 CHAPTER X. PART 1 Mr. Meadows lived in a house that he had conquered three years ago by lending money on it at fair interest in his own name. Mr. David Hall, the proprietor, paid neither principle nor interest. Mr. Meadows expected this contingency and therefore lent his money. He threatened to foreclose and sell the house under the hammer. To avoid this, Mr. Hall said, pay yourself the interest by living rent-free in the house till such time as my old aunt dies, dratter, and then I'll pay your money. I wish I had never borrowed it. Meadows acquiesced with feigned reluctance. Well, if I must, I must, but let me have my money as soon as you can. Aside, I will end my days in this house. It had many conveniences, among the rest a very long, though narrow garden enclosed within high walls. At the end of the garden was a door which anybody could open from the inside, but from the outside only by a Brahma key. The access to this part of the premises was by a short, narrow lane, very dirty and very little used, because whatever might have been in old times it led now from nowhere to nowhere. Meadows received by this entrance one or two persons whom he never allowed to desecrate his knocker. At the head of these furtive visitors was Peter Crawley, attorney at law, a gentleman who every New Year's Eve used to say to himself with a look of gratified amazement, another year gone and I not struck off the rolls. Peter had a Brahma key entrusted to him. His visits to Mr. Meadows were conducted thus. He opened the garden gate and looked up at the window in a certain passage. This passage was not accessible to the servants and the window with its blinds was a signal book. Blinds up, Mr. Meadows out. White blind down, Mr. Meadows in. Blue blind down, Mr. Meadows in, but not alone. The same key that opened the garden door opened a door at the back of the house which led direct to the passage above mentioned. On the window seat lay a peculiar whistle constructed to imitate the whining of a dog. Then Meadows would go to his bookshelves, which lined one side of the room, and pressing a hidden spring opened a door that nobody ever suspected, for the books came along with it. To provide for every contingency there was a small secret opening in another part of the shelves by which Meadows could shoot unobserved a note or the like into the passage, and so give crawly instructions without dismissing a visitor if he had one. Meadows provided against surprise and discovery. His study had double doors. Neither of them could be opened from the outside. His visitors or servants must wrap with an iron docker, and while Meadows went to open the secret visitor stepped into the passage and shut the books behind him. It was a room that looked business. One side was almost papered with ordinance maps of this and an adjoining county. Pigeon holes abounded, too, and there was a desk six feet long, chock full of little drawers, contents indicated outside in letters of which the proprietor knew the meaning, not I. Between the door and the fireplace was a screen on which, in place of idle pictures, might be seen his plans and calculations as a land surveyor, especially those that happen to be at present in operation or under consideration. So he kept his business before his eye on the chance of a good idea striking him at a leisure moment. Will Fielding's acceptance falls due tomorrow, Crawley? Yes, sir, what shall I do? Present it. He is not ready for it, I know. Well, sir, what next? Serving with a writ. He will be preciously put about. He will. I am sorry, say you are a little short, but won't trouble him for a month if it is inconvenient, but he must make you safe by signing a judgment. Aye, aye, sir, may I make bold to ask what is the game with this young Fielding? You ought to know the game, to get him in my power. And a very good game it is, sir, nobody plays it better than you, he won't be the only one that is in your power these days, he-he, and Crawley chuckled without Murrayman. Excuse my curiosity, sir, but when about is the blow to fall? What is that to you? Nothing, sir, only the sooner the better, I have a grudge against the family. Have you? Then don't act upon it, I don't employ you to do your business, but mine. Certainly, Mr. Meadows, you don't think I'd be so ungrateful as to spoil your admirable plans by acting upon any little feeling of my own? I don't think you would be so silly, for if you did, we should part. Don't mention such an event, sir. You have been drinking, Crawley, not a drop, sir, this two days. You are a liar, the smell of it comes through your skin, I won't have it. Do you hear what I say? I won't have it. No man that drinks can do business, especially mine. I'll never touch a drop again, they called me into the public house, they wouldn't take a denial. Hold your prait and listen to me. The next time you look at a public house, say to yourself, Peter Crawley, this is not a public house to you, it is a hospital, a workhouse for a dung hill, for if you go in there, John Meadows, that is your friend will be your enemy. Heaven forbid, Mr. Meadows, drink this basin full of coffee. Yes, sir, thank you, sir, it's very bitter. Is your head clear now? As a bell. Then go and do my work, and don't do an atom more or an atom less than your task. No, sir, oh, Mr. Meadows, it is a pleasure to serve you. You are as deep as the sea, sir, and as firm as the rock. You never drink nor anything else that I can find. A man out of a thousand, no little weakness like the rest of us, sir. You are a great man, sir. You are a model of a man of good morning, growled Meadows, roughly, and turned his back. Saying, sir, said Peter Malifluously, and opening the back door about ten inches, he wriggled out like a weasel going through a chink in a wall. William Fielding fell like a child into the trap. Give me time, and it'll be all right, is the debtor's delusion. William thanked Crawley for not pressing him, and so compelling him to force a sale of all his hogs, fat or lean. Crawley received his thanks with a leer, returned in four days, got the judgment signed, and wriggled away with it to Meadows back door. You take out an arrest, Meadows gave him a pocketbook. Put it in this, and keep it ready in your pocket night and day. I dare say it will come to use before the year is out, sir. I hope not. George Fielding gone to Australia to make a thousand pounds by farming and cattle feeding. That's so he may claim Old Merton's promised consent to marry Susan. Susan, observing Mr. Eden's precepts even more religiously than when he was with her, active, full of charitable deeds, often pensive, always anxious, but not despondent now, thanks to the good physician. Meadows falling deeper and deeper in love, but keeping it more jealously secret than ever, on his guard against Isaac, on his guard against William, on his guard against John Meadows, hoping everything from time and accidents, from the distance between the lovers, from George's incapacity, of which he had a great opinion, he will never make a thousand pence, but not trusting to the things he hoped. On the contrary, watching with keen eye, and working with subtle threads to draw everybody into his power, who could assist or thwart him in the object his deep heart and iron will were set on. William Fielding going down the hill, Meadows was mounting, getting the better of his passion, and substituting, by degrees, a brother-in-law's regard. Flowers and weeds have one thing in common. While they live, they grow. Natural growth is a slow process, to describe it day by day a slower. For the next four months, matters glided so quietly on the slopes I have just indicated that an intelligent calculation by the reader may very well take the place of a tedious chronicle by the writer. Moreover, the same monotony did not hang over every part of our story. These very four months were eventful enough to one of our characters, and threw him, by subtle and positive links, to every man and every woman who fills any considerable position in this matter-of-fact romance. Therefore, our story drags us from the Meadows round grassmere to a massive, castellated building, glaring red brick with white stones. These colors and their contrast relieve the stately mass of some of that grimness which characterizes the castles of antiquity, but enough remains to strike some awe into the beholder. Two round towers flank the principal entrance. On one side of the right-hand tower is a small house, constructed in the same style as the grand pile. The castle is massive and grand. This, its satellite, is massive and tiny, like the frog doing his little bit of bull, like Sr. Herveonano, a tremendous thick dwarf now no more. There is one dimple to all this gloomy grandeur, a rich little flower garden, whose frame of emerald turf goes smiling up to the very ankle of the frowning fortress, as some few happy lakes in the world wash the very foot of the mountains that hem them. From this green spot a few flowers look up with bright and wondering, wide-opened eyes at the great bullying masonry over their heads. And to the spectator of both, these sparks of color at the castle foot are dazzling and charming. They're like rubies, sapphires, and pink topaz in some uncouth, angular, ancient setting. Between the central towers is a sharp arch, filled by a huge oak door of the same shape and size, which, for further security or ornament, is closely studded with large, diamond-headed nails. A man with keys at his girdle, like the ancient housewives, opens the huge door to you with slight effort, so well oiled is it. You slip under a porch into an enclosed yard, the great door shuts almost of itself, and now it depends upon the housewifely band whether you ever see the vain, idle, and every way objectionable world again. Passing into the interior of the vast building, you find yourself in an extensive aisle traversed at right angles by another of similar dimensions, the whole in form of a cross. In the center of each aisle is an iron staircase so narrow that two people cannot pass, and so light and open that it merely ornaments, not obstructs the view of the aisle. These staircases make two springs. The first takes them to the level of two corridors on the first floor. Here, there is a horizontal space of about a yard, when the continuation staircase rises to the second and highest floor. This gives three corridors, all studded with doors opening on small separate apartments, whereof anon. Nearly all the inmates of this grim palace wear a peculiar costume in disguise, one feature of which is a cap of course materials, with a visor to it, which conceals the feature all but the chin in the eyes, which last peep in a very drawl way through two holes cut out for that purpose. They are distinguished by a courteous manner to strangers whom they never failed to salute in passing, with great apparent cordiality. Indeed, we fear we shall never meet in a busy world with such uniform urbanity as in this and similar retreats. It arises from two causes. One is that here strangers are welcome from their rarity. Another that politeness is a part of the education of the place, which besides its other uses is an adult school of manners, religion, grammar, writing, and cobbling. With the exception of its halls and corridors, the building is almost entirely divided into an immense number of the small apartments noticed above. These are homely inside, but exquisitely clean. The furniture movable and fixed, none of which is perfluous, can be briefly described. A bedstead consisting of the sidewalls of the apartment, polished steel staples are fixed in these walls, two on each side of the apartment at an elevation of about two feet and a half. The occupant's mattress, made of cocoa bark, has two stout steel hooks at each end. These are hooked into the staples, and so he lies across his abode. A deal table the size of a pocket handkerchief, also a deal tripod. A water spout so ingeniously contrived that, turned to the right, it sends a small stream into a copper basin, and to the left, into a bottomless closed stool at some distance. A small glass pipe tipped with polished brass. In one angle of the wall, a sort of commode, or open cupboard, on whose shelves a bright pewter plate, a knife and fork, and a wooden spoon. In a drawer of this commode, yellow soap and a comb and brush. A grating down low for hot air to come in, if it likes, and another up high for foul air to go out, if it chooses. On the wall, a large placard containing rules for the tenant's direction, and smaller placards containing texts from scripture, the propriety of returning thanks after food, etc. A slate and a couple of leather knee guards used in polishing the room, and that is all. But the deal furniture is so clean you might eat off it. The walls are snow, the copper basin and the brass gas pipe glitter like red gold and pale gold, and the bed hooks like silver hot from the furnace. Altogether it is inviting at first sight. To one of these snowy snug retreats was now ushered in acquaintance of ours, Tom Robinson. A brief retrospect must dispose of his intermediate history. When he left us he went to the county bridewell, where he remained until he assizes, an interval of about a month. He was tried, direct evidence was strong against him, and he defended himself with so much ingenuity and slight of intellect that the jury could not doubt his slight of hand and morals too. He was found guilty, identified as a notorious thief, and condemned to 12 months imprisonment and 10 years transportation. He returned to the county bridewell for a few days, and then was shifted to the castellated building. Tom Robinson had not been in jail this four years, and since his last visit great changes had begun to take place in the internal economy of the skeleton palaces and in the treatment of their prisoners. Prisoners might be said to be in a transition state. In some, as in the county bridewell, Robinson had just left, the old system prevailed in full force. The two systems vary in their aims. Under the old, the jail was a finishing school of felony and petty larceny. Under the new, it is intended to be a penal hospital for diseased and contagious souls. The treatment of prisoners is not at present invariable. Within certain limits, the law unwisely allows a discretionary power to the magistrates of the county where the jail is, and the jailer, or as he is now called, the governor, is their agent in these particulars. Hence, in some new jails, you may now see the non-separate system. In others, the separate system without silence. In others, the separate and silent system. In others, a mixture of these, i.e., the hardened offenders kept separate, the improving ones allowed to mix, and these varieties are at the discretion of the magistrates who settle within the legal limits of each jail's system. The magistrates in this part of their business are represented by certain of their own body, who are called the visiting justices, and these visiting justices can even order and authorize a jailer to flog a prisoner for offenses committed in jail. Now, a year or two before our tale, one Captain O'Connor was governor of this jail. Captain O'Connor was a man of great public merit. He had been one of the first dissatisfied with the old system, and had written very intelligent books on crime and punishment, which are supposed to have done their share in opening the nation's eyes to the necessity of regenerating its prisons. But after a while the visiting justices of this particular county became dissatisfied with him. He did not go far enough nor fast enough with the stone he'd helped to roll. Books and reports came out which convinced the magistrates that severe punishment of mind and body was the essential object of a jail, and that it was wrong and chimerical to attempt any cures by any other means. Captain O'Connor had been very successful by other means, and could not quite come to this opinion, but he had a deputy governor who did. System, when it takes hold of the mind, takes a stronghold, and the men of system become very impatient of opposition and grateful for thorough acquiescence. Hence it came to pass that in the course of a few months Captain O'Connor found himself in an uncomfortable position. His deputy governor, Mr. Hawes, enjoyed the confidence of the visiting justices. He did not. His suggestions were negotived. Hawes accepted, and to tell the truth he became at last useless as well as uncomfortable, for these gentlemen were determined to carry out their system and had a willing agent in the prison. O'Connor was little more than a drag on the wheel he could not hinder from gliding down the hill. At last it happened that he had overdrawn his account without clearly stating at the time that the sum, which amounted nearly to one hundred pounds, was taken by him as an accommodation or advance of salary. This, which by no means unprecedented, was an unbusiness like, though innocent omission, justified censure. The magistrates went farther than censure. They had long been looking for an excuse to get rid of him and avail themselves of the zeal and energy of Hawes. They therefore removed O'Connor, stating publicly as their reason that he was old, and their interest put Hawes into his place. There was something melancholy in such a close to O'Connor's public career. Fortune used him hardly. He had been one of the first to improve prisons, yet he was dismissed on this or that pretense, but really because he could not keep pace with the so disont improvements of three inexperienced persons. Honorable mention of his name, his doings and his words, is scattered about various respectable works by respectable men on this subject, yet he ended in something very like discredit. However, the public gained this by the injustice done him, that an important experiment was tried under an active and willing agent. With Governor Hawes, the separate and silent system flourished in jail. The justices and the new governor were of one mind. They had been working together about two years when Robinson came into the jail. During this period, three justices had periodically visited the jail, perused the reports examined as in duty bound, the surgeon, the officers and prisoners, and were proud of the system and its practical working here. With respect to Hawes the governor, their opinion of him was best shown in the reports they had to make to the home office from time to time. In these they invariably spoke of him as an active, zealous and deserving officer. Robinson had heard much of the changes in jail treatment, but they had not yet come home to him. When, therefore, instead of being turned adrift among seventy other spirits as bad as himself, and greeted with their boisterous acclamations and the friendly pressure of seven or eight felonious hands, he was ushered into his cell, white as driven snow, and his house waifly duties explained to him, under heavy penalty if a speck of dirt should ever be discovered on his little wall, his little floor, his little table, or if his cocoa bark mattress should not be neatly rolled up after use, and the strap tight, and the steel hook polished like glass, and his little brass gas pipe glittering like gold, et cetera, Thomas looked blank and had a misgiving. I say, Governor, he said to the under-turnkey, how long am I to be here before I go into the yard? Talking not loud out of hours was the only reply. Robinson whistled. The turnkey, whose name was Evans, looked at him with a doubtful air, as much as to say, shall I let that pass unpunished or not. However, he went out without any further observation, leaving the door open, but the next moment he returned and put his head in. Prisoners shut their own doors, said he. Well, drawled Robinson, looking coolly and insolently into the man's face, I don't see what I shall gain by that, and Mr. Robinson seated himself, and turning his back a little rudely, immersed himself ostentatiously in his own thoughts. You will gain, as you won't be put in the black hall, for refractory conduct, number 19, replied Evans, quietly and sternly. Robinson made a writhe face and pushed the door peevishly. It shut with a spring, and no mortal power or ingenuity could now open it from the inside. Well, I'm blessed, said the self-mured. Every man has his own turnkey now. Save the Queen's pocket, whatever you do. Times are so hard. Box at the opera cost no end. What have we got here? A Bible, my eye, invisible rent. Oh, I see, tisn't for us to read, tis for the visitors to admire, like the new sheet over the dirty blankets. What's this hung up? Grace after meat. Oh, with all my heart, your reverence. Here, turnkey, fetch up the venison and the sweet sauce. You may leave the water gruel till I ring for it. If I am to say grace, let me feel it first. Drat your eyes all around, Governor, turnkeys, chaplain, and all the hypocritical crew. The next morning at half past five, the prison bell rang for the officers to rise, and at six, a turnkey unlocked Robinson's door and delivered the following in an imperious key, all in one note and without any rests. Prisoner to open and shake bedding, wash face, hands and neck on pain of punishment, and roll up hammocks and clean cells and be ready to clean corridors if required. So chanting, slammed door vanished. Robinson set to work with alacrity upon the little arrangements. He soon finished them, and then he would not have been sorry to turn out and clean the corridor for a change, but it was not his turn. He sat dull and lonely till eight o'clock, when suddenly a key was inserted into a small lock in the center of his door, but outside. The effect of this was to open a small trap in the door. Through this aperture a turnkey shoved in the man's breakfast without a word, like one flinging guts to a bear. And on the sociable tome, attempting to say a civil word to him, drew the trap sharply back and hermetically sealed the aperture with a snap. The breakfast was in a round tin with two compartments, one pint of gruel, and six ounces of bread. These two phases of farina were familiar to Mr. Robinson. He ate the bread and drank the gruel, adding a good deal of salt. At nine the chapel bell rang. Robinson was glad, not that he admired the liturgy, but he said to himself, Now I shall see a face or two, perhaps some old pals. To his dismay the warder who opened his cell bade him at the same time to put on the prison cap with the peek down, and when he and the other male prisoners were mustered in the corridor he found them all like himself, visor down, eyes glittering like basilisks, or cats through two holes, features undistinguishable. The word was given to march in perfect silence, five paces apart, to the chapel. The sullen pageant started. I've heard of this, but who'd have thought they carried the game so far? Well, I must wait to wear in chapel and pick up a pal by the voice, while the parson is doing his pattern. On reaching the chapel he found, to his dismay, that the chapel was a cellular as any other part of the prisoner. It was an agglomeration of one hundred sentry boxes, open only on the side facing the clergyman, and even there only from the prisoner's third button upward. Warders stood on raised platforms and pointed out his sentry box to each prisoner with very long slender wands. The prisoner went into it and pulled the door, it shut with the spring, and next took his badge or number from his neck and hung it up on a nail above his head in the sentry box. Between the reading desk and the male prisoners was a small area where the debtors sat together. The female prisoners were behind a thick veil of close latticework. Service concluded the governor began to turn a wheel in his pew. This wheel exhibited to the congregation a number. The convict whose number corresponded instantly took down his badge, the sight and position of which had determined the governor in working his wheel, drew the peak of his cap over his face, and went out and waited in the lobby. When all the sentry boxes were thus emptied, dead march of the whole party back to the main building. Here the warders separated them and sent them, dead silent, visors down, some to clean the prison, some to their cells, some to hard labor, and some to an airing in the yard. Robinson was to be aired. Harav thought sociable Tom, alas he found the system in the yard as well as in the chapel. The promenade was a number of passages radiating from a common center. The sides of passage were thick walls, entrance to passage and iron gate locked behind the promenade. An officer remained on the watch the whole time to see that a word did not creep out or in through one of the gates. And this they call out of doors, grunted Robinson. After an hour's promenade he was taken into a cell where at twelve the trap in his door was opened and his dinner shoved in and the trap snapped to again, all in three seconds. A very good dinner, better than paupers always get. Three ounces of meat, no bone, eight ounces of potatoes, and eight ounces of bread. After dinner, three hours without an incident. At about three o'clock one of the warders opened his cell door and put his head in and swiftly withdrew it. Three more monotonous hours and then supper. One pint of gruel and eight ounces of bread. He ate it as slowly as he could to eke out a few minutes in the heavy day. Quarter before eight, a bell to go to bed. At eight the warders came around and saw that all the prisoners were in bed. The next day the same thing and the next ditto, with this exception, that one of the warders came into his cell and minutely examined it in dead silence. The fourth day the chaplain visited him, asked him a few questions, repeated a few sentences on the moral responsibility of every human being, and set him some text of scripture to learn by heart. This visit, they're merely one of routine, broke the thief's dead silence and solitude. He would have been thankful to have visit every day from the chaplain, whose manner was formal but not surly and forbidding, like the turn keys or warders. End of chapter 10 part 1. Chapter 10 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 10, Part 2. The next day the governor of the jail came suddenly into the cell and put to Robinson several questions, which he answered with great affability, when, turning on his heel, said brusquely, have you anything to say to me? Yes, sir, if you please. Out with it then my man, said the governor, impatiently. Sir, I was condemned to hard labor. Now I want to ask you when my hard labor is to begin, because I have not been put upon anything yet. We are kinder to you than the judges then, it seems. Yes, sir, but I'm not naturally lazy and a little hard work would amuse you just now? Indeed, sir, I think it would. I am very much depressed in spirits. You will be worse before you are better. Heaven forbid. I think if you don't give me something to do, I shall go out of my mind soon, sir. That is what they all say. You will be put on hard labor, I promise you, but not when it suits you. We'll choose the time. And the governor went out with a knowing smile upon his face. The thief sat himself down disconsolately, and the heavy hours, like leaden waves, seemed to rise and rise and roll over his head and suffocate him, and weigh him down, down, down to bottomless despair. At length, about the tenth day, this human being's desire to exchange a friendly word with some other human creature became so strong that in the chapel during service he scratched the door of a sentry box and whispered, Mate, whisper me a word for pity's sake. He received no answer, but even to have spoken himself relieved his swelling soul for a minute or two. Half an hour later, four turn keys came into his cell and took him downstairs and confined him in a pitch dark dungeon. The prisoner, whose attention he had tried to attract in chapel, had told to curry favor and was reported favorably for the same. The darkness in which Robinson now lay was not like the darkness of our bedrooms at night, in which the outlines of objects are more or less visible. It was the frightful darkness that chilled and crushed the Egyptians' soul and body. It was a darkness that might be felt. This terrible and unnatural privation of all light is very trying to all God's creatures, to none more so than to man, and among men it is most dangerous and distressing to those who have imagination and excitability. Now Robinson was a man of this class, a man of rare capacity, full of talent and the courage and energy that vent themselves in action, but not rich in the tough fortitude which does little, feels little, and bears much. When they took him out of the black hole after six hours' confinement, he was observed to be white as a sheet and to tremble violently all over, and in this state at the word of command he crept back all the way to his cell, his hand to his eyes, that were dazzled by what seemed to him bright daylight, his body shaking while every now and then a loud convulsive sob burst from his bosom. The governor happened to be on the corridor, looking down over the rails as Robinson passed him. He said to him with a victorious sneer, you won't be refractory in the chapel again in a hurry. No, said the thief, in a low, gentle voice, despairingly. The day after Robinson was put in the black hole, the surgeon came his rounds. He found him in a corner of his cell with his eyes fixed on the floor. The man took no notice of his entrance. The surgeon went up to him and shook him rather roughly. Robinson raised his heavy eyes and looked stupidly at him. The surgeon lay hold of him and placing a thumb on each side of his eye inspected that organ fully. He then felt his pulse. This done, he went out with the water. Making his report to the governor, he came and turned to Robinson. Number 19 is sinking. Oh, is he? Fry, turning to a water. What has 19's treatment been? Been in his cell, sir, without labor since he came. Black hole yesterday for communicating in chapel. What is the matter with him? Doctor says he is sinking. What the devil do you mean by his sinking? Well, sir, replied the surgeon with a sort of dry deference. He's dying. That is what I mean. Oh, he is dying. Is he? Damn him. We'll stop that. Here, Fry, take number 19 out into the garden and set him to work and put him on the corridor tomorrow. Is he to be let talk to us, sir? Huff, yes. Robinson was taken out into the garden. It was a small piece of ground that had once been a yard. It was enclosed within walls of great height, and to us would have seemed a cheerless place for horticulture. But to Robinson it appeared the Garden of Eden. He gave a sigh of relief and pleasure, but the next moment his countenance fell. They won't let me stay here. Fry took him into the center of the garden and put a spade into his hand. Now you dig this piece, said he in his dry, unfriendly tone, and if you have time cut the edges of this grass path square. The words were scarcely out of his mouth before Robinson drove the spade into the soil with all the energy of one of God's creatures escaping from system back to nature. Fry left him in the garden after making him pull down his visor, for there was one more prisoner working at some distance. Robinson set to with energy and dug for the bare life. It was a sort of work he knew very little about, and a gardener would have been disgusted at his ridges, but he threw his whole soul into it and very soon had nearly completed his task. Having been confined so long without exercise, his breath was short, and he perspired profusely, but he did not care for that. Oh, how sweet this is after being buried alive, cried he, and in went the spade again. Presently he was seized with a strong desire to try the other part of his task. The more so as it required more skill and presented a difficulty to overcome. A part of the path had been shaved, and the nippers lay where they had been last used. Robinson inspected the recent work with an intelligent eye, and soon discovered traces of a white line on one side of the path that served as a guide to the nippers. Oh, I must draw a straight line, said Robinson out loud, indulging himself with the sound of a human voice. But how can you tell me that? He inquired of a gooseberry bush that grew near. The words were hardly out of his mouth before, peering about in every direction. He discovered an iron spike with some cord wrapped around it, and not far off a piece of chalk. He pounced on them, and fastening the spike at the edge of the path attempted to draw a line with the chalk, using the string as a ruler. Not succeeding, he reflected a little, and the result was that he chalked several feet of the line all round until it was all white. Then with the help of a stake, which he took for his other terminus, he got the chalked string into a straight line just above the edge of the grass. Next, pressing it tightly down with his foot, he affected a white line on the grass. He now removed the string, took the nippers, and followed his white line, trimmed the path, succundum artum. There, said Robinson to the gooseberry bush, but not very loud for fear of being heard and punished. I wonder whether that is how the gardener saw it. I think it must be. He viewed his work with satisfaction, then went back to his digging, and as he put the finishing stroke, Fry came to bring him back to his cell. It was bedtime. I never worked in a garden before, began Robinson, so it is not so well done as it might be. But if I was to come every day for a week, I think I could master it. I did not know there was a garden in this prison. If ever I build a prison, there shall be a garden in it as big as Belgrave Square. You are precious fond of the sound of your own voice, number nineteen, said Fry, dryly. We are not forbidden to speak to the warders, are we? Not at proper times. He threw open cell door nineteen, and Robinson entered. Before he could close the door, Robinson said, Good night, and thank you. Night snarled Fry sullenly, as one shamed against his will into a civility. Robinson lay awake half the night, and awoke the next morning, rather feverish and stiff, but not the leaden thing he was the day before. A feather turns a balanced scale. This man's life and reason had been engaged in a drawn battle with three mortal enemies— solitude, silence, and privation of all employment. That little bit of labor and wholesome thought, whose paltry and childish details I have blushed to have given you, were yet due to my story, for they took a man out of himself, checked the self-devouring process, and helped elastic nature to recover herself this bout. The next day Robinson was employed washing the prison. The next he got two hours in the garden again, and the next the tradesmaster was sent into a cell to teach him how to make scrubbing brushes. The man sat down and was commencing a discourse when Robinson interrupted him politely. Sir, let me see your work, and watch me try to do the same, and correct me. With all my heart, said the tradesmaster. He remained about half an hour with his pupil, and when he went out he said to one of the turnkeys, there is a chap in there that can pick up a handicraft as a pigeon picks up peas. The next day the surgeon happened to look in. He found Robinson as busy as a bee making brushes, pulled his eye open again, felt his pulse, and wrote something down in his memorandum book. He left directions with the turnkey that number 19 should be kept employed with the governor's permission. Robinson's hands were now full. He made brushes, and every day put some of them to the test upon the floor and walls of the building. It happened one day, as he was doing housemaid and corridor B, that he suddenly heard unwanted sounds issued from a part of the premises into which he had not yet been introduced. The yard devoted to hard labor. First he heard a single voice shouting. That did not last long. Then a dead silence. Then several voices, among which his quick ear recognized prize and the governor's. He could see nothing. The sounds came from one of the hard labor cells. Robinson was surprised in puzzles. What were these sounds that broke the silence of the living tune? An instinct told him it was no use asking a turnkey, so he devoured his curiosity and surprise as best he might. The very next day, about the same hour, both were again excited by noises from the same quarter equally unintelligible. He heard a great noise of water slashed in bucketfuls against a wall, and this was followed by a sort of gurgling that seemed to him to come from a human throat. This latter, however, was almost drowned in an exulting chuckle of several persons, among whom he caught the tones of a turnkey called Hodges and of the governor himself. Robinson puzzled and puzzled himself but could not understand these curious sounds, and he could see nothing except a quantity of water running out of one of the labor cells, and coursing along till it escaped by one of the two gutters that drained the yard. Often and often, Robinson meditated on this, and exerted all his ingenuity to conceive what it meant. His previous jail experience afforded him no clue, and as he was one of those who hate to be in the dark about anything, this new riddle tortured him. However, the prison was generally so dead, dumb, and gloomy that upon two such cheerful events as water splashing and creatures laughing, he could not help crowing a little out of sympathy without knowing why. The next day, as Robinson was working in the corridor, the governor came in with a gentleman who he treated with unusual and marked respect. This gentleman was the chairman of the quarter sessions, and one of those magistrates who had favored the adoption of the present system. Mr. Williams inspected the prison, was justly pleased with its exquisite cleanness. He questioned the governor as to the health of the prisoners, and received for answer that most of them were well, but that there were some exceptions. This appeared to satisfy him. He went into the labor yard, looked at the cranks, examined the numbers printed on each in order to learn their respective weights, and see that the prisoners were not overburdened. Went with the governor into three or four cells and asked the prisoners if they had any complaint to make. The unanimous answer was no. He then complimented the governor, and drove home to his own house, Ashton Park. There, after dinner, he said to a brother of magistrate, I inspected the jail today, was all over it. The next morning Frye, the morose, came into Robinson's cell with a more cheerful countenance than usual. Robinson noticed it. You were put on the crank, said Frye. Oh, am I? Of course you are. Your sentence was hard labor, wasn't it? I don't know why you weren't sent on a fortnight ago. Frye then took him out into the labor yard, which he found perforated with cells about half the size of his hermitage in the corridor. In each of these little quiet grottoes lurked a monster called a crank. A crank is a machine of this sort. There springs out of a vertical post an iron handle, which the workman, taking it by both hands, works round and round, as in some country places you may have seen the villagers draw a bucket up from a well. The iron handle goes at the shoulder into the small iron box at the top of the post, and inside that box the resistance to the turner is regulated by the manufacturer, who states the value of the resistance outside in cast iron letters. Thus, five pound crank, seven pound crank, ten, twelve, et cetera, et cetera. Eighteen hundred revolutions per hour, said Mr. Frye in his voice of routine, and you would have worked two hours before dinner. So saying he left him and Robinson, with the fear of punishment before him, lost not a moment in getting to work. He found the crank go easy enough at first, but the longer he was at it the stiffer it seemed to turn, and after about four hundred turns he was feigned to breathe and rest himself. He took three minutes rest, then at it again. All this time there was no task master, as in Egypt, nor whipper up of declining sable energy as in old Kentucky. So that if I am so fortunate as to have a reader aged ten, he is wondering why the fool did not confine his exertions to saying he had made the turns. My dear, it would not do, though no mortal oversaw the thief at his task, the eye of science was in that cell and watched every stroke, and her inexorable finger marked it down. In plain English, on the face of the machine was a thing like a chronometer with numbers set all round, and a hand which, somehow or other, always pointed to the exact number of turns the thief had made. The crank was an autometer or self-measurer, and in that respect you're superior and mine, my little drake. This was Robinson's first acquaintance with the crank. The treadwheel had been the mode in his time, so by the time he had made three thousand turns he was rather exhausted. He leaned upon the iron handle and sadly regretted his garden and his brushes, but fear and dire necessity were upon him. He set to his task and to work again. I won't look at the meter again, for it always tells me less than I expect. I'll just plow on till that beggar comes. I know he will come to the minute. Sadly and doggedly he turned the iron handle and turned and turned again, and then he panted and rested a minute, and then doggedly to his idle toil again. He was now so fatigued that his head seemed to have come loose. He could not hold it up, and it went round and round and round with the crank handle. Hence it was that Mr. Fry stood at the mouth of the den without the other seeing him. Halt, said Fry. Robinson looked up and there was the turnkey, inspecting him with a discontented air. I'm done, thought Robinson. Here he is as black as thunder, the number not right, no doubt. What are you at, growled Fry? You are forty over, and the said Fry looked not only ill-used, but a little unhappy. Robinson's good behavior had disappointed the poor soul. This Fry was a grim oddity. He experienced a feeble complacency when things went wrong, but never else. The thief exalted and was taken back to his cell. Dinner came almost immediately, four ounces of meat instead of three, two ounces less bread, but a large access of potatoes, which more than balanced the account. The next day Robinson was put on the crank again, but not till the afternoon. He had finished about half his task when he heard at some little distance from him a faint moaning. His first impulse was to run out of his cell and see what was the matter, but Hodges and Fry were both in the yard, and he knew that they would report him for punishment upon the least breach of discipline. So he turned and turned the crank, with these moans ringing in his ears and perplexing his soul. Finding they did not cease, he peeped cautiously into the yard, and there he saw the governor himself, as well as Hodges and Fry. All three were standing close to the place once these groans issued, and with an air of complete unconcern. But presently the groans ceased, and then mysteriously enough the little group of disciplinarians threw off their apathy. Hodges and Fry went hastily to the pump with buckets, which they filled, and then came back to the governor. The next minute Robinson heard water dashed repeatedly against the walls of the cell, and then the governor laughed, and Hodges laughed, and even the gloomy Fry vented a brief grim chuckle. And now Robinson quivered with curiosity as he turned his crank. But there was no means of gratifying it. It so happened, however, that some ten minutes later the governor sent Hodges and Fry to another part of the prison, and they had not been gone long before a message came to himself, on which he went hastily out, and the yard was left empty. Robinson's curiosity had reached such a pitch that notwithstanding the risk he ran, for he knew the governor would send back to the yard the very first disengaged officer he met, he could not stay quiet. As the governor closed the gate, he ran with all speed to the cell. He darted in, and then the thief saw what made the three honest men laugh so. He saw it, and started back with a cry of dismay, for the sight chilled the felon to the bone. A lad about fifteen years of age was pinned against the wall in agony by a leather belt passed around his shoulders and drawn violently around two staples in the wall. His arms were jammed against his sides by a straight waistcoat fastened with straps behind, and no straps drawn with the utmost severity. But this was not all. A high leather collar, a quarter of an inch thick, squeezed his throat in its iron grasp. His hair and his clothes were drenched with water, which had been thrown in buckets full over him, and now dripped from him on the floor. His face was white, his lips livid, his eyes were nearly glazed, and his teeth chattered with cold and pain. A more unprincipled man than Robinson did not exist, but burglary and larceny do not extinguish humanity in a thinking rascal as resigning the soul to system can extinguish it in a dull dog. Oh, what is this? cried Robinson. What are the villains doing to you? He received no answer, but the boy's eyes opened wide, and he turned those glazing eyes, the only part of his body he could turn, toward the speaker. Robinson ran up to him and began to try and loosen him. At this, the boy cried out, almost screaming with terror, let me alone, let me alone, they'll give it me worse if you do, and they'll serve you out too. But you will die, boy, look at his poor lips. No, no, no, I shan't die. No such luck, cried the boy impatiently and wildly. Thank you for speaking kind to me. Who are you? Tell me quick and go. I am Joseph's, number 15, corridor A. I am Robinson, number 19, corridor B. Goodbye, Robinson, I shan't forget you. Hark the door! Go, go, go, go, go! Robinson was already gone. He had fled at the first click of a key in the outward door and darted into his cell at the moment Frey got into the yard. An instinct of suspicion led this man straight to Robinson's hermitage. He found him hard at work. Frey scrutinized his countenance, but Robinson was too good an actor to betray himself. Only when Frey passed on he drew a long breath. What he had seen surprised as well as alarmed him, for he had always been told the new system discouraged personal violence of all sorts, and in all his experience of the old jails he had never seen a prisoner abused so savagely as the young martyr in the adjoining cell. His own work done he left for his own dormitory. He was uneasy and his heart was heavy for poor Joseph's, but he dared not even cast a look toward his place of torture, for the other executioners had returned, and Frey followed grim at his heels like a mastiff dogging a stranger out of the premises. That evening Robinson spent in gloomy reflections and forebodings. I wish he was in the hulks or anywhere out of this place, said he. As for Joseph's, the governor, after inspecting his torture for a few minutes, left the yard again with his subordinates, and Joseph's was left alone with his great torture for two hours more. Then Hodges came in and began to loose him, swearing at him all the time for a little rebellious monkey that gave more trouble than enough. The rebellious monkey made no answer, but crawled slowly away to his dungeon, shivering in his drenched clothes, stiff and sore, his bones full of pain, his heart full of despondency. Robinson had now eight thousand turns of the crank per day, and very hard work he found it, but he preferred it to being buried alive all day in his cell, and warned by Joseph's fate he went at the crank with all his soul, and never gave them an excuse for calling him refractory. It happened, however, one day, just after breakfast, that he was taken with a headache and shivering, and not getting better after chapel, but rather worse. He rang his bell and begged to see the surgeon. The surgeon ought to have been in the jail at this hour. He was not, though, as he had been the day before, and was accustomed to neglect the prisoners for anyone who paid better. He was not expected this day. Soon after Fry came to the cell and ordered Robinson out to the crank. Robinson told him he was too ill to work. I must have the surgeon's authority for that before I listen to it, replied Fry, amateur of routine. But he's not in the jail or you would have it. Then he ought to be. Well, is it my fault he's surking his duty? Send for him, and you'll see he will tell you I'm not fit for the crank today. My head is splitting. Come, no gammon number nineteen. It is the crank or the jacket or else the black hole. So take what you like best. Robinson rose with a groan of pain and despondency. It is only eight thousand words you have got to say to it, and they are not many for such a tongue as yours. At the end of the time Fry came to the mouth of the labor cell with a grim chuckle. He will never have done his number this time. He found Robinson kneeling on the ground, almost insensible. The crank handle convulsively grasped in his hands. Fry's first glance was at this figure that a painter might have taken for a picture of labor over task, but this was neither new nor interesting to Fry. He went eagerly to examine the meter of the crank. There lay his heart, such as it was, and to his sorrow he found that number nineteen had done his work before he broke down. What it cost the poor fever-stricken wretch to do it can easier be imagined than described. They assisted Robinson to his cell, and that night he was in a burning fever. The next day the surgeon happened by some accident to be at his post and prescribed change of diet and medicines for him. He would be better in the infirmary. Why, said the governor, more air. Nonsense, there's plenty of air here. There is a constant stream of air comes in through this, and he pointed to a revolving cylinder in the window constructed for that purpose. You give him the right stuff, doctor, said Hawes jacosly, and he won't slip his wind this time. The surgeon acquiesced according to custom. It was not for him to contradict Hawes, who allowed him to attend the jail or neglect it according to his convenience, i.e., to come three or four times a week at different hours instead of twice every day at fixed hours. It was two days after this that the governor saw Hodges come out of a cell laughing. What he had grinning at, said he in his amiable way. Number 19 is lightheaded, sir, and I have been listening to him. It would make a cat laugh, said Hodges apologetically. He knew well enough that the governor did not approve of laughing in the jail. The governor said nothing but made a motion with his hand, and Hodges opened cell 19 and they both went in. Number 19 lay on his back, flushed and restless, with his eyes fixed on vacancy. He was talking incessantly and without sequence. I should fail signally were I to attempt to transfer his words to paper. I feel my weakness and the strength of others who in my day have shown a singular power of fixing on paper the volatile particles of frenzy. However, in a word, the poor thief was talking, as our poet tasters write, and amid his gunpowder, daffodils, bosh, and other constellations, there mingled gleams of sense and feeling that would have made you and me very sad. He often recurred to a girl he called Mary, and said a few gentle words to her, then off again into the wildest flights. While Mr. Hawes and his mermitans were laughing at him, he suddenly fixed his eyes on some imaginary figure on the opposite wall, and he began to cry out loudly, Take him down! Don't you see you are killing him? The collar is choking him! See how white he is! His eyes stare! The boy will die! Murder! Murder! Murder! I can't bear to see him die! And with these words he buried his head in the bedclothes. Mr. Hawes looked at Mr. Frye. Mr. Frye answered the look. He must have seen Joseph's the other day. Aye, he is mighty curious. Well, when he gets well, and shaking his fist at the sufferer, Mr. Hawes went out of the cell soon after. End of chapter 10 Chapter 11 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 11 What is your report about number 19, doctor? The fever is gone. He is well then? He is well of the fever, but a fever leaves the patient in a state of debility for some days. I have ordered him meat twice a day, that is, meat once and soup once. Then you report him cured of his fever. Certainly. Hodges, put number 19 on the crank. Yes, sir. Even the surgeon opened his eyes at this. Why, he is as weak as a child, said he. Will it kill him? Certainly not. And for the best of all reasons, he can't possibly do it. You don't know what these fellows can do when they are forced. The surgeon shrugged his shoulders and passed on to his other patients. Robinson was taken out into the yard. What a blessing the fresh air is, said he, gulping in the atmosphere of the yard. I should have got well long ago if I had not been stifled in myself for one of room and air. Robinson went to the crank in good spirits. He did not know how weak he was till he began to work, but he soon found out he could not do the task in the time. He thought therefore the wisest plan would be not to exhaust himself in vain efforts, and he sat quietly down and did nothing. In this posture he was found by Hawes and his merminidens. What are you doing there not working? Sir, I am only just getting well of a fever and I am as weak as water. And that is why you're not trying to do anything, eh? I have tried, sir, and it is impossible. I am not fit to turn this heavy crank. Well then, I must try if I can't make you. Fetch the jacket. Oh, for heaven's sake, don't torture me, sir. There is nobody more willing to work than I am, and if you will but give me a day or two to get my strength after the fever, you shall see how I will work. There, there, your paliver. Strap him up. He was in no condition to resist and moreover new resistance was useless. They jammed him in the jacket, pinned him tight to the wall, and throttled him in the collar. This collar, by a refinement of cruelty, was made with unbound edges, so that when the victim, exhausted with the cruel cramp that wracked his aching bones in the fierce gripe of Hawes' infernal machine, sunk his heavy head and drooped his chin, the jagged collar sawed him directly and lacerating the flesh drove him away from even this miserable approach to ease. Robinson had formed no idea of the torture. The victims of the Inquisition would have gained but little by becoming the victims of the separate and silent system in jail. They left the poor fellow pinned to the wall, jammed in the street waistcoat, and throttled in the round saw. Weakened by fever and unnatural exertion, he succumbed sooner than the Inquisitors had calculated upon. The next time they came into the yard, they found him black in the face, his lips livid, insensible, throttled, and dying. Another half minute, and there would have hung a corpse in the Hawes' pillory. When they saw how nearly he was gone, they were all at him together. One unclasped the saw-collar, one unbraced the waistcoat, another sprinkled water over him, not a bucketful this time, because they would have wedded themselves. Released from the infernal machine, the body of number nineteen fell like a lump of clay upon the men who had reduced him to this condition. Then these worthies were in some little trepidation. For though they had caused the death of many men during the last two years, they had not yet, as it happened, murdered a single one on the spot openly and honestly like this, and they feared they might get into trouble. Adjoining the yard was a bathroom. To this they carried number nineteen. They stripped him and let the water run upon him from the cock, but he did not come to. Then they scrubbed him just as they would a brick floor with a hard brush upon the back till his flesh was as red as blood. With this and the water together, he began to gasp and sigh and faintly come back from insensibility to a new set of tortures. But not so long was the struggle between life and death that these men of business detained thus unconscionably about a single thief. Lost all patience with him. One scrubbed him till the blood came under the bristles. Another seized him by the hair of his head and jerked his head violently back several times, and this gave him such pain that he began to struggle instinctively. And the blood now fairly set in motion, he soon moved. The last thing he remembered was a body full of aching bones. The first he awoke to was the sensation of being flayed alive from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. The first word he heard was put his clothes on a shaman carcass. Shall we dry him, sir? Dry him, roared the governor with an oath. No, hasn't he given us trouble enough? They flung his clothes upon his red hot dripping skin and Hodges gave him a brutal push. Go to your cell. Robinson crawled off, often wincing and trying in vain to keep his clothes from rubbing those parts of his person where they had scrubbed the skin off him. Hawes eyed him with grim superiority. Suddenly he had an inspiration. Come back, shouted he. I never was beat by a prisoner yet, and I never will. Strap him up. At this command even the turn keys looked amazed at one another and hesitated. Then the governor swore horribly at them, and Hodges without another word went for the jacket. They took hold of him. He made no resistance, never even looked at them. He never took his eyes off pause. On him his eye fastened like a basilisk. They took him away and pinioned, jammed and throttled him to the wall again. Hodges was set to watch him, and a bucket of water neared to throw over him should he show the least sign of shamming again. In an hour another turn key came and relieved Hodges. In another hour Fry relieved him, for this was tiresome work for a poor turn key. In another hour a new hand relieved Fry, but nobody relieved No. 19. Five mortal hours had he been in the vice without shamming. The pain his skin suffered from the late remedies and the deadly rage as his heart gave him unnatural powers of resistance. But at last the infernal machine conquered and he began to turn dead faint. Then Hodges, his sentinel at the time, caught up the bucket and dashed the whole contents over him. The effect was magical. The shock took away his breath for a moment, but the next the blood seemed to glow with fire in his veins and he felt a general access of vigor to bear his torture. When this man had been six hours in the vice, the governor and his mermittans came into the yard and unstrapped him. You did not beat me, see after all said the governor to No. 19. The turn keys heard and revered their chief. No. 19 looked him full in the face with an eye glittering like a sabre, but said no word. Sulky brute cried the governor, lock him up. And that evening as a warder was rolling the prisoner's supper along the little natural railway made by the two railings of Carter B, the governor stepped the carriage and asked for No. 19's tin. It was given him and he abstracted one half of the man's gruel. Refractory in the yard today, but I'll break him before I've done with him. The next day brushes were wanted for the jail. This saved Robinson for that day. It was little Joseph's turn to suffer. The governor put him on a favorite crank of his and gave him 8,000 turns to do in four hours and a half. He knew the boy could not do it, and this was only a formula he went through previous to pilloring the lad. Joseph's had been in the pillory about an hour when it so happened that the Reverend John Jones, the chaplain of the jail, came into the yard. Seeing a group of warders at the mouth of the labor cell, he walked up to them, and there was Joseph's in Penforte de Dere. What is this lad's offense, inquired Mr. Jones? Refractory at the crank was the reply. Why Joseph said to the gentleman, you told me you would always do your best. Sir, I do your reverence, guest Joseph's. But this crank is too heavy for a lad like me, and that is why I am put on it to get punished. Hold your tongue, said Hodges, roughly. Why is he to hold his tongue, Mr. Hodges, said the chaplain quietly? How is he to answer my question if he holds his tongue? You forget yourself. Ugh, beg your pardon, sir, but this one has always got some excuse or other. What is the matter, Ward, a rough voice behind the speakers? This was Haas, who had approached them unobserved. He is gammoning his reverence, sir, that is all. What is he been saying? That the crank is too heavy for him, sir, and the waistcoat is strapped too tight, it seems. Who says so? I think so, Mr. Haas. Will you take a bit of advice, sir? If you wish a prisoner well, don't you come between him and me. It will always be the worst for him, for I am master here and master I will be. Mr. Haas, replied the chaplain, I have never done or said anything in the prison to lessen your authority, but privately I must remonstrate against the uncommon severities practiced upon prisoners in this jail. If you will listen to me, I shall be much obliged to you. If not, I am afraid I must, as a matter of conscience, call the attention of the visiting justices to the question. Well, parson, the justices will be in the jail today. You tell them your story, and I will tell them mine, said Haas, with the cool air of defiance. Sure enough, at five o'clock in the afternoon, two of the visiting justices arrived, accompanied by Mr. Wright, a young magistrate. They were met at the door by Haas, who wore a look of delight at their appearance. They went round the prison with him, while he detained them in the center of the building, till he had sent Hodges secretly to undo Joseph's and set him on the crank, and here the party found him at work. You have been a long time on the crank, my lad, said Haas, you may go to your cell. Joseph's touched his cap to the governor, and the gentlemen went off. That is a nice, quiet-looking boy, said one of the justices. What is he in for? He is in this time for stealing a piece of beef out of a butcher's shop. This time, what, is he a hardened defender? He does not look it. He has been three times in prison, once for throwing stones, once for orchard robbing, and this time for the beef. What a young villain, at his age. Don't say that, Williams, said Mr. Wright-Dreilly. You and I were just as great villains at his age. Didn't we throw stones? Rather. Haas laughed in an adultery manner, but observing that Mr. Williams, who was a grave pompous personage, did not smile at all, he added. But not to do mischief like this one, I'll be bound. No, said Mr. Williams, with an air of ruffled dignity. No, cried the other. Where is your memory? Why, we threw stones at everything and everybody, and I suppose we did not always miss, eh? I remember you throwing a stone through the window of a place of worship. This was a school fellow of mine, and led me into all sorts of wickedness. I say, was it a Wesleyan shop, Williams, or a Baptist? For I forget. Never mind. You had a fit of orthodoxy. What was the young villain's second offense? Robbing an orchard, sir. The scoundrel. Robbing an orchard? Oh, what sweet reminiscence those words recall. I say, Williams, do you remember us two robbing Farmer Harris's orchard? I remember you robbing it, and my character suffering for it. I don't remember that, but I remember my climbing the pear tree and flinging the pears down, and finding them all grabbed on my descent. What is the young villain's next? Oh, snapping a piece off a counter. We never did that, because we could always get it without stealing it. With this, Mr. Wright strolled away from the others, having had what the jocose wretch used to call a slap at homebug. His absence was relief to the others. These did not come there to utter sense in fun, but to jest in sober earnest. Mr. Williams hinted as much, and haws, whose cue it was to assent in everything to the justices, brightened his face up with a remark. Were you visit the cell's gentlemen, said he, with an accent of cordial invitation, or inspect the book first? They gave precedence to the latter. By the book was meant the log book of the jail. In it the governor was required to report for the justices and the home office all jail events a little out of the usual routine. For instance, all punishments of prisoners, all considerable sicknesses, deaths, and their supposed causes, etc. etc. This Joseph's seems by the book to be an ill conditioned fellow. He is often down for punishment. Yes, he hates work. About ghillies, sir, ringing his bell and pretending it was an accident? Yes, how old is he? Thirteen. Is this his first offense? Not by a good many. I think, gentlemen, if you were to order him a flogging, it would be better for him in the end. Well, give him twenty lashes. A. Palmer. Mr. Palmer assented by a nod. I beg your pardon, sir, said haws, but will you allow me to make a remark? Certainly, Mr. Haws, certainly. I find twenty lashes all at once rather too much for a lad of that age. Now, if you would allow me to divide the punishment into two so that his health might not be endangered by it, then we could give him ten or even twelve and after a day or two as many more. That speaks well for your humanity, Mr. Haws, your zeal we have long known. Ah, sir, sir. I will sign the order, and we will authorize you here to divide the punishment according to your own suggestion. The justices then went round the cells accompanied by haws. They went into the cells with an expression of a little curiosity but more repugnance on their faces and asked several prisoners if they were well and contented. The men looked with the shrewdness of their class into their visitors' faces and measured them. Saw there, first, a feeble understanding. Secondly, an adamantine prejudice. Saw that in those eyes they were wild beasts and haws an angel and answered to please haws whose eye was fixed on them all this time and whose power they felt they were. All expressed their content, some in tones so languid and empty of heart that none but just as shallow could have helped seeing through the humbug. Others did it better and not a few overdid it so that any but just as shallow would have seen through them. These last told Messer shallow and slender that the best thing that had ever happened to them was coming to jail. They thanked Heaven they had been pulled up short in an evil career that must have ended in their ruined body and soul. As for their present situation they were never happier in their lives and some of them doubted much whether when they should reach the penal settlements the access of liberty would repay them for the increased temptations and the loss of quiet meditation and self-communion and the good advice of Mr. Hawes and of his reverence the chaplain. The jailbirds who piped this tune were without a single exception the desperate cases of this moral hospital. They were old offenders, hardened scoundrels who meant to rob and kill and deceive to their dying day. While in prison their game was to be as comfortable as they could. Hawes could make them uncomfortable he was always there. Under these circumstances to lie came on the instant as natural to them as to rob would have come had some power transported them outside the prison doors with these words of penance on their lips. They asked where that Joseph cell was. Hawes took them to him. They inspected him with profound zoological look to see whether it was more wolf or badger. Strange to say it looked neither but a simple quiet youth of the human genus species snob. He is very small to be a ruffian said Mr. Palmer. I am sorry Josephs said Mr. Williams pompously to find your name so often down for punishment. Josephs looked up hoping to see the light of sympathy in the speaker's eyes. He saw two owls faces attempting eagle but not reaching up to sparrow hawk and he was silent. He had no hope of being believed. Moreover the grim eye of Hawes rested on him and no feebleness in it. Messers shallow and slender receiving no answer from Josephs who was afraid to tell the truth were nettle and left the cell shrugging their shoulders. In the corridor they met the train just coming along the banisters with supper. Pompous Mr. Williams tasted the prisoner diet on the spot. It is excellent cried he why the gruel is like glue and he fell into a meditation. So far everything is as we could wish Mr. Hawes and it speaks well for the discipline and for yourself. Hawes bowed with a gratified air. I will complete the inspection tomorrow. Hawes accompanied the gentleman to the outside gate. Here Mr. Williams turned for the last minute or two he had been in the throes of an idea and now he delivered himself of it. It would be well if Joseph's gruel were not made so strong for him. Mr. Williams was not one of those who often say a great thing but this deserves immortality and I could confer immortality this of Williams should never die. Unlike most of the things we say it does not deserve ever to die. It would be well if Joseph's gruel were not made so strong for him. End of chapter 11. Chapter 12 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. Will you eat your mutton with me today Palmer? Said Mr. Williams at the gate of the jail. I should be very happy but I'm engaged to dine with the Lord Lieutenant. So Mr. Williams drove home to Ashton Park and had to sit down to dinner with his own small family party. Mr. Williams mutton consisted of first a little strong gravy soup lubricated and gelatinized with a little tapioca. Vis-a-vis the soup a little piece of salmon cut out of the fish's center, lobster patties, rissoles and two things with French names stinking of garlic on the flank. Enter a boiled turkey pulp with a delicate white sauce, a nice tongue not too green not too salt and a small saddle of six-tooth mutton home bread home fed after this astute pigeon faced by green gauge tart and some yellow cream 24 hours old item and iced pudding. A little stilt in cheese brought up the rear with a nice salad. This made way for a foolish trifling dessert of muscatel grapes, guava jelly and diver's kick-shaws diluted with agreeable wines varied by a little glass of Marsequinone company at junctures. So far so nice. But alas nothing is complete in this world not even the dinner of a fair round justice with fat capon lined. There's always some drawback or deficiency here below, Khan found it. The wretch of a cook had forgotten to send up the gruel a la joseph's. Next day after Mr. Williams had visited the female prisoners and complimented Hawes on having initiated them into the art of silence, he asked where the chaplain was. Hawes instantly dispatched a messenger to inquire and remembering that gentlemen's threatened remonstrance parried him by anticipation thus. By the by, sir, I have a little complaint to make of him. Indeed, said Mr. Williams, what is that? He took a prisoner's part against the discipline, but he doesn't know them and they humbug him. But sir, ought he to preach against me in the chapel of the jail? Certainly not. Surely he has not been guilty of such a breach of discipline and good taste. Oh, but wait, sir, said Hawes. Hear the whole truth, and then perhaps you will blame me. You must know, sir, that I sometimes let out an oath. I was in the army, and we used all to swear there, and now a little of it sticks to me in spite of my teeth. And if his reverence had done me the honor to take me to task privately about it, I would have taken off my hat to him. But it is another thing to go and preach at me for it before all the jail. Of course it is. Do you mean to say he did that? He did, sir. Of course he did not mention my name, but he preached five and thirty minutes all about swearing, and they all knew who he was hitting. I could see the warders grinning from ear to ear as much as to say there's another rat for you, Governor. I'll speak to him. Thank you, sir. Don't be hard on him for he is a deserving officer, but if he would give him a quiet hint not to interfere with me, we have all of us plenty to do in our own in a jail, if he could but see it. Ah, here comes the chaplain, sir. I will leave you together if you please, and Mr. Hawes made off with a business air. The chaplain came up and bowed to Mr. Williams, who saluted him in turn somewhat coldly. There was a short silence. Mr. Williams was concocting a dignified rebuke. Before he could get it out, the chaplain began. I wished to speak with you yesterday, sir. I am at your service, Mr. Jones. What is it? I want you to look into our punishments. They are far more numerous and severe than they used to be. On the contrary, I find them less numerous. Why, there is one punished every day. I have been carefully over the books, and I assure you there is a marked decrease in the number of punishments. Then they cannot be all put down. Nonsense, Mr. Jones. Nonsense. And then, the severity of these punishments, sir. Is it your wish that a prisoner should be strapped in a jacket so tight that we cannot get a finger between the leather and his flesh? Not unless he is refractory, but prisoners are seldom refractory. Indeed, that is news to me. I assure you, sir, there are no quieter set of men than prisoners generally. They know there is nothing to be gained by resistance. They are on their good behavior before you. You don't see through them, my good sir. They are like madmen. You would take them for lambs till they break out. Do you know a prisoner here called Joseph's? Yes, sir, perfectly well. Well, now, what is his character, may I ask? He is a mild, quiet, docile lad. I thought so. Prisoners are the refuse of the earth. The governor knows them, and how to manage them. A discretion must be allowed him, and I see no reason to interfere between him and refractory prisoners, except when he invites us. You are aware that several attempts at suicide have been made within the last few months. Sham attempts, yes. One was not sham, sir, said Mr. Jones, gravely. Oh, Jackson, you mean. No, but he was a lunatic, and would have made away with himself anywhere. Hawes is convinced of that. Well, sir, I have told you the fact. I have remonstrated against the uncommon seventies practiced in this jail. Seventies unknown in Captain O'Connor's day, and I have received and answered your remonstrance, sir, and there that matter ought to end. This and the haughty tone with which it was said discouraged and nettle the chaplain. He turned red and said, in that case, sir, I have no more to say. I have discharged my conscience. With these words, he was about to withdraw, but Mr. Williams stopped him. Mr. Jones, do you consider a clergyman justified in preaching a people? Certainly not. The pulpit surely ought not to be made a handle for personality. It is not the way to make the pulpit itself respected. I don't understand you, sir. Mr. Hawes is much hurt at a sermon you preached against him. A sermon against him? Never. I beg your pardon. You preached a whole sermon against swearing, and he swears. Oh, yes, I remember. The Sunday before last. I certainly did reprobate in my discourse the habit of swearing, but no personality to Hawes was intended. No personality intended when you know he swears. Yes, but the waters swear too. Why should Mr. Hawes take it all to himself? Oh, if the turnkey swear, then it is not so strictly personal. To be sure, put in Mr. Jones inadvertently, I believe they learned it of the governor. There you see. Well, and even if they did not, why preach against the turnkeys? Why preach at any individuals or upon passing events at all? I can remember the time no clergyman throughout the length and breadth of the land noticed passing events from the pulpit. I am as far from approving the practice as you are, sir. In those days, the clergy and the laity respected one another, and there was peace in the church. I can only repeat, sir, that I agree with you. The pulpit should be consecrated to eternal truths, not passing events. Good, very good. Well then, what Mr. Hawes complains of was a mere accident. An accident, Mr. Jones? Oh, Mr. Jones. An accident which I undertake to explain to Mr. Hawes himself. By all means, that would be the best way of making friends again. I need not tell you that a jail could not go on in which the governor and the chaplain did not pull together. The fact is, Mr. Jones, the clergy of late, have been assuming a little too much, and that has made the laity a little jealous. Now, although you are a clergyman, you are Her Majesty's servant so long as you are here and must cooperate with the general system of the jail. Come, sir, you are younger than I am. Let me give you a piece of advice. Don't overstep your duty, etc. In this strain, Mr. Williams buzzed, buzzed, buzzed, longer than I can afford him paper. It is so dear. He pumped a stream of time-honored phrases on his hearer and dissolved away with him as the overflow of a pump carries away a straw on its shallow stream down a stable yard. When the pump was pumped dry, he stopped. Then the chaplain, who had listened with singular politeness, got in a word. You forget, sir, I have resigned the chaplaincy of the jail. Ah, ah, yes, well then, I need say no more. Good day, Mr. Jones. Good morning, sir. Soon after this up came haws with a cheerful countenance. Well, Parson, are you to manage the prisoners and I to preach to them or are we to go on as we are? Things are to go on as they are, Mr. Haas, but that is nothing to me. I have discharged my conscience. I have remonstrated against the 70s practiced on our prisoners. Cold water has been thrown on my remonstrances, and I shall therefore interfere no more. That is the wise way to look at it. You may depend. We shall see which was in the right. I have discharged my conscience. But, Mr. Haas, I am hurt you should say I preached a sermon against you. I dare say you are, sir, but who began it? If you had not talked of complaining to the justices of me, I should never have said a word against you. That is all settled, but it is due to my character to show you that I have no intention of pointing at you or any living creature from the pulpit. Well, make me believe that. If you will do me the favor to come to my room, I can prove it to you. The chaplain took the governor to his room and opened two drawers in a massive table. Mr. Haas, said he, do you see this pile of sermons in this right-hand drawer? I see them, said Haas, with the doleful air, and I suppose I shall hear some of them before long. These, said Mr. Jones, smiling with perfect good humor at the innocuous sneer, are sermons I composed when I was curate of little stoke. Of late I have been going regularly through my little stoke discourses, as you may see. I take one from the pile in this drawer, and after first preaching it in the jail, I place it in the left drawer on that smaller pile. That you may preach it again by accident? Well, that is business. If you look into the left pile near the top, you will find the one I preached against profane discourse, with the date at which it was first composed. Here it is, sir, little stoke, May 15, 1847. Well, Mr. Haas, now was that written against you come? No, I confess it could not, but look here, if a man sends a bullet into me, it doesn't matter to me whether he made the gun on purpose, or shot me out of an old one that he had got by him. But I tell you that I took the sermon out in its turn, and knew no more what it was about until I opened it in the pulpit, then I knew what this one is about, which I am going to preach next Sunday morning. It was all chance. It was my bad luck, I suppose, said Haas a little sulkily. And mine, too. Could I anticipate that a discourse composed for and preached to a rural congregation would be deemed to have a personal application here? Well, no. I have now only to add that I extremely regret the circumstance. Say no more, sir. When a gentleman expresses his regret to another gentleman, there is an end of the grievance. I will take care of the sort of thing never happens again. Enough said, sir. It can never, however, for I shall preach but one more Sunday here. And I am very sorry for it, Mr. Jones. And after this occurrence I am determined to write both sermons for the occasion, so there is sure to be nothing personal in them. Yes, that is the surest way. Well, sir, you and I never had but this one little misunderstanding, and now that is explained, we shall part friends. A glass of ale, Mr. Hawes? Don't care if I do, sir. The glasses were filled and emptied. I must go and look after my chickens. The justices have ordered guillies to be flogged. You will be there, I suppose, in half an hour. Well, if my attendance is not absolutely necessary, we will excuse you, sir, if not convenient. Thank you. Good morning. And the reconciled officials parted. Little guillies was hoisted to receive twenty lashes at the twelfth the governor ordered him down. He broke off the tail as our magazines do with a promise, to be continued. Little guillies, like their readers, cried out, No, sir, Oh, sir, please flog me to an end and have me done with it. I don't feel the cuts near so much now, my back seems dead like. Little guillies was arguing against himself. Hawes had not divided his punishment with the view of lessening his pain. It was droll, but more sad than droll, to hear the poor little fellow begging Hawes to flog him to an end, to flog him out with similar idioms. Hold your noise, Hawes shrunk with disgust from noise in his prison and could not comprehend why the prisoners could not take their punishments without infringing upon the great and glorious silence of which the jail was the temple and he the high priest. The beggars get no good by kicking up a row, argued he. Hold your noise, take him to his cell. Whether it was because he had desecrated the temple with noise or from the accident of having attracted the governor's attention, the weight of the system fell on this small object now. Guillies was ordered to make a fabulous number of crank revolutions, fabulous at least in connection with his tender age. He was put on the lightest crank but the lightest was heavy to thirteen years. Not being the infant Hercules, he could not perform this labor. So Hawes put him in a jacket and collar almost the whole day. His young and supple frame was in his favor but once or twice he could hardly help shamming and then they threw half a bucket over him. The next day he was put on the crank and not being able to complete the task that was set him before dinner he was strapped up until the evening. The next day the governor tried another tack. He took away his meat, soup, and gruel and gave him nothing but bread and water. Strange to say this change of diet did not supply the deficiency. He could not do the infant Hercules his work even on bread and water. Then the governor deprived the obstinate little dog of his chapel. If you won't work, I'm participle. If you shall pray. The boy missed the recreation of hearing Mr. Jones hum the liturgy. Missed it in a way you cannot conceive. He was so horrific was his excitement. Think of that. Little Gillies became sadly dispirited and weaker at the crank than before. Ergo the governor sentenced him to be fourteen days without bed or gas. But when they took away his bed and did not light his gas little Gillies began to lose his temper. He made a great row about this last stroke of discipline. I won't live such a life as this said little Gillies in a pet. Why don't the governor hang me at once? What is that noise? Wore the governor who was in the corridor and had long ears. It is number fifty kicking up a row at having his bed and gas taken replied a turkey with a note of admiration in his voice. The governor bounced into the cell. Are you grumbling at that? You rebellious young rascal. You forget there are dozen lashes owing you yet. Now the boy had not forgotten but he hoped the governor had. Well, you shall have the rest tomorrow. With these words ringing in his ears little Gillies was locked up for the night at six o'clock. His companions darkness and unrest for a prisoner's bed is the most comfortable thing he has and the change from it to a stone floor is as great to him as it would be to us. Darkness and unrest and the cat waiting to spring on him at a peep of day. Quaicum aida arant as the water put the key into his cell the next morning he heard a strange gurgling. He opened the door quickly and there was little Gillies hanging. A chair was near him on which he had got to suspend himself by his handkerchief from the window. He was black in the face but struggling violently and had one hand above his head convulsively clutching the handkerchief. Fry lifted him up by the knees and with some difficulty loosed the handkerchief. Little Gillies as soon as his throat could vent a sound roared with fright at the recent pearl and then cried a bit. Finally expressed a hope his breakfast would not be taken from him for this act of insubordination. This infraction of discipline was immediately reported to the governor. Little Brute cried haus viciously. I'll work him. Oh, he knew I was at hand, sir, said Fry who he would not have tried it. Of course he would not. I remember the last night he was grumbling at his bed being taken away. I'll serve him out. Soon after this the governor met the chaplain and told him the case. He shall make you an apology, imperative mood him. Me, an apology. Of course, you were the officer that has the care of his soul and he shall apologize to you for making away with it or trying it on. This resolution was conveyed to Gillies with fearful threats so when the chaplain visited him he got his lesson pat. I beg your reverences pardon for hanging myself began he at sight rather loud as bold as brass. Beg the Almighty's pardon, not mine. No, the governor said it was yours I was to beg, to my Gillies. Very well, but you should beg God's pardon more than mine. For why, sir? For attempting your life, which was his gift. Oh, I need to beg his pardon. He doesn't care what becomes of me. If he did he wouldn't let them bully me as they do day after day, dratum. I'm sorry to see one so young as you so hardened. I dare say the discipline of the jail is bitter to you. It is to all idle boys. But you might be in a much worse place and will if you do not mend. A worse place than this, your reverence? Oh, my eye. And you ought to be thankful to heaven for sending the turnkey at that moment. Here I'm sorry to say little Gillies grin satirically or you would be in a worse place. Would you rather be here or in hell? Half asked half explained the reverend gentleman in the superior tone of one closing a discussion forever. In hell replied Gillies opening his eyes with astonishment at the doubt. Mr. Jones was dumbfounded. Of all the mischances that befell us in argument this coup perplexes us most. He looked down at the little ignorant wretch and decided it would be useless to waste theology on him. He fell instead into familiar conversation with him and then Gillies with the natural communicativeness of youth confessed to him that he had heard the water at the next cell before he ventured to step off the chair and suspend himself. Well, but you ran a great risk too. Suppose he had not come into yourselves. Suppose he had been called away for a minute. I should have been scragged and no mistakes of the boy with a shiver. Throttling had proved no joke. But I took my chance of that added Gillies. I was determined to give them a fright. Besides, if he hadn't come it would all be over by now sir and all the better for me I know. Further communication was closed by the crank which demanded young hopeful by its mouthpiece fry. After dinner to his infinite disgust he received the other moiety of his flogging but by a sort of sulky compensation his bed was kicked into a cell again at night by fry acting under the governor's orders. That was not a bad move hanging myself a little, a very little, said the young prey. He hooked up his recovered treasure and, though smarting all over, coiled himself up in it and in three minutes forgot present pain past dangers and troubles to come. The plan pursued with Robinson was to keep him at low watermark by lowering his diet. Without this so great was his natural energy and disposition to work that no crank excuse could have been got for punishing him and at this period he was too wise and self-restrained to give any other. But after a few days of unjust torture he began to lose hope and with hope patience oozed away too and his enemy saw with grim satisfaction wild flashes of mad rage come every now and then to his eye harder and harder to suppress. He will break out before long, said Haas to himself, and then Robinson saw the game and a deep dark hatred of his enemy fought on the side of his prudence. This bitter raging struggle of contending passions in the thief's heart harmed his soul more than had years of burglary and petty larceny. All the vices of the old jail system are nothing compared with the diabolical effect of solitude on a heart smarting with daily wrongs. Brooding on self is always corrupting but to brood on self and wrongs is to ripen for madness, murder, and all crime. Between Robinson and these there lay one little bit of hope, only one, but it was a reasonable one. There was an official in the jail possessed of a large independent authority and paid, Robinson argued, to take the side of humanity in the place. This man was the representative of the national religion in the jail as Haas was of the law. Robinson was too sharp at picking up everything in his way and had been too often in prisons and their chapels not to know that cruelty and injustice are contrary to the gospel and to the national religion, which is in a great measure founded thereon. He therefore hoped and believed the chaplain of the jail would come between him and his persecutor if he could be made to understand the case. Now it happened just after the justices had thrown cold water on Mr. Jones' little expostulation that Robinson was pinned to the wall, jammed in the waistcoat, and throttled in the collar. He had been thus some time when, casting his despairing eyes around, they alighted upon the comely, respectable face of Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones was looking gravely at the victim. Robinson devoured him with his eyes and his ears. He heard him saying in undertone, What is this for? Hasn't done his work at the crank, was the answer. Then Mr. Jones, after taking another look at the sufferer, gave a sign and walked away. Robinson's hopes from this gentleman rose. Moreover, part of his sermon next Sunday invade against inhumanity, and Robinson, who had no conception of the sermon was several years old, looked on it as aimed at haws and as mermitants, and as the precursor of other and effective remonstrances. Not long after this, to his delight, the chaplain visited him alone. He seized this opportunity of securing the good man's interference in his favor. He told him in glowing words the whole story of his sufferings, and with the plain and manly eloquence appealed to him to make his chapel words good, and come between the bloodhounds and their prey. Sir, there are twenty or thirty poor fellows, besides me, that will bless your four bones night and day, if you will but put out your hand and save us from being abused like dogs and nailed to the wall like kites and weasels. We are not vermin, sir, we are men. Many a worse man is abroad than we that are caged here like wild beasts. Our bodies are men's bodies, sir, and our hearts are men's hearts. You can't soften their hearts, for they haven't such a thing about them, but only just you open your mouth and speak your mind and write down earnest, and you will shame them into treating us openly like human beings. Let them hate us and scorn us at bottom as they will. We have no friends here, sir, but you, not one, have pity on us. Have pity on us. And the thief stretched out his hands and fixed his ardent, glistening eyes upon the successor of the apostles. The successor of the apostles hung his head and showed plainly that he was not unmoved. A moment of suspense followed. Robinson hung upon his answer. At length Mr. Jones raised his head and said with icy coldness, Mr. Hawes is the governor of this jail. I have no power to interfere with his acts, supported as they are by the visiting justices, and I have but one advice to give you. Submit to the discipline and to Mr. Hawes in everything. It will be the worst for you if you don't. So saying, he went out abruptly, leaving his petitioner with his eyes fixed ruefully upon the door by which his last hope had left him. The moment the reverend official had got outside the door, his countenance, which had fallen, took a complacent air. He prided himself that he had conquered an impulse, an idle impulse. The poor fellow is in the right, said he to himself as he left the cell. But if I had let him see I thought so, he might have been encouraged to resist, and then he would have only suffered all the more. And so, having done what he calculated was the expedient thing to do, he went his way satisfied and at peace with Mr. Hawes and all mankind. When he glided away and took hope with him, disdain, despair, and frenzy gushed from the thief's boiling bosom in one wild moan, and with that moan he dashed himself on his face on the floor, though it was as hard as Hawes and cold as Jones. Thus he lay crushed in blank despair a moment. The next he rose fiercely to his knees. He looked up through the hole they called his window and saw a little piece of blue sky no bigger than a Bible. He held his hand up to that blue sky. He fixed his dilating eye on that blue sky, and with one long raging yell of horrible words hurled from a heart set on fire by wrongs and despair and tempting fiends, he cursed the successor of the apostles before the majesty of heaven. End of chapter 12. Chapter 13 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 Reid. Chapter 13. Solitude is no barrier whatever to sin. Such prayers as Robinsons are a disgrace to those who provoke them, but a calamity to him who utters them. Robinson was now a far worse man than ever he had been out of prison. The fiend had fixed a claw on his heart, and we may be sure he felt the recoil of his ill prayers. He hated the human race, which produced such creatures as haws and nothing to keep them in check. From this hour I speak no more to any of those beasts. Such was his resolve, made with clenched teeth and nails, and he curled himself up like a snake and turned his back upon mankind and his face to the wall. Robinson had begun his career in this place full of hopes. He hoped by good conduct to alleviate his condition as he had done in other jails, conscious of various talents. He hoped by skill as well as by good conduct to better his condition even in a jail. Such hopes are a part of our nature, and were not in his case unreasonable. These hopes were soon extinguished. He came down to a confident hope that by docility and good conduct, he should escape all evils except those inseparable from a prisoner's lot. When he discovered that haws loved to punish his prisoners and indeed could hardly get through the day without it, and that his crank was an unavoidable trap to catch the prisoners and betray them to punishment, he sunk lower and lower in despondency till at last there was but one bit of blue hope in all his horizon. He still hoped something against tyranny and cruelty from the representative of the Gospel of Mercy in the place. But when his reverence told him nothing was to be expected from that quarter, his last hope went out and he was in utter darkness. Yet Mr. Jones was not a hypocrite nor a monster. He was only a commonplace man, a thing molded by circumstances instead of molding them. In him the official outweighed the apostle for a very good reason. He was commonplace. This was his defect. His crime was misplacing his commonplace self. A man has a right to be commonplace in the midst of the new forest or in the great desert or at fuddly cum pipes in the fends of Lincolnshire. But at the helm of a struggling nation or in the command of an army in time of war or at the head of the religious department of a jail, fighting against human wolves, tigers and foxes to be commonplace is an inequity that leads to crime. The man was a humane man. It was not in his nature to be cruel to a prisoner and his humanity was, like himself, negative, not positive. Passive, not active, of course. It was commonplace humanity. After looking on in silence for a twelve month or two, he remonstrated against Hawes' barbarity. He would have done more. He would have stopped it if it could have been stopped without any trouble. Cold water was thrown on his remonstrance. He cooled directly. Now cold water and hot fire have been thrown on men battling for causes no higher nor holier than this. Yet neither has fire been able to wither nor water to quench their honest zeal. But this good soul, on being sprinkled, laid down his arms. He was commonplace. Moreover, he was guilty of something beside cowardice. He led a small egotistical peak sully as well as betray a great cause. The justices have thrown cold water on my remonstrance. Very well, gentlemen. Torture your prisoners ad libitum. I shall interfere no more. We shall see which was in the right. You or I. This was a narrow little view of wide and terrible consequences. It was infinitesimal egotism, the spirit and essence of commonplace. His inclinations were good, but feeble. He was commonplace. His heart was good, but tepid. He was commonplace. Had he loved the New Testament and the Savior of mankind, he would have fought haws, tooth, and nail. He could not have helped it. But he did not love either. He only liked them. He was commonplace. When the thief cursed this man, he was guilty of an extravagance as well as a crime. The man was not worth cursing. He was commonplace. The New Chaplain arrived soon after these events. The New Chaplain was accompanied by his friend, the Reverend James Lapel. Chaplain of a jail in the north of England. After five years unremitting duty, he was now enjoying a weak sleeve of absence. The three clergymen visited the cells. Mr. Lapel cross-examined several prisoners. The New Chaplain spoke little, but seemed observant, and once or twice made a note. Now it so happened that almost the last cell they entered was Tom Robinson's. They found him sitting all of a heap in a corner, moody and sullen. At sight of three black coats and white ties, the thief opened his eyes, and with a sort of repugnance turned his back on the intruders. Come, my lads, said the turned key sternly. No tricks, if you please. Turn round, cried he savagely, and make your bow to the gentleman. Robinson wheeled round with flashing eyes, and checking an evident desire to dash at them, instantly made a bow so very low, so very obsequious, and by a furtive expression so contemptuous that Mr. Lapel colored with indignation and moved toward the door in silence. The turned key muttered, he has been very strange these past few days. Mr. Fry thinks he is hardly safe. Then, turning to the New Chaplain, the man, whose name was Evans, said, better not go into his cell, sir, without one of us with you. What is the matter with him? inquired the revered gentleman. Oh, I don't know, as there is anything to matter with him. Only he has been disciplined once or twice, and it goes down the wrong way with some of them at first starting. Governor says he will have to be put in the dark cell if he does not get better. The dark cell? Pray, what is the effect of the dark cell on a prisoner? Well, sir, it cows them more than anything. Where are your dark cells? They're down below, sir. You can look at them after the kitchen. I must go into the town, said Mr. Lapel, looking at his watch. I promise to dine with my relations at three o'clock. Come and see the obliets first. We have seen everything else. With all my heart. They descended below the ground floor, and then Evans unlocked a massive, tight-fitting door, opening upon what appeared to be a black substance. This was, however, no substance, but vacancy without any degree of light. The light crossing the threshold from the open door seemed to cut a slice out of it. The newcomers looked into it. Mr. Lapel, with grim satisfaction, the other with awe and curiosity. When shall you be back, Lapel, inquired he thoughtfully? Oh, before nine o'clock. Then perhaps you will both do me the honor to drink a cup of tea with me, said Mr. Jones courteously. With pleasure. Goodbye, then, for the present, said the new chaplain. Why, where are you going? In here? What, into the dark cell? Yes. Well, ejaculated Evans, you won't stay there long. Until you return, Lapel, what a fancy. Mr. Jones looked not a little surprised. The turnkey grinned. The Reverend Gentleman stepped at once into the cell and was lost to sight. Do not let me out before eight o'clock, said his voice, and you, Lapel, inquire for me as soon as you return, for I feel a little nervous. Now shut the door. The door was closed on the Reverend Gentleman and the little group outside, after looking at one another with a humorous expression, separated, and each went after his own affairs. Evans lingered behind and took a look at the messy door, behind which, for the first time, a man had gone voluntarily, and after grave deliberation, delivered himself at long intervals of the two following profound reflections. Well, I'm blessed. Well, I'm blowed. End of chapter 13.