It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 56

"No, I test their repentance first with a little liberty.

"How? Why fly them with a string before I let them fly free!

"Occupation provided outside the prison-gates; instead of ticket-of-leave let the candidate work there on parole and come into the prison at night.

"Some will break parole and run away? All the better. Then you know their real character. Telegraph them. You began by photographing them--send their likenesses to every town--catch them--cell them.

"Indeed! And pray what would these same men have done had you given them the ticket-of-leave instead?

"By the present plan your pseudo-convert commits a dozen crimes before his hypocrisy is suspected; by ours a single offense warns you and arms you against him.

"Systems avail less than is supposed. For good or ill all depends on your men--not your machinery.

"We have got rid of the old patch that rotted our new garment. When I first was chaplain of a jail--"

His mind had gone forward some years. "Then we were mad--thought a new system could be worked by men of the past, by jailers and turnkeys belonging to the dark and brutal age that came before ours.

"Those dark days are pa.s.sed. Now we have really a governor and warders instead of jailers and turnkeys. The nation has discovered these are high offices, not mean ones.

"Yes, Lepel, yes! Our officers are men picked out of all England for intelligence and humanity. They co-operate with me. Our jail is one of the nation's eyes--it is a school, thank Heaven, it is not a dungeon!--I am in bed!"

With these last words he had come to himself, and oh, the sad contrast!

Butcherly blockheads in these high places, and himself lying sick and powerless, unable to lift a hand for the cause he loved.

The sigh that burst from him seemed to tear his very heart; but the very next moment he put his hands humbly together and said, "G.o.d's will be done!" Yet one big tear gathered in his lion eye and spite of all trickled down his cheek while he said, "G.o.d's will be done."

Susan saw it, and turned quickly away and hid her face; but he called her, and though his lip quivered his voice was pretty firm.

"Dear friend, G.o.d can always find instruments. The good work will be done, though not by me."

So then Susan judged, by these few words, and the tear that trickled from his closed eyes, that he saw what others saw and did not look to live now.

She left the room in haste not to agitate him by the sorrow she could no longer restrain or conceal. The patient lay quiet, languidly dozing.

Now about four o'clock in the afternoon the surgeon came to the door; but what surprised Susan was that a man accompanied him whom she only just knew by sight, and who had never been there before--the turnkey Hodges. The pair spoke together in a low tone, and Susan, who was looking down from an upper window, could not hear what they said; but the discussion lasted a minute or two before they rang the bell. Susan came down herself and admitted them: but as she was leading the way upstairs her aunt suddenly bounced out of the parlor looking unaccountably red, and said:

"I will go up with them, Susan."

Susan said, "If you like, aunt," but felt some little surprise at Mrs.

Davies's brisk manner.

At the sick man's door Mrs. Davies paused, and said dryly, with a look at Hodges, "Who shall I say is come with you?"

"Mr. Hodges, one of the warders, is come to inquire after his reverence's health," replied the surgeon smoothly.

"I must ask him first whether he will receive a stranger."

"Admit him," was Mr. Eden's answer. The men entered the room, and were welcomed with a kind but feeble smile from the sick man.

"Sit down, Hodges."

The surgeon felt his pulse and wrote a prescription; for it is a tradition of the elders that at each visit the doctor must do some overt act of medicine. After this he asked the patient how he felt.

Mr. Eden turned an eloquent look upon him in reply.

"I must speak to Hodges," said he. "Come near me, Hodges," said he in a kind voice, "perhaps I may not have any more opportunities of giving you a word of friendly exhortation." Here a short, dissatisfied, contemptuous grunt was heard at the window-seat.

"Did you speak, Mrs. Davies?"

"No, I didn't," was the somewhat sharp reply.

"We should improve every occasion, Mrs. Davies, and I want this poor man to know that a dying man may feel happy and hope everything from G.o.d's love and mercy, if he has loved and pitied his brothers and sisters of Adam's race."

When he called himself a dying man, Hodges, who was looking uncomfortable and at the floor, raised his head, and the surgeon and he interchanged a rapid look; it was observed, though not by Mr. Eden.

That gentleman, seeing Hodges wear an abashed look, which he misunderstood, and aiming to improve him for the future, not punish him for the past, said, "But first let me thank you for coming to see me,"

and with these words he put his hand out of the bed with a kind smile to Hodges. His gentle intention was roughly interrupted. Mrs. Davies flung down her work and came like a flaming turkey-c.o.c.k across the floor in a moment, and seized his arm and flung it back into the bed.

"No, ye don't! ye shan't give your hand to any such rubbish."

"Mrs. Davies!"

"Yes, Mrs. Davies; you don't know what they've come here for--I overheard ye at the door! You have got an enemy in that filthy jail, haven't you, sir? Well! this man comes from him to see how bad you are--they were colloguing together backward and forward ever so long, and I heard 'em--it is not out of any kindness or good will in the world. Now suppose you march out the way you came in!" screamed Mrs.

Davies.

"Mrs. Davies, be quiet and let me speak?"

"Of course I will, sir," said the woman with a ludicrously sudden calm and coaxing tone.

There was a silence; Mr. Eden eyed the men. Small guilt peeped from them by its usual little signs.

Mr. Eden's lip curled magnificently.

"So you did not come to see me--you were sent by that man. (Mrs. Davies, be quiet; curiosity is not a crime, like torturing the defenseless.) Mr.

Hawes sent you that you might tell him how soon his victims are like to lose their only earthly defender."

The men colored and stammered; Mrs. Davies covered her face with her ap.r.o.n and rocked herself on her chair.

Mr. Eden flowed gently on.

"Tell your master that I have settled all my worldly affairs, and caused all my trifling debts to be paid.

"Tell him that I have made my will! (I have provided in it for the turnkey Evans--he will know why.)

"Tell him you found my cheeks fallen away, my eye hollow, and my face squalid.

"Tell him my Bible was by my side, and even the prison was mingling with other memories as I drifted from earth and all its thorns and tears. All was blunted but the Christian's faith and trust in his Redeemer.