It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 67

Fibs mixed with truth charm us more than truth mixed with fibs.

Presently an oath escaped from Mr. Hawes.

"Sir!"

"Nothing, it is only this infernal--humph!"

Presently another expletive. "I'll tell you what it is, Fry, if somebody doesn't knock this thundering Legree on the head, I'll put the book on the fire."

"Well, but if it isn't true, sir?"

"But it is true, every word of it, while you are reading it, ye fool.

What heathens there are in the world! First they sell a child out of his mother's arms. She cuts sooner than be parted. They hunt her and come up with her; but she knows what they are, and trusts her life and the child to one of their great thundering frozen rivers as broad as the British Channel sooner than fall into their hands. That is like a woman, Fry. A fig for me being drowned if the kid is drowned with me; and I don't even care so much for the kid being drowned if I go down with him--and the cowardly vermin dogs and men stood barking on the bank and dursn't follow a woman; but your cruel ones are always cowards. And now the rips have got hold of this Tom. A chap with no great harm in him that I see, except that he is a ---- sniveler and psalm-singer, and makes you sick at times, but he isn't lazy; and now they are mauling him because he couldn't do the work of two. A man can but do his best, black or white, and it is infernal stupidity as well as cruelty to torment a fellow because he can't do more than he can do. And all this because over the same flesh and blood there is the sixteenth of an inch of skin a different color. Wonder whether a white bear takes a black one for a hog, or a red fox takes a blue one for a badger. Well, Fry, thank your stars that you were born in Britain. There are no slaves here, and no buying and selling of human flesh; and one law for high and low, rich and poor, and justice for the weak as well as the strong."

"Yes, sir," said Fry deferentially--"are you coming into the jail, sir?"

"No," replied Hawes st.u.r.dily, "I won't move till I see what becomes of the negro, and what is done to this eternal ruffian."

"But about the prisoners in my report, sir," remonstrated Fry.

"Oh, you can see to that without my coming," replied Hawes with nonchalance. "Put 40 and 45 in the jacket four hours apiece. Mind there's somebody by with the bucket against they sham."

"Yes, sir."

"Put the boy on bread and water--and to-morrow I'll ask the justices to let me flog him. No. 14--humph! stop his supper--and his bed--and gas."

"And Robinson?"

"Oh, give him no supper at all--and no breakfast--not even bread and water, d'ye hear. And at noon I'll put him with his empty belly in the black-hole--that will cow him down to the ground--there, be off!"

Next morning Mr. Hawes sat down to breakfast in high spirits. This very day he was sure to humiliate his adversary, most likely get rid of him altogether.

Mr. Eden, on the contrary, wore a somber air. Hawes noticed it, mistook it, and pointed it out to Fry. "He is down upon his luck; he knows he is coming to an end."

After breakfast Mr. Eden went into Robinson's cell. He found him haggard. "Oh, I am glad you are come, sir; they are starving me! No supper last night, no breakfast this morning, and all for--hum."

"For what?"

"Well, sir, then--having paper in my cell, and for writing--doing what you bade me--writing my life."

Mr. Eden colored and winced. The cruelty and the personal insult combined almost took away his breath for a moment. "Heaven grant me patience a little longer," said he aloud. Then he ran out of the cell, and returned in less than a minute with a great hunch of bread and a slice of ham. "Eat this," said he, all fluttering with pity.

The famished man ate like a wolf; but in the middle he did stop to say, "Did one man ever save another so often as you have me! Now my belly is full I shall have strength to stand the jacket, or whatever is to come next."

"But you are not to be tormented further than this, I hope?"

"Ah, sir!" replied Robinson, "you don't know the scoundrel yet. He is not starving me for nothing. This is to weaken me till he puts the weight on that is to crush me."

"I hope you exaggerate his personal dislike to you and your own importance--we all do that."

"Well," sighed Robinson, "I hope I do. Any way now my belly is full I have got a chance with him."

The visiting justices met in the jail. The first to arrive was Mr.

Woodc.o.c.k. In fact he came at eleven o'clock, an hour before the others.

Had Mr. Hawes expected him so soon, he would have taken Carter down, who was the pilloried one this morning; but he was equal to the emergency.

He met Mr. Woodc.o.c.k with a depressed manner, as of a tender but wise father, who in punis.h.i.+ng his offspring had punished himself, and said in a low, regretful voice, "I am sorry to say I have been compelled to punish a prisoner very severely."

"What is his offense?"

"Being refractory and breaking his crank. You will find him in the labor-yard. He was so violent we were obliged to put him in the jacket."

"I shall see him. The labor-yard is the first place I go to."

Mr. Hawes knew that, Mr. Woodc.o.c.k.

The justice found Carter in that state of pitiable torture, the sight of which made Mr. Eden very ill. He went up to him and said, "My poor fellow, I am very sorry for you; but discipline must be maintained, and you are now suffering for fighting against it. Make your submission to the governor, and then I dare say he will shorten your punishment as far as he thinks consistent with his duty."

Carter, it may well be imagined, made no answer. It is doubtful whether the worthy magistrate expected or required one. An occasion for misjudging a self-evident case of cruelty had arrived. This worthy seized the opportunity, received an ex-parte statement for Gospel, and misjudged, spite of his senses.

Item. An occasion for twaddling had come, and this good soul seized it and twaddled into a man's ear who was fainting on the rack.

At this moment the more observant Hawes saw the signs of shamming coming on. So he said hastily, "Oh, he will come to soon, and then he will be taken down;" and moved away. Mr. Woodc.o.c.k followed him without one grain of suspicion or misgiving.

The English State has had many opportunities of gauging the average intellects of its unpaid jurists. By these it has profited so well that it intrusts blindly to this gentleman and his brethren the following commission:--

They are to come into a place of darkness and mystery, a place locked up; a place which, by the folly of the nation and the shallow egotists who are its placemen and are called its statesmen, is not subject to the only safeguard of law and morals--daily inspection by the great unprejudiced public. They are to come into this, the one pitch-dark hole that is now left in the land. They are to come here once in two months, and at this visit to see all that has been done there in the dark since their last visit. Their eagle eye is not to be hoodwinked by appearances got up to meet their visit. They are to come and comprehend with one piercing glance the past months as well as the present hour. Good. Only for this task is required, not the gullibility that characterizes the many, but the sagacity that distinguishes the few.

Mr. Woodc.o.c.k undertook not to be deceived as to what had been done in the jail while he was forty miles distant--and Hawes gulled him under his own eyes.

What different men there are in the world, and how differently are the same things seen by them! The first crucifixion Eden saw he turned as sick as a dog--the first crucifixion Woodc.o.c.k saw he twaddled in the crucified's ear, left him on the cross, and went on his way well pleased.

Hawes, finding what sort of a man he had to deal with, thought within himself, "Why should I compromise discipline in any point?" He said to Mr. Woodc.o.c.k, "There is another prisoner whom I am afraid I must give an hour in the dark cell."

"What has he been doing?"

"Scribbling a lot of lies upon some paper he got from the chaplain."

Mr. Hawes's brief and unkind definition of autobiography did Robinson's business. Mr. Woodc.o.c.k simply observed that the proposed punishment was by no means a severe one for the offense.

They visited several cells. Woodc.o.c.k addressed the prisoners in certain words, accompanied with certain tones and looks, that were at least as significant as his words, and struck the prisoners as more sincere.

The words.

"If you have anything to complain of here, now is the time to say so, and your complaint shall be sifted."

The tones and looks.

"I know you are better off here than such sc.u.m as you deserve, but you have a right to contradict me if you like; only mind, if you don't prove it to my satisfaction, who am not the man to believe anything you say, you had better have held your tongue."