as it hap- 
 pened, he had observed the peculiar mental 
 state of his protege, and had been much ex- 
 ercised to know what to make of it. The 
 man was like one in a fever. Outdoor labour 
 was clearly too much for him ; the rarified 
 atmosphere, combined with excess of moisture, 
 was making havoc of his health. It would 
 never do for him to sink just as his time was 
 nearly up. That would be too bad. He 
 must be kept indoors again, as he used to be 
 before that outrageously silly escapade of his. 
 Meanwhile the talisman must be judiciously 
 applied. Dear, dear, if the governor only 
 came to know how much his hybrid employe 
 was taking on himself ! What a pother there 
 would be, and what a trouncing he would 
 get ! But the governor mustn't know. To 
 be sure, how should he know ? For Scrip- 
 ture-readers do not belong to that special 
 breed which require constant reconnoitring 
 through peepholes. He would trudge across 
 to Tavistock on private business, and it would 
 
 vol. 11. 35 
 
210 MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 
 
 be very curious indeed if he did not find a 
 missive for Miffy lying at the post- 
 office. 
 
 So the worthy gentleman took advantage 
 of the first promising day, and trotted cheerily 
 along over the frozen roads, meditating as he 
 went upon his own clever acts. He was 
 becoming quite a trafficker ! going and coming 
 on the sly for the behoof of prisoners. He 
 would be passing in tobacco next, wicked old 
 man ! Never mind, surely it is right some- 
 times to do evil that good may come. The 
 rule was too hard and fast an one which 
 forbade convicts from receiving letters, ex- 
 cept at rigorously fixed times and seasons. 
 It behoves humanity to break such rules. 
 The wretched postmaster did prize those 
 scraps of paper so. The effect they had on 
 him was marvellous. How fond he must be 
 of his wife and children ! Soon, please God, 
 they would be reunited — very soon. He had 
 learnt a lesson during his first term which 
 would keep him straight for the future ; his 
 friends would look after him, and see that he 
 respected other people's stamps. Certainly 
 his wits must, at all hazards, be kept straight 
 
MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 211 
 
 during the brief period at the end of which 
 was liberty. 
 
 The morning was so fine that we were set to 
 our usual avocations in the quarry ; but before 
 dinner-hour the wind rose, a dense curtain 
 seemed to be drawn like a pall across the 
 heavens, and presently the air was thick with 
 driving snow and sleet. We were marched in at 
 once, and remained in ; and the chief warder 
 rated us with unaccustomed harshness, which 
 showed that he had something on his mind. 
 He fussed about, craning his weatherbeaten 
 face out of doorways and round corners, and 
 withdrawing it again, wet and rubicund, with 
 a shake and a growl. He glanced from time 
 to time at his watch, and as the storm showed 
 no signs of abating, strode off to the governors 
 room, where for some time he remained 
 closeted. It leaked out by-and-by — the way 
 things leak out in prison is most astonishing ! 
 prisoners know somehow what passes in spite 
 of all precautions — it leaked out that the 
 Scripture-reader had gone off alone to 
 Tavistock, in spite of the drifts, trusting to 
 the beaten track and his knowledge and 
 the ground. We were aware that such a 
 
 35—2 
 
212 AffFFY'S CHAMPION. 
 
 storm as was then raging must obliterate all 
 tracks, that the big stones set up at distances 
 were or would soon be covered there ; would 
 remain nothing but the telegraph-poles stand- 
 ing out on the drear waste ; if the old man 
 could keep that line in view he might do well 
 enough ; if by ill-luck he lost it — ah ! well, 
 we are in the hands of God. When He wills 
 that we shall go, sure no strategy of ours may 
 prevent the flitting ! 
 
 How trite a remark is this, and yet I let it 
 stand, and here is another one to keep it com- 
 pany. By how happily irresistible an impulse 
 do we look on the good side of those we shall 
 never see again. It is a comforting thought 
 that it should be so, for it shows that our 
 good angel never really flies away to heaven ; 
 he grows bored with us, maybe ; sleeps un- 
 healthily as one may do who is compelled to 
 batten upon diet that is indigestible ; but 
 there he is nodding at our elbow, for all the 
 garbage whereon he's fed, and when we give 
 him an unconscious nudge he opens half an 
 eye for a second and grumbles something 
 which perchance may prove the saving of us 
 after all. You, no doubt, are weary by this 
 
MIFFY' S CHAMPION. 213 
 
 time of the lengthy catalogue of wickedness 
 which I have been compiling for you. Sheep 
 that are always straying are apt to be vexing 
 to the sight. We wish that one or another 
 would turn in the riodit direction if onlv for 
 variety, just as Spevins longed to fold his 
 blankets cornerwise, and to fling his brush 
 and platter upon the floor instead of on the 
 shelf. 
 
 Well, here is a trifling instance of the 
 sbeep moving in the right direction, which 
 may prove refreshing. Many of the felons 
 had gibed and jeered at the pursy little Scrip- 
 ture-reader, had mimicked his odd ways and 
 turned -up toes, and had used, on purpose to 
 grieve him, abominable language to his face. 
 But there were few amongst them who were 
 not saddened for a moment at the prospect 
 of his being whirled from them by a snow- 
 wreath ; albeit they knew not on what errand 
 of mercy he had gone. 
 
 As for myself a presentiment whispered to 
 me that he would be lost ; for Miffy seemed 
 doomed to be without a friend. He was too 
 kind to helpless Miffy ; Miffy and I were 
 equally singled out by Fate as targets for 
 
214 MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 
 
 cruel arrows. There was something parallel 
 in our cases which had always kept a drop of 
 sympathy alive for Miffy, when the rest had 
 dripped away. I did not know that he was 
 gone on MifFy's errand. I only knew that I 
 intended to embrace the first opportunity to 
 beg him to intercede for the postmaster, and 
 that such an opportunity was never likely 
 now to arise. 
 
 That storm was one of the very worst that 
 had been seen for years even on barren Dart- 
 moor. It was evening before it abated ; then 
 the wind dropped with as little warning as it 
 had arisen, and the moon shone out on a vast 
 even sheet of whiteness. Mr. Scarraweg, 
 guaging this phase of our treacherous climate 
 with puckered lips and head well on one side, 
 as sailors do, decided that the night would be 
 fine ; and having reported as much to the 
 governor, a party of volunteers was organised 
 to go in search of their missing friend. 
 There were ropes and poles and preparations 
 as though the expedition were going up 
 Mount Blanc. After all, the venture was 
 not so much less dangerous. The bogs were 
 unsafe enough at the best of times ; masked 
 
MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 215 
 
 by a crust of varying thickness, the surface 
 was but a series of mantraps. Prince Town 
 in midwinter might be a colony away in the 
 far West. True, there were no hostile 
 Indians, with too ready bow and scalping- 
 knife ; but there was iron-bound, uncompro- 
 mising Solitude, dug about with the pitfalls 
 of destruction. 
 
 We of course knew nothing of the departure 
 of the expedition, save what one member of the 
 night patrol said in passing to another ; for, as 
 usual, we were under lock and key in our 
 separate dens by eight o'clock, under strict 
 orders to go to sleep. But when we rose in 
 the morning we found discipline relaxed ; the 
 party had not returned ; both the governor 
 and chief warder had gone with it ; what if 
 it too should have met disaster ? The atten- 
 tion of the officials was fixed upon this dread 
 possibility. Spevins breathed again, for no 
 bells or gongs wei*e sounded at the usual 
 hours ; no hateful guardian sent him down 
 upon all fours to clean his cell exactly at a 
 given second. The breakfast-barrows even 
 were fully half an hour late in arriving from 
 the kitchens, and Spevins rejoiced in the 
 
216 MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 
 
 unpunctuality, even though the brisk air had 
 given him an appetite. 
 
 We were standing in the yard in rows, 
 waiting to be rubbed down before proceeding 
 to labour, when the great iron gates swung 
 open and the long expected cortege wound 
 slowly in. First came the governor, brisk 
 and jaunty (nothing on earth could have 
 made him otherwise), looking more truculent 
 than ever, because his cheeks and nose 
 were blue, while his moustache was frozen 
 stiff. After him a motle}^ host — warders off 
 duty and civil guards — their clothes bedabbled 
 with dirt, their shoulders and hair bleached 
 with rime. I remembered having seen just 
 such an expedition once at Chamounix, and 
 the sudden picture of old days, when I was a 
 man, sent a thrill through my breast. It 
 was an expedition in search of a guide who 
 had been lost, during my honeymoon, when 
 my life dawned so golden and so fair. What 
 recollections were these ! Should I never 
 forget the past % Then came old Scarraweg 
 sobbing quietly, the salt tears running down 
 his furrowed face into his Newgate frill ; and 
 behind him the cause of his trouble, borne on 
 
MIFFY'S CHAMPION. 217 
 
 the shoulders of six men. What an awe- 
 inspiring spectacle it was I The little Scrip- 
 ture-reader knelt erect upon a hurdle, with 
 his silver head bowed and hands clasped 
 before his face, for all the world like some 
 image borne in procession on the occasion of 
 a Spanish festival. 
 
 He was not ridiculous now, for it was thus 
 that he had met his Maker. There was 
 something solemn in his attitude, which 
 struck us as it had struck his friends when 
 they found him frozen thus. It seems that 
 when he became conscious of having lost his 
 way, and learnt that his fate was sealed, he 
 had sunk down in prayer, and that the snow 
 had swirled round and round him in guise of 
 winding-sheet, maintaining him upright as he 
 knelt. 
 
 So Miffy was deprived of his ally just 
 when he needed him most, and, left a prey to 
 his own weakness, gave himself up to black 
 despondency, the only light spot in which 
 was his one creased and ragged letter. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 S you may well imagine, the tragic 
 event just narrated was conver- 
 sational pabulum for us for many 
 a day. The melancholy cortege, with its 
 weirdly rigid freight, had passed before our 
 eyes. We went about our work with downcast 
 faces, each man thinking of the spectacle 
 which had caused old Scarraweg to weep. 
 For my part, it turned my thoughts again 
 into the old channel, from which the dis- 
 course of Spevins had for a while diverted 
 them. How I had prayed for death, in any 
 form, however terrible, in vain. And here 
 was the boon given to this man whose life 
 was not a burthen to him. He had been 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES.. 219 
 
 sent to his rest by the gentlest of all methods; 
 for those who are frozen sink into a charmed 
 
 slumber from which they awake 
 
 Where \ I could not help enlarging upon 
 this in a half-dreamy way while at labour, 
 but neither of my comrades agreed with my 
 views. Jaggs, his hands tied up in dirty 
 bits of linen, made a show of supporting a 
 barrow while I filled it with fragments of 
 granite, and observed that though the world 
 had treated him scurvily enough, he had no 
 desire to try another at present. Like 
 Spevins, he was a fatalist, and looked for- 
 ward now with eagerness to the day — visible 
 as a dim speck — when the two would sally 
 forth with increased wisdom to recommence 
 their depredations. For Spevins had taken 
 Jaggs in hand as he had tried to take me, 
 and had found in him a less perverse disciple. 
 He had pointed out that the art was not to 
 be trusted which could so easily betray its 
 votaries. What was the good of consum- 
 mate skill in the manipulation of a little 
 pea, if the manipulator was for ever tumbling 
 into jail % The burglar had the artist on 
 the hip, for he could not deny that he was 
 
220 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 in the habit of returning to prison with a 
 celerity which was quite remarkable. 
 
 ' I'm such a babe !' he would murmur, in 
 plaintive deprecation. ' So unfit to take 
 care of myself. The art is all right, and my 
 ringers will be right some day ; but the best 
 artists are often careless as regards the world's 
 concerns ; it's my innocence ; I'm so easily 
 taken in.' 
 
 I could not help thinking, as I remarked 
 the infantine expression steal over the lantern 
 jaws, that I had seldom looked on a face so old 
 and haggard. If there were childhood about 
 this man, it savoured in appearance, at least, 
 more of the second than the first. 
 
 Then Spevins, having lured him gently 
 round from a show of lofty patronage to an 
 admission of worldly helplessness, clinched 
 the matter and arranged a partnership, 
 whereby, when they went out, they were to 
 be like twins, working together as a firm. I 
 was not so easy to manage by any means, and 
 he made little visible progress with me, for in 
 the old, old days I had always been obstinate. 
 I prated in a wearying manner, now of death, 
 now of a long life's entombment, clearly 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 221 
 
 demonstrating, to my own satisfaction, that 
 I was the most unlucky man on earth, and 
 that it was of no consequence what happened 
 to me. Now and again I soared into realms 
 of rhetoric which were quite incomprehen- 
 sible to Spevins. On these occasions 
 he sighed and declared that I was a fool 
 for my pains not to take sensible advice ; 
 but that what was to be, would be, some- 
 how or another ; and that it was as hope- 
 less to try to set pig-headed people right, as 
 to bury a beefsteak underground in the ex- 
 pectation that it would grow into a bullock. 
 Although we could nob come to terms as to 
 whether my life was irrevocably finished, he 
 agreed with me and shared my indignation 
 at the ill-treatment which the defenceless 
 MifTy received at the hands of Soda ; an ill- 
 treatment of a negative order for the pre- 
 sent, consisting of a sword hung over his 
 head by the thinnest of wires, which threat- 
 ened each instant to give way. 
 
 The general conduct of Soda remained 
 neutrally good. He was sullen and idle, of 
 course, and made mischief between mates 
 when it was possible. But the mere sight 
 
222 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 of Scarraweg produced a scare which showed 
 that his glimpse of purgatory in a straight- 
 waistcoat would be long ere it was quite 
 forgotten. Then, when that gentleman moved 
 out of sight, the bulldog-look would reappear, 
 and he would revenge himself for that dread- 
 ful time, if Miffy happened to be nigh, by a 
 furtive punch in a tender place, or a brutal 
 kick upon the shins. 
 
 He made overtures to the warder in 
 charge on the subject of tobacco; but Scarra- 
 weg, with the example before him of the peach- 
 faced one, had picked his man, and he was in- 
 corruptible. On the other hand, I had espied 
 Soda, more than once, chattering with one of 
 the guardians of his hall, and I marvelled 
 now, as I had marvelled long ago, how he, 
 if he did succeed in cajoling his gaoler, could 
 manage to get him paid. 
 
 Early in the ensuing summer, when the 
 moor was a carpet of flowers, I found myself, 
 much to my disgust, transferred from the 
 upper corner of the quarry, where I had 
 become accustomed to work with Jaggs and 
 Spevins, down to the centre where the great 
 crane stands with which the blocks are lifted 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 223 
 
 Into carts. It was not the working of the 
 crane that I objected to, but having to be in 
 proximity to Mr. George Virgin, whose duty 
 it was, in company with another, to turn the 
 wheel which raises the ponderous chain. My 
 dislike to that bully had been turned by recent 
 events into positive loathing. My gorge rose 
 at him ; for there was a something underlying 
 his crumpet mask of humanity which hor- 
 ribly recalled the chimpanzee. T was pre- 
 pared to consort with men, however de- 
 graded ; but the idea of communion with this 
 monstrous caricature of man, set all my teeth 
 on edge. He was an unclean, loathsome 
 quadruped sailing under false colours. His 
 great hairy, leg-of-mutton fist was enough to 
 turn the blood cold, so like was it to the paw 
 of a gorilla. I resolved to ask the chief- 
 warder what I had done to deserve this 
 augmentation of my pain, and almost felt 
 inclined to behave myself, rather than put 
 up with so terrible a corvee. And then I 
 smiled, as I thought of Spevin's convictions : 
 4 What was to be, would be, somehow or 
 another.' It is curious to reflect upon the 
 manner in which people drift, and the odd, 
 
224 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 unlikely creeks they drift into. Were the 
 burglar's discourses not thrown away ? Had 
 the seed which he scattered upon the ground, 
 been swallowed ? Though it still presented to 
 the eye that cannot see, a vacant, barren square 
 of brown, was it quick, all the while, with 
 bursting verdure ? Verdure, forsooth ! Much 
 verdure was there about me, or likelihood of 
 vernal promise, till, sinking under the sod, I 
 should peep out again as grass ! As usual 
 I was building foolish houses of cards, which 
 a breath would overthrow. Rugged old 
 Scarraweg, pupil of Boreas, was a con- 
 noisseur in hurricanes, and upset with 
 promptitude my little heap so soon as I 
 sho w d it to him. 
 
 ' What you've done V he growled. ' Ain't 
 you always doing summut ? Don't the 
 gov'nor distrust you, and don't your behaviour 
 justify his distrust ? Don't pay out no 
 more words — acts is what we want here. 
 If you turn over a new leaf, your com- 
 plaints '11 be attended to. If not, they 
 won't.' 
 
 Then, seeing my disappointment, and un- 
 willing to wound me too much, he said he 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 225 
 
 would put my name clown to see the governor, 
 if I liked ; but I did not like, for my name 
 was so often put down without my consent, 
 that I deemed it prudent to endure this new 
 blow with jDatienee. So I and Soda, twin 
 reprobates, worked the crane together ; and 
 I became, in his society, as dumb as regula- 
 tions could desire, and turned my thoughts 
 inwards on myself. 
 
 It was wonderful how my mind brooded 
 over that project of Spevins's — that wild, im- 
 practicable project whereby I might become, 
 some day, a licensed victualler. Of course the 
 thing was so wild that I considered it more 
 to distract my thoughts than for any other 
 purpose. ' Licensed to sell wine and spirits to 
 be consumed upon the premises/ I, whilom 
 the artist, now the felon ! What a butter- 
 fly to result from what a caterpillar ! And 
 not an ordinary publichouse-keeper, by any 
 means. Of a quiet, superior kind for the 
 sumptuous entertainment of gentlemen's 
 gentlemen in Mayfair ! 
 
 The idea was so absurd that it was a good 
 one to laugh at for five minutes ; but, to my 
 pained surprise, I discovered that I was not 
 
 VOL. II. oG 
 
226 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 altogether laughing at it, that I was very 
 far from being so indifferent as I could desire. 
 Oh, that old Adam ! How hard he is to 
 kill ! His quota of lives is more numerous 
 than the cat's nine. Those ramparts of 
 stoicism which had taken me nearly five years 
 to build up so painfully, placing brick on 
 brick, and mortaring each square with my 
 life's blood, were very shaky. Would they 
 totter down before, forewarned, I had time 
 to shore them up ? Working, as I was, 
 along with Soda, I was in constant conflict 
 with myself. 
 
 1 I am a denizen of a sea of sin,' I kept 
 repeating over, and over, and over, though 
 my attention wandered sadly from the words. 
 Around me all are bad ; I myself, being- 
 reckoned one of the very worst, am harnessed 
 with this brute. For us, there is no promised 
 land, or green tree, or shrub. Good may 
 exist somewhere — outside our circle. With- 
 in it, all is wicked. We are hopeless, and it 
 is well that we should be prevented from 
 preying upon society.' And by dint of re- 
 peating this over and over, I regained a 
 semblance of my old calm. I was Ebenezer 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 227 
 
 Anderson — a weed sprung out of the prison 
 soil. As such, my duty was to do navvy's 
 work, with occasional lulls of darkness and 
 bread and water. I was never to leave this 
 spot, unless drafted to some other prison. 
 And as my gaze wandered across the flowery 
 billows to the gaunt barrack that rose frown- 
 ing in their midst, I recognised it as my 
 natural home — with no moisture of the eye, 
 no quiver of the lip. 
 
 One day our slowly- revolving mill-wheel 
 stopped with a sudden jerk. I cannot look 
 back upon that day, even after long years, 
 without a spasm of the heart. Was I too 
 happy, oh my God ! in that, though with a 
 bad grace, I could still submit ? Was I as 
 yet too stiff-necked ? — not ground down 
 sufficiently % Was my dreary hard appren- 
 ticeship to go for nothing ? Was I, seared 
 and maimed, to be flung down again to the 
 bottom of the hill which I had climbed with 
 an ensanguined sweat so far ? There are 
 trials so grievous that their very conception 
 seems bred of frenzied phantasy. With 
 bodily agony comes at last a numbness, for 
 the human frame is not calculated to bear 
 
 36—2 
 
228 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 beyond a certain measure. Why should it 
 not be so with the soul? Had any man 
 suffered as I had suffered, for so little ? 
 Bereft, at a blow, of child, honour, even 
 name, I yet lived, or rather lingered, a 
 marvel to myself. What had I done — what 
 had I done — that my cup of gall should 
 be filled to the brim again ? I will hasten 
 over this, for the recital burns me even 
 now. 
 
 We were at work as usual. One portion 
 of our party had detached a large lump of 
 rock, and, by means of ropes and wooden 
 rollers, had drawn it towards the crane. 
 Thus much was accomplished by dinner-time. 
 After dinner, we fell in and marched back to 
 work. As he passed me to regain his post, 
 Spevins whispered in my ear : ( Look at 
 Miffy.' Turning, I did so, and was distressed 
 to perceive that he, usually so listless, was as 
 one distracted. His eyes were rolling in 
 their sunken sockets ; his teeth chattered as 
 in an ague -fit ;• his step was uncertain, like 
 that of a drunken man ; a ghastly grey pallor 
 was on his face. ' He is very ill,' I thought : 
 ' how strange of the warder not to notice it. 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 229 
 
 Mayhap he'll recover by-and-by ; if not, I'll 
 point it out to him myself.' 
 
 Several men were told off to raise the 
 block; amongst them, Jaggs. It was too 
 heavy for them. I let the wheel go and set 
 the chain running, that they might slip it 
 round the stone as it lay upon the ground. 
 Then my mate and I took each a handle of 
 the wheel and hoisted the block in mid-air, 
 whilst Miffy tried to back the cart beneath it. 
 But he was still under the influence of the 
 same violent excitement, lurching against the 
 wheel as if buffeted by wind. A turn 
 brought him face to face with Soda — the one 
 below, and the other beside me on the crane- 
 platform — and, losing all control, the unhappy 
 man flung both arms into the air, and pointed 
 with quivering fingers at my mate. 
 
 ' You've stolen it. What have you done 
 with it V he gasped. ' My one — my only one. 
 Give it back — give it back to me !' 
 
 The warder was standing at a distance, on 
 a ledge of rock. Descending from his perch, 
 he approached with the dignified tramp of a 
 policeman. 
 
 ' What has he stolen V I asked. 
 
230 
 
 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 The wasted cheeks of the postmaster were 
 flushed now, and, with a hollow cough, he 
 pressed a hand to his side, as though in pain. 
 
 ' My wife's letter !' he implored. 4 1 left it 
 in my Bible, and he's taken it away. It's all 
 I have to remind me of my darlings ! The 
 only one. Oh ! make him give it back to 
 me !' 
 
 1 I took it — you fool V retorted Soda, 
 fiercely. His lower jaw was protruded ; a 
 sinister light shone from beneath his swollen 
 eyelids. 'What should I want with your 
 infernal rubbish V 
 
 The humorous side of Jaws was tickled. 
 Turning to me he said with a chuckle, behind 
 his hand : 
 
 ' Fancy the loony smokin' him. What a 
 game ! He prigged it, I know, to get hold 
 of the missus's new address. Lord bless 
 yer, he's bin workin' her these three years, 
 unbeknown, to square the screw for our 
 tobacco.' 
 
 So this was how the wretch had managed 
 to bribe the warders. I saw it all. Bv 
 searching Miffv's letters, he had discovered 
 his wife's address, and placed her in private 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 communication with, the peach-faced one, who 
 received small, hard-earned sums from her 
 hands, under the impression that her husband 
 would thus gain a few extra comforts. Then 
 she had changed her address, and the young 
 warder had left for Portland, and, no longer 
 living next door to his victim, Mr. Virgin 
 had been obliged to filch his letter, instead of 
 reading and replacing it. What a scoundrel ! 
 — as cold-blooded in this as Jaggs had been — 
 to play on the poor woman's heartstrings, and 
 bleed her of shillings for the sake of a pinch 
 or two of the weed ! 
 
 I was about to give vent to my disgust, when 
 Miny, who had overheard, was carried away by 
 a whirl of fury which tore him like the rage of 
 one possessed. For a second or two his livid 
 lips moved without forming coherent words ; lie 
 clutched at his throat as though to force it to 
 obey his will ; then broke into a shrill torrent 
 of hysterical reproach — calling down, with 
 beckoning finger, the vengeance of the All- 
 Seeing ; appealing to the Most High to burn 
 up with His lightnings this wretch ! 
 
 Soda gave a low growl and showed his 
 tusks, and, by a deft movement, swept my 
 
232 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 hand from the wheel, and, twisting his leg 
 within mine, tripped me up and sent me 
 sprawling on my back. I gave a shriek of 
 horror, for the strength of one man could not 
 hold back that wheel, with the chain so 
 burthened. Soda made prodigious efforts to 
 stop it ; but in vain. The chain rattled, the 
 block swung for an instant in the air, then 
 down it came with a horrid thud, with all its 
 tremendous weight, and Miffy lay under it — 
 a bloody heap of clothes. 
 
 I felt stunned ; while all who witnessed 
 the scene sent up a wail of dread. Everyone 
 was shouting and gesticulating, and pointing 
 at my mate and me. Soda alone was col- 
 lected. 
 
 ' A bad job,' he muttered, with an uncouth 
 semblance of regret. ' 122 here let go, but I 
 did my best to stop it, sir ; I did indeed. 
 Any of 'em will tell you that, I'm sure. 
 Poor bloke ! I'm afeard he's done for ! And 
 so soon going out, too. What a pity !' 
 
 Some of the excited men around reviled 
 me ; some sneered that a gentleman lag was 
 not likely to stick at anything. 
 
 The warder really had perceived nothing, 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 for the scene passed in an instant, and then 
 all the rushing quarrymen had gathered round 
 the body like a flight of jabbering crows. 
 But for dignity's sake, and in the cause of 
 order, he was bound to know all about it ; so 
 singling me out, he cried : 
 
 ' Ebenezer Anderson ! for shame, you 
 incorrigible man ! I saw you do it. It may 
 possibly go hard with you ; so I advise you 
 to hold your tongue.' 
 
 I took his advice and said never a word, 
 whilst he put the handcuffs on me. Some of 
 the men evidently thought I had clone it on 
 purpose ; others only through culpable neglect. 
 Spevins whispered, in an effort at consola- 
 tion : 
 
 ' Cheer up ! It wasn't your fault, I know !' 
 
 Slowly the cortege of death passed through 
 the gates — the second within six months. 
 Miffy had gone to join his friends. Soon the 
 flowers would wave over him — the shadows 
 would play hide-and-seek upon his bed. His 
 fretted cord was snapped. Happy fellow ! 
 he was at rest ! Oh, how I envied him !' 
 
 There was another grand investigation. 
 Again a director arrived, and lunched and 
 
234 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 liked the pickles, and discussed the crops, 
 and then went back again to town. A picked 
 number of the quarry men were called on to 
 give their versions. They were all different. 
 Some invented details for the sake of airing 
 their ingenuity ; some out of mere spite to 
 the gentleman lag ; some, in a vague hope of 
 some possible advantage accruing to them- 
 selves. The governor, taking inspiration 
 from his museum, roared at them — said they 
 were dogs ; that he always knew a convict 
 could not speak truth ; that they felt a 
 devilish enjoyment in getting one of their 
 own lot into a mess ; that they ought, every 
 man-jack, to be swept from the earth's sur- 
 face. Finally, the verdict went forth that it 
 was a case of culpable neglect on my part. 
 The governor cocked his moustache and 
 glared at me, and gave me a long lecture, 
 whereat the warders in attendance pretended, 
 one and all, to be overcome. It was a sad 
 thing — a very sad thing, he said, for a 
 gentleman so persistently to lower himself. 
 I was one of the most sullen, most obstinate, 
 ruost incorrigible men on the establishment. 
 I was always making a bother and giving 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 235 
 
 unnecessary trouble, and seemed to glory in 
 my own abasement. I should live and die a 
 felon, he was sorry to inform me, for as to 
 my case ever being reconsidered, that was a 
 contingency quite out of the question with 
 reference to such a man as I. I was to 
 undergo, by order of the director, such and 
 such punishment, and I was to consider 
 myself devilish lucky to have got off so 
 cheap ! 
 
 So ended the harangue, and I was marched 
 to the punishment -cells — those cells which I 
 had visited so often — and left there to chew 
 the cud of my own thoughts. 
 
 I marvelled at my own calmness. The 
 swift swoop with which this new blow fell 
 upon my skull deadened the faculties of the 
 victim much as the first had done. I Avas 
 foolish to be calm ; but all along 1 I had been 
 foolish. It would be better to dash my head 
 against the wall and make an end of it, as I 
 ought to have done five years agone. One 
 murder I had committed, and was shrewdly 
 suspected of a second. Perhaps I really had 
 done it on purpose. Had I % To take a 
 burthen from a back which was too weak to 
 
235 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 bear it ; to free the pmioiner of a few stamps 
 from the persecutions of a world whose in- 
 justice was equal to both him and me. Why- 
 did no one think of doing me so good a turn ? 
 ' Well, perhaps I did do it on purpose/ I 
 thought in apathy. If I did, it was out of 
 sheer benevolence. I was distinctly his bene- 
 factor. Would no one stretch out an equally 
 kind hand to me ? I would stand still ; 
 would promise not to wince or so much as 
 move a muscle as the friendly stone came 
 down. But, alas ! a pariah such as I might 
 not hope to be so much considered ; and as I 
 thought of it all, the rampart of stoicism 
 broke asunder and fell aside, and I writhed 
 and bit my fingers in the impotent sense of a 
 great wrong, as had happened five years 
 back. There were no tears now to come to 
 my relief ; their spring was dried up for ever. 
 My heart was hard, and I thanked God for 
 that. Though my soul, which was immortal, 
 lingered in its ruined tenement, its more 
 happy sister was no more. My heart, though 
 still it seemed to throb and flutter, was 
 shrivelled, scorched, and calcined. 
 
 Old Scarraweg came frequently to see me ; 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 237 
 
 indeed kept me almost exclusively under his 
 own care for a while, and looked at me with 
 grave eyes, out of the depths of which shone 
 pity. Why should he pity me ? I resented 
 it as an affront. Sometimes he spoke to me 
 in his gruff way, with a rough hand upon my 
 shoulder, mumbling that all was not lost, 
 even now, though no doubt it was a bad job 
 and no mistake — that many a small craft 
 weathers a great storm — and. then, crouching 
 down, I ground my teeth at him, shouting 
 out : 
 
 ' I've committed murder twice, do you 
 hear 1 I plead guilty. Why can't you 
 hang me and have done with it? Is a 
 rope so dear ? Is it so difficult to do your 
 duty V 
 
 Once his kind talk drove me to such a pitch 
 of exasperation, that I took up my stool and 
 made as though I'd brain the old man with 
 it. One murder — two — why not a third ? 
 Ha, ha ! there's luck in uneven numbers. 
 Luck ! I had been lucky, truly. Instead of 
 dodging an expected blow, the chief-warder 
 folded his arms and looked me sternly, with- 
 out blenching, in the eyes. 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 ' Strike if vou dare,' he said, ' and I swear 
 that I will not report you. It may do you 
 good ? shipmet.' 
 
 I peered back into his eyes, and the stool 
 •dropped from my slackened grasp. I did not 
 mean what I said, and the sea-dog knew it. 
 Sometimes I yelled, and shrieked, and 
 chattered, and whooped, and screamed all the 
 night, beset by a fancy that I w T as surrounded 
 by a horde of devils. And I w T as. They 
 were plainly visible. I saw them in the 
 darkness of the cell, crawling like rats upon 
 the pavement, climbing like fleas upon the 
 wall, hanging like spiders from the ceiling. 
 They said I was to be of good cheer, and 
 keep up my spirits, and that all would yet be 
 well. Soon I would be one of them, if only 
 I were worthy ; I had been slack so far, too 
 much given to the ebb and flow of moods ; 
 and yet I had shown promise. However 
 grievous this life may be, we know that it 
 must end some day ; there lies the real boon 
 of this our sojourn on the earth. Man may 
 be cruel and unjust ; woman maybe faithless ; 
 the world a dun desert, without a speck of ver- 
 dure — we know that it has its limits ; that the 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 239 
 
 wav, though toilsome, will come to an end at 
 last ; that the whole span of this phase of 
 our existence, however interminable it may 
 appear to us, is less than an inch, ' Why, then,' 
 chattered the devils, as they danced up and 
 down and played leapfrog on the stones, and 
 swung in filmy hammocks from the roof, and 
 touched my head with elfin fingers whose 
 contact electrified my brain, i why then dally 
 with opportunity % If I desired to be a 
 devil as they were, for ever and ever ' — mark 
 that — c nimble, jovial, brisk, impalpable, I 
 must gain my diploma as they long ago on 
 earth had done. What ? They knew, for 
 they had been watching, that I had no finger 
 in MifFy's death. Had I let go the stone 
 which crushed him, then my noviciate as a 
 devil-cadet would be over, my diploma gained, 
 for I would deliberately have slain one who 
 never did me injury. But I hovered, unde- 
 cided, between two armies, belonging to 
 neither. I must take heed lest after the 
 battle I should come to be disowned bv 
 both.' 
 
 What was I to do ? I cried to the rabble rout, 
 for scales had fallen, and I saw clearlv at last. 
 
240 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 I had prayed to God in vain, He would not 
 have me. I yearned now to be one of them 
 — to climb as they did around the prison- 
 bars : to hold out false lights to labouring 
 vessels, to lure them on the rocks and quick- 
 sands ; to lead souls to their destruction in 
 this and other planets, now and evermore. 
 What would the kind spirits have me do ? 
 If they would but command, how gladly 
 would I obey ! The neophyte had been 
 blindly groping — so long — so long. Any- 
 thing, however desperate ! There was no 
 God in heaven. He was a myth. What 
 would they have me do — quick! — that, 
 knitting the ravelled strands of the neglected 
 past, I might not lose another precious 
 moment % 
 
 Scarraweg became graver day by day, and 
 shook his head and rubbed his Newgate frill. 
 My condition he evidently thought was 
 critical. The devils jogged me in the ribs, 
 but he did not see them. I laughed till water 
 poured out of my eyes — water that had 
 naught to do with the soothing gush of tears 
 — and crowed and moped and mowed at him, 
 and did clumsy shuffles on the narrow square 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 241 
 
 of floor, as I had seen Soda do when first he 
 came here. 
 
 The governor reconnoitred through the 
 observation -hole, and went away muttering 
 something about 57 Party; and over his 
 wine with the deputy governor, whose guest 
 he condescended now and then to be, spoke 
 of that Ebenezer Anderson as a tine case of 
 the predestined convict. 
 
 ' Born a gentleman, sir, with every advan- 
 tage of education, but couldn't escape the 
 mustard-coloured jacket for all that. You 
 may take my word as gospel, sir, for I under- 
 stand these cattle. Everything has been 
 done for that man ; upon my honour, every- 
 thing ! Useless and ridiculous ! There's no 
 such thing as the reform which those people 
 at Whitehall are always bothering about. 
 Do I know best, or do they \ Their know- 
 ledge is theoretical ; mine, sir, is practical. 
 Next time there's a commission, or any 
 philanthropic busybody worries, I'll point to 
 that Ebenezer, and they'll collapse. Excellent 
 diet, healthy work, best religious instruction ; 
 what more could he have 1 And look at 
 him. He's worse, sir, infinitely worse than 
 
 vcl. 11. 37 
 
242 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 lie was four years ago. 57 Party 's the only 
 thing, and we'll try it straight away. What 
 do you say ? Mad % Pooh, pooh, sir ! Not 
 a bit of it. They're a race apart. De- 
 moralising comrades % Bother ! You're as 
 bad as the philanthropic busybodies. What 
 better comrades is he fit for V 
 
 And, driven to bay as I was, his assertion 
 was correct enough. I was quite fit now to 
 be George Virgin's mate. 
 
 If the Scripture-reader had only been alive, 
 how I should have frightened him ! Doctors 
 came and sat beside me, while stalwart 
 warders stood vigilant hard by. They asked 
 me questions. I answered as the devil bade 
 me, who close to my ear was swinging in his 
 filmy hammock. They screwed up their lips 
 till the mouth of each was but a small round 
 hole, and looked concerned and sighed. 
 
 What fun was this ! What recked they of 
 such as I % But they had to earn their wage, 
 and this was their w T ay of doing it. 
 
 ' The governor's mistaken : he's evidently 
 mad,' one murmured. ' I always said that 
 that sullen self-contained manner of his boded 
 no eood for the future. It's mania — homi 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 243 
 
 cidal mania. He'll have to be sent to Broad- 
 moor, to be classed amongr the dangerous 
 lunatics. 
 
 Then the thought flashed on me in a ray of 
 lurid light : 
 
 ' Mad ! am I ? Perhaps I am ! Oh, joy 
 at last ! Death am I denied, but I am 
 granted at length the secondary grace. I am 
 mad, or going mad — blissful visions shall be 
 mine ! I shall dwell in Fairyland — skim on 
 rippling waters in the thick shade of lotus - 
 bowers. My skilly shall be ambrosial food, 
 my water nectar.' 
 
 But the devil in the hammock fretfullv 
 changed his leg and shook his horns. I was 
 not to be mad ; I must be sane, and do what 
 I had to do with a clear brain and stony 
 heart. 
 
 ' Might I pretend to be mad V I pleaded ; 
 ' just a little, to soften my present lot V 
 
 < No !' 
 
 Well, then, I would obey. So, turning on 
 the doctors with a sharpness which caused 
 them to recoil in a heap, I said : 
 
 ' You try to persuade me by your talk that 
 I am mad. I'm not. See ! how regular my 
 
244 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 pulse, how evenly throbs the blood within my 
 breast. I am not mad ! I am as sane as you, 
 and disdain to clutch the help you offer me !' 
 
 But the devils were not so kind as I had 
 hcped. They had suffered themselves so 
 much in days of yore that they were cruel. 
 In vain I pleaded to be shown my path. How 
 was I, feeling in the dark, to distinguish one 
 narrow footway from another. But they 
 only swung and swung till I was giddy, and 
 touching my brain with reviving electric 
 finger, whispered ' Search !' Racked by this 
 riddle to which I could see no answer, I 
 became, by turns, violent and moody. All I 
 demanded was not much. Was I not eager 
 to join their band — to become one of the 
 joyous gambolling crew. A hint ! a word — 
 no ! They only danced up and down the 
 floor and leaped over each other as they 
 stooped — and sang in chorus, ' Search !' 
 
 The pestilent Ebenezer smashed everything 
 on which he could lay his hand, and the 
 exertion did him good. He tore his sheets 
 and blankets into tiny shreds, and sitting 
 naked like a savage, pelted his guardian with 
 the debris as if it had been snow. 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 245 
 
 Would this do ? Was I acting rightly % 
 The devils shook their horns, and still 
 whispered ' Search !' Bitterly dejected and 
 wearied out, I flung myself down upon my 
 bedplace. Neither God nor devil would 
 have aught to do with me. I had no place 
 in heaven, nor yet in hell. I was to wander in 
 chaos, a solitary phantom — still. Scarraweg 
 thought that the crisis was past. I heard him 
 say in the passage, to an attendant warder, 
 with a sigh : ' He ain't going mad — not he — 
 more's the pity. The paroxysm is over, but it'll 
 come on a^ain. I've watched this so often. 
 He'll turn a real " out-and-outer," and stop 
 here all his life !' 
 
 ' Wouldn't he do that in any case V 
 inquired the assistant, who was a new- 
 comer. 
 
 ( He needn't have done so, 5 returned the 
 elder. e It's sartain that his sentence was 
 remitted once when he was not scragged ; 
 but his case was such a queer one, that if 
 he'd only have conducted himself properly, 
 the question would have been overhauled 
 later on, But there's where it is, you see. 
 The system says, " You behave yourself, and 
 
246 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 we'll see what we can do" — forgetting that in 
 a given condition it's next to impossible for a 
 sensitive man to behave himself. He gives 
 way to despair, and there's an end of him. 
 Worse luck, I say! for 122 has had no 
 little to put up with.' 
 
 I lay without motion upon the bedplace 
 where I had flung myself, and the company of 
 devils swinging from the roof stared down at 
 me with grins. ' Search !' they said : ' wake 
 up and search, lazybones !' My blood was 
 rushing, tingling in my veins — my temples 
 beat, and my ears thundered, while I sought. 
 Eureka ! I had found the key. The path I had 
 travelled for five years was thorny — tangled 
 with a sheet of briars and brambles, the last 
 incline more rugged than the rest. But 
 it was past — the goal was won. My heart 
 was dead indeed. The fountain of my tears 
 was parched. My case was so peculiar that 
 it was bound to be overhauled. Was it ? 
 One unmerited blow, and then another. It 
 was time for me seriously to rebel. What 
 did I owe to God or man ? Nothing but 
 curses — curses — curses ! I would reform, I 
 told the devils, as they purred their faint 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 247 
 
 applause. If they would only help, I would 
 keep my turbulent temper well in check — 
 the fetters that held it should be cunningly 
 contrived. Not a prisoner — not even Tilgoe 
 himself — should be half as exemplary as I. 
 Years might pass. I cared not how many, 
 for I was supported now by a settled 
 purpose — a definite hope. I would get out 
 — no matter when ; and from that moment, 
 whensoever it should come, would a war begin 
 between the world and me — a war to the 
 knife — stern and implacable and pitiless. As I 
 had suffered, so should others surfer; as I had 
 writhed, so should others writhe. Were the 
 devils satisfied — was that the key \ With 
 my hand against every man, and every man's 
 against mine, might my diploma not be 
 earned ; might I not thus win my place 
 among their dusky ranks for ever and for 
 ever ? 'Yes !' they all screamed with deafening 
 shrieks, which nearly cracked my ear-drums, 
 and danced up and down and in and out, 
 along the floor,, the walls, the ceiling ; and 
 swung on airy elfin cords. ' Yes, if you 
 have patience f 
 
 ' Never fear ! I will be patient,' I replied. 
 
248 THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 
 
 Next time that the chief- warder came to 
 ]ook at me, he was taken aback by the 
 sudden change. I had not torn my new 
 clothes ; they were neat and tidy. The 
 lowering look which had deformed my 
 comeliness for years was gone — the surly 
 lowering expression which so irritated the 
 dapper governor. 
 
 ' Shiver my timbers ! what's up now ?' he 
 asked. 
 
 ' Nothing,' I returned, smiling ; ' I think I 
 must have been out of my senses this long 
 while ; but now you see I'm clothed and in 
 my right mind. I've had much time for 
 meditation here alone. Thanks for your 
 past kindness, sir — you'll find me a changed 
 man.' 
 
 The old gentleman scratched his head and 
 growled — smelling a rat. ' You're somehow 
 different — no doubt about it,' he admitted 
 suspiciously. * You're not up to tricks, are 
 you \ You convicts are wounclily crooked 
 cattle. Harkee, my hearty ! if you're going 
 to turn over a new leaf, no one'll be more 
 glad than I ; but if you're up to tricks, it'll be 
 the worse for you.' 
 
THE CRISIS ARRIVES. 249. 
 
 And with that he went away, mumbling 
 to himself as he stroked his ragged whiskers : 
 ' That chap's beyond me — always was and 
 always will be. I've talked to him often 
 enough in vain ; he only snarled. What's this 
 new fake as is come over him that he should 
 be converted? 
 
 Converted ! I was worse than I had ever 
 been before. 
 

 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 HUS did I arrive at the stage in 
 
 my soul's travail when I de- 
 liberately decided to ' howl with 
 the wolves.' The chief-warder looked at me 
 askance for a Ions' while, for he was little 
 accustomed to ' reform/ and still less so to 
 miracles. He knew very well that ' the 
 system ' brings little reformation in its wake 
 — that the ultra-sensitive ones become crushed 
 or hardened, whilst the common fry remain 
 unchanged. It is the ' middlemen,' if I may 
 use the expression, who emerge from the 
 furnace purged. The ordeal they have 
 suffered has been oreat and terrible : their 
 sin was due to an instant's weakness, for 
 which, while they fell, their consciences cried 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REG EM E. 251 
 
 aloud. Buoyed by a certainty that their 
 friends will find them employment, they 
 resolve to sin no more. Like burnt children, 
 they will dread the fire which has merely 
 scorched, not maimed them beyond recovery. 
 
 I was not one of that sort, as Scarraweg 
 knew right well. He was aware that ' the 
 system' would pass over me like a steam- 
 roller, and had come accordingly to take a 
 kind of surly interest. 
 
 That I should be constantly in trouble was 
 only natural. In his opinion it was a subject 
 for gratulation that my frequent ' flyings-out' 
 should have assumed so trivial a form as they 
 had done. But this sudden change was 
 altogether removed from customary routine. 
 There was something louche about this. He 
 looked at me askance, therefore, wondering 
 whether I might be trying to throw him off 
 his guard with the intention of committing 
 suicide. He had seen such cases in his 
 experience. Many a man had been painfully 
 well-behaved for a few days, had sent for the 
 chaplain, and discoursed edify ingly with him 
 as to a desire to receive, as a reward for good 
 conduct, a visit or a letter ; and then, next 
 
252 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 morning had been found hanging to the ven- 
 tilator — an exasperating corpse that gave 
 trouble. 
 
 I manifested no such intention, and by 
 degrees the chief- warder was satisfied. 
 
 1 This is the queerest turn,' he grumbled, 
 as week after week passed and my penal 
 record remained clean — a record which bore 
 as a frontispiece the photograph of a refined 
 face, with a wild and wicked smile on it, and 
 a w T ell-formed head, with hair clipped close ; 
 and after that a list of reports for misbehaviour 
 which filled at least a dozen pages. 
 
 No more reports. After a while I returned 
 to work — thank heaven ! no longer at the 
 crane ; the first sight of it turned my blood 
 cold, and caused me almost to falter in my 
 purpose. Soda (with a new mate) still 
 worked at it, and as I approached shuddering, 
 with head bent down, saw him look round, 
 with a jaunty air and a sneer on his flat, 
 villain's countenance which caused my fists 
 to crumple up in spite of me. Then the 
 reflection that he could bear to stand there, 
 knowing what he had done, filled me with 
 a sort of admiration. This was the state to 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 253 
 
 which I must bring myself — nay, had brought 
 myself. Glancing up, I met his eye steadily, 
 and passed on with a half smile to my old 
 •corner, where Jaggs and Spevins were still 
 working — where the latter had by gradual 
 stages brought his comrade completely round 
 to his own way of thinking. 
 
 During my absence, it appears, they had 
 had much talk — had been counting up in 
 whispers the exact time which would elapse 
 before discharge. Five years more ! Then 
 there was remission-time which was to be 
 gained by quiet behaviour — the behaviour of 
 both was perfect — say, allowing for accidental 
 loss of marks, four years more — about four 
 years or so. Pooh ! it would soon pass ; 
 then they would be free, and a grand joint- 
 stock company would be organised, such as 
 should cause the upper ten to wince ! 
 
 Jaggs had been making up to the parson, 
 he said, who, since the death of the Scripture- 
 reader, had been attending to his business a 
 little, and from him had obtained the privi- 
 lege of French books and dictionaries out of 
 the library, instead of twaddling, goody- 
 goody periodicals. He could already boast 
 
254 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 of a smattering of the Gallic tongue : now he 
 was ' studying foreign lingoes grammatically/ 
 he remarked. ' That sort of thing would be 
 very useful in the new venture. Why, an hour 
 of assiduous study alone in his cell every even- 
 ing would do wonders. Four times 365 - 
 close on 1,500. What might not be learnt in 
 1,500 hours % What was the use of mastering 
 French and German ? Why, bless your soul 
 alive, he urged, think of the effect upon uncler- 
 butlers and grooms of the chamber of being 
 able to patter the parlyvoo for all the world 
 like their own lords and ladies ! They'll look 
 up to me with awe, and — ahem ! — I think with 
 my polished manners thrown into the scale, 
 I may say without self-laudation that they'll 
 tell me all about the plate-chests in no time. 
 I was always told that I had kunnoodling 
 ways. What with my French, and what 
 with my deportment, I think — ahem ! — that I 
 shall be found a great success.' 
 
 Spevins looked at him and shook his head. 
 He was by no means so sanguine as his 
 ally. 
 
 ' You've too much deportment, my good 
 chap,' he said mournfully. 'You're like 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 255- 
 
 some of the city ladies as plaster theirselves 
 with jewellery to mask the shop. The more 
 they sticks on, the more you see that they 
 haven't an H to their backs. Upper servants 
 are sharp judges of character, and can tell a 
 real gent from such as you or I with their 
 eyes shut. I'm told that at a country 'ouse, 
 they stands in the 'all to reckon up them as 
 are come to stop, and can tell to a tanner 
 what the tip'll be from each when he goes 
 away. They must know that, for they be- 
 haves more or less civil accordin'. 'Tis their 
 business. No ; we shan't succeed unless 
 there's a real tip -topper for commander-in- 
 chief — one as can patter parly voo, for instance, 
 without seeming to say, as you would do, 
 " Just listen to me now ; ain't it wonderful V 
 One whom they'll think it a honour to know 
 — a sort of a condescendin'-like. That's what 
 we want.' 
 
 * Like me — you told me once,' I put in 
 quietly. 
 
 ' Ah, you !' Spevins said, with a sigh. 
 * I'm afeard you're done for — and I'm sorry 
 for it. You go on wus and wus. I knew 
 though that you had nothin' to do with that 
 
256 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 unlucky devil's death. I see'd Soda do it ; 
 but I couldn't tell what I saw, for they 
 didn't ask me, and I should only have got 
 cobbed over the nut for being officious. It's 
 a sad pity. You are oncomtnon unfortnit.' 
 
 ' This last business has made another man 
 of me/ I replied dreamily. 'You'll think it 
 queer, but I went into that dark cell a raging 
 tiger, and I've come out — well, that's neither 
 here nor there. I am altogether altered, as 
 you'll perceive.' 
 
 Spevins regarded me with long attention, 
 and said, by-and-by : 
 
 ' If this should be so, it's real rum. I do 
 seem to see a change somehow. Stick to it, 
 old pal; and if you do — hooroar ! I'll giv' 
 a toast. We ain't got no cham 'ancly — these 
 hotels are so blooming ill-pro wided. Here's 
 a toast, mates, all the same, '' May the 
 governor of Dartmoor have to advertise for 
 lodgers !" ' 
 
 And with mock oTavitv, he went through 
 a pretence of filling a glass, of lovingly 
 regarding the sparkling beads, of draining it 
 to the dregs with a loud smack ; after which 
 piece of elegant pantomime, he went cheer- 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 257 
 
 fnllv to work a^ain, and hammered at the 
 rock as though the glass of champagne had 
 given him new courage. 
 
 I related what I had heard Scarraweg say, 
 and he listened with puckered brow and 
 deferential interest, as he always did to any 
 remarks of mine, and when I had done, 
 nodded approval. 
 
 This was first rate — nothing could be 
 better. He had always thought my case 
 quite different from others. If I only had 
 strength of mind to stick to my resolve, all 
 would come right as ninepence. He and 
 Jaggs would be out before me probably ; 
 they would get things in order, hoping for 
 the best, and remain rather on the quiet — not 
 to say the square — watching for my release. 
 Meanwhile it would be well to employ such 
 time as we could get together in discussing 
 pros and cons, and striving to foresee diffi- 
 culties, so that if any such should show 
 themselves whilst I was still in durance, he 
 and Jaggs and others would endeavour to set 
 them straight. 
 
 As my good conduct continued, and my 
 demeanour grew more coldly calm — with a 
 
 vol. 11. 38 
 
258 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 calmness more of apparent content than 
 sullenness — Spevins' respect for me increased 
 to the pitch of awe. It was so ludicrous 
 that it often made me smile. Here was the 
 triumph of mind over matter indeed ! 
 
 Professional details I had to learn from 
 him, then sift and twist them into their newly 
 intended shape — while he nodded his admira- 
 tion with flashing teeth, and even slapped 
 his thigh sometimes in the ecstacy of his 
 enjoyment. 
 
 ' If we had coves like you to marshal us,' 
 he often affirmed, ' the pleece would be 
 nowhere. We'll be the arms and you'll be 
 the 'ed, old cock, and we'll snap our fingers 
 at the lot. The only reason they nab us 
 now, is that our brains hev got down into 
 our calves and bicepses. You can't expect 
 us to have calves and brains as well.' 
 
 Which sad result of an imperfect anatomy 
 was so depressing to his feelings, that his lips 
 closed tightly over his teeth, and he became 
 for a moment exceedingly melancholy. Thus 
 was I his pupil and he mine. His influence was, 
 in its way, as great over me as mine was over 
 him. Fate had driven us together from two 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 259 
 
 widely distant rungs of the social ladder. It 
 behoved me to accept with cheerfulness the 
 decrees of fate. I liked Spevins much for 
 his animal spirits, and odd theories, and quaint 
 ways of speech ; and was thankful for my 
 superior education, in that it established 
 a corresponding interest in his bosom for 
 me to that which I felt for him. Yes ! the 
 die was cast. I was to be the head, while he 
 and such as- he were to be the arms. To- 
 gether we would lash the withers of society 
 — it would not be my fault if the jade 
 were galled that had brought me to this 
 pass. 
 
 The mind of the chief warder was re- 
 lieved. Old Scarraweg, convinced at last 
 that in my case a miracle had really been 
 accomplished, was full of praise and congra- 
 tulation. It was satisfactory to see a 'bad 
 un ' turn over a new leaf. The quality of his 
 work worried Scarraweg much sometimes. 
 He had even been known to grumble 
 anathemas at an ungrateful country who 
 could find no better berth for her worn-out 
 soldiers and sailors than the keeping of a 
 kennel of curs. At such moments he would 
 
 38—2 
 
26o A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 come and survey nry tranquil visage over his 
 silver spectacles, and tramp away again com- 
 forted. Once the kind old man asked if I 
 was not tired of the quarry ; whether 1 would 
 not like to be transferred into the shops ? 
 
 Convicts are for ever wanting to be in 
 some other place than that in which they 
 find themselves — are constantly imploring 
 the governor to move them to some other 
 party than that with which they happen to 
 be placed. But I shook my head. 
 
 ' No, sir, thank you,' I answered. ' I'm 
 very well where I am. The open air suits 
 me ; the ozone-laden breeze is in itself an 
 enjoyment ; and our enjoyments are not so 
 many that we can afford to let one slip.' 
 
 4 Would I not like to learn a trade — say, 
 carpentering. I would become a skilled 
 workman in time — be set to make ornamental 
 book-cases for the Admiralty, or some such 
 thing, which would be amusing to one like 
 me, who had been an artist.' 
 
 No — with many thanks for the kindness of 
 the suggestion. A trade ! was I not learn- 
 ing a trade — a trade which required skill, 
 forethought, artistic management ? Were 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 261 
 
 not Spevins and Jaggs my twin-masters ; I 
 their obedient, zealous apprentice ? and did 
 I not return to them in condensed and im- 
 proved form the ideas with which they 
 furnished me ? 
 
 Two years passed over us — still my record 
 remained clean — still we marched forth and 
 back again, and forth and back again — human 
 automata, moving in obedience to a spring. 
 Two years more ! my two companions 
 reckoned. Two years for them ; how many 
 more for me? Alas! my "case didn't look 
 promising, and I sometimes wondered 
 whether I was being deceived. Had I 
 turned over a new leaf and become an angel 
 of light for nothing \ Hoodwinked ! snared 
 into propriety ! The notion filled me with 
 unseemly anger, which it behoved me to keep 
 down. I should discover in time whether I 
 was being tricked. If I were — well, it would 
 be time to think of what I'd do when I knew 
 for certain that I had been fooled. 
 
 The little martinet was not so enchanted 
 by my display of the clean new leaf as his 
 chief warder was. Though kind-hearted at 
 
262 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 bottom — a delightful companion, I believe, 
 when outside the prison-walls — he was 
 opiniated, and prided himself upon special 
 things, to which he clung tenaciously. Now, 
 one thing he prided himself most upon was 
 an intimate knowledge of the ways of con- 
 victs. 
 
 ' They're crooked cattle, sir — very crooked 
 cattle,' he was always repeating, ' but I can 
 foretell each turn. Reform 'em, sir ? Oh, 
 pooh ! you can't reform 'em. Its only the 
 outsiders, who know nothing about 'em, that 
 gabble such rubbish. They're not to be re- 
 formed — not worth reforming. All we can 
 hope to do, is to keep 'em quiet and with- 
 draw 'em from their haunts for a while ; for 
 which I'm sure you owe us a debt of grati- 
 tude ! We're like the Italian flea-powder 
 that sends the insects to sleep for the night. 
 The abominable creatures are there in 
 swarms — you can't clear the bed of 'em — 
 quite impossible, excuse the unsavoury 
 simile, but you keep 'em quiet ; keep 'em 
 quiet, sir, and they don't bite, and you've 
 good cause for gratitude. Now, sir, the 
 fellow that threw this chisel at me — 'pon 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 263 
 
 my word and honour, an awful scoundrel ! — 
 upon my sacred word he tried to take my 
 life, at least a dozen times ; would you 
 believe it, sir V And so on and so forth, 
 a long story which tended to convince his 
 hearer of the little man's acumen, and the 
 frightful danger in which he stood from on- 
 slaughts by awful scoundrels. 
 
 As it happened he had made up his mind 
 on my arrival that I was an awful scoundrel, 
 one of the incorrigibles who, impelled by 
 Satanic influence, would drift into b7 
 Party, and fling chisels at the sacred head, 
 and die some day in the infirmary blas- 
 pheming. He made up his mind as to this, 
 and, but for an unforeseen circumstance, it 
 might have ended so. But when Scarraweg 
 pointed out, week after week, how well I 
 was behaving, and begged that I might have 
 marks restored, and even be promoted to the 
 first-class, it was too much for his equa- 
 nimity. He was annoyed that he should so 
 egregiously have misread me, and growled 
 out to his trusty second : 
 
 ' You're an old idiot, Scarraweg, an old 
 idiot, sir ! That man's shamming — he's a 
 
264 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 moral malingerer, sir ! Mark my words and 
 see, I ought to know, I suppose ? You're 
 an old woman — a silly old woman to be 
 taken in !' 
 
 Facts, however, are facts, and a penal 
 record, unmarred by reports, speaks for it- 
 self. So reluctantly he was compelled gra- 
 dually to restore my marks and place me in 
 the first class. My blue collar gave me 
 certain privileges, about which, for them- 
 selves, I cared not at all ; were not all my 
 energies concentrated on one object, on one 
 goal, which receded as I gazed on it ? I 
 saw with apprehension that the governor 
 disliked me, that the sight of my blue collar 
 was offensive to him, whilst he was never 
 tired of admiring the vagaries of the repen- 
 tant Tilgoe, who was a red collar man now 
 as well as nurse. It was very hard that I, 
 too, might not turn penitent. The governor 
 was personally aggrieved at my good be- 
 haviour, altogether declined to look on me 
 in the light of a male Magdalen, it was clear 
 that he would never be induced to take up 
 my case, or allow anybody elso to do so. I 
 had no friends without to whom I could 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 265 
 
 apply. Scarraweg, of course, could do no- 
 thing while his chief was in this mood. Was 
 I then doomed after all to die an old wreck 
 in that infirmary ? Oh ! if I could only 
 know if this adverse wind was to blow for 
 ever, that I might shape my sails according 
 to its blast ! If I could only pierce into the 
 future for a second ! More than once I very 
 nearly broke down, in despair of tangible 
 encouragement. I panted now for liberty as 
 before I had prayed for death or lunacy. 
 
 But an unexpected series of circumstances 
 occurred which changed all this, and made 
 me thank the hovering demons, who encour- 
 aged their neophite, in that I had not suc- 
 cumbed. The Governor of Chatham died of 
 apoplexy. The Governor of Dartmoor ac- 
 cepted his place with gladness as it was 
 promotion. Eight or nine years of Dartmoor 
 are more than enough for the most patient 
 governors ! He bustled off to his new post ; 
 and then another came — quite a young gen- 
 tleman — quiet in manner, upright and 
 soldierly in bearing, who started a new 
 regime by which I was the immediate gainer. 
 At this time too a Royal Commission was 
 
266 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 appointed to go into the question of penal 
 servitude, things having leaked out which 
 seemed to do little credit to ' the System/ 
 and which it behoved a Government that 
 dreaded the arrows of Opposition, to see set 
 right forthwith. 
 
 As we have seen, when a Director came 
 down, there was always a fine flourish and a 
 luncheon, a craning out of windows, a general 
 bustle and swaggering ; a donning of swords 
 and best uniforms. What was the commo- 
 tion then in our tiny hive, when ' My lords ' 
 arrived, real live lords, commissioned by H.M., 
 bent on looking into grievances, on cross- 
 examining convicts, on putting officials on 
 their P's and Q's ? Princetown woke up 
 and became bewilderingly hilarious. Car- 
 riages were constantly making the journey 
 to Tavistock. Carts came rumbling and 
 bumping over the ruts, laden with good 
 things for the table of ' my lords.' Every- 
 body was delighted. There were only two 
 cross people in the colony, One was Scarra- 
 weg ; the other was the general pur- 
 veyor, who occupied the only shop, and 
 who was naturally indignant because ' my 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 267 
 
 lords ' presumed to despise his wares. 
 Though they slighted him, they did not 
 neglect the convict's food. They gravely 
 poked the bread with their forefingers, 
 solemnly tasted the skilly, and nodding all 
 round proclaimed it excellent ; sipped the 
 admirable broth and sighed over the honest 
 labourer who was out of work; vowed that the 
 kitchen, at least, w T as perfect, and did every 
 credit to 'the System.' 
 
 They made pretty speeches to old Scarra- 
 weg about ' Hearts of Oak,' and the ' old 
 Temeraire, but he only grunted and looked 
 grim. He didn't approve of these doings. 
 
 ' A nice thing !' he said, ' these gentlefolk 
 coming worrying down here without any ex- 
 perience on the subject, asking questions of 
 all these scamps as if they were honest men, 
 putting new notions into their heads, which 
 are full already of ideas subversive of disci- 
 pline. The service is disagreeable enough as 
 it is to those who live in it. It's a fine 
 thing for these noblemen to spend five 
 minutes here and then upset all our ways.' 
 
 And it was not surprising that the old 
 chief warder should be annoyed. One noble 
 
268 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 lord insisted upon being locked up with 
 Soda for half an hour, in order that un- 
 influenced by the presence of a prison- official 
 he might divulge, as if in the confessional, his 
 reason for trying to escape ; and, it appears, 
 that his inventive faculties were fully equal 
 to the occasion, for my lord emerged from 
 the interview with a scared face, murmuring 
 that if what that prisoner said was true, the 
 System was in a very bad way indeed. The 
 Hev. AureliusTilgoe was likewise interviewed, 
 but very little could be gleaned from him. 
 He bleated, with a beatific countenance, that 
 he had nothing to express but heartfelt 
 thankfulness. He had sinned, grievously 
 sinned, but had remembered those comforting 
 words which declare that though sins' may be 
 scarlet, they shall be as white as wool. He 
 was happy to be able to lay his hand upon his 
 breast and say that his heart was dazzlingiy 
 white. He had passed through the valley of 
 shame and desolation and had come out into 
 the golden plain. In fact he led ' my lords ' 
 to believe, that, not only was he unfit for a 
 prison, but too good even for long sojourn on 
 the earth; and finished by thanking his inter- 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 269 
 
 locutors for kind inquiries, and declaring that 
 he could have nothing to say against a sys- 
 tem, which had wrought so remarkable a 
 conversion as his own, or against officials, 
 whose humane and judicious treatment had 
 been the saving of his soul. 
 
 This was all very delightful. ' My lords ' 
 w T ere charmed, and complimented the chap- 
 lain upon his ministry. That gentleman 
 gave a modest bow, and said something about 
 doing his duty, though it was hard, and 
 added a suggestion under his breath about 
 promotion to a London prison. There was a 
 grand shaking of hands and scraping of feet ; 
 a general hope that nobody had given any- 
 body else too much trouble ; a taking off of 
 hats and flourishing of wrist-bands ; and then 
 the cortege drove away, pleased with every- 
 thing and everybody, to make an elaborate 
 report ; the smart swords and uniforms re- 
 turned to their cases ; Dartmoor went to 
 sleep again ; and the mill-wheel revolved 
 slowly as of yore. 
 
 Not quite as of yore though, for the new 
 governor introduced several changes on his 
 own account, pending the more radical alter- 
 
270 A CHANGE TN THE REGIME. 
 
 ations which, might be suggested by ' my 
 lords/ He moved the celebrated museum — 
 joy of his predecessor's heart — into limbo ; for 
 he argued that the sight of the hideous array 
 of implements with which the life of the 
 ruler had been threatened from time to time 
 by crafty ruffians, might suggest to others to 
 go and do likewise. He inaugurated too a 
 more friendly regime than the last, which at 
 first led the cunning old lags to suppose they 
 had to do with a soft } un, until they found 
 that a preliminary escapade or so was met 
 with summary severity. He never roared at 
 the prisoners, as the dapper martinet had 
 been wont to do, and even condescended to 
 argue with the men when he considered their 
 complaints unfounded or their requests ridi- 
 culous. He made a practice of casually 
 visiting a prisoner now and then, giving him 
 a word of advice, instilling into him a little 
 humanizing drop, and this most malignant 
 practice caused the chaplain to groan in 
 spirit and to strain every nerve to procure 
 for himself a change — for was it not too bad 
 that a governor should set so shocking an 
 example of doing more than the regulations 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 271 
 
 inculcate % Is is not a well-known rule — 
 time-honoured, hoary — that government 
 officials should never do more than they are 
 obliged ? Had not the chaplain sat every 
 day in his office from ten to four (paring his 
 nails for want of better occupation) and was 
 it his fault, he would like to know, if the 
 stiff-necked convicts had not thought fit to 
 send for him % Did he not tell them twice 
 every Sunday how wicked they were — what 
 more could they require ? The Governor by 
 visiting a prisoner in his cell was doing 
 Scripture-reader's work, which was in offen- 
 sively bad taste. In the old days Dartmoor 
 was bad enough, but now it was becoming 
 quite abominable. 
 
 The new governor, among other eccentric 
 things, took to studying the penal records in 
 private, in order to obtain some insight into 
 the characters of his gaol-birds, and in the 
 course of this study was struck by the aspect 
 of mine, as seeming to reveal a tempest- 
 tossed nature which had found rest. How 
 had it found rest — and why % He walked 
 into my cell one evening while I was reading 
 a book, and I — by instinct learnt long since 
 
272 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 — jumped up at once and stood at attention, 
 with toes in the third position, at the ex- 
 treme end of my cabin. 
 
 ' Sit down,' he said, mildly, ' as you were. 
 Have you got the books you like ? You 
 have only to ask to get them changed, you 
 know.' 
 
 I looked at him, it was the first time I 
 had seen our new task-master to speak to. 
 A handsome young fellow, with a determined 
 look about the brows, tempered by a dimple 
 in each cheek. He stood chatting with me 
 for a long time, more as man to man than as 
 master to slave ; and when he went away I 
 fell into reverie, from which I was not 
 aroused till the gong sounded \ for f beds 
 down.' 
 
 'If a man like that/ I thought, ' had 
 taken me in hand at first, my career in prison 
 might have been a very different one.' 
 
 Yet why should it ? No kindness or con- 
 sideration from those set over me could alter 
 the wrong under which I smarted. All 
 along I had clearly felt that it is oafish 
 stupidity on the part of convicts to nourish 
 a hatred for their jailors. They have bread 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 273 
 
 to earn, and they earn it by no pleasant 
 means. No ! That I should be treated 
 kindly or unkindly mattered not. The ven- 
 geance which I sought to wreak was against 
 the Wodd, who, in carelessness and indif- 
 ference, makes sweeping laws without taking 
 the trouble to observe how they affect par- 
 ticular persons. It was admitted at the start 
 that my case stood out from the line ; but 
 no notice was taken of it because my conduct 
 was not good. What made my conduct bad ? 
 But of what use was it to return to that 
 worn old question % This young governor 
 with new-fangled notions of his own set me 
 a-thinking. His suave, pleasant ways would 
 not do with men like Jag^s or Soda. I felt 
 sure of that ; for they were not capable — 
 being utterly selfish themselves — of under- 
 standing why one placed in authority should 
 put himself out of the way on their account. 
 First they would say he was soft, and try to 
 take advantage of his softness. Having 
 found out their mistake, they would say he 
 was capricious, and hate him for it. No ! 
 Different kinds of prisoners require entirely 
 different treatment. Where is the model 
 vol. 11. 39 
 
274 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 governor to be found who will unite in his 
 own person all the contradictory attributes ? 
 Nowhere ! All the more reason then for 
 classing special assortments of gaol-birds under 
 different kinds of taskmasters. How would 
 the Reverend Aurelius get on with him ? 
 Would he see through the crafty, treacherous 
 villain as Scarraweg had done, or would he 
 be hoodwinked like the major ? If he were 
 seen through, then would the last period of 
 his sojourn not be pleasant; for up to this 
 time Scarraweg had merely held his hand in 
 obedience to the will of his superior. If 
 both agreed to act in concert, the berth of 
 the male Magdalen would cease to be even as 
 bearable as heretofore. But his time was 
 nearly up ; he would in the natural course of 
 things be out directly ; and what then ? 
 What had happened to the precious Book ? 
 Was it ready for press % had it appeared ? 
 No ! not yet, or we should have heard of it 
 from new arrivals, who always brought us a 
 whiff of what was happening outside. Since 
 Mr. Tilgoe's promotion to the hospital I had 
 seen little of him, and was glad of that ; for, 
 though I could like Spevins and be recon- 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 275 
 
 ciled to Jaggs, my soul revolted still against 
 the midnight bravo, the assassin of the slums, 
 the stabber in the back ! I laughed when I 
 thought of the venom which must have ac- 
 cumulated since his abortive attempt to pro- 
 cure release. Had he added more chapters 
 to the Book — invented more fables ? Then 
 his attitude of angelic resignation before 'my 
 lords !' He was a wonderful fellow, was the 
 Reverend Aurelius. He would soon go out 
 — how soon come back to us % Then I fell 
 a-dreaming about my own prospects. The 
 hopelessness of my position had vanished like 
 mirage. The autocrat who hated me was gone, 
 the new autocrat already showed an interest. 
 How well for me that I had not tossed up 
 the sponge ! It was plain, that, encouraged 
 as I was, my efforts must be redoubled. 
 Not a rule, however trivial or vexatious, 
 must be broken ; not a shadow of complaint 
 must be permitted to arise. The perfect 
 Ebenezer must challenge comparison with 
 the cherubic Tilgoe. This humane governor 
 must be smitten with sorrow for the troubles 
 of the angelic Anderson ; he must be induced 
 by patience under adversity to take up the 
 
 39—2 
 
276 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 case with warmth ; to direct public attention 
 to the incarcerated martyr. Surely this was 
 no difficult task. It required only patience. 
 In this harsh school did I not learn patience 
 long ago ? 
 
 Jaggs and Spevins, when they saw how the 
 wind was blowing, were enchanted. 
 
 'Old cove,' Spevins cried, clapping me with 
 glee upon the back, ' you'll be out in a pig's 
 whisper, take my word for it. It's a pity 
 my lords didn't speak to you while they was 
 here ; but they only asked questions of the 
 complainers, who are always the worst lot, 
 and you were no longer in that bunch. But 
 it's all right. Just you see if it isn't !' 
 
 And it was. The governor sent for me 
 again and again, old Scarraweg put in his 
 oar, the chaplain was consulted, who replied 
 peevishly that he could not be expected to 
 know anything about a man who had never 
 sent for him. The Scripture-reader might 
 have known, but he was dead — which was 
 most provoking. Why would he go tramping 
 through the snowon some fool's errand, instead 
 of sitting by the fire like a sane creature 1 I 
 was asked to explain how the change had been 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 277 
 
 wrought in me. But the Tilgoe livery sat 
 badly on my shoulders. My pride forbade my 
 stating that I was a child of grace, so I an- 
 swered simply that I could not tell. At first I 
 had given way to despair, I said, but in course 
 of time I had perceived that resignation was 
 the most appropriate virtue for those who were 
 marked with the broad arrow, that raging would 
 do me no good, while decent bearing might 
 improve my chances for a less cruel world than 
 ours. All this appeared eminently sensible. 
 Scarraweg nodded and grunted ; the governor 
 passed his fingers through the waves of his 
 fair hair, and said it was most remarkable — 
 that next time he went up to town he would 
 see what could be done for me — that possibly 
 the doctor might be got to report about me — 
 that meanwhile I was not to give way to 
 extravagant expectations, but to continue to 
 behave well, and hope for the best. 
 
 A weight seemed taken off my back ; a 
 fierce exultation sent a tremor along my 
 nerves ; the lighthouse lamp burned clear and 
 steady, quite within sight, with lurid ray. A 
 little patience ! a little, little patience ! and 
 the chains of my purgatoiy would be broken. 
 
273 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 The report of my lords appeared in due 
 course, in the form of portentous blue-books, 
 which nobody read. Yet there am I not 
 quite correct. Each governor read his own 
 deposition, and thinking it very clever, 
 caused all his friends to read it likewise. It 
 was quite a curious thing that the blue-book 
 which lav on the writing-table of each 
 governor opened naturally at quite a different 
 place. It was also curious that all other 
 depositions, except the specially clever 
 deposition, were ' heavy stuff — amazing 
 twaddle — not worth the printing, egad !' 
 
 My lords declared that on the whole the 
 system worked well. No one but fools and 
 busybodies would suppose that it was perfect, 
 considering that nothing here below is per- 
 fect. The skilly was wholesome ; the meat 
 of the best ; the broth and cocoa unexception- 
 able ; the work not unduly hard. The treat- 
 ment of convicts was better than that 
 accorded by destiny to ordinary day-labourers. 
 That was enough. Morbid meddlers were 
 prone to picturesque desires. It would not 
 be fitting, my lords declared, that those who 
 were supposed to be undergoing punishment 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 279 
 
 should be petted and made too comfortable. 
 There was one change, one important change, 
 which occurred to them as likely to be 
 requisite some day. The 'prisoners talked too 
 much to each other. They were tossed pell- 
 mell upon a dung-heap, without an attempt 
 at sorting. In dust-bins we find cinders, 
 rotting cabbage-stalks, foul offal, reeking 
 filth ; in the midst of all sometimes a silver 
 teaspoon. 
 
 My lords were not of opinion that much 
 small plate was to be found in the convict 
 dust-bins ; but at any rate it seemed only 
 fair that inoffensive cinders should be 
 separated, as much as might be, from de- 
 cayed cabbage-stalks. In a word, they were 
 strongly of opinion that some day or other a 
 great classification must be made, whereby 
 the black goats would be prevented from 
 holding intercourse with mere blemished ewes. 
 
 Such a classification, however, would neces- 
 sitate grievous labour. The sal volatile 
 required by overworked Home Office clerks 
 for headache due to exhaustion, would be an 
 expensive item in the budget. A general 
 election loomed in the distance. Cheese- 
 
28o A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 paring constituents would point with wither- 
 ing indignation at the item i sal volatile/ 
 demanding instant satisfaction — weariful ex- 
 planations — from an extravagant and besotted 
 government. That sal volatile item might be 
 the cause of no end of harm. 
 
 But then, on the other hand, there were 
 officious demagogues (the world is but a 
 botched-up affair at the best) and inquisitive 
 philanthropists — much the most tiresome to 
 deal with of the two classes — who bothered 
 high-placed officials out of their seven senses, 
 and persisted in wanting to know the truth 
 as to certain rumours. 
 
 Dreadful people these, who declined being 
 tied up in red tape leading-strings — who 
 flouted with vulgar contumely the high- 
 placed officials who, in the dim religious 
 light of the official sanctum, muttered that 
 inquiry was * out of order/ that everything 
 was all right, that i really, really, people must 
 take things for granted up to a certain point, 
 and abstain from teasing those who did their 
 best — abstain likewise from expecting mil- 
 lennium to come on us all at once. Please — 
 please, don't do things out of order !' whispered 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 281 
 
 the high-placed officials, as with deprecating 
 hand-shakes they bowed out the inquisitive 
 philanthropists ; then comforted their harassed 
 souls with just the least taste of sherry ; 
 muttering the while : ' How trying idle 
 people are who have no business of their 
 own ! Have not my lords reported that on 
 the whole things jog along pretty well ? 
 What more may we expect ? In view of a 
 general election, of course we must make 
 a stir ; rub up a grievance or two, in order 
 to remedy it — much as gamins make a 
 Guy for the express purpose of burning 
 it/ 
 
 1 Well, my lords report that some day some- 
 thing must be done. Very well, we'll do it some 
 day. We'll have another Royal Commission 
 some day, whenever it shall be deemed 
 advisable. Meanwhile we'll make a com- 
 promise — nothing like a compromise ; it's 
 plausible and satisfactory, and will not entail 
 that frightful expense in sal volatile which 
 might rouse the dormant lion.' 
 
 So when the inquisitive philanthropist 
 hung about the antechambers of the great, 
 wanting to know what was to be done about 
 
282 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 the prison-question, he was implored with 
 seductive wheedlings ' to do nothing out of 
 order — to be prudent as well as philanthropic ; 
 was begged to observe that if people only 
 would do things in order the wheels of state- 
 craft would run twice as smoothly, and ever 
 so much more business be got through. And 
 the said philanthropist eventually went away 
 with ' order ' on the brain, and dreamed fitful, 
 uneasy dreams at night about the father of 
 the Great Frederick, who was so great a lover 
 of order that he kidnapped sons and husbands, 
 and made homes desolate, that his grenadiers 
 should all be of a height to half an inch. 
 
 Things were done in order. When asked 
 in Parliament whether it was not a bad plan 
 to throw prisoners of all classes and shades 
 of misdemeanour into constant communi- 
 cation, ministers rose and agreed it was so ; 
 then declared that the question was a difficult 
 one, such as would require care and thought, 
 and that in course of time it would receive 
 both. When asked whether penal discipline 
 did not fall with deplorable inequality upon 
 certain phases of mind and degrees of culture 
 — whether treatment which might soberly 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 283 
 
 correct one class of person, was not likely to 
 crush another and more sensitive one out of 
 existence ? they shrugged their shoulders, 
 and admitted that such a thing was possible. 
 6 But then, really — really/ they suggested, 
 1 we must beware of hair-splitting. The 
 cultured persons ought not to offend ; if they 
 so far forget themselves as to fall into sin, it's 
 their own fault if they end in hell/ 
 
 The philanthropist, taking some exception 
 to this theory, was forthwith smothered by 
 an exhibition of the amount of work before 
 the House. Business was business. Con- 
 victs were convicts, and as such were not 
 worth all this bother. The treatment of 
 convicts as a body was unexceptionable. 
 Something would be done some day to 
 reorganise the distribution of prisoners in 
 classes ; meanwhile a compromise would be 
 effected, which must tide matters over for 
 the present. 
 
 And so it was settled. Sunday walks in 
 association were to be done away with by 
 degrees. Prisoners were to take their exer- 
 cise in silence, and in single file — a yard 
 between each two men. Silence at labour 
 
284 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 was to be more strictly enforced than here- 
 tofore. It remained to be proved how the 
 compromise would work. Upon men like 
 Jaggs and Spevins it came like a thunder- 
 clap. Spevins especially groaned for sym- 
 pathy through the chink in the partition 
 between oar cells. The dulness and mono- 
 tony of prison life already weighed him 
 down. If he was not to speak any more, 
 how was he to occupy his mind % He could 
 read no better than when he came, though 
 he attended school regularly one hour a 
 week. As he himself (though not precisely 
 in these words) bitterly observed, ' Either 
 teach me to write and read, or don't. If 
 you think that, in the stage which we have 
 reached, education would be a curse instead 
 of a boon, well and good. Leave us in our 
 ignorance ; but do not hold out a cup to us, 
 and when we try to drink whisk it from our 
 lips. If we are to be taught to improve our 
 minds, teach us ; if not, away with the pre- 
 tence !' 
 
 There can be no doubt that on minds 
 like his the silent system falls as hard 
 as indiscriminate contact with the lowest 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 285 
 
 ruffians did on mine. His mind was active, 
 ingenious, full of resource as are the minds 
 of the London arabs ; but deprived of com- 
 munion, and thrown upon vacancy by in- 
 ability to read, he moped and lost his 
 appetite, and at last fell so sick that I began to 
 wonder whether the grand project ever would 
 be realised after all ; or whether, by one 
 of those side-winds which baffle all human 
 calculation, my bark would yet be wrecked — 
 frail shallop that contained all my treasure. 
 
 Spevins fell ill, and — a favourite with 
 everyone — was sent, with little inquiry, into 
 hospital, where he lingered in poor health for 
 a long time. As far as myself went, I laughed 
 at the new regulation. In my case the harm 
 was done beyond repair. The canker of bad 
 example had done its work — had wound its 
 way into the recesses of a being unhinged. 
 What did it matter now whether I took my 
 walks alone or in companionship ? Spevins, 
 Jaggs, and I were sworn allies ; we stood on 
 the same platform, hand in hand. Our goal 
 was the same ; the ambitions of our lives 
 were of the same colour, more or less deep 
 in shade. We all three panted to be out ; 
 
286 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 we all three burned to set that scheme afoot 
 whose success would gratify all of us 
 equally from our several points of view. 
 It was annoying, rather, not to be able to 
 discuss its details on Sundays undisturbed. 
 We should have to talk more during labour 
 hours, for, try as they would, they could 
 never stop our talking at labour. It would 
 be a restrained, spasmodic, fragmentary con- 
 versation. We should have carefully to 
 remember at what precise stage in a discus- 
 sion we had last broken off. In this much 
 the compromise was a mercy. So long as 
 prisoners are not divided into classes, to pre- 
 vent their communing one with another is 
 out of the question. How much harm is 
 done by fragmentary conversation is a sepa 
 rate matter altogether. Jaggs and I, there- 
 fore, in the absence of Spevins, turned 
 over our prospects in our talk, and hoped, 
 and planned, and built castles in the air. 
 What did the governor's consoling words 
 portend % I was not to weave a fabric of 
 exaggerated hope. Yet, if hope had not 
 been strong, he would never have been so 
 cruel as to deal in such hints. Spite of the 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 287 
 
 mastery I had obtained over myself, I grew 
 querulous and fretful. Scarraweg remarked 
 it ; and affirmed that years of outdoor navvy 
 labour were telling upon me — that a willing 
 horse must not be overdriven — announced 
 his intention of speaking to the governor, in 
 order that I might finally be removed from 
 the quarry. 
 
 Vainly I protested that I did not care — 
 that I was indifferent — contented with my 
 lot. One morning, on parade, when I had 
 dropped into my usual place, and was mechani- 
 cally holding up my arms to be searched, I 
 was bidden to fall out, for the governor had 
 something to say to me. Jaggs looked 
 slily round, and whispered, with still lips : 
 
 1 All right, old cock — good luck ! I knew 
 it would come some day ;' and then wheeled 
 off for labour with his contingent, and I 
 remained in the yard alone. 
 
 The different parties tramped off on their 
 various avocations. I could hear the stone- 
 masons and the sawyers — the breeze carried 
 away the chaunt I knew so well : 
 
 6 26 Party, sir; fifteen men all correct. 
 27 Party, sir ; nine, all correct. 28 Party, 
 sir ; twelve, all correct.' 
 
288 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 I stood for a moment alone, and felt some- 
 how that I was on the threshold of a change 
 — that I had almost done with the mammoth 
 machine which drank up the sweat of our brows 
 and lapped our life-blood, and swallowed our 
 sinews one by one. I felt that now, or soon, 
 I should cease to be marched about — to be 
 harried round and round — to be . moved 
 hither and thither by word of command. 
 How or why it was to be, or how it was to 
 happen, I could not tell ; bnt that it was to 
 be I knew : and, contradictory creatures that 
 we are, I looked after my party with a kind 
 of yearning, in that I was no longer to trudge 
 in the familiar ranks. 
 
 The chief warder shook his keys and 
 beckoned me. By the central archway which 
 gives admittance under a lofty tower to the 
 governor's private office, I beheld a figure 
 standing which I knew. A sleek, gentle- 
 manly figure clad in demure grey cloth with 
 a billycock hat upon its head. Wonder of 
 wonders ! It was the Reverend Aurelius 
 Tilgoe ' in his hair /' It was more than three 
 months since I had seen him, so I did not 
 know that he was growing his hair previous 
 to receiving his ticket. 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 289 
 
 'Good-bye/ he whispered, 'and God be 
 with you. I'm out at last ! Just look at 
 these infernal togs. A pretty get-up, this, 
 for a clergyman of the Church of England ! 
 I'll mention it in the Book. If I say the 
 cloth's bad, the public won't have means of 
 knowing to the contrary, will they ? Can I 
 do anything for you outside ? Petition the 
 Secretary of State or anything of that kind, 
 or write to the papers ? If I can, command 
 me, for when the Book's out they'll be in 
 such a fluster that they'll do anything for 
 fear I should turn on the tap again. Oh, 
 you infernal, damned, cursed place !' he went 
 on, grinding his teeth at the familiar tower, 
 side-workshops, iron entrance gates ; and the 
 expression on his smooth engaging coun- 
 tenance became so diabolical that I was re- 
 lieved when Scarraweg rattled his keys again 
 to hurry me. 
 
 1 There's the worst man in the establish- 
 ment going out, thank goodness !' the chief- 
 warder remarked with satisfaction. ' He's 
 bound to get in a mess again. Please Davy 
 Jones that next time he'll go elsewhere. 
 The blue mud-pits of Chatham now, or a 
 
 vol. 11. 40 
 
290 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 good windy corner on a frosty morning on top 
 of Portland cliff. But go in there — the 
 guv'nor's summat to say to you, Anderson, 
 and I'm glad — there — with all my heart, I'm 
 glad — more glad than I've been this many a 
 day.' 
 
 Actually the old fellow had water in his 
 eyes, which by twisting round his nose with 
 superhuman contortions, as though he took 
 it for the minute-hand of a clock that was 
 behind time, he was endeavouring to prevent 
 from falling. I felt a singing in my ears 
 and a dizziness of head, as I stumbled into 
 the presence-chamber where the fair-haired 
 young governor was writing. When he 
 looked up he was smiling with that broad, 
 beaming smile of his. 
 
 { Let me congratulate you, and myself, 
 and the doctor here/ he said, holding out his 
 hand. ' Her Majesty's Secretary of State 
 has been gracious enough to take your pecu- 
 liar case under his consideration, in conse- 
 quence of certain representations of ours. 
 He endorses my opinion as to its singularity, 
 and in recognition of your admirable be- 
 haviour recently, under specially trying cir- 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 291 
 
 cumstances, has determined to allow you to 
 earn double marks, and otherwise to mitigate 
 the severity of your sentence. By his deci- 
 sion you will, if you continue to behave well, 
 be set free on ticket- of-leave at the con- 
 clusion of twelve years, instead of having 
 your case merely considered at the end of 
 twenty. Let me see, you have been in now 
 seven years. Therefore you may find your- 
 self a free man again, received once more 
 to all intents and purposes into the bosom of 
 society, in five years from now. Let us hope 
 that the lesson you have learnt in the way of 
 controlling your passions may endure through 
 life.' 
 
 My head swam round, and I clung to the 
 table. The doctor, seeing how white I grew, 
 handed me a glass of water. At last ! The 
 chain was to be riven, a palpable term 
 was to be put to my misery. Five years ! a 
 mere nothing. Yes, oh yes ! I had learned 
 to control my passions. I had them under 
 lock and key. Despite my Spanish blood, I 
 had learned to be as cold and calculating 
 as one of purely English birth. The 
 paroxysm was momentary. I recovered 
 
 40—2 
 
292 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 myself so quickly that my benefactor looked 
 a little disappointed. 
 
 ' Scarraweg tells me/ he continued, ' that 
 he advises your removal from the quarry. 
 Let me see — a year of separates at Penton- 
 ville, six years at outdoor labour. Certainly, 
 you shall be removed. Tilgoe leaves to-day, 
 I am just making out his railway-ticket war- 
 rant. You shall have his place in the in- 
 firmary — an anxious post sometimes, when 
 men are really ill ; but genuine illnesses are 
 rare. No words. Come, be off, and thank 
 me by constant good behaviour.' 
 
 Returned to my cell, the demons danced in 
 and out, and up and down ; pousetting up 
 and down, and round and round ; shrieking 
 out, ' Well done !' ( Search !' they had yelled 
 in weird chorus, and I had found. ' Have 
 you patience V they had asked. ' I have/ I 
 had affirmed. The noviciate was drawing to 
 its close — the date w r as fixed. Five short 
 years hence I was to be free — free to do their 
 bidding — to earn the diploma which was to 
 be a passport to their ranks. Free ! I could 
 scarce believe it, or even realise the word. 
 Free ! I, who was buried a century ago ! 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 293 
 
 The grave was to give up its dead ! What a 
 resurrection ! How plastic were events be- 
 coming under the influence of the demons ! 
 Could anything be more convenient \ As head- 
 nurse of the infirmary I should resume the 
 right of speech. I should find Spevins there. 
 If he were convalescent he must manage to 
 have a relapse. It was no longer to be vague 
 castle-building as to what we might do some 
 day. He would be out in four years, I in 
 five. I could not believe it now — the propo- 
 sition was so novel, although we had dis- 
 cussed it often. During that first year, after 
 coming out, he would have to keep dark — 
 work at a trade — mislead the police as to the 
 continuance of his burglarious proclivities, 
 and set the train. Then Jaggs would go 
 out ; then my turn would come. As I con- 
 sidered this I was haunted by a misgiving — 
 only for an instant, though. By reviewing 
 and reversing my sentence, had not those in 
 authority atoned for the first wrong ? Had 
 I still a right to make of myself a firebrand 
 — a scourge ? Of course I had ! Was not 
 my nature altered by what I had undergone ? 
 — the milk of my humanity curdled — changed 
 
294 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 to vinegar % A pretty thing to reverse the 
 sentence when the harm was done ! First, 
 they locked me among devils and made a 
 devil of me ; then were prepared to turn 
 me out with an admonition to sin no more. 
 Sin no more, forsooth ! I owed the world 
 my hatred — complete and entire. There 
 could be no opinion as to the justice of that. 
 The results born of undying hate it should re- 
 ceive at my hands, without remorse or pity. 
 
 When he came in from labour Jaggs was 
 all agog to know what was the news. I told 
 him through the partition, and my good luck 
 seemed to take away his spirits. 
 
 ' Going into the farm as croker's head 
 man !' he observed, after a long period of 
 softly modulated whistling. ' The very berth 
 for me ; but there's no justice in these hotels. 
 Howsomever, there's no good in weeping over 
 that. Spevins is tucked up there jolly. 
 You're goin' too. Do you think I'm going 
 to be left behind % Not if I know it. Before 
 a month's out I'll be there too.' 
 
 ' And he was as good as his word. I had 
 not been a month installed in my new place 
 before I received orders from the doctor to 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 295 
 
 prepare a bed in a comfortable position near 
 the stove/ 
 
 ' Was it a bad case ¥ I ventured to inquire. 
 
 ' Rather, in that it was a disease which 
 seldom showed itself at Dartmoor. A case 
 of ophthalmia, which might turn to total 
 blindness or not, according to treatment. It 
 was brought on possibly through poverty of 
 blood and disintegration of the colouring 
 particles. It was a curious matter for diag- 
 nosis. The variety of forms that illness took, 
 all of which were owing to the same cause, 
 was marvellous — poverty of blood !' 
 
 1 How did the doctor know that it was 
 poverty of blood ?' I asked. 
 
 He liked to air his knowledge, as all people 
 do who do not know much. Moreover, he 
 was a new-comer, and had a good deal of 
 local experience to learn. 
 
 6 Because there were other symptoms in 
 the same patient which led him to that belief. 
 For example, symptoms about the region of 
 the eye that were distinctly ophthalmic ; 
 symptoms about the groin of incipient ulcer, 
 undeveloped as yet, but certainly ulcer. 
 The two phenomena together in the same 
 
296 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 patient pointed at once to poverty of blood. 
 iNothing could be plainer or more positive.' 
 
 This interesting patient was Jaggs, who 
 was led in between two warders, old Scarra- 
 weg bringing up the rear in doubt. There 
 had been a truce this long time past between 
 the chief-warder and his pseudo-nephew. 
 When I reformed, so also in a way did he. 
 The same joke becomes wearisome if carried 
 on for years. Jaggs was too volatile a person 
 to hunt a joke to death, so he ceased calling 
 the old man uncle, and the old man ceased 
 his persecutions. But he had no idea of 
 being hoodwinked. Experience had taught 
 him that Jaggs would be a persistent ma- 
 lingerer if he could — that the pains he would 
 have in his back and about the heart would 
 be wondrous and phenomenal if not sternly 
 nipped in the bud. But this was something 
 so entirely different, and the effects, too, were 
 visible, and the young doctor was so sure of its 
 being a real case, that Scarraweg, suspicious all 
 the while, was compelled to hold his tongue. 
 
 First Jaggs began to complain of darkness 
 in his cell. The candles were so shockingly 
 bad he could not see to read by them. Then 
 
A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 297 
 
 he bumped against railings, stumbled against 
 steps, as if dim-sighted. By-and-by he fell 
 out to see the croker, who noticed inflam- 
 mation on the inner eyelid, and recommended 
 lotions. 
 
 The governor's attention being drawn to 
 the patient, he suggested that stone-dust 
 from the quarry might have got into his 
 eyes ; yet that could scarcely be, since no 
 one else had the same symptoms. Later, the 
 astute scamp was reported for not keeping 
 his tins clean. 
 
 1 Upon my word and honour, sir/ he had 
 declared, ' they are as clean as I can make 
 'em; I seem to see 'em through a mist-like.' 
 
 Again the doctor saw the sufferer : violent 
 inflammation now, ophthalmic symptoms, 
 etc., etc., sparseness of blood-particles, and so 
 forth. 
 
 What was the chief- warder to do ? He 
 was pretty certain in his own mind that 
 Jaggs was over sincere—that he was becoming 
 too ingenuous and artless. If he were really 
 ill, who so likely to cry out as he ? Yet 
 there were the symptoms, no one could deny 
 that. All that he could do was to wait and 
 
293 A CHANGE IN THE REGIME. 
 
 watch, and if he could catch the scapegrace, 
 woe be to the gay deceiver ! 
 
 But he was completely baffled. Jaggs was, 
 as the late governor put it, of the lean kine. 
 The more nourishment he took the weaker 
 did he grow. In spite of succulent diet, this 
 extraordinary blood of his seemed daily to 
 grow thinner. 
 
 ' Tell us how you do it, old pal,' I asked 
 him, when he and I and Spevins were alone 
 in the infirmary. 
 
 He looked up from under the green shade 
 and rags which covered his reddened eyes, 
 and with a grin slowly stealing over the ex- 
 panse of his long hollow jaws, whispered : 
 
 ' Simple enough. Lime rubbed inside the 
 eyelids does the trick. Ulcers % Oh, bless 
 your simplicity ! This strip of copper wire 
 run under the skin and left there. You call 
 it verdigris. I call it ulcers ; and in my in- 
 stance the two come to much the same thino; 
 in the end ! 
 
 END OF PART I. 
 
PAET II. 
 
 THE GUARDIAN SPEAKS. 
 
CHAPTEK I. 
 
 THE CHIEF WARDER S FIRST GROWL. 
 
 ELL, ladies and gents, here's luck 
 to us all. I'm not much of a hand 
 at this sort of thing, being but an 
 old sea-dog, who's not more bright than 
 most, but as honest as the day, thank the 
 Lord, for all that. I can keep my books 
 and suchlike shipshape enough, so as to 
 satisfy them as are set in authority over me, 
 which ain't easy ; and more than that I don't 
 w^ant or care about, do I ? But when I was 
 in the Crimea and the Chaney seas I never 
 thought as I'd ever come to live with the 
 scum of the earth, locked up together day 
 and night — they as cunning and as wicked as 
 you please, and me jumping up in the night 
 as nimble as a pea on a shovel at the least 
 
302 THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 
 
 noise, in case the rapscallions should be up 
 to mischief. I never thought I'd come to 
 this, that's sartain, when I was in the navy 
 of our Gracious Queen, God bless her ; for it 
 was in her service, I'm proud to say, that I 
 won my spurs, if I may say so without fear 
 of being taken for a horse marine. But we 
 drift into strange ports — my word ! 
 
 You'll be wondering now what an old 
 fellow like me, who knows more of a bowline- 
 bridle than of a pen, has got with addressing 
 you in print. If so be as you were to come 
 to our prison with an order from the 
 Secretary of State it'd be different, because, 
 you see, you'd have come there of your own 
 accord — I hope you'll never come there ex- 
 cept of your own accord — and would be glad 
 enough, I warrant, for a change, to listen to 
 a yarn or two from the old chap whose 
 medal was pinned on his breast by the own 
 hands of her Gracious Majesty — but there, 
 that's got nothing to do with this business, 
 has it % Avast there ! I look like gom 
 overboard. I've got a job to do, so I must 
 do it ; and here goes — head on to the 
 breakers ! 
 
THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 303 
 
 The manuscript you've just been reading 
 came into my hands, no matter how — you'll 
 find that out at the end. I see things in it 
 as are true, and I see things in it as wear 
 false colours, and I [see things in it as make 
 me sadder than usual, and my life's not all 
 hornpipes, I can tell you, since I came into 
 this service ; and so, instead of clapping on a 
 shilling stamp and sending it off to the 
 printer's by the post, I edge my word in just 
 to trim the boat, as it were, and prevent 
 your sailing away with a wrong impression 
 of what goes on in prisons through the 
 chatter of Jaggs and Spevins, and the 
 wickedness of another as shall be name- 
 less. 
 
 I took a queer liking for Ebenezer Ander- 
 son — that's Y 122 — you know, soon after he 
 joined. He was so different from the rest, 
 and bore what he had to bear with a sort of 
 sullen fortitude that I couldn't but respect, 
 like the chap called Timon in the play. It's 
 true he was always getting into scrapes, poor 
 devil ! but there, there ! nobody knows what 
 it is to be a convict till they try ; and I can 
 speak with some authority, because to my 
 
3 04 THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 
 
 mind there's uncommon little difference be- 
 tween being a convict or a warder, except 
 that the convict has had his larks before he 
 came into prison and the warder hasn't. Our 
 late guv'nor used to say as we was all of one 
 stock ; and, upon my word, the lives we lead 
 are very much alike. Anderson had a hot 
 temper of his own. He says I have too, 
 but don't you believe him when he says that. 
 Manv a time have I seen him go white and 
 then red when spoken gruffly to, and the 
 veins stand out on his forehead. My wonder 
 is that he never broke out and struck some- 
 body. That w T ould have gained him a 
 flogging, and then there would have been an 
 end of him ; for sensitive chaps like he is don't 
 undergo the cat and live. There's where the 
 difficulty lies, you see. By our system we're 
 bound to treat all alike ; and yet some are so 
 different from others that what'll cure one 
 will kill t'other. But I'm steering all askew 
 again like a landlubber. 
 
 Ebenezer has told you how he became a 
 good boy and gained the best berth in the 
 ship, with a prospect of being paid off by-and- 
 by. He went on first-rate till the end of his 
 
THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 305 
 
 term. During his last year he became a 
 privileged man, wore the blue dress with red 
 collar and cuffs, and went about where he 
 liked — within the circle of civil guards. And 
 our governor was very much interested in 
 him — a splendid fellow our new governor — 
 and everything went on like steam till the 
 time worked round at last, and we packed 
 him off from Horrab ridge with a railway 
 warrant to Millbank to have his final photo 
 taken and for discharge, ' lifer ' though he 
 was. He was such a useful man that we 
 missed him a good deal at first ; but then 
 there are always a lot of gentlemen lags — 
 clerks and parsons and such like — who are 
 sharp-witted and know that it's their interest 
 to behave themselves, and who therefore win 
 the best places and all privileges ; and I'm 
 sorry to tell you — quite on the quiet — that in 
 too many cases the best-behaved men are the 
 worst at bottom. At this moment we've got 
 nine red-collar men, and a greater lot of 
 scoundrels, plausible, lying wretches — con- 
 victs ought to take out a patent for lying — 
 you never were unlucky enough to see. But 
 we can't help that. Though we know them 
 vol. 11. 4L 
 
3o6 THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 
 
 to be capable of any blackguardism, we can't 
 prevent their gaining privileges. They win 
 all the marks, and they know the rules as well 
 as we do ; and if we don't give 'em what 
 they've earned there's a rare hullaballo, I 
 can tell you. But as I was saying, Ander- 
 son went out ; and before he went out I asked 
 him to write to me and say if I could do 
 anything to keep him straight. A friend's a 
 friend all the world over, even though he's 
 only a prison warder, and many a chap's 
 kept square by knowing that if he goes off the 
 line somebody '11 grieve over it. So I presented 
 him with my address and name on a bit of 
 paper just as a reminder, and gave him a 
 hearty shake of the hand as I wished him 
 God speed. You should have seen the face of 
 that Soda as he watched him going out, It 
 made me laugh in spite of myself, it was so 
 blank. I daresay he was thinking that it 
 might have been better for himself if he had 
 behaved himself; but if he did think so he 
 soon changed his mind, for he ran amuck 
 that day and went on anyhow. A cowardly 
 villain who could be brave if he had an ad- 
 miring audience — that was the sort of scamp 
 
THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 307 
 
 he was, and a dangerous sort too, who work 
 a deal of mischief. We had to send him back 
 into 57 Party ; and one morning he bit a fel- 
 low-prisoner's thumb very badly, and so we 
 had to put him to second probation during 
 the remainder of his time, that is, solitary 
 confinement, just like the first nine months ; 
 and that takes the shine out of them, I 
 assure you. It's no fun breaking rules and 
 bearding the governor when you've got 
 nobody to say brayvo. 
 
 We didn't keep him at Princetown — Lord 
 bless you, no ! We sent him back to Pen- 
 tonville ; and a pretty bother it was, he was 
 so desperately wild. He did serious injury 
 to two warders on the road, which made me 
 remind the guv'nor of my advice at starting. 
 A wretch like him, I said, ought to be tied 
 up in a sack like a wild cat — aye, and 
 drowned too, for the good of the world in 
 general. 
 
 Let me see. Who else was there of 
 Ebenezer's pals ? Spevins went out all right, 
 and so did Jaggs ; but I expect my nevvy 
 back shortly, the insolent rascal ! Jaggs was 
 always a cunning card, and clever too, and 
 
 41—2 
 
J 
 
 08 THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 
 
 most owdaciously impudent. If Spevins 
 manages to keep him well in tow, it's pos- 
 sible he may remain at large. But I doubt 
 it. With all his cunning he's a feather- 
 pated chap ; and he was near being too 
 cunning, by-the-bye, at last. All that lime 
 on the eyelids did affect his sight after a 
 while. Whether he'll get over it or not, I 
 can't tell. Like all the rest of 'em, he was 
 prepared to do anything almost rather than 
 work — though some were worse than he was. 
 And when they take that line in earnest, they 
 beat you by sheer obstinacy, just as donkeys 
 do. There's Bidwell now, the American 
 forger. He was as right as you or I when 
 he came in, but from the first he refused to 
 do anything. He wouldn't even walk, and 
 had to be carried about like a babby. At 
 this blessed minute he is sitting up in bed 
 at Princetown with his knees up to his chin, 
 and oh ! such a villanous scowl ! And there 
 he'll stop to the end of the chapter. Our 
 sawbones says as he's really lost the use of 
 his limbs by this time, from want of use. 
 But he don't care, bless you ! He's lost all 
 chance of remission long asro, and he's beat 
 
THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 309 
 
 his keepers. That small triumph is enough 
 for him. I've known men — under short 
 sentences, too ! — make themselves hopeless 
 cripples for the rest of their lives rather 
 than obey orders. One man, only t'other 
 day, ran a needle into each eye and blinded 
 himself for ever, and he only in for seven 
 years. 
 
 What are you to do with men like him % 
 Are they to be pitied and petted \ Can 
 you treat 'em as human beings % Philan- 
 thropical gents come and see us sometimes, 
 and talk a power of nonsense ; and tell us 
 that it's despair does it. 'Tain't nothing of 
 the kind. The Avell-educated felons never 
 dream of doing such a thing, though they 
 may be 'lifers/ or, at least, long-sentence 
 men. Sometimes they commit suicide, but 
 that's another matter. The men that blind 
 and mutilate themselves are, one and all, 
 men of a low type — who never look to a 
 future — think only of the actual moment 
 which they are passing through, and which 
 they feel to be unpleasant and galling. 
 There are heaps of men like that ; it's a 
 form of madness, if you please. How are 
 
310 THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 
 
 you going to reform men of that stamp ? 
 It's rubbish. All you can do is to lock them 
 up and prevent them, at least, from hurting 
 any but themselves. Experience has taught 
 me that more than half the convicts are 
 really mad after a fashion ; and so, being be- 
 yond their own control, are beyond the reach 
 of reformatory influence. 
 
 I think Ebenezer suggested somewhere, 
 that everybody has a tile off. Well, con- 
 victs have lost several, while you and I have 
 only lost one. We're all more prone to evil 
 than good, and some of these chaps have a 
 perfect genius for wickedness. All geniuses 
 are said to be a trifle mad, ain't they % If 
 they weren't a trifle mad, they would not 
 possess the wild enthusiasm which, as I read 
 once in a book, is called ' sacred fire.' My 
 word, some of our fellows have fire, but I'm 
 not so sure about its being sacred ; and while 
 we're about it, here's another theory of mine. 
 When a man comes in, I always examine 
 his head, on the first opportunity, to see if 
 there's a scar on it. If there is, I say to 
 myself — you've tumbled down, my hearty, 
 or had a knock sometime that has muddled 
 
THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 311 
 
 your brain. You'll never do any good. 
 You're a gaol-bird for life ; and I make a 
 note of him for a friend of mind in Scotland 
 Yard, because I know he'll have something 
 to do with him some day, and private notes 
 of the kind come in handy. Take my word for 
 it, there's one type of felon who would never 
 have gone crooked if his brain had not been 
 muddled by a blow. He begins badly, and 
 reasons crooked, and is fretted by trifles, and 
 degenerates little by little till his name and 
 address, and the marks upon his person, 
 become part and parcel of the ' black re- 
 gister.' You can't reform him any more 
 than you can turn a cow into an antelope ; 
 and yet there are philanthropic gents, who'd 
 make me laugh if they didn't rile me, who 
 come and preach to men of this stamp ; and 
 pay out yards of platitude, enough to make 
 you poorly. Oh, those philanthropic gents, 
 who are prepared to teach everybody how they 
 should behave ! We can't, of course, prevent 
 their worriting, but their existence is amongst 
 the heaviest of our many trials. 
 
 They are always poking their noses in 
 and finding fault, and knowing our business 
 
312 THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 
 
 so much better than we do ourselves. Isn't 
 that queer, now ? No one who hasn't learnt 
 the art would go to a hospital and insist on 
 cutting off a leg ; yet they're all dying to 
 manage a country, or the police force, or else 
 the prisons ; while they know no more about 
 it than my old retriever Jack — him as that 
 swab Jaggs tormented. But we mustn't be 
 cross. We must live and let live. Many 
 idle people live by philanthropy, just as 
 others do by organ -grinding. Its easy work, 
 and riling to others, which is a satisfaction 
 in itself; and if you only grind long enough 
 they'll pay you anything to get rid of you. 
 Oh, the members of the philanthropical 
 societies as have worritted me ! But it's 
 the London prisons that suffer most in that 
 line. At Princetown we're too far for 'em. 
 But when they do come, I always look pleasant 
 and show 'em round, and don't listen to their 
 gabble. With the secretaries, now, it's quite 
 a different thing. It's a regular profes- 
 sion, they've bread to earn for wife and 
 brats. If they don't worm out a grievance, 
 and kick up a dust so many times a year, 
 their committee's clown on 'em for want of 
 
THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 313 
 
 zeal ; so when a philanthropical secretary 
 comes bothering, and talking nonsense, and 
 making idiotic objections, I say to myself — 
 Scarraweg, old man, think of the brats and 
 wife, and bear with the idiot, and don't be 
 in a tantrum. It's their bread and butter 
 he's got to earn, and more often than enough 
 he's too muddlepated an old fool to earn it 
 any other way. Anyhow, it's more honest 
 than thieving. Let him wear his sham 
 1 Love for the Human Race/ and flaunt it 
 like a yellow bandanna wipe, and welcome. 
 I'd rather see him occupied over this, 
 paltry job as it is, than working in our 
 gangs. 
 
 Bless my dear eyes ! when I begin to 
 think of the ways of convicts — of their 
 deliberate manner of running sideways — of 
 the difficulty of judging of what's true and 
 what's not — of the myriad cases where they 
 take us in, be we ever so experienced — I 
 could go on yarning all night. There is so 
 much variety ; their cunning is so prodigious ; 
 and yet the philanthropic secretaries, who 
 look in for a cursory survey, insist they're 
 as simple as ABC. Are they % It's all 
 
314 THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 
 
 of a piece with the religious servant-maid in 
 the Edgware Road, who stops you of a Sun- 
 day to ask after your soul. It's a form of 
 human vanity — a vulgar contemptible form, 
 which should bring upon the contemptible 
 person retribution in the shape of kicks. 
 But then, as I consider of this, I remember 
 that some of our own chaplains have gravely 
 announced in their reports, that ' a proper 
 combination of punishment with moral train- 
 ing, will reclaim any but the utterly de- 
 praved/ Oh, indeed ! Not to put too fine 
 a point on it, that's bunkum. There are 
 chaplains and chaplains. Some are men 
 who really try to tread in the footprints of 
 their Master; others have the frankness to 
 admit that they don t desire to do anything 
 of the sort. Some do their duty ; some are 
 given to wind. But then, again, one bit of 
 duty which can't be escaped, is the making 
 of annual reports. It's needful to write 
 something, and, as nobody reads it, it doesn't 
 matter what it is ; and so with them, as 
 with the philanthropic secretaries, we must 
 be indulgent. 
 
 The utterly depraved, forsooth ! The 
 
THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 315 
 
 types of British felon that I could tell you 
 of are legion. There's one lot which, through 
 drink and neglect of such minds as they were 
 given, have reduced themselves to semi- 
 imbecility. All they have left is a perverted 
 kind of instinct, not so readable as that of 
 the beast ; and this instinct of theirs tells 
 them to be comfortable if they can. How 
 will you reform this lot, any more than those 
 who can't comprehend a future % It's hard 
 they should be condemned to suffer, but it 
 would be more hard if they were allowed to 
 feed upon the innocent. Then there are the 
 dodgy-ones — like Jaggs — who'd ruin the 
 temper of a Gabriel, let alone poor warders, 
 who, the philanthropists say, ought to be 
 archangels, but ain't. 
 
 After Jaggs left us, a weak, puny, pur- 
 poseless creatur in the farm (that's the in- 
 firmary) took to playing the same pranks as 
 his. He scratched the lime from the wall 
 and rubbed it in his eye ; but it was pain- 
 ful, and he hadn't resolution to go on. So 
 one night, as I went my rounds, he pulled 
 me by the coat-tail, while the rest were 
 asleep, and whined out : 
 
316 THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 
 
 ' The Lord has been pleased to partially 
 restore my sight. Do you know, I think 
 you could complete the cure by putting me 
 to light labour in the kitchen.' 
 
 What do ye think of a transparent scamp 
 like that % Don't dodges such as these 
 crumble in a honest man's mouth like six 
 year old sea - biscuits \ It makes me 
 poorly to think over some of 'em. And 
 then, when the philanthropical secretaries 
 come smirking in, it's as much as I can do to 
 prevent my tongue from saying what I think. 
 Tantrums '11 get me into bilin' water some 
 day, and if so be as they do, wiry I can't 
 help it. 
 
 Then you have the sneaking men of the 
 costermonger class, who are more comfortable 
 than they ever hoped to be, and who make 
 it their amusement — a ligdit and congenial 
 relaxation — to bother the officers in charge, 
 and, as it were, stick pins in them. Many a 
 smart young warder has been brought to ruin 
 by one of these. Mischief 's the only thing 
 they'll never shirk. They're always laying 
 traps for the smart young warder, hoping to 
 catch him tripping and get him under their 
 
THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 317 
 
 thumb. The case that Ebenezer tells of the 
 letters and papers going out is strictly true, 
 and a common enough case in all prisons. 
 The young chap's proud of his smart uniform, 
 and full of contempt for the leering ape with 
 the cropped pate ; but he doesn't remember 
 that that monkey's wits, which were rendered 
 acute in childhood by the emptiness of his 
 stomach, are sharpened still more now by 
 malice and having nothing else but mischief 
 for those wits to work on. 
 
 Then you have the out-and-outers with no 
 intellect at all — not even the sane instinct 
 that points to comfort — who mumble up and 
 down their cells, and make faces at the wall, 
 and grin and shake a fist at their tin-platters. 
 I've stood sometimes staring at these animals 
 through the peephole — they not knowing 
 they were watched — till they made my blood 
 run cold. Their only idea seems to be a 
 craving to do harm, regardless of the evil 
 which may accrue to themselves. Set 'em 
 to work, and they'll smash their implements. 
 They'll tear their clothes and blankets if you 
 don't look out, and fling their pans about 
 merely to annoy their neighbours. They've 
 
3 i8 THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 
 
 as little idea of self-interest as of punishment ; 
 and yet, as they can talk sensibly when the 
 fit seizes them, they can't be certified for 
 lunatics. 
 
 Then — and this is the melancholy lot — you 
 have the gentlemen lags, who've really been 
 led astray, or really may possibly be suffer- 
 ing for some one else's crime — mere catspaws 
 whose sin was that as pipkins they were too 
 fragile to swim with iron pots. These 
 desolate and dreary men used to bring 
 moisture into my eyes sometimes till I got 
 used to 'em. I was a long time learning that 
 I must not have feelings ; but I have learnt 
 it now, or hope at least I have. For us the 
 blessed stars are clouded over — we're scudding 
 in the dark under stormsails for the harbour ; 
 and when we heave to behind the breakwater, 
 I for one shall not be sorry. 
 
 And now that the clouds have dropped 
 clown on me a bit, I think with foreboding 
 of yet another class, some of whose penal 
 sheets are lying in yonder cupboard — penal 
 sheets which will be overhauled at Judgment 
 Day, to the detriment, unless I'm much mis- 
 taken, of others than those whose names they 
 
THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL, 319 
 
 bear. I never can look upon those penal 
 sheets without a shudder — for if ever there 
 was a wrong inflicted by one set of erring 
 mortals on another,! that wrong is inflicted 
 day after day upon such men as these. It 
 ain't our fault — that' is, the fault of the con- 
 vict system and its servants. We have men 
 sent to us, and we have to treat 'em as the 
 law directs that felons should be treated. 
 It's the fault of those who send 'em to us, 
 and, as a Christian man, I hope that their 
 sin in so doing may be treated with more 
 mercy and indulgence than they themselves 
 have shown, anyway. I would not have the 
 wrong they do upon my conscience — not for 
 all the worldly Avealth of all the Indies I 
 Oh dear ! oh dear ! much as I abhor the sight 
 of those penal records, I'll pull out a batch 
 of 'em, and let 'em tell their pitiful story. 
 
 Here's Will Fern — a soldier of marines, 
 who was tried by general court-martial for 
 insubordination, and sentenced to five years' 
 penal servitude. A fine, handsome, open- 
 faced young I fellow he is — what was his 
 crime ? He used threatening language to 
 an officer, and for that is made a felon. And 
 
320 THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 
 
 a real felon, mark you, in the end. The fact 
 of his being sentenced turned him out of the 
 army. Here is his vellum discharge pinned 
 to the penal sheet. By-and-by he will go 
 out on license — a convict on ticket- of leave. 
 Will anybody of whom he demands work 
 ask what his antecedents were, or what his 
 sin ? — of course not. A gaol-bird — that's 
 enough. He has been taken by the scruff 
 of the neck and wilfully plunged, by persons 
 who call themselves officers and gentlemen, 
 into a whirlpool of dirt, out of which, being 
 friendless, he can never possibly struggle any 
 more. His crime was a purely military 
 crime, which, out of military circles, is the 
 most commonplace of offences — one which as 
 a civilian would have possibly brought on 
 him a fine of five shillings. If the military 
 choose to hold up certain breaches of dis 
 cipline as crimes, they should see that those 
 who commit such breaches are shut up in a 
 separate military prison where they will meet 
 only such delinquents as themselves, and 
 from which the men will emerge soldiers 
 still, with characters not utterly blasted — 
 unstained by the mark of the broad arrow. 
 
THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 321 
 
 But no ! they are sent to us to be mixed pell- 
 mell with the murderers and pickpockets and 
 ravishers and committers of every filthy 
 offence on earth — to be educated in the new 
 school, and turned out at last no better than 
 their companions. I've spoken of this once 
 or twice to gents, and they wouldn't believe 
 that in Christian modern England of the 
 nineteenth century such wholesale murder 
 was every day being openly committed. For 
 it is wholesale murder — not of the body but 
 of the soul ; and, as I said afore, I wouldn't 
 have such crimes upon my conscience for — 
 well, never mind. And the behaviour of 
 many of the poor wretches cries out to God 
 against the mustachioed, pomatomed gentle- 
 men who sent them where they are — gentle- 
 men who, possibly, are astonished and amazed 
 when I show 'em what they're doing. Some 
 of , the poor fellows go quite wrong, as may 
 be expected ; some, and not a few, actually 
 succeed in resisting temptation, in spite of 
 the hopelessness of their case from the 
 moment they come inside our walls. My 
 old heart bleeds when I look at 'em, and I 
 groan when I think of 'em ; and my gorge 
 vol. 11. 42 
 
322 THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 
 
 revolts against the gay young officers who 
 sit on the court-martials and doom their 
 fellow- men to perdition for nothing at all — 
 it does, upon my honour, old salt though I 
 be, who outfit to know summat of what dis- 
 cipline is. But they don't know what they're 
 doing. For the Lord's sake let us give 'em 
 the benefit of the doubt, and in the same 
 holy name beg and implore those who should 
 look to these things, and whose disgrace and 
 shame it is that such things should be, to see 
 that the foul wronor is done no more. There 
 are lots of 'em just like Fern, poor fellow ! 
 who are out now. What's become of them 
 I know not, and think it wisest not to 
 inquire ; but here are some more who are 
 not out — one or two only selected from a list 
 of hundreds — who are all languishing while 
 I write and while you read ; men innocent of 
 civil crime, } r et herded with the scum in civil 
 prisons ; men in whom hope dies daily — who 
 are in some sort justified in going to the 
 bad by reason of the cruel injustice of their 
 fate! 
 
 I won't weary you, but I'll turn over 
 another record or two and see what they 
 
THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 323 
 
 say. There's Robson (these are all feigned 
 names, but real cases, and I have the real 
 names in my own ledger dotted down). Then 
 there's Davis, who always bore an excellent 
 character, which is endorsed by his conduct 
 since he went to Wormwood Scrubbs. Ab- 
 solutely a clean sheet — not a single complaint 
 of any kind ! Under influence of a glass too 
 much he was guilty of insubordination and 
 attempted violence — only attempted ; and for 
 that he has been sentenced to penal servitude 
 for no less than seven years ! What do the 
 kind angels who are up in heaven think of 
 that ? Then there's Wall of the 80th Regi- 
 ment, who for desertion and re-enlisting has 
 got five years. His report sheet again is 
 clean. Then there's McFadden — insubordi- 
 nation and violence when under drink. He 
 belonged to the Buffs. His prison conduct, 
 too, is absolutely beyond reproach. But 
 there ! the horrible wickedness and injustice 
 of such a condition of things makes me quite 
 sick with indignation. ' Father, forgive 
 them, for they know not what they do !' 
 In a pious and humble spirit, I re-echo those 
 sacred words, and pray whilst so doing that 
 
 42—2 
 
324 THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 
 
 I may live to see this crying wrong abolishe d. 
 I'm only thankful to heaven that neither I 
 nor anyone concerned in our system are in 
 any way responsible. But let us return to 
 summat less lugubrious — the genuine gaol- 
 bird and his funny little ways. 
 
 Now, talking of crime and criminals in 
 classes, I'll tell ye a queer thing which is 
 true. If you were to take the towns of 
 England in the order of the percentage of 
 criminals they turn out, which would you 
 put first, the big towns or the little ones ? 
 You'd put London first, I'll bet a dollar ; 
 then Manchester, or Liverpool, or Birming- 
 ham. Of course it stands to reason that the 
 largest masses of humanity should produce 
 the largest numbers of habitual criminals. 
 Think of the dens in the Dials and the Cut, 
 and Short's Gardens too ! You'd make the 
 bet, wouldn't you ? Well, then, just send me 
 that dollar in stamps, by the post ; for you've 
 taken the bet, and lost. There's an average 
 of fifteen or sixteen thousand habitual crimi- 
 nals in England and Wales, and fourteen 
 hundred receivers of stolen goods. The 
 towns which turn out the largest numbers of 
 
THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 325 
 
 incorrigible gaol-birds are (in their order of 
 iniquity): Stafford, Worcester, Taunton, Lan- 
 caster, Hereford. The wickedest town 
 (Stafford) can boast of only 16,000 inhabi- 
 tants; the criminal rate per 1,000 is 1*881. 
 The most virtuous town is Oldham, whose 
 criminal rate is only '3 per 1,000, its popula- 
 tion averaging 113,000. London, despite its 
 huge size and its awful slums, stands amaz- 
 ingly low, considering. Its population, about 
 three or four years back, was reckoned at 
 three and a half millions, while its criminal 
 rate per 1,000 was only '461. These are 
 curious statistics, which were worked out by 
 Captain Harvey, the present governor of 
 Millbank. Another queer thing that he took 
 the trouble to work out, w T as the average of 
 crime in single or married persons, with this 
 result : 
 
 Per cent, of married males 32* 8 
 
 Percent, of single males 67' 2 
 
 Per cent, of married females 59*12 
 
 Per cent, of unmarried females ... 40 "8S 
 
 Hence you see that what's called the 
 ' blissful state ' seems to have a good effect 
 on men and a bad effect on women, which is 
 
326 THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 
 
 rum ; and that sets me a-thinking further of 
 the influence which one sex may be supposed 
 to have on t'other. The married women 
 (innocent creeters, as long as they're single) 
 are corrupted by their husbands, which is 
 only a fair tit-for-tat for the way Eve be- 
 haved once on a time ; while no less than 
 half the bachelors pull themselves together 
 and become good boys when they assume 
 the dignity of paterfamilias. Now I'm a 
 bachelor myself, and always was, for the 
 wives of sailors do come to awful grief; and 
 yet somehow I don't regret it, crabbed old 
 devil that I am ; and that's rum too, isn't 
 it? 
 
 Ah ! You've thought all along, I dare- 
 say, that I was a cross old curmudgeon ; one 
 of them who, like the convicts, are allays 
 howling for what they can't get, and are 
 never satisfied. But it's not so. I'm humbly 
 grateful to God for His goodness to me 
 through all my life, and in my increasing age. 
 I'm thankful for a roof over my head, and a 
 cosy fire — even such a roof as this. I've got 
 a stocking put by somewheres, I won't deny, 
 so could go and live anywhere ; but what we 
 
THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 327 
 
 old fellows want is, not to die alone. I've no 
 family, and no kith nor kin ; and, though old, 
 I'm energetic. What brings many of us to 
 this is a desire for employment quite as much 
 as money ; and employment at our age, with 
 our capacities, is no easy matter to find. 
 Old sailors and old soldiers make the best 
 warders, because they're accustomed to strict 
 discipline ; and old sailors and old soldiers in 
 want of employment can't afford to be 
 squeamish. Their battered hulks are no 
 longer seaworthy, so they must submit to be 
 anchored in the mud, and put to what use 
 they can. But on my sacred word, I'd no 
 more allow my sister's son — not even my 
 third cousin's, ever so many times removed 
 
 — to become a prison warder, than 
 
 Well, there, I can't find anything strong 
 enough. 
 
 If anything goes wrong, it's the warder's 
 fault. He's too lenient, or too severe, accord- 
 ing to the view of the person who abuses 
 him. He must have eyes all over his back, 
 as well as in front ; be always on the watch, 
 always sweet-tempered, never ill or captious, 
 and never sleepy. He must be vigilant to 
 
328 THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL, 
 
 detect disobedience ; always truthful, never 
 exaggerate ; be always on the look-out lest 
 he should be stabbed or thrown down a cliff, 
 or pitched over a stair-rail. He must be up 
 at five, and get no rest till nine at night ; 
 rarely take a holiday ; be the butt and victim 
 of ingenious prisoners ; the scapegoat of 
 officers above him. And all this for eighty 
 pounds a year, out of which he's constantly 
 being fined sixpences for being a minute 
 behind time. It's a life of awful wearing, 
 tearing, responsibility, and no adequate return. 
 If he's caught the worse for drink, his certifi- 
 cates are cancelled and he's ruined. If he's 
 found talking to a prisoner, it's taken for 
 granted that he's conspiring with him ; his 
 certificates are cancelled, and he's ruined. 
 He's always got ruin staring him in the face, 
 and, whatever happens, no one's sorry for his 
 fate. My wonder is that decent men, who 
 respect themselves, submit to such a state of 
 things, and that respectable persons can be 
 found to undertake the job. But there the 
 difficulty of finding honest work at all steps 
 in. That warders, as a rule, are respectable 
 men, anyone who knows anything about them 
 
THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 329 
 
 can see with half an eye. As to bullying by 
 warders, a search through a bunch of penal 
 records will prove that there's little of that. 
 Dozens of them (belonging in many cases to 
 murderers and violent- tempered men), are 
 free for years of any reports at all. Some- 
 times a man will get reported, all of a sudden, 
 half a dozen times in a month. The governor 
 sees directly that there's a screw loose some- 
 where, and moves that man into another 
 warder's charge, when the reports will be 
 pretty sure to cease. Men, being human, 
 will take dislikes ; but it's seldom, and the 
 governors are on the watch. 
 
 If you want archangels, you must pay for 
 'em, and I believe they're expensive to keep. 
 I doubt whether Michael or Jtlaphael, or 
 Gabriel, would think it quite worth while to 
 leave his berth aloft to live on the wilds of 
 Dartmoor upon eighty pounds a year and 
 fines. The governors, for their own credit's 
 sake, would stop all bullying and quarrelling 
 at once, for they w T ant to keep their prison 
 quiet. But even if the governor did not 
 keep his eyes open (which is a ridiculous 
 assumption, for governors are carefully se- 
 
33o THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 
 
 lected), the prisoner would have heaps of 
 ways of getting himself righted. 
 
 He can get at the deputy-governor at any 
 time, or, if he's afraid of a warder's vengeance 
 for complaining, he can get closeted with the 
 chaplain (who always goes when sent for), or 
 the doctor, and get his complaint put pri- 
 vately ; or if a governor were even to have a 
 spite against him and pay no attention, he 
 can always memorialise, by petition, the 
 Secretary of f State ; and no governor or 
 official would dare to tamper with such a 
 paper, for one of the board of directors 
 comes round now and again (who is quite 
 irrespective of the governor), and besides, 
 the prisoner would be sure to make an outcry 
 when he gained his freedom. 
 
 But avast there ! I'm losing my reckoning 
 again, for I never could abear to hear geese 
 gabbling about what they don't understand. 
 Independent of his own honour and integrity, 
 it's the governor's interest to let prisoners air 
 their grievances. If men know that they 
 can appeal, if they like, to a higher court, it 
 makes 'em more content, and hence less diffi- 
 cult to manage. It's like the safety-valve in 
 
THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 33 1 
 
 the engine. We may not use it, but we know 
 it's there and that we shan't blow up, and it 
 makes us easy in our minds. 
 
 And that brings me to summat with 
 regard to complaints that does make me 
 poorly. It's that summat that drove me to 
 quilldriving, and it must be summat despe- 
 rately serious to make me do that, let me tell 
 you. I daresay I don't make myself as clear 
 as I'd like. I'd steer a vessel, with her gun- 
 wales down to the edge, across the wide 
 Atlantic, better nor I can steer this blessed 
 pen over this blessed page. But if I don't 
 sort my ideas as compact as I'd stow my 
 traps in my sea-chest, it ain't my fault, and 
 you must bear with me. 
 
 That summat that makes me poorly is the 
 recollection of the Reverend Mr. Tilgoe. 
 Ebenezer says somewhere, that if we had 
 known what was a-going on, he'd have had a 
 bad time. 
 
 Ebenezer's right. He would. I hope I'm 
 as good a Christian as such a humble chap as 
 me can expect to be ; but, somehow, I don't 
 feel Christian when I think of that reverend 
 parson ; and I do dearly hope that he'll do 
 
332 THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 
 
 sumrnat wrong again — and soon. That in- 
 famous, soft-soldering, deceitful fellow ! I 
 read him through all along, but not to the 
 depth of his infamy. Shortly after his 
 release, his book came out, and, queerly 
 enough, three other convict books came 
 out in different parts of the country at 
 the same time. Mr. Tilgoe is very severe 
 upon the governor, who was so kind to 
 him ; he states facts which are no facts, 
 trusting that (as governors can't demean 
 their dignity by defending themselves 
 against convicts) his lies will never be 
 disproved. Well, there ! There isn't a 
 page of his book which is not open to 
 contradiction, which perhaps is natural 
 considering that he's an ex-convict. But 
 what makes me poorly isn't so much him. 
 Felons of his mean kind must be expected 
 to misbehave. But what stirs my inside 
 till I feel green about the gills, is the way the 
 public believe him ! Yes ; that's the bitter 
 part. 
 
 If you take the trouble to sift any one of 
 these convict's books, what do their complaints 
 amount to, taking into consideration that 
 
THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 333 
 
 they'll be sure to make the worst of every- 
 thing % even supposing that all that's said is 
 true, which it isn't by at least half, what 
 then ? In one book I find much stress laid 
 upon the awful fact that men were stripped 
 in each other's presence. That was true ; 
 but in deference to an over-sensitive public 
 the practice has been done away altogether, 
 and in all prisons. But what is it after all ? 
 Don't people do the same every day of their 
 own accord in swimming baths and in the 
 sea, when warm enough ? And yet they're 
 none the worse for it, because, perhaps, their 
 imaginations are not quite so low as those of 
 felons. Well ! we'll admit, if you like, that 
 convicts are over-sensitive ; that the finer 
 feelings are more fully developed in one 
 whom society has expelled, than in a mere 
 honest man. The grievance has been met, 
 and the thing abolished ; and I think we 
 ought to be pleased with ourselves that the 
 particular convict who wrote that particular 
 book, couldn't rind anything to pick holes in 
 that was more grave. But some are less con- 
 scientious than he. One rascal, for instance, 
 aware how little the public can know of prison 
 
334 THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 
 
 rules or discipline, rakes up grievances which 
 ceased to exist years ago, and flaunts them, 
 like union jacks, to try and make people buy 
 his rubbish. Oh ! and the silly suggestions 
 they make — they who can only see the 
 prison business from the convict-side — and 
 the impudent way they lay down the law ! 
 Ain't it enough to make a Cheshire cat lauodi 
 when you come to think of it ? Here's one 
 idiot who says in a newspaper (I think it was 
 Tilgoe, it's so like his asinine conceit), that a 
 dreadful grievance from the point of view of 
 the taxpayer (he thinks this clever, but it's 
 not), is the number of officials who have to 
 be paid and are not wanted. (As it happens, 
 when the classification comes, of which more 
 by-and-by, we shall want twice as large a 
 staff and several new prisons ; and this same 
 classification will have to be seen to shortly.) 
 And what does he suggest as a means of 
 cutting down the ' unnecessary number of 
 officials V He says that an ' efficient gover- 
 nor ' should do all supervising work himself, 
 and that the existence of deputy-governors 
 is a robbery of the British public. Efficient 
 governors, then, are to sprout up ready-made ; 
 
THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 335 
 
 to undergo no apprenticeship ; but to be 
 carted out of a regiment straight, without 
 being expected to learn their business under 
 experienced superiors ! Oh, the silly jackass ! 
 One convict writer says, and very obliging of 
 him, I'm sure: ' In justice to the governors 
 of convict prisons with whom I came in 
 contact, I must say I believe them to be an 
 extremely temperate body of men, and so of 
 course are nearly all the chaplains, and a 
 majority of the medical officers.' And the 
 man who is allowed by a respectable news- 
 paper to write thus of his keepers, was 
 kicked out of society for one of — well, 
 there ! He probably tells you, the British 
 public, that he made a little slip, and you'd 
 believe it, so what's the use of my taking up 
 here and there what he says ? He's a 
 splendid judge, no doubt, of the temperate 
 and gentlemanly behaviour of the chief 
 officers of the prisons, whose business it has 
 been to give him bread and water. I've heard 
 it said that people, when they are in droves 
 — that is when they become ' British public ' 
 — are so glad to throw upon each other the 
 responsibility of deciding about anything, that 
 
336 THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 
 
 they, more often than not, behave like zanies 
 because nobody will take it on himself to say 
 straight off : ' This is right, or this is wrong.' 
 That's how it is that folks are so gulled by 
 advertising sharpers — A, B and C take shares 
 in this or that, therefore it may be taken for 
 granted that they have looked into the ques- 
 tion, and it must be all square ; and D will 
 do the same without thinking it necessary to 
 examine for himself. This is all right enough, 
 maybe, because the British public holds the 
 purse, and if it likes to pay sixpence halfpenny 
 for a worthless article, there's nothing to be 
 said. B. P. is swindled, and B. P. suffers for 
 its folly. Therefore we may say — I hope I put 
 it plain enough, but it's not easy to make all 
 taut and trim — that the B. P. in the abstract 
 is a fool, and that those who every now and 
 then pretend to guide it have a heavy 
 responsibility on their shoulders, which they 
 ought not to accept unless they take the 
 trouble to comprehend what they decide on. 
 Now I'm coming to it — I'm so artful — you 
 don't know yet how artful ! lis the news- 
 papers I'm coming to ! now it's out I It's 
 the press as I complain of in the matter of 
 
THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 337 
 
 Tilg^oe and all the other canting" humbugs. 
 By the manner in which many of 'em have 
 behaved over the convict question, and the 
 convict authors' books, they've stultified 
 theirselves, and shown how little they can be 
 trusted as sure guides. We all know the 
 editorial ' we ;' and the very tiny frog that 
 often shouts itself hoarse in pretending to be 
 a bull, trusting that the smallness of its little 
 figure will be hidden by the big cloak in 
 which it wraps itself. Well, it's much the 
 same with the convict literature. The 
 respectable convict avoids publicity, and is 
 only too glad to slink away into the dark. 
 
 The cleverish ' bad lot ' who has been a 
 fraudulent attorney or worse, seizes the pen, 
 which he knows how to send spluttering, as a 
 petty sort of revenge, being aware that neither 
 public nor newspaper reviewers know any- 
 thing whatsomedever of what he's jabbering 
 of. These noospapers do a deal of harm 
 that way, and ought to be slapped upon the 
 knuckles for not being more careful. I've 
 seen noospapers as should know better, 
 reviewing these convict books gravely — 
 without a shade of doubt of their veracity — 
 
 vol. ii. 43 
 
JJ> 
 
 S THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 
 
 just as though the writer hadn't qualified 
 himself for understanding his subject by 
 being a blackguard, and having no character 
 to speak of. These papers who are so 
 culpably careless, and who pretend to teach 
 the muddle-headed — I beg pardon, I'm sure,, 
 meaning the many-headed — are playing the 
 part of the blind leading the blind into the 
 ditch, and when I see 'em do it I feel bilious. 
 Is that clear 1 
 
 This new-fangled convict literature is a new 
 and shocking form of penny dreadful, which 
 does no end of injury, as all falsehood does 
 that's dressed up like truth. On the principle 
 of Titania and Bottom (I used to be a great 
 playgoer when in port), they look on Bill 
 Sykes as a gent in holy orders led astray in 
 a moment of delirium. The public mind is- 
 given to taking up unhealthy fashions, and 
 here's one of them. Thieves and assassins 
 are likely to become the rage. They're to be 
 petted, and pampered, and pitied, poor dear 
 interesting vagabonds : but no one thinks of 
 pitying the people they robbed, and whose 
 throats they've cut, or the no less unhappy 
 people who've been set to keep them out of 
 
THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 339 
 
 mischief ; of course the authorities and their 
 charges clash, and always must ; for one is 
 the emblem of discipline, and the other of 
 disorder. It's all very well to show a 
 picturesque interest in the dear . criminals ; 
 but the public ought to remember that by 
 taking their part against their keepers, as 
 they have done and are doing, they weaken 
 the authority of law and order, and become 
 moral accomplices of those same ruffians 
 whom their own chosen representatives have 
 handed over for incarceration. I'd have you 
 observe well, ladies and gents, that each 
 of the four felon writers begins by saying 
 that he made a slip — that otherwise he was 
 a most respectable, and church-going person, 
 and an honour to the sanctity of the saintly 
 world in which he moved. Now I happen to 
 know what the ' little slips ' of some of these 
 gentlemen were. I've nothing to do with 
 the rest, just now ; only with the .Reverend 
 Aurelius, because he happened to be under 
 my own charge, and tells falsehoods about 
 me. Well, I shan't tell you what his crime 
 was, it would make me blush. Think of the 
 meanest, dastardliest, most cowardly thing 
 
 43—2 
 
34o THE CHIEF WARDER'S FIRST GROWL. 
 
 that a grown man (of good education, too, 
 more shame to him !) can do to an unfortunate 
 class of females, by nature and by profession 
 weak. It wasn't murder, and it wasn't 
 forgery. Puzzle your brains now for your- 
 selves ; I shan't say more. It was not even 
 his first offence, and, thank goodness, not 
 likely to be his last. When the clergy do 
 wrong, they somehow go all lengths — just as 
 refined ladies who become insane use fright- 
 ful language. The Reverend Aurelius has 
 been already twice convicted ; on his second 
 trial there were many charges against him of 
 the same shameful order, but it was only 
 necessary to go into one. Wait till we have 
 him again, that's all ! Meanwhile, I would 
 say to you, ladies and gents, that you 
 should not read a convict's book with the 
 intention of believing it, unless it is plainly 
 stated (and well authenticated too), without 
 names mentioned of course, what his crime 
 was. Let it be stated in black and white 
 upon the binding, and the truth of the state- 
 ment vouched for. If you know that, you 
 will be able to judge what faith to put in the 
 statements of the writer. But no ! He 
 
THE CHIEF WARDERS FIRST GROWL. 34! 
 
 begins always by talking about the ' little 
 slip.' That bears falsehood on its face, and 
 should be enough ; and the precious trash 
 should go into the wastepaper-basket, instead 
 of being devoured with a morbid interest in 
 the yelpings of the interesting despicable 
 hound. 
 
 There now, after that I'll wipe my fore- 
 head and pull up my collar and take a rest — 
 for somehow I feel decidedly better. 
 
 END OF VOL. II. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS PRINTERS AND ELECTROTYPES GUILDFORD. 
 
 & d II. 
 

UNIVERSfTY OF ILLIN0I8-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 056547349 
 
 ■■■■^H