 36 George Fielding found Farmer Dodd waiting to drive him to the town where he was to meet Mr. Winchester. The farmer's wife would press a glass of wine upon George. She was an old playmate of his and the tear was in her eye as she shook his hand and bade heaven bless him and sent him safe back to the grove. A taking of his hand and him going across sea. "'Can't you do no better than that?' cried the stout farmer. "'I'm not a looking, Dame.' So then Mrs. Dodd put her hands on George's shoulders and kissed him rustic-wise on both cheeks. And he felt a tear on his cheek. And stammered, "'Good-bye, Jane. You and I were always good neighbors. But now we shan't be neighbors for a while. Ned, drive me away please, and let me shut my eyes and forget that ever I was born.' The farmer made a signal of intelligence to his wife and drove him hastily away. They went along in silence for about two miles. Then the farmer suddenly stopped. George looked up. The other looked down. Alan's corner, George. You know the grove is in sight from here, and after this we shan't see it again on account of this here wood, you know. "'Thank you, Ned. Guess, one more look. The afternoon sun lies upon it. Oh, how different it do seem to my eyes now, by what it used to when I rode by from market. But then I was going to it. Now I'm going far, far from it. Never heed me, Ned. I shall be better in a moment. Heaven forgive me for thinking so little of the village folk as I have done.' Then he suddenly threw up his hands. God bless the place and bless the folk, he cried very loud. God bless them all, from the oldest man in it, and that is grandfather, down to Isaac King's little girl that was born yesterday night. And may none of them ever come to this corner, and their faces turn toward the sea. "'Don't ye, George, don't ye, don't ye, don't ye,' cried Edward Dodd in great agitation. Let the mare go on, Ned. She is fretting through her skin. I'll fret her, roared the farmer, lifting his whip exactly as if it was a sword, and a cut to be made at a dragoon's helmet. I'll cut her liver out. No ye shan't,' said George. Poor thing. She is thinking of her corn at the queen's head in Newborough. She isn't going across the sea. Let her go. I've taken my last look and said my last word. And he covered up his face. Farmer Dodd drove on in silence, except that every now and then he gave an audible snivel. And whenever this occurred he always accommodated the mare with a smart cut. Reasonable. At Newborough they found Mr. Winchester. He drove George to the rail, and that night they slept on board the Phoenix Immigrant Ship. Here they found three hundred men and women in a ship where there was room for two hundred and fifty. Accommodation for eighty. Next morning. Farmer said Mr. Winchester Gailey. We have four hours before we sail. Some of these poor people will suffer great hardships between this and Sydney. Suppose you and I go and buy a lot of blankets, brawn, needles, canvas, great coats, felt, American beef, solidified milk, macintoshes, hylos, and thimbles. That will rouse us up a little. Thank you, sir, kindly. Out they went into the Ratcliffe Highway, and chaffered with some of the greatest rascals in trade. The difference between what they asked and what they took made George stare. Their little cabin was crowded with goods, only just room left for the aristocrat, the farmer and Carlo. And now the hour came. Poor George was roused from his lethargy by the noise and bustle. And, oh, the creaking of cable sickened his heart. Then the steamer came up and took them in tow. And these, our countrymen and women, were pulled away from their native land too little, and too full to hold us all. It was a sad sight. Saddest to those whose own flesh and blood was on the shore and saw the steamer pull them away. Bitterest to those who had no friend to watch them go. How they clung to England. They stretched out their hands to her. And when they could hold to her no other way they waved their hats and their handkerchiefs to their countrymen, who waved to them from shore. And so they spun out a little longer the slender chain that visibly bound them to her. And at this moment even the iron-hearted and the restless were soft and sad. Our hearts' roots lie in the soil we have grown on. No wonder, then, George Fielding leaned over the ship's side, benumbed with sorrow, and counted each foot of water as it glided by and thought, Now I am so much farther from Susan. For a wonder he was not seasick. But his appetite was gone from a nobler cause. He could hardly be persuaded to eat at all for many days. The steamer cast off at Gravesend and the captain made sail and beat down the channel. Off the silly aisles a northeasterly breeze and the Phoenix crowded all her canvas. When Topsles, Royals, Skyscrapers, and all were growing, the men rigged out booms, a low and a loft. And by means of them set studding sails out several yards clear of the hull on either side. So on she plowed, her canvas spread out like an enormous fan or huge albatross, all wings. A goodly gallant show. But under all this vast and swelling plumage and exile's heart, of all that smarted, ached, and throbbed beneath that swelling plumage few suffered more than poor George. It was his first great sorrow and also new and strange. The ship touched at Madeira and then flew southward with the favoring gale. Many leagues she sailed and still George hung over the bulwarks and sadly watched the waves. The simple-minded honest fellow was not a girl. If they had offered to put the ship about and take him back he would not have consented. But yet to go on almost broke his heart. He was steel and butter. His friend the Honorable Frank Winchester was or seemed all steel. He was one of those sanguine spirits that don't admit into their minds the notion of ultimate failure. He was supported too by a natural and indomitable gaiety. Whatever most men grumble or whine at he took his practical jokes played by fortune partly to try his good humor, but more to amuse him. The poor passengers suffered much discomfort and the blankets exeterists stored in Winchester's cabin often warmed these two honest hearts, as with pitying hands they wrapped them round some shivering fellow creature. Off Cape Verde a heavy gale came on. It lasted thirty-six hours and the distress and sufferings of the overcrowded passengers were terrible. An un-paternal government had allowed a ship to undertake a voyage of twelve thousand miles, with a short crew, short provisions, and just twice as many passengers as could be protected from the weather. Driven from the deck by the piercing wind and the deluges of water that came on board and crowded into the narrowest compass, many of these unfortunates almost died of sickness and polluted air. And when in despair they rushed back upon deck, horrors and sufferings met them in another shape. In vain they huddled together for a little warmth and tried to shield themselves with blanket stretch to windward. The bitter blast cut like a razor through their threadbare defenses and the water rushed in torrents along the deck and crept cold as ice up their bodies as they sat huddled or lay sick and despairing on the hard and tossing wood. And whenever a heavier sea than usual struck the ship, a despairing scream burst from the women and the good ship groaned and shivered and seemed to share their fears, and the blast yelled into their souls, I am mighty as fate, as fate, and pitiless, pitiless, pitiless, pitiless, pitiless. Oh, then how they longed for a mud-cabin, or a hole picked with a pickaxe in some ancient city wall, or a cowhouse, or a cart shed in their native land. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. This storm raised George Fielding's better part of man. Enter Gervite, sclerisque, purus, was not very much afraid to die. Once when the phoenix gave a weather-roll that wetted the foresail to the yard-arm, he said, my poor Susan, with a pitying accent, not a quavering one. But most of the time he was busy crawling on all fours from one sufferer to another with a drop of brandy in a vial. The wind emptied a glass of the very moisture, let alone the liquid in a moment. So George would put his bottle to some poor creature's lips, and if it was a man he would tell him in his simple way who was stronger than the wind or the sea, and that the ship could not go down without his will. To the women he whispered that he had just had a word with the captain, and he said it was only a gale, not a tempest, as the passengers fancied, and there was no danger. None whatever. The gale blew itself out, and then for an hour or two the ship rolled frightfully. But at last the angry sea went down, the decks were mopped, the phoenix shook her wet feathers and spread her wings again and glided on her way. George felt a little better. The storm shook him and roused him and did him good. And it was a coincidence in the history of these two lovers that just as Susan under Mr. Eden's advice was applying the healing ointment of charitable employment to her wound. George, too, was finding a little comfort in life from the little bit of good he and his friend did to the poor population in his wooden hamlet. After a voyage of four months one evening the captain shortened sail, though the breeze was fair and the night clear. Upon being asked the reason of this strange order he said knowingly, if you get up with the sun perhaps you will see the reason. Curiosity being excited one or two did rise before the sun. Just as he emerged from the sea a young seaman called Patterson who was in the fore-top hailed the deck. What is it roared the mate? Land on the weather-bow, sung out the seaman in reply. Land. In one moment the word ran like electric fire through all the veins of the phoenix. The upper deck was crowded in a minute but all were disappointed. No one saw land but Mr. Patterson, whose elevation and keen sight gave him an advantage. But a heavenly smell as of a region of cowslips came and perfumed the air and rejoiced all the hearts. At six o'clock a something like a narrow cloud broke the watery horizon on the weather-bow. All sail was made and at noon the coast of Australia glittered like a diamond under their lee. Then the three hundred prisoners fell into a wild excitement. Some became irritable, others absurdly affectionate to people they did not care a button for. The captain himself was not free from the intoxication. He walked the deck in jerks instead of his usual roll and clapped on sail as if he would fly on shore. At half-past one they glided out of the open sea into the Port Jackson River. They were now in a harbor fifteen miles long, landlocked on both sides and not a shoal or a rock in it. This wonderful haven in which all the navies that float or ever will float might maneuver all day and ride at anchor all night without jostling, was the sea avenue by which they approached a land of wonders. It was the second of December. The sky was purple and the sun blazed in its center. The land glittered like a thousand emeralds beneath his glowing smile and the waves seemed to drink his glory and melted into their tents. So rich were the flakes of burning gold that shone in the heart of their transparent, lovely blue. Oh, what a heavenly land! And after four months' prison at sea. Our humble hero's heart beat high with hope. Surely in so glorious a place as this he could make a thousand pounds and then dart back with it to Susan. Long before the ship came to anchor, George got a sheet of paper and by a natural impulse wrote to Susan a letter, telling her all the misery the phoenix and her passengers had come through between London Bridge and Sydney Cove. And as soon as he had written it he tore it up and threw it into the water. It would have vexed her to hear what I have gone through. Time enough to tell her that when I am home again sitting by the fire with her hand in mine. So then he tried again and wrote a cheerful letter, then concealed all his troubles except his sorrow at being obliged to go so far from her even for a time. But it is only for a time, Susan dear. And Susan dear, I've got a good friend here and one that can feel for us, for he is here on the same errand as I am. I am to bide with him six months and help him the best I can, and so I shall learn how matters are managed here. And after that I am to set up on my own account, and Susan dear, I do think by all I can see, there is money to be made here. Heaven knows my heart was never much set on gain. But it is now, because it is the road to you. Please tell Will, Carlo has been a great comfort to me and is a general favorite. He pointed at a rat on board ship, but it was excusable and him cooped up so long and had almost forgotten the smell of a bird, I daresay. And if anybody comes to make believe to threaten me, he is ready to pull them down in a minute. So tell Will this, and that I do think his master is as much my friend at home, as the dog is out here. Susan dear, I do beg of you as a great favor to keep up your heart, and not give way to grief or desponding feelings. I don't, least ways, I won't. Poor Mr. Winchester is here on the same errand as I am. But I often think his heart is stouter than mine, which is much to his credit and little to mine. Susan dear, I have come to the country that is farther from Grasmere than any other in the globe. That seems hard. And my very face has turned the opposite way to yours as I walk. But nothing can ever turn my heart away from my Susan. I desire my respects to Mr. Martin, and that you would tell him I will make the one thousand pounds, please God. But I hope you will pray for me, Susan, that I may have that success. You are so good that I do think the Almighty will hear you sooner than me or anyone. So no more at present, dear Susan, but remain with sincere respect, your loving servant and faithful lover till death, George Fielding. They landed. Mr. Winchester purchased the ride of Feeding Cattle over a large tract a hundred miles distant from Sydney. And after a few days spending that capital started with their wagons into the interior. There for about five months George was Mr. Winchester's factotum. And though he had himself much to learn, the country and its habits being new to him, still he saved his friend from fundamental errors, and from five in the morning till eight at night, put zeal, honesty, and the muscular strength of two ordinary men at his friend's service. At the expiration of this period Mr. Winchester said to him one evening, George, I can do my work alone now. And the time has come to show my sense of your services and friendship. I have bought a run for you about eight miles from here, and now you are to choose five hundred sheep and thirty beasts. The black pony you ride goes with them. Oh no, sir. It is enough to rob you of them at all without me going and taking the pick of them. Well, will you consent to pin the flocks and then lift one hurdle and take them as they come out, so many from each lot? That I consent to, sir, and remain your debtor for life. I can't see it. I set my life a great deal higher than sheepskin. Mr. Winchester did not stop there. He forced a hundred pounds upon George. If you start in any business with an empty pocket, you are a gone coon. So these two friends parted with mutual esteem and George set to work by prudence and vigor to make the thousand pounds. One thousand pounds. This one is to have the woman he loves for a thousand pounds. That sounds cheap. Heaven upon earth for a thousand pounds. What is a thousand pounds? Nothing. There are slippery men that gain this in a week by time bargains trading on capital of round zeros. Others who net as much in an evening and as honorably by cards. There are merchants who net twenty times this sum by a single operation. An operation, inquires Belgravia. This is an operation. You send forth a man not given to drink and consequently chatter to Amsterdam. Another not given to drink and chatter to New Orleans. Another in GTD, NC, to Bordeaux, Cadiz, Canton, Liverpool, Japan, and where not, all with secret instructions. Then, at an appointed day, all the men in GTD and C begin gradually, secretly, cannily, to buy up in all those places all the lacti or something of the kind that you and I thought there was about thirty pounds of in creation. This done, Mercator raises the price of lacti or what not throughout Europe. If he is greedy and raises it a half penny a pound, perhaps commerce revolts and invokes the nature against so vast an oppression. And nature comes and crushes our speculator. But if he be wise, and puts on what mankind can bear, say, three mites per pound, then he sells tons and tons at this fractional profit on each pound, and makes fourteen thousand pounds by lacti or the like of which you and I thought creation held thirty or at most thirty-two pounds. These men are the warriors of commerce. But its smaller captains, watching the fluctuations of this or that market, can often turn a thousand pounds, or we could say JR. Far more than a thousand pounds have been made in a year by selling pastry off a table in the boulevards of Paris. In matters practical, a single idea is worth thousands. This nation being always in a hurry paid four thousand pounds to a man to show them how to separate letter stamps in a hurry. Punch the divisions full of little holes, said he, and he held out his hand for the four thousand pounds. And now test his invention. Tear one head from another in a hurry, and you will see that money sometimes goes cheaper than invention. A single idea sometimes worth a thousand pounds in a book, though books are by far the least lucrative channel ideas run in. Mr. Bradshaw's do a decimal to it. Profit seven thousand pounds per annum. A thousand pounds. How many men have toiled for money all their lives, have met with success, yet never reached a thousand pounds. Eight thousand servants fed in half-cloth that their master's expense have put by for forty years, and yet not even by aid of interest in compound interest and perquisites and commissions, squeezed out of little tradesmen and other time-honored embezzlements, have reached the Rubicon of four figures. Five thousand little shopkeepers, active, intelligent, and greedy, have bought wholesale and sold retail, yet never mounted so high as this above rent, housekeeping, bad debts, and casualties. Many a writer of genius has charmed his nation and adorned her language, yet never held a thousand pounds in his hand even for a day. Many a great painter has written the worldwide language of form and color, and attained to European fame, but not to a thousand-pound sterling English. Among all these aspirants and a million more, George Fielding now made one, urged and possessed by his keen and incentive has ever spurred a man. George's materials were five hundred sheep, twenty cows, ten bullocks, two large sheep-dogs, and Carlo. It was a keen, clear, frosty day in July when he drove his herd to his own pasture. His heart beat high that morning. He left Abner his shepherd a white native of the colony to drive the slow cattle. He strode out in advance and scarce felt the ground beneath his feet. The thermometer was at twenty-eight degrees, yet his coat was only tied round his neck by the sleeves as he swept along all health, fire, manhood, love, and hope. He marched this day like dear Smollett's lines, whose thoughts, though he never heard them, fired his heart. Thy spirit-independence let me share. Lord of the lion-hard and eagle-eye, thy steps I follow with my bosom-bear, nor heed the storm that howls along the sky. He was on the ground long before Abner and set to work building a ruthless hut on the west side of some thick bushes, and hard by the only water near at hand. And here he fixed his headquarters, stretched a blanket across the hut for a roof, and slept, his own master. CHAPTER XXXVII It is never too late to mend. It is never too late to mend by Charles Reid. CHAPTER XXXVII At the end of six months George Fielding's stock had varied thus. Four hundred lambs, ten calves, fifteen cows, four hundred sheep. He had lost some sheep in lambing and one cow in calving. But these casualties every feeder counts on. He had been lucky on the whole. He had sold about eighty sheep and eaten a few, but not many, and of his hundred pounds only five pounds were gone, against which in the decline in cows were to be placed the calves and lambs. George considered himself eighty pounds richer in substance than six months ago. It so happened that on every side of George but one were nomads, shepherd-kings, fellows with a thousand head of horned cattle and sheep like white pebbles by the sea. But on his right hand was another spall bucolicle, a scotchman, who had started with less means than himself and was slowly working his way, making a half-penny and saving a penny after the manner of his nation. These two were mighty dissimilar, but they were on a level as to means in their neighbors, and that drew them together. In particular they used to pay each other friendly visits on Sunday evenings, and McLaughlin would read a good book to George, for he was strict in his observances, but after that the pair would argue points of husbandry. But one Sunday that George, admiring his stock, inadvertently proposed to him an exchange of certain animals, he rebuked the young men with awful gravity. "'Is this a day for weirdly dealings?' said he. "'Who did he think to thrive, Guinea, offer your merchandise, or the Sabbath day?' George colored up to the eyes. "'You'll maybe know, hey, read the parable of the money changes at the temple. No forgetting the wean, weirdly minded shields that self-dues, when they had mere need to be on their knees, or harkening a religious discourse, or a pit psalm, or the like. "'I will, you need nahong your head, young gait neither. You had nah the privilege of being born in Scotland, ye kin, or nay dut you de kin better, for ye are a decent lad, deed are ye. "'I will, stop being lad, and I's let you see a drap whiskey. The like does not often gang dune a Englishman's draple. "'Whiskey?' "'Well, but it seems to me, if we did not to deal, we did not to drink. "'Hut toot. It is no forbidden to taste. That's naysin that I ever heared. "'See way.' End of CHAPTER XXXVII. Recording by Philip Gould. CHAPTER XXXVIII. OF IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND. THIS IS A LIBERBOX RECORDING. ALL LIBERBOX RECORDINGS ARE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO VOLUNTEER, PLEASE VISIT LIBERBOX.ORG. RECORDING BY MARIE MAXWELL. IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND BY CHARLES REED. CHAPTER XXXVIII. CHAPTER XXXVIII. George heard of a farmer who was selling off his sheep about fifty miles off near the coast. George put money in his purse, rose at three, and walked the fifty miles with Carlo that day. The next he chaffered with the farmer, but they did not quite agree. George was vexed, but he knew it would not do to show it, so he strolled away carelessly toward the water. In this place the sea comes several miles inland, not in one sheet, but in a series of saltwater lakes very pretty. George stood and admired the water, and the native blacks paddling along in boats of bark no bigger than a cocked hat. These strips of bark are good for carriage and bad for carriage. I mean they are very easily carried on a man's back ashore, but they won't carry a man on the water so well, and sitting in them is like balancing on a straw. These absurd vehicles have come down to these blockheads from their fathers, so they won't burn them and build according to reason. They commonly paddle in companies of three, so whenever one is pearl, the other two come on each side of him. Each takes a hand, and with amazing skill and delicacy, they reseat him in his cocked hat, which never sinks, only pearls. Several of these triads passed in the middle of the lake, looking to George like inverted capital T's. They went a tremendous pace, with occasional stoppages when a pearl occurred. Presently a single savage appeared near the land, and George could see his lith, sinewy form, and the grace and rapidity with which he urged his gossamer bark along. It was like a hawk, half a dozen rapid strokes of his wings, and then a smooth glide forever so far. Our savages would sit on the blade of a knife, I do think, was George's observation. Now as George looked and admired Blackie, it unfortunately happened that a mosquito flew into Blackie's nostrils, which were much larger and more inviting to a nat than ours. The aboriginal sneezed and overwent the ancestral boat. The next moment he was seen swimming and pushing his boat before him. He was scarce 100 yards from the shore when all of a sudden down he went. George was frightened and took off his coat and was unlacing his boots when the Black came up again. Oh, he was only larking, thought George, but he has left his boat, and why there he goes down again. The savage made a dive and came up 10 yards near the shore, but he kept his face parallel to it and he was scarce a moment in sight before he dived again. Then a horrible suspicion flashed across George. There is something after him. This soon became a fearful certainty. Just before he died next time, a dark object was plainly visible on the water close behind him. George was wild with fear for poor Blackie. He shouted at the monster. He shouted him back into the swimmer and last snatching up a stone. He darted up a little bit of rock elevated about a yard above the shore. The next dive the Black came up within 30 yards of this very place, but the shark came at him the next moment. He dived again. But before the fish followed him, George threw a stone with great precision and force at him. It struck the water close by him as he turned to follow his prey. George jumped down and got several more stones and held one foot advanced and his arm high in there. Up came the savage panting for breath. The fish made a dart, George threw a stone. It struck him with such fury on the shoulders that it spanned off into the air and fell into the sea 40 yards off. Down went the man and the fish after him. The next time they came up to George's dismay, the sea tiger showed no signs of being hurt and the man was greatly distressed. The moment he was above water, George hurt him sob and saw the whites of his eyes as he rolled them despairingly and he could not dive again for want of breath. Seeing this, the shark turned on his back and came at him with his white belly visible and his treble row of teeth glistening in a mouth like a red grave. Rage as well as fear seized George Fielding. The muscle started on his brawny arm as he held it aloft with a heavy stone in it. The black was so hard pressed the last time and so dead beat that he could make but a short duck under the fish's back and come out at his tail. The shark did not follow him this time, but cunning as well as ferocious slipped a yard or two in shore and waited to grab him. Not seeing him, he gave a slap with his tail fin and reared his huge head out of the water a moment to look forth. Then George Fielding, grinding his teeth with fury, flung his heavy stone with tremendous force at the creature's cruel eye. The heavy stone missed the eye by an inch or two, but it struck the fish on the nose and teeth with a force that would have felled a bollock. Creech went the sea tiger's flesh and teeth and the blood squirted in a circle. Down went the shark like a lump of lead literally felled by the crashing stroke. I've hit him. I've hit him, or George seizing another stone. Come here quick quick before he gets the better of it. The black swam like a mad thing to George. George splashed into the water up to his knee and taking blackie under the armpits tore him out of the water and set him down high and dry. Give us your hand over at old fellow cry George panting and trembling Oh dear my heart is in my mouth it is. The black's eye seemed to kindle a little at George's fire but all the rest of him was as cool as a cucumber. He let George shake his hand and said quietly. Thank you, sir. Jackie, thank you a good deal. He added in the same breath. Suppose you'd let me a knife. Then we eat a good deal. George lent him his knife and to his surprise the savage slipped into the water again. His object was soon revealed. The shark had come up to the surface and was floating motionless. It was with no small trepidation. George saw this cool hand swim gently behind him and suddenly disappear. In a moment, however, the water was red all round and the shark turned around on his belly. Jackie swam behind and pushed him ashore. It proved to be a young fish about six feet long, but it was as much as the men could do to lift it. The creature's nose was battered and Jackie showed this to George and let him know that a blow on that part was deadly to them. You make him dead for a little while, said he. So then I make him dead enough to eat and he showed where he had driven the knife into him in three places. Jackie's next proceeding was to get some dry sticks and wood and prepare a fire, which to George's astonishment he lighted dust. He got a block of wood in the middle of which he made a little hole. Then he cut and pointed a long stick and inserting the point into the block worked it round between his palms for some time and with increasing rapidity. Presently, there came a smell of burning wood and soon after it burst into a flame at the point of contact. Jackie cut slices of shark and toasted them. Black fellow, stupid fellow, eat them raw, but I eat them burnt like white man. He then told George he had often been at Sydney and could speak the white man's language a good deal and must on no account be confounded with common black fellows. He illustrated his civilization by eating the shark as it cooked. That is to say, as soon as the surface was brown, he nodded off and put the rest down to brown again and sew a series of laminate instead of a steak. That it would be cooked to the center if he let it alone was a fact this gentleman had never discovered. Probably he had never had the patience to discover. George, finding the shark's flesh detestable, declined it and watched the other. Presently, he vented his reflections. Well, you are a cool one. Half an hour ago, I didn't expect to see you eating him. Quite the contrary. Jackie grinned good humoredly in reply. When George returned to the farmer, the latter, who had begun to fear the loss of a customer, came at once to terms with him. The next day, he started for home with 300 sheep. Jackie announced that he should accompany him and help him a good deal. George's consent was not given simply because it was not asked. However, having saved the man's life, he was not sorry to see a little more of him. It is usual in works of this kind to give minute descriptions of people's dress. I fear I have often violated this rule. However, I will not in this case. Jackie's dress consisted of, in front, a sort of purse made of rat skin, behind a brand new tomahawk and two spears. George fancied this costume might be improved upon. He therefore bought from the farmer a secondhand coat and trousers and his new friend donned them with grinning satisfaction. The farmer's wife pity George living by himself out there and she gave him several little luxuries, a bacon ham, some tea and some orange marmalade and a little lump sugar and some potatoes. He gave the potatoes to Jackie to carry. They weighed but a few pounds. George himself carried about a quarter of a hundred weight. For all that the potatoes worried Jackie more than George's burdened him. At last he loitered behind so long that George sat down and lighted his pipe. Presently up comes Niger with the sleeves of his coat hanging on each side of his neck and the potatoes in them. My Lord had taken his tomahawk and chopped off the sleeves at the armpit. Then he had sewed up their bottoms and made bags of them, untying them at the other end by a string which rested on the back of his neck like a milkmaid's balance. Being asked what he had done with the rest of the coat, he told George he had thrown it away because it was a good deal hot. But it won't be hot at night and then you will wish you hadn't been such a fool, said George, I rate. No, he couldn't make Jackie see this. Being hot at the time, Jackie could not feel the cold to come. Jackie became a hanger on of George and if he did a little he cost little and if the beast strayed he was invaluable. He could follow the creature for miles by a chain of physical evidence no single link of which a civilized man would have seen. A quantity of rain having fallen and filled all the pools, George thought he would close with an offer that had been made him and swap 150 sheep for cows and bullocks. He mentioned this intention to McLaughlin one Sunday evening. McLaughlin warmly approved his intention. George then went on to name the customer who was disposed to make the exchange in question. At this the worthy McLaughlin showed some little uneasiness and told George he might do better than deal with that person. George said he should be glad to do better but did not see how. Humph, said McLaughlin and fidgeted. McLaughlin then invited George to a glass of grog and while they were sipping he gave an order to his man. McLaughlin inquired when the proposed negotiation was likely to take place. Tomorrow morning, said George, he asked me to go over about this afternoon but I remembered the lesson you gave me about making bargains on this day and I said tomorrow, farmer, you're a good lad, said the Scotton yearly. You're just as decent a body as ever I've foregathered with and I'm thinking it's a sin to let you gang to a miles for merchandise when you can have a handle cheaper at your end door. Can I? I don't know what you mean. You didn't can what I mean? Maybe no. Mr. McLaughlin fell into thought a while and the grog being finished he proposed a stroll. He took George out into the yard and there the first thing they saw was a score and a half of bulks that had just been driven into a circle and were maintained there by two men and two dogs. George's eye brightened at the site and his host watched it. A wheel, he said, has Tamsen a bonnier lot than yonder Gigi? I don't know, said George Riley. I've not seen his but I have a hay and he has no lot to even with them. I shall know tomorrow, said George, but he eyed McLaughlin's cattle with an expression there was no mistaking. A wheel, said the worthy Scott, you're a neighbor and a decent lad you are. Say I'll just spear you in a question. Norman continued he in a most malifluous tone and pausing at every word. Gini were Monday as it is the Saturday. Who many sheep would you give for your bonny beasties? George finding his friend in this mine pretended to hang back and to consider himself bound to treat with Thompson first. The result of all which was that McLaughlin came over to him at date break and George made a very profitable exchange with him. At the end of six months more George found himself twice as rich in substance as at first starting but instead of 100 pounds cash he had but 80. Still if sold up he would have fetched 500 pounds but more than a year was gone since he began his own account. Well said George I must be patient and still keep doubling on and if I do as well next year as last I should be worth 800 pounds. Amongst dry hot weather came and George had arduous work to take water to his bullocks and drive them in from long distances to his homestead where by digging enormous tanks he had secured a constant supply. No man ever worked for a master as this rustic Hercules worked for Susan Merton. Prudent George sold 20 bullocks and cows to the first bidder. I can buy again at a better time he argued. He had now 125 pounds in hand. The drought continued and he wished he had sold more. One morning Abder came hastily in and told him that nearly all the beasts and cows were missing. George flung himself on his horse and galloped to the end of his run. No signs of them returning disconsolate. He took Jackie on his proper and went over the ground with him. Jackie's eyes were playing and sparkling all the time in search of signs. Nothing clear was discovered. Then at Jackie's request they rode off George's beating ground altogether and made for a little wood about two miles distance. Suppose you stop here I go in the bush said Jackie. George sat down and waited. In about two hours Jackie came back. I found him said Jackie Cooley. George rose in great excitement and followed Jackie through the stiff bush often scratching his hands and face. At last Jackie stopped and pointed to the ground. There. There you foolish creature cried George. That's ashes where somebody is lighted a fire. That and a bone or two is all I see. Beef bone replied Jackie Cooley. George started with horror. Black fellow burn beef here and eat him. Black fellow a great thief. Black fellow take all your beef. Now we catch black fellow and shoot him supposing not tell us where the other beef gone. But how am I to catch him? How am I even to find him? You wait till the sun so then black fellow burn more beef. Then I see the smoke then I catch him. You go fetch the make thunder with two mouths. When he see him that make him honest a good deal. Off gallop George and returned with his double barreled gun in about an hour and a half. He found Jackie where he had left him at the foot of a gum tree tall and smooth as an admirals main mast. Jackie who was coiled up in happy repose like a dog in warm weather rose and with a slight yawn said now I go up and look. He made two sharp cuts on the tree with his tomahawk and putting his great toe in the nick rose on it made another Nick higher up and holding the smooth stem put his other great toe in it and so on till an incredibly short time he had reached the top and left the staircase of his own making behind him. He had hardly reached the top when he slid down to the bottom again and announced that he had discovered what they were in search of. George halted the pony to the tree and followed Jackie who struck farther into the wood after a most disagreeable scramble at the other side of the wood Jackie stopped and put his finger to his lips. They both went cautiously out of the wood and mounting a bank that lay under its shelter they came plump upon a little party of blacks four male and three female. The women were seated round a fire burning beef and gnawing the outside lemonade then putting it down to the fire again. The men who always served themselves first were lying gorged but at sight of George and Jackie they were on their feet in a moment and their spears poised in their hands. Jackie walked down the bank and poured a volley of abuse into them. Between two of his native senses he uttered a quiet aside to George suppose black fellow lifts spear you shoot him dead and then abused them like pickpockets again and pointed to the make thunder with two mouths in George's hand. After a severe cackle on both sides the voices began to calm down like water going off the boil and presently soft low guttural's past and pleasant modulation. Then the eldest male savage made a courteous signal to Jackie that he should sit down and gnaw. Jackie on this administered three kicks among the gins and sent them flying then down he sat and have a gnaw at their beef. George's beef I mean. The rage of hunger appeased he rose and with the male savages took the open country. On the way he let George know that these black fellows were of his tribe that they had driven off the cattle and that he had insisted on restitution which was about to be made and sure enough before they had gone a mile they saw some beasts grazing in a narrow valley. George gave a shout of joy but counting them he found 15 short. When Jackie inquired about the others the black shrugged their shoulders. They knew nothing more than this that wanting a dinner they had driven off 40 bullocks but finding they could only eat one that day they had killed one and left the others of whom somewhere in the place they had left them the rest were somewhere they didn't know where far less care they had dined that was enough for them. When this characteristic answer reached George he clenched his teeth and for a moment felt an impulse to make a little thunder on their slippery black carcasses but he groaned instead and said they were never taught any better. Then Jackie and he set to work to drive the cattle together. With infinite difficulty they got them all home by about 11 o'clock at night. The next day up with the sun to find the rest. Two o'clock and only one had they fallen in with and the sun broiled so that lazy Jackie gave in and crept in under the beast for shade and George was feigned to sit on his shady side with moody brow and sorrowful heart. Presently Jackie got up. I find one said he. Where where cried George looking all around? Jackie pointed to a rising ground at least six miles off. George groaned. Are you making a fool of me? I can see nothing but a barren hill with a few great bushes here and there. You are never taking those bushes for beasts. Jackie smiled with other scorn. White fellow, stupid fellow. He seemed nothing. Well and what does black fellow see? snapped George. Black fellow see a crow coming from the sun and when he came over there he turned and went down and not get up again a good while. Then black fellow say I think. Presently come flying one more crow from that other side where the sun is not. Black fellow watch him and when he come over there he turn round and go down to and not get up a good while. Then black fellow say I know. Oh come along cried George. They hurried on but when they came to the rising ground and bushes Jackie put his finger to his lips. Suppose we watch the black fellows that have got wings. You make thunder for him? He read the answer in George's eye. Then he took George round the back of the hill and they mounted the crest from the reverse side. They came over it and there at their very feet lay one of George's best bullocks with tongue protruding breathing his last gasp. A crow of the country was perched on his ribs digging his thick beak into a hole he had made in his ribs and another was picking out one of his eyes. The birds rose heavily clogged and swelling with gore. George's eyes flashed. His gun went up to his shoulder and Jackie saw the brown barrel rise slowly for a moment as it followed the nearest bird wobbling off with broad back invitingly displayed to the marksman. Bang! The whole charge shivered the ill omen glutton who instantly dropped riddled with shot like a sieve while a cloud of dusty feathers rose from him into the air. The other hearing the earthly thunder and Jackie's exulting hoop gave a sudden whirl with his long wing and shot up into the air at an angle and made off with great velocity but the second barrel followed him as he turned and followed him as he flew down in the wind. Bang! Out flew two handfuls of dusky feathers and glutton number two died in the air and its carcass and its spandid wings went whirling like a sheet of paper and fell on top of a bush at the foot of the hill. All this delighted the devil may care Jackie but it may be supposed it was small consolation to George. He went up to the poor beast who died even as he looked down on him. Drop Jackie drop said he. It is Moses the best of the herd. Oh Moses why couldn't you stay beside me? I'm sure I never let you want for water and never would. You left me to find worse friends and so the poor simple fellow moaned over the unfortunate creature and gently reproached him for his want of confidence in him that it was pitiful. Then suddenly turning on Jackie said gravely Moses won't be the only one I doubt. The words were hardly out of his mouth before a loud moo proclaimed the vicinity of cattle. They ran toward the sound and in a rocky hollow they found nine bullocks and alas at some little distance another lay dead. Those that were alive were panting with lawling tones in the broiling sun. How to save them? How to get them home a distance of eight miles? Oh but for a drop of water the poor fools had strayed into the most arid region for miles round. Instinct makes blunders as well as reason. Be sure as error. We must drive them from this Jackie though half of them die by the way. The languid brutes made no active resistance being goaded and beaten they got on their legs and moved feebly away. End of Chapter 38 Part 1 Chapter 38 of It Is Never Too Late to Mend This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Mary Maxwell It Is Never Too Late to Mend by Charles Reed Chapter 38 Part 2 Three miles the men drove them and then one who had been already staggering more than the rest gave in and laid down and no power could get him up again. Jackie advised to leave him. George made a few steps onward with the other cattle but then stopped and came back to the sufferer and sat down beside him disconsolate. I can't bear to desert a poor dumb creature. He can't speak Jackie but look at his poor frightened eye. It seems to say have you got the heart to go on and leave me to die for the want of a drop of water. Oh Jackie you that is so clever in reading the signs of nature have pity on the poor thing and do pray try and find us a drop of water. I'd run five miles and fetch it in my hat if you would find it. Do help us Jackie. And the white man looked helplessly up to the black savage who had learned to read the small type of nature's book and he had not. Jackie hung his head. White fellow's eyes always shut. Black fellow's eyes always open. We pass here before and Jackie looked for water. Look for everything. No water here. But he said languidly. Jackie will go up high tree and look a good deal. Selecting the highest tree near he chopped a staircase and went up it almost as quickly as a bricklayer mounts a ladder with a hod. At the top he crossed his thighs over the stem and there he sat full half an hour his glittering eye reading the confused page and his subtle mind picking out the minutest syllables of meaning. Several times he shook his head. At last all of a sudden he gave a little start and then a chuckle and the next moment he was on the ground. What is it? Black fellow's stupid fellow looked too far off and he laughed again for all the world like a jackdaw. What is it? A little water. Not much. Where is it? Where is it? Why don't you tell me where it is? Come was the answer. Not 40 yards from where they stood Jackie stopped and thrusting his hand into a tuft of long grass pulled out a short blue flower with a very thick stem. Saw him spark from the top of the tree said Jackie with a grin. This fellow stand with him head in the air but in foot in the water. Suppose no water he died a good deal quick. Then taking George's hand he made him press the grass hard and George felt moisture ooze through the herb. Yes my hand is wet but Jackie this drop won't save a beast's life without it is a frog's. Jackie smiled and rose. Where that wet came from more stay behind. He pointed to other patches of grass close by and following them showed George that they got larger and larger in a certain direction. At last he came to a hidden nook where there was a great patch of grass quite a different color. Green is an emerald. Water cried Jackie a good deal of water. He took a jump and came down flat on his back on the grass and sure enough though not a drop of surface water was visible the cool liquid squirted up in a shower around Jackie. Nature is extremely fond of producing the same things in very different sizes. Here was a miniature copy of those large Australian lakes which show nothing to the eye but ranked grass. You ride upon them a little way merely wetting your horse's feet but after a while the sponge gets fuller and fuller and the grass shows symptoms of giving way and letting you down to a bottomless perdition. They squeezed out of this grass sponge a calabash full of water and George ran with it to the panting beast. Oh how he sucked it up and his wild eye calmed and the liquid life ran through all his frame. It was hardly in his stomach before he got up of his own accord and gave a most sonoranous smoo intended no doubt to express the sentiment never say die. George drove them all to the grassy sponge and kept them there till sunset. He was three hours squeezing out water and giving it them before they were satisfied. Then in the cool of the evening he drove them safe home. The next day one more of his straight cattle found his way home. The rest he never saw again. This was his first dead loss of any importance. Unfortunately it was not the last. The brutes were demoralized by their excursion and being active as deer they would jump over anything and stray. Sometimes the vagrant was recovered. Often he was found dead and sometimes he went 20 miles and mingled with the huge herds of some Croesus and was absorbed like a drop of water and lost to George Fielding. This was a bitter blow. This was not the way to make the thousand pounds. Better sell them all to the first comer and then I shall see the end of my loss. I am not one of your lucky ones. I must not venture. A settler passed George's way driving a large herd of sheep and ten cows. George gave him a dinner and looked over his stock. You have but few beasts for so many sheep said he. The other assented. I could part with a few of mine to you if you were so minded. The other said he should be very glad but he had no money to spare. Would George take sheep in exchange? Well, draw George. I would rather it had been cash but such as you and I must not make the road hard to one another. Sheep I'll take but full value. The other was delighted and nearly all of George's bullocks became his for one hundred and fifty sheep. George was proud of his bargain and said that is a good thing for you and me Susan. Please God. Now the next morning Abner came in and said to George I don't like some of your new lot. The last that are marked with the red V. Why what is wrong about them? Come and see. He found more than one of the sheep rubbing themselves angrily against the pen and sometimes among one another. Oh dear said George. I have prayed against this on my knees every night of my life and it has come upon me at last. Sharpen your knife Abner. What must they all? All the new lot. Call Jackie. He will help you. He likes to see blood. I can't abide it. One hundred and fifty sheep. Eighteen pen worth of wool and eighteen pen worth of fat when we fling them into the pot. That is all that is left to me of yesterday's deal. Jackie was called. Now Jackie said George these sheep have got the scab of the country. If they get to my flock and tame it I am a beggar from that moment. These sheep are sure to die so Abner and you are to kill them. He will show you how. I can't look on and see their blood in my means spilled like water. Susan this is a black day for us. He went away and sat down upon a stone a good way off and turned his back upon his house and his little homestead. This was not the way to make the thousand pounds. The next day the dead sheep were skinned and their bodies chopped up and flung into the copper. The grease was skinned as it rose and set aside and when cool was put into rough barrels with some salt and kept up until such time as a merchant should pass that way and buy it. Well said George with a sigh. I know my loss but if the red scab had got into the large herd there would have been no end to the mischief. Soon after this a small feeder at some distance offered to change with McLaughlin. That worthy liked his own ground best but willing to do his friend George a good turn he turned the man over to him. George examined the new place found that it was smaller but richer and better watered and very wisely closed with the proposal. When he told Jackie that worthy's eyes sparkled Blackfellow likes another place not every day the same and in fact he let out that if this change had not occurred his intention had been to go hunting for a month or two so weary had he become of always the same place. The new ground was excellent and George's hopes lately clouded brightened again. He set to work and made huge tanks to catch the next rain and as here to forward did the work of two. It was a sad thing to have to write to Susan and tell her that after 20 months hard work he was just where he had been at first starting. One day as George was eating his homely dinner on his knee by the side of his principal flock he suddenly heard a tremendous scrimmage mixed with loud abusive epithets from Abner. He started up and there was Carlo pitching into a sheep who was trying to jam herself into the crowd to escape him. Up runs one of the sheep dogs growling but instead of seizing Carlo as George thought he would what does he do but fall upon another sheep and spite of all their evasions the two dogs drove the two sheep out of the flock and sent them pelting down the hill. In one moment George was alongside Abner. Abner said he how came you to let strange sheep in among mine. Never saw them till the dog pinned them. You never saw them said George reproachfully. No, nor your dog either till my Carlo opened your eyes. A pretty thing for a shepherd and his dog to be taught by a pointer. Well said George you had eyes enough to see whose sheep they were. Tell me that if you please. Abner looked down. Why Abner? I just leave bite off my tongue as tell you. George looked uneasy and his face fell. A V. Don't you take on said Abner. They couldn't have been ten minutes among ours and there were but two. And don't you blow me up for such a thing might happen to the careful shepherd that ever was. I won't blow you up will Abner said George. It is my luck not yours that has done this. It was always so. From a game of cricket upward I never had my neighbor's luck. If the flock are not tainted I'll give you five pounds and my purse is not so deep as some. If they are take your knife and drive it into my heart. I'll forgive you that as I do this. Carlo let me look at you. See here he's all over some stinking ointment. It is off those sheep. I knew it. It wasn't likely a pointer dog will be down on strange sheep like a shepherd's dog by the site. It was this stuff offended him. Heavens will be done. Let us hope the best and not meet trouble halfway. Yes said George Febly. Let us hope the best. Don't I hear that Thompson has an ointment that cures the red scab? So they say. George whistled to his pony. The pony came to him. George did not treat him as we are apt to treat a horse like a riding machine. He used to speak to him and caress him when he fed him and when he made his bed and the horse followed him about like a dog. In half an hour sharp riding they were at Thompson's an invaluable man that sold and bought animals doctored animals and kept a huge boiler in which bullets were reduced to a few pounds of grease in a very few hours. You have an ointment that is good for the scab sir? That I have, farmer. Sold some to a neighbor your stay before yesterday. Who was that? A newcomer. Vessy is his name. George groaned. How do you use it if you please? Sheer him close. Rub the ointment well in. Wash him every two days and rub in again. Give me a stone of it. A stone of my ointment? Well, you are the wisest man I have come across this year or two. You shall have it sir. George rode home with his purchase. Abner turned up his nose at it and was inclined to laugh at George's fears. What George said to himself I have Susan to think of as well as myself. The sides said he a little bitterly. I haven't a grain of luck. If I'm to do any good I must be twice as prudent and thrice as industrious as my neighbors or I shall fall behind them. Now Abner will sheer them close. Sheer them why it is not two months since they were all sheered and then we will rub a little of this ointment into them. What? Before we see any sign of the scab among them? I wouldn't do that if they were mine. No more would I if they were yours. replied George almost fiercely. But they are not yours will Abner. They are unlucky Georges. During the next three days 400 sheep were clipped and anointed. Jackie helped clip but he would not wear gloves and George would not let him handle the ointment without them. Suspecting Mercury. At last George yielded to Abner's remonstrances and left off sheering and anointing. Abner altered his opinion when one day he found a sheep rubbing like mad against a tree and before noon half a dozen at the same game those two wretched sheep had tainted the flock. Abner hung his head when he came to George with his ill-omined news. He expected a storm of reproaches where George was too deeply distressed for any petulances of anger. It is my fault said he. I was the master and I let my servant direct me. My own heart told me what to do yet I must listen to a fool and a hireling that cared not for the sheep. How should he? They weren't his. They were mine to lose and mine to save. I had my choice. I took it. I lost them. Call Jackie and let's to work and save here and there one. If so be God shall be kinder to them than I have been. From that hour there was but little rest morning, noon, or night. It was nothing but an endless routine of anointing and washing, washing an anointing sheep. To the credit of Mr. Thompson it must be told that of the four hundred who had been taken in time no single sheep died but of the others a good many. There are incompetent shepherds as well as incompetent statesmen and doctors though not so many. Abner was one of these. An acute Australian shepherd would have seen the more subtle signs of this terrible disease a day or two before the patient sheep began to rub themselves with fury against the trees and against each other. But Abner did not. And George did not profess to have a minute knowledge of the animal. Or why pay shepherd? When this herculean labor and battle had gone on for about a week Abner came to George and with a hanged dog look baked him to look out for another shepherd. Why will? Surely you won't think to leave me in this straight. Why three of us are hardly able for the work and how can I make head against this plague with only the poor Sav with only Jackie. That is first rate at light work till he gets to find it dull but can't lift a sheep and flinger into the water as the like bus can. Well you see said Abner doggedly. I've got the offer of a place with Mr. Meredith and he won't wait for me more than a week. He is a rich man will and I am a poor one said George in a faint expostulating tone. Abner said nothing but his face showed he had already considered this fact from his own point of view. He could spare you better than I can but you are right to leave a failing home that you have helped to pull down. I don't want to go all in a moment I can stay a week till you get another. A week. How can I get a shepherd in this wilderness at a week's notice? You talk like a fool. Well I can't stay any longer you know there is no agreement at all between us but I'll stay a week to oblige you. You'll oblige me will you? said George with a burst of indignation. Then oblige me by packing up your traps and taking your ugly face out of my sight before dinner time this day. Stay my man here are your wages up to 12 o'clock today. Take them and out of my sight you dirty rascal. Let me meet misfortune with none but friends by my side away with you or I shall forget myself and dirty my hands with your mean carcass. The hireling slunk off and as he slunked George stormed and thundered after him and wherever you may go may sorrow and sickness. No. George turned to Jackie who sat quickly by his eyes sparkling at the prospect of a row. Jackie said he and then he seemed to choke and could not say another word. Suppose I get the make thunder then you shoot him. Shoot him? What for? Too much bungality. Shoot him dead. He let the sheep come that have my two fingers so on their backs. Here Jackie made a V with his middle and forefinger. So we kill the other sheep. Yet still you not shoot him. That's so stupid I call. Oh Jackie hush. Don't you know me better than to think I would kill a man for killing my sheep. Oh Fee. Oh Fee. No Jackie. Heaven forbid I should do the man any harm. But when I think of what he has brought on my head and then to skulk and leave me and my source straight in trouble. Me that never gave him ill language as most masters would and then Jackie do you remember when he was sick how kind you and I were to him and now to leave us. There I must go into the house and you come and call me out when that man is off the premises. Not before. At 12 o'clock selfish Abner started to walk 30 miles to Mr. Murrath's. Smarting under the sense of his contemptableness and of the injury he was doing his kind poor master he shook his fist at the house and told Jackie he hoped the scab would rot the flock and that done fall upon the bipeds on his own black hide in particular. Jackie only answered with his eye. When the man was gone he called George. George's anger had soon died. Jackie found him reading a little book in search of comfort and when they were out in the air Jackie saw his eyes were rather red. Why you cry said Jackie I very angry because you cry. It is very foolish of me said George apologetically but three is a small company and we in such trouble I thought I had made a friend of him. Often I saw he was not worth his wages but out of pity I wouldn't part with him when I could better have spared him than he me. And now there no more about it work is best for a sore heart and mine is sore and heavy too this day. Jackie put his fingers to his head and looked wise. First you listen me. This one time I speak a good many words. That stupid fellow know nothing and so because you not shoot him a good way behind you very stupid. One kind of Jackie touching his thumb. He know nothing with these pointing to his eyes. Jackie no possum. Jackie no kangaroo. No turkey. No snake. No a good many. Some with legs like this four fingers. Some with legs like this two fingers. That stupid fellow know nothing but sheep and not no sheep. Let him die too much. Know nothing with him eyes. One more. Touching his forefinger. Know nothing with this. Touching his tongue. Jackie speak him good words. He speak Jackie bad words. That's so stupid. He know nothing with this. One more. You do him good things. He do you bad things. He know nothing with these indicating his arms and legs as the seat of moral action. So then because you not shoot him long ago now you cry. Then because you cry Jackie angry. Yes. Jackie very good. Jackie a little good before he lived with you. Since then very good. But when that fellow know nothing and now you cry at the bottom part Jackie a little angry. And Jackie go hunting a little not much directly. With these words the savage caught up his tomahawk in two spears and was going cross country without another word. But George cried out in dismay. Oh stop a moment. What today Jackie. Jackie Jackie. Now don't you go today. I know is very dull for the likes of you and you will soon leave me but don't you go today. Don't set me against flesh and blood all together. I come back when the sun there pointing to the east. But must hunt a little. Not much. Jackie uncomfortable. Continued he. Jumping at a word which from its size he thought must be the way in any argument. A good deal uncomfortable. Suppose I not hunt a little dis day. I say no more. I have no right. Goodbye. Take my hand. I shall never see you anymore. I shall come back when the sun there. Oh well. I dare say you think you will. Goodbye Jackie. Don't you stay to please me. Jackie glided way across country. He looked back once and saw George watching him. George was sitting sorrowful upon a stone. And as this last bit of humanity fell away from him and melted away in the distance his heart died within him. He thinks he will come back to me. But when he gets in the open and finds the track of animals to hunt he will follow them wherever they go. And his poor shallow head won't remember this place nor me. I shall never see poor Jackie anymore. The black continued his course for about four miles until a deep hollow hidden from George. Arrived here he instantly took a line nearly opposite to his first. And when he had gone about three miles on this tack he began to examine the ground attentively and to run about like a hound. After near half an hour of this he fell upon some tracks and followed them at an easy track across the country for miles and miles his eye keenly bent upon the ground. End of chapter 38 part 2 Chapters 39 and 40 of it is never too late to mend. This is a library box recording. All library box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit librarybox.org recording by Mary Maxwell. It is never too late to mend by Charles Reed. Chapter 39 Our story has to follow a little way an infinitesimal personage. Abner, the ungrateful-ish one with a bundle tied up in a handkerchief strode stoutly away toward Mr. Meredith's grazing ground. I am well out of that place was his reflection. As he had been only once over the ground before he did not venture to relax his pace less night should overtake him in a strange part. He stepped out so well that just before the sunset he reached the head of a broad valley that was all Meredith's. About three miles off glittered a white mansion set in a sea of pasture studded with cattle instead of sails. I, I thought the ungrateful-ish one no fear the scab breaking up this master I'm all right now. As he chuckled over his prospects a dusky figure stole noiselessly from the little thicket an arm was raised behind him. Crush! A hard weapon came down on his skull and he lay on his face with the blood trickling from his mouth and ears. Chapter 40 He who, a few months ago, was so light-hearted and bright with hope now rose at daybreak for a work of herculean toil as usual but no longer with the spirit that makes labor light. The same strength, the same dogged perseverance were there, but the sense of lost money, lost time, and invincible ill luck oppressed him. Then, too, he was alone. Everything had deserted him but misfortune. I have left my Susan and I have lost her. Left the only friend I had or ever shall have in this hard world. This was his constant thought as doggedly but hopelessly he struggled against the pestilence. Single-handed and leaden-hearted he had to catch a sheep, to flinger down, to hold her down, to rub the ointment into her and to catch another that had been rubbed yesterday and take her to the pool and flinger in and keep her in till every part of her skin was soaked. Four hours of this drudgery had George gone through single-handed and leaden-hearted when, as he knelt over a kicking, struggling sheep, he became conscious of something gliding between him and the sun. He looked up and there was Jackie grinning. George uttered an exclamation, What? Come back. Well, now that is very good of you, I call. How do you do? And he gave him a great shake of the hand. Jackie very well. Jackie not at all uncomfortable after him hunt a little. Then I am very glad you have had a day's sport, least ways and nights. I call it since it made you comfortable, Jackie. Oh, yes, very comfortable now. And his white teeth and bright eye proclaimed the relief and satisfaction his little trip had afforded his nature. There, Jackie, if the ointment is worth the trouble, it gives me rubbing of it in. That sheep won't ever catch the scab, I do think. Well, Jackie, seems to me I ought to ask your pardon. I did you wrong. I never expected you would leave the kangaroos and possums for me once you were off. But I suppose fact is you haven't quite forgotten twofold bay. Two full bay, inquired Jackie puzzled, where I first fell in love with you. You made one in a hunt that day, only instead of hunting you was hunted and pretty close too. And if I hadn't been a good cricketer and learned to fling true why I do declare I think he has forgotten the whole thing, shark and all. At the word shark, a gleam of intelligence came to the black's eye. It was succeeded by a look of wonder. Shark, come to eat me. You throw stone so we eat him. I see him now a little. A very little. Dat a long way off. A very long way off. Jackie can hardly see him when he try a good deal. Whitefella see a long way off behind him back. Dat is very curious. George colored. You are right lad, it was a long while ago and I am vexed for mentioning it. Well anyway, you are come back and you are welcome. Now you should do a little of the light work but I'll do all the heavy work because I'm used to it. And indeed, poor George did work and slave like Hercules. Forty times that day he carried a full size sheep in his hands, a distance of 20 yards and flung her into the water and splashed in and rubbed her back in the water. The fourth day after Jackie's return, George asked him to go all over the ground and tell him how many sheep he saw give signs of the fatal disorder. About four o'clock in the afternoon, Jackie returned driving before him with a spear, a single sheep. The agility of both the biped and the quadruped were droll. The latter every now and then making a rapid bolt to get back to the pasture and Jackie bounding like a buck and pricking her with a spear. For the first time he found George doing nothing. This one scratch him back, only this one. Then we have driven out the marine and the rest will live. A hard fight, Jackie, a hard fight but we have wanted it last. We will rub this one well. Help me put her down from a headaches. After rubbing her a little George said, Jackie, I wish you would do it for me. For my head do aches so I can't abide to hold it down and work too. After dinner they sat and looked at the sheep feeding. No more discs, said Jackie gaily, imitating a sheep rubbing against a tree. No, I have won the day but I haven't won it cheap. Jackie, that fellow Abner was a bad man, an ungrateful man. These words George spoke with a very singular tone of gravity. Never you mind about him. No, I must try to forgive him. We are all great sinners. Is it cold today? No, it is a good deal hot. I thought it must for the wind is in a kindly quarter. Well, Jackie, I am as cool as ice. That very curious and my head do aches so I can hardly bear myself. You ill a little, soon be well. I doubt I shall be worse before I am better. Never you mind you. I go and bring something I know. We make it hot with water. Then you drink it. After that you a good deal better. Do, Jackie. I won't take doctor's stuff. It is dug out of the ground and never was intended for man's inside. But you get me something that grows in sight and I'll take that. And don't be long, Jackie, for I am not well. Jackie returned toward evening with a bundle of symbols. He found George shivering over a fire. He got the pot and began to prepare an infusion. Now you soon better, said he. I hope so, Jackie, George said very gravely. Thank you all the same. Jackie, I haven't been not to say dry for the last ten days with me washing and sheep. And I've caught a terrible chill. A chill like death. And Jackie, I have tried too much. I have abused my strength. I am a very strong man as men go, and so is my father. But he abused his strength and he was took just as I am took now. And in a week he was dead. I have worked hard ever since I came here. But since Abner left me at the pinch, it hasn't been man's work, Jackie. It's been a wrestling match from dawn to dark. No man could go on so and not break down. But I wanted so to save the poor sheep. Well, the sheep are saved, but when Jackie's infusion was ready, he made George take it, then lie down. Unfortunately, the attack was too violent to yield to this simple remedy. Fever was upon George Fielding. Fever in his giant shape, not as he creeps over the week, but as he rushes on the strong. George had never had a headache in his life before. Fever found him full of blood and turned it all to fire. He tossed, he raged, and forty-eight hours after his first seizure, the strong man lay weak as a child, except during those paroxysms of delirium which robbed him of his reason while they lasted and of his strength when they retired. On the fourth day, after a raging paroxysm, he became suddenly calm, and looking up saw Jackie seated at some little distance, his bright eye fixed upon him. You better now, inquired he, with even more than his usual gentleness of tone. You not talk stupid things any more? What, Jackie, are you watching me, said the sick man? Now I call that very kind of you. Jackie, I am not the man I was. We are cut down in a day like the ripe grass. How long is it since I was took ill? One, one, one, and one more day. I, I, my father lasted till the fifth day, and then, Jackie, hear, Jackie, what you want. Go out on the hill and see whether any of the sheep are rubbing themselves. Jackie went out and soon returned. Not see one rub himself. A faint gleam lighted George's sunken eye. That is a comfort. I hope I shall be accepted, not to have been a bad shepherd, for I may say I have given my life for my sheep. Poor things. George dozed. Toward evening he awoke, and there was Jackie just where he had seen him last. I didn't think you had cared so much for me, Jackie, my boy. Yes, care very much for you. See, I'll make beef water for you a good deal. And sure enough, he had boiled down about forty pounds of beef and filled a huge calabash with the extract, which he set by George's side. And why are you so fond of me, Jackie? It isn't on account of my saving your life, for you had forgotten that. What makes you such a friend to me? I tell you. Often I go to tell you before, but many words doubt a good deal trouble. One. When you make thunder, the bird always die. One. You take sheep's sow and hold him up high. I'll never see one more white fellow able do that. One. You make a stone go and hit thing. Other white fellow never hit. One. Little horse come to you. Other white fellow go to horse, horse run away. Little horse run to you. That because you so good. One. Carlo fond of you. All day now, he come in and go out and say so, imitating a dog's whimper. He's so uncomfortable because you lie down so. One. When you speak to Jackie, you not speak big like white fellow. You speak small and like a fiddle. That please Jackie's ear. One. When you look at Jackie's, always your face make like a hot day when there are no rain. That please Jackie's eye. And so when Jackie see you stand up one day, a good deal high and now lie down, that makes him uncomfortable. And when he see you red one day and white this day, that make him uncomfortable a good deal. And when he see you so beautiful one day and this day so ugly, that make him so uncomfortable. He afraid you go away and speak no more good words to Jackie. And that make Jackie feel a thing inside here, touching his breast. No more can breathe and want to do like the gin, but don't know how. Oh dear, don't know how. Poor Jackie, I do wish I had been kinder to you than I have. Oh, I am very short of wind and my back is very bad. When black fellow bad in him back, he always dies, said Jackie very gravely. I said George quietly, Jackie, will you do one or two little things for me now? Yes, do them all. Give me that little book that I may read it. Thank you, Jackie. This is the book of my religion. And it was given to me by one I love better than all the world. I have disobeyed her. I have thought too little of what is in this book and too much of this world's gain. God forgive me. And I think he will because it was for Susan's sake I was so greedy of gain. Jackie looked on awestruck as George read the book of his religion. Open the door, Jackie. Jackie opened the door, then coming to George's side, he said with an anxious, inquiring look and trembling voice. Are you going to leave me, George? Yes, Jackie, my boy, said George. I doubt I am going to leave you. So now thank you and bless you for all kindness. Put your face close down to mine. There. I don't care for your black skin. He who made mine made yours. And I feel we are brothers. And you have been one to me. Goodbye, dear. And don't stay here. You can do nothing more for your poor friend, George. Jackie gave a little moan. Yes, I'm can do a little moan. Before he go and hide him face when there are a good deal of trees. Then Jackie went almost on tiptoe and fetched another calabash full of water and placed it by George's head. Then he went very softly and fetched the heavy iron which he had seen George use in Penning Sheep and laid it by George's side. Next he went softly and brought George's gun and laid it gently by George's side down on the ground. This done he turned to take his last look of the sick man now feebly dozing. The little book in his drooping hand. But as he gazed nature rushed over the poor savage's heart and took it quite by surprise. Even while bending over his white brother to look his last farewell with a sudden start he turned his back on him and sinking on his hands he burst out crying and sobbed with wild and terrible violence. End of Chapter 40 Chapter 41 of It is Never Too Late to Mend This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Blakeney Clark It is Never Too Late to Mend by Charles Reed Chapter 41 For near an hour Jackie sat up on the ground his face averted from his sick friend and cried. Then suddenly he rose and without looking at him went out at the door and turning his face towards the great forest that lay forty miles distant eastwards he ran all the night and long before dawn was hidden in the pathless woods. A white man feels that grief when not selfish is honourable and unconsciously he nurses such grief more or less. But to simple minded Jackie, grief was merely a subtle pain and to be got rid of as quickly as possible like any other pain. He ran to the vast and distant woods hoping to leave George's death a long way behind him and so not see what caused his pain so plain as he saw it just now. It is to be observed that he looked upon George's dead. Though taking into his hand at the book of his religion the kind of embrace there are quests that the door might be opened doubtless for the embodied spirit to pass through all these rites were understood by Jackie to imply that the last scene was at hand. Why witness it? It would wake him still more uncomfortable. Therefore he ran and never once looked back and plunged into the impenetrable doom of the eastern woods. The white man had left Felding to get a richer master. The half reasoning savage had left into cure his own grief at leaving him. There he lay abandoned in trouble and sickness by all his kind. But one friend never stirred. A single-hearted single-minded non-reasoning friend. Who was this pure-minded friend? A dog. Carlo loved George. They had lived together. They had sported together. They had slept together side by side on the cold hard deck of the phoenix, and often they had kept each other warm. Sitting crouched together behind a little bank or a fallen tree with the wind whistling and the rain shooting by their ears. When, day after day, George had not come out of the house Carlo was very uneasy. He used to pat it in and out all day and whimper pitifully, and often he sat in the room where George lay and looked towards him and whined. But now, when his master was left quite alone, his distress and anxiety redoubled. He never went ten yards away from George. He ran in and out moaning and whining, and at last he sat outside the door and lifted up his voice and howled day and night continually. His meaner instincts lay neglected. He ate nothing. His heart was bigger than his belly. He would not leave his friend even to feed himself. And still day and night without cease his passionate cry went up to heaven. What passed in that single heart none can tell for certain but his creator, nor what was uttered in that deplorable cry. Love, sorrow, perplexity, dismay, all these perhaps, and something of prayer. For still he lifted his sorrowful face towards heaven as he cried out in sore perplexity, distress, and fear for his poor master. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! So we must leave a while, poor, honest, unlucky George, sick of a fever ten miles from the nearest hut. Leather heart has gone from him to be a rich man's hireling. Shallow heart has fled to the forest, and is hunting kangaroos with all the inches of his soul. Single heart sits fasting from all but grief before the door, and uttered heart-rending lamentable cries to earth, and heaven. Jail is still a grim and castellated mountain of masonry, but a human heartbeats and a human brain throbs inside it now. Enter without fear of seeing children kill themselves and bearded men faint like women or weep like children. Horrible sights. The prisoners no longer crouch and cower past the officers, nor the officers look at them and speak to them as if they were dogs, as they do in most of these places, and used to here. Open this cell. A woman rises with a smile. Why a smile? Because for months an open door has generally let in what is always a great boon to a separate prisoner, a human creature with a civil word. We remember when an open door meant way for a ruffian and a fool to trample upon the solitary and the sorrowful. What is this smiling personage doing? As I live she is watchmaking. A woman watchmaking with neat and taper fingers and a glass at her eye sometimes, but not always. For in vision as well as in sense of touch and patience nature has been bounteous to her. She is one of four. Eight, besides these four, were tried and found incapable of excellence in this difficult craft. They were put to other things, for permanent failures are not permitted in jail. The theory is that every home can turn some sort of labor to profit. Difficulties occur often. Impossibilities will bar the way now and then, but there are so few real impossibilities. When a difficulty arises the 300 industrious arts and crafts are freely ransacked for a prisoner. I ransacked as few rich men would be bothered to sift the seven or eight liberal professions in order to fit a beloved son. Here, as in the world, the average of talent is low. The majority can only learn easy things and vulgar things, and some can do higher things and a few can do beautiful things, and one or two have developed first-rate gifts and powers. There are 25 shoemakers, male, 12 tailors of whom six female, 24 weavers of whom 10 female, four watchmakers all female, 6 printers and composers, 5 female, 4 engrainers of wood, 2 female. In this art we have the first artist in Britain, our old acquaintance, Thomas Robinson. He has passed all his competitors by a simple process. Beautiful specimens of all the woods have been placed and kept before him, and for a month he has been forced to imitate nature with his eye never off her. His competitors in the world imitate nature from memory, from convention, or from tradition. By such processes truth and beauty are lost at each step down the ladder of routine. Mr. Eden gave clever Tom at first starting the right end of the stick, instead of letting him take the wrong. Nine joiners and carpenters, three female, three who color prints downright well, one female, one female, two painters, one female, three pupils shorthand writing, one female. Fancy these attending the old Bailey and taking it all down solemn as judges. Workers in Gettapercha, modelers in clay, washers and getters up of linen, homemakers, spade makers, rake makers, wood carvers, stone cutters, bakers etc etc etc add infinitum. Come to the hard labor yard. Do you see those 15 stables? There lurk in vain the rusty cranks. Condemned first as liars they fell soon after into disrepute as weapons of half science to degrade minds and bodies. They lurk there grim as the used up giants in pilgrims progress, and like them can't catch a soul. Hark to the music of the shuttle in the useful loom. We weave linen, cotton, woolen, Lindsay Woolsey, and not to be behind the rogues outside, Cottonsey Woolsey and Cottonsey Silksy. Damask we weave, and a little silk and poplin, and Mary Baker velvet itself for a treat now and then. We of the loom relieve the county of all expense in keeping us, and enrich a fund for taking care of discharged industrious prisoners until such time as they can soften prejudices and obtain lucrative employment. The old plan was to kick a prisoner out and say, There dog, go without a wrap among those who will look on you as a dog and make you starve or steal. We have taught you no labor but crank, and there are no cranks in the outside world, the world not being such an idiot as we are. You must fill your belly by means of the only other thing you have ever been taught. Theft. Now the officers take leave of a discharged prisoner in English. Farewell, goodbye, a contraction for God be with ye, etc. It used to be in French, sans ado, au revoir, and the like. Having passed the merry, useful looms opened this cell. A she-thief looks up with an eye six times as mellow as when we were here last. She is busy gilding. See with what an adroit and delicate touch the jade slips the long square knife under the gossamer gold leaf which she has blown gently out of the book and turns it over. And now she breathes gently and vertically on the exact center of it, and the fragile yet rebellious leaf that has rolled itself up like a hedgehog is flattened by that human's effort on the little leather and easel. Now she cuts it in three with vertical blade. Now she takes her long flat brush and applies it to her own hair once or twice. Strange to say the camel hair takes from this contact a soup con of some very slight and delicate animal oil which enables the brush to take up the gold leaf. And the artist lays a square of gold in its place on the plaster bowl she is gilding. Said bowl was cast in the prison by another female prisoner who at this moment is preparing a green artificial meadow for the animal to stand in. These two girls had failed at the watchmaking. They had sight and the fine sensation of touch required, but they lacked the caution, patience and judgment so severe an art demanded, so their talents were directed elsewhere. This one is a first-rate gilder. She mistressed it entirely in three days. The last thing they did in this way was an elephant, cost of casting him, reckoning labor and the percentage he ought to pay to the mold, was one shilling four pence. Plaster, chrome, water size and oil size, three pence. Gold leaf, three shillings. One foot of German velvet, four pence. Thread, needles and wear of tools, one pence, total five shillings. Said gold elephant standing on a purple cushion was subjected to a severe test of his value. He was sent to a low auction room in London. There he fell to the trade at eighteen shillings. This was a knockout transaction. Twelve buyers had agreed not to bid against one another in the auction room, a conspiracy illegal but customary. The same afternoon these twelve held one of their little private unlawful auctions over him. Here the bidding was like drops of blood oozing from flints, but at least it was bonafide, and he rose to twenty-five shillings. The seven shillings premium was divided among the eleven sharpers. Sharper number twelve carried him home and sold him the very next day for thirty-seven shillings to a lady who lived in Belgrabia, but shopped in filthy alleys, misled perhaps by the phrase dirt cheap. Mr. Eden conceived him. Two detected ones made him at a cost of five shillings. Twelve undetected ones caught him first for eighteen shillings, and now he stands in Belgrabia and the fair ejaculate over him. What a duck! The aggregate of labour to make and guild this elephant was not quite one woman's work, twelve hours. Taking eighteen shillings as the true value of the work, for in this world the workman is commonly to sell his production under the above disadvantages, forced sale and the conspiracies of the unimprisoned, we still have thirteen shillings for a day's work by a woman. From the bowl greater things are expected. The cast is from the bowl of the Vatican, a bowl true to nature, and nature adorned the very meadows when she produced the bowl. What a magnificent animal is a bowl! What a do-lap! What a front! What clean pasturns! What fearless eyes! What a deep diapsum is his voice! Of which beholding this his true and massive effigy in jail we are reminded. When he stands muscular, majestic, sonorous gold in his meadow, pied with daisies, it shall not be sweet and love and duck, words of beauty but no earthly signification. It shall be there I forgive Europa. And need I say there were more aimed at in all this than pecuniary profit. Mr. Eden held that the love of production is the natural specific antidote to the love of stealing. He kindled in his prisoners the love of producing, of what some by an abusive language call creating, and the producers rose on the scale of human beings. Their faces showed it, the untamed look melted away, the white of the eye showed less, and the pupil and iris more, and better quality. Gold leaf when first laid on adheres invisible squares with uncouth edges, a ragged affair. Then the gilder takes a camel hair brush, and under its light and rapid touch the work changes as under a diviner's rod. So rapidly and majestically come beauty and finish over it. Perhaps no other art has so delicious a one minute as this is to the gilder. The first work our prisoner gilded she screamed with delight several times at this crisis. She begged to have the work left in her cell one day at least. It lights up the cell and lights up my heart. Of course it does, said Mr. Eden. Aha, what, there are greater pleasures in the world than sinning, are there? That there are. I never was so pleased in my life. May I have it a few minutes? My child, you shall have it till its place is taken by others like it. Keep it before your eyes, feed on it, and ask yourself which is the best, to work and add something useful or beautiful to the world's material wealth, or to steal, to be a little benefactor to your kind and yourself, or a little vermin praying on the industrious, which is best. I'll never take while I can make. This is, of course, but a single specimen out of scores. To follow Mr. Eden from cell to cell, from mind to mind, from sex to sex, would take volumes and volumes. I only profess to reveal fragments of such a man. He never hoped from the mere separate cell the wonders that dreamers hope. It was essential to the reform of prisoners that moral contagion should be checkmated, and the cell was the mode adopted, because it is the laziest, cheapest, selfishest, and cruelest way of doing this. That no discretion was allowed him to let the converted or the well-disposed mix and sympathize and compare notes, and confirm each other in good under a watchful officer's eye. This he thought a frightful blunder of the system. Generally, he had held the good effect of separate confinement to be merely negative. He laughed to scorn the chimera that solitude is an active agent, capable of converting a rogue. Shut a rogue from rogues and let honest men in upon him. The honest men get a good chance to convert him. But if they do succeed, it was not solitude that converted him, but healing contact. The moments that most good comes to him are the moments his solitude is broken. He used to say solitude will cow a rogue and suspend his avert acts of theft by force, and so make him to a non-reflector seem no longer a thief. But the notion of the cell affecting permanent cures might honestly be worried thus. I am a lazy self-deceiver, and want to do by machinery and without personal fatigue what Saint Paul could only do by working with all his heart, with all his time, with all his wit, with all his soul, with all his strength, and with all himself. Or thus, confine the leopards in separate cages, jock. The cages will take their spots out while he or sleeping. Generally, this was Mr. Eden's theory of a cell. A check to further contamination, but no more. He even saw in the cell much positive ill which he set himself to qualify. Separate confinement breeds monstrous egotism, said he, and egotism hardens the heart. You can't make any man good if you never let him say a kind word or do an unselfish action to a feller creature. Man is an acting animal. His real moral character all lies in his actions, and none of it in his dreams or cogitations. Moral stagnation or cessation of all bad acts and of all good acts is a state on the borders of every vice and a million miles for virtue. His reverence attacked the petrification and egotism of the separate cell as far as the shallow system of this prison let him. First, he encouraged prisoners to write their lives for the use of the prison. These were weeded, if necessary. The editor was strong-minded and did not weed out the repoppies. Printed and circulated in the jail. The writer's number was printed at the foot if he pleased, but never his name. Biography begot a world of sympathy in the prison. Second, he talked to one prisoner, acquainted with another prisoner's character, talked about number 80 to number 60, and would sometimes say, now could you give number 60 any good advice on this point? Then, if 80's advice was good, he would carry it to 60, and 60 would think all the more of it that it came from one of his fellows. Then, in matters of art, he would carry the difficulties of a beginner or a bungler to a proficient, and the latter would help the former. The pleasure of being kind on one side, a touch of gratitude on the other, seeds of interest and sympathy in both. Then such as had produced pretty things were encouraged to lend them to other cells to adorn them and stimulate the occupants. For instance, number 140, who gilded the bull, was reminded that number 120, who had cast him, had never had the pleasure of setting him on her table in her gloomy cell, and so raising its look from dungeon to workshop. Then number 40 said, poor number 20, that is not fair. She shall have him half the day or more, if you like, sir. Thus a grain of self-denial, justice, and charity was often drawn into the heart of a cell through the very keyhole. Number 19, Robinson, did many a little friendly office for other figures, received their thanks, and above all, a bludgeoning these figures warmed and softened his own heart. You might hear such dialogues as this. Number 24, and how is poor old number 50 today? Strut. Mr. Eden, much the same. Number 24, do you think you will bring him round, sir? Mr. Eden, I have great hopes. He has much improved since he had the garden and the violin. Number 24, will you give him my compliments, sir? Number 24's compliments, and tell him I bid him never say die. Mr. Eden, well, how are you this morning? I am a little better, sir. This room, the infirmary, is so sweet and airy, and they give me precious nice things to eat and drink. Are the nurses kind to you? That they are, sir, kinder than I deserve. I have a message for you from number on your corridor. No, have you, sir? He sends his best wishes for your recovery. Now that is very good of him, and he would be very glad to hear from yourself how you feel. Well, sir, you tell him I'm a trifle better, and God bless him for troubling his head about me. In short, his reverence reversed the haw's system. Under that, a prisoner was divested of humanity and became a number, and when he fell sick, the sentiment created was, the figure written on the floor of that cell looks faint. When he died, or was murdered, there is such and such a figure rubbed off our slate. Mr. Eden made these figures signify flesh and blood. Even to those who never saw their human faces. When he had softened a prisoner's heart, then he laid the deeper truths of Christianity to that heart. They would not adhere to ice or stone or brass. He knew that till he had taught a man to love his brother, whom he had seen, he could never make him love God, whom he has not seen. To vary the metaphor, his plan was, first warm and soften your wax, then begin to shape it after heaven's pattern. The old-fashioned way is freeze, petrify, and mold your wax by a single process. Not that he was mawkish. No man rebuked sin more terribly than he often rebuked it in many of these cells, and when he did so, see what he gained by the personal kindness that preceded these terrible rebukes. The rogue said, What is it so bad that his reverence, who I know has a regard for me, rebukes me for it like this? Why it must be bad indeed. A loving friend's rebuke is a rebuke, sinks into the heart and convinces the judgment, and enemies or strangers' rebuke is invective and irritates, not converts. The great vice of the new prisons is general self-deception, varied by downright calculating hypocrisy. A shallow zealot, like Mr. Lapel, is sure to drive the prisoners into one or other of these. It was Mr. Eden's struggle to keep them out of it. He froze Kant in the bud. Puritanical burglars tried scriptural phrases on him as a matter of course, but they soon found it was the very worst lay they could get upon in jail. The notion that a man can jump from the depths of vice up to the climax of righteous habits, spiritual mindedness, at one leap, shocked his sense and terrified him for the daring dogs that profess these saltatory powers and the geese that believe it. He said to such, Let me see you crawl heavenward first, then walk heavenward. It will be time enough to soar when you have lived soberly, honestly, piously, a year or two, not here, where you are tied hands, feet, and tongue, but free among the world's temptations. He had no blind confidence in learned-by-heart texts. Many scoundrel has a good memory, said he. Here he was quite opposed to his friend Lapel. This gentleman attributed a sort of physical virtue to holy writ poured anyhow into a human vessel. His plan of making a thief honest will appear incredible to a more enlightened age, yet it is widely accepted now in its advocates call Mr. Eden a dreamer. It was this. He came into a cell cold and stern and set the rugs a lot of texts. Those that learned a great many he called good prisoners, and those that learned few black sheep, and the prisoners soon found out that their life, bitter as it was, would be bitterer if they did not look sharp and learn a good many texts. So they learned lots, and the slyest scoundrels learn the most. Why not, said they, in these cursed holes we have nothing better to do, and it is the only way to get the parson's good word, and that is always worth having in jail. One rogue, on getting out, explained his knowledge of five hundred texts thus. What did it hurt me learning texts? I'd just as leave be learning text as turning a crank, and as soon be damned as either. This fellow had been one of Mr. Lapel's sucking saints, a show prisoner. The Bible and brute force, how odd they sound together. Yet such was the Lapel's system, humbug apart. Put a thief in a press between an Old Testament and a New Testament. Turn the screw, crush the texts in, and the rogue's vices out. Conversion made easy. What a wonder he opposes cunning cloaked with religion to brutality cloaked under religion. Eye brutality, and laziness, and selfishness, all these are the true foundation of that system. Selfishness, for such a man won't do anything he does not like. No. Why should I make myself all things to all men, to save a soul? I will save them this one way or none. This is my way, and they shall all come to it, says the Reverend Procrustus, forgetting that if the heart is not one in vain, is the will crushed, or perhaps not caring, so that he gets his own way. To work on Mr. Eden's plan is a Herculean effort day by day repeated, but to set texts is easy, easier even than to learn them, and how easy that is it appears from a multitude of incurable felons who have swapped texts for tickets of leave. Monsieur Lapelle, who teach solitary depressed sinners the Bible with a screw and lifted lash, and no love nor pity, award in your ear, begin a step higher, go first to some charitable priest, and at his feet learn that Bible yourselves. Forgive my heat, do reader, I am not in Eden, and these fellows rile me when I think of the good they might do, and they do nothing but force hypocrisy upon men who were bad enough without that. I allow a certain latitude, don't want to swim in hot water by quarreling with every madman or every dunce, but I do doubt any man's right to combine contradictory vices. Now these worthies are stupid yet wild, thick-headed yet delirious, tortoises and march hairs. My sketch of Mr. Eden and his ways is feeble and unworthy, but I conclude it with one master stroke of eulogy. He was the opposite of these men. End of Chapter 42