Bred in the Bone; Or, Like Father, Like Son Part 33

Not a syllable of the judge's exhortation was lost upon the prisoner at the bar. He listened to it as attentively as one who is waiting for the thunder listens to the m.u.f.fled menace that precedes it, and the fall of each big drop of rain. When the words of doom smote upon his ear a solemn hush succeeded them; and then one piteous, agonized shriek, and a dull fall in the gallery above.

"This way," said a warder, sharply; and Richard was seized by the arm, and hurried through the trap-door, and down the stairs, by the way he had come. It seemed to him like descending into h.e.l.l itself.

Twenty years' penal servitude! It was almost an eternity of torment!

worse than death! and yet not so. He already beheld himself, at the end of his term of punishment, setting about the great work which alone was left him to do on earth--the accomplishment of his revenge. He had recognized his mother's voice in that agonized wail, and knew that her iron will had given way; that the weight of this unexpected calamity had deprived even her elastic and vigorous mind of consciousness--had crushed out of her, perhaps, even life itself. Better so, thought he, in his bitterness, if it had; there would then be not a single human creature left to soften, by her attachment, his heart toward his fellows--none to counsel moderation, mercy, prudence.

If the view taken by the judge had even been a correct one, as to "motive," Richard had been hardly dealt with, most severely sentenced; but in his own eyes he was an almost innocent man--the victim of an infamous conspiracy, in which she who, was his nearest and dearest had treacherously joined. After flattering him with false hopes, she had deserted him at the eleventh hour, and in a manner even more atrocious than the desertion itself. He knew, of course, that it was mainly owing to her evidence, to which he had looked for his preservation, that his ruin had been so complete and overwhelming; but what he hated her worst for was for that smile she had bestowed upon him as she entered the witness-box, and which had bade him hope where no hope was. He could not be mistaken as to that. She had known that she was about to doom him by her silence to years of misery, and yet she had had the devilish cruelty to smile upon him, as she had often smiled, when they had sat, cheek to cheek, together! Since they had done so, he could never lift his hand against her (he felt that even now)--never strike her, slay her, nor even poison her; but he would have revenge upon her for all that. He would smite her, as she had smitten him, no matter how long the blow might be in falling: if her affections should be entwined in any human creatures, against them should his rage be directed; he would make her desolate, as she had rendered him; he would turn their love for her to hate, if it were possible, and, if not, he would destroy them. As for her father--as for that stone devil Trevethick--it choked him to think that nature herself might preserve him from his wrath, that the old man might die before his hour of expiation could arrive. But Solomon Coe would live to feel his vengeance. His hatred was at white heat now; what would it be after twenty years of unmerited torture? To think that this terrible punishment had befallen him through such contemptible agencies--through such dull brains and vulgar hands--was maddening; and yet he must needs feed upon that thought for twenty years, and keep his senses too, that at the end they might work out his purpose to the uttermost. There was plenty of time to plan and scheme and plot before him, and henceforth that should be his occupation. Revenge should be his latest thought and his earliest, and all night long he would dream of nothing else. His wrath against judge and jury, and the rest of them--though if he could have slain them all with a word he would have uttered it--was slight compared with the vehemence of his fury against those three at Gethin. Rage possessed him wholly, and, though without numbing him to the painful sense of his miserable doom, rendered him almost unconscious of what was going on about him.

When he found himself in his cell again he had no recollection of how he had got there; and the warder had to repeat his sharp command, "Put on these clothes," before he could get him to understand that he was to exchange his garments for the prison suit that lay before him. It was a small matter, but it brought home to him the reality of his situation more than any thing that had yet occurred. With the deprivation of his clothes he seemed to be deprived of his individuality, and, in adopting that shameful dress, to become an atom in a congeries of outcasts. From henceforth he was not even to bear a name, but must become a number--a unit of that great sum of scoundrels which the world was so willing to forget. That he was to suffer under a system which had authority and right for its basis made his case no less intolerable to him; he felt like one suddenly seized and sold into slavery. That his master and tyrant was called the Law was no mitigation of his calamity; nay, it was an aggravation, since he could not cut its throat.

"It is no use, young fellow," said the warder, coolly, as Richard looked at him like some hunted beast at bay. "If you was to kill me and a dozen more it would do you not a morsel of good; the law has got you tight, and it's better to be quiet."

Richard uttered a low moan, more woeful than any cry of physical anguish. It touched his jailer, used as he was to the contemplation of human misery. "Look here," said he; "you keep up a good heart, and get as many _V G_'s as you can. Then you'll get out on ticket-of-leave in fifteen years: it ain't as if you were a lifer."

He meant it for consolation; but this unvarnished statement of the _very best_ that could by possibility befall poor Richard seemed only to deepen his despondency.

"Why, when you've done it," pursued the warder, "you'll be quite a young man still--younger than I am. There's Balfour, now; he's got some call to be down in the mouth, for he'll get it as hot as you, and he's an old un, yet he's cheery enough up yonder"--and he jerked his head in the direction of the court-house--"you may take your 'davey he is. You get _V G_'s."

"What are those?" said Richard, wearily.

"Why, the best marks that can be got; and remember that every one of 'em goes to shorten your time. You must be handier with your room, to begin with. You might be reported by some officers for the way in which that hammock is folded, and then away go your marks at once; and you must learn to sweep your room out cleaner. We couldn't stand _that_ in one of our regulars, you know;" and he pointed to some specks of dust upon the s.h.i.+ning floor. "As for the oak.u.m pickings which will be set you to-morrow, I'll show you the great secret of that art. Your fingers will suffer a bit at first, no doubt, but you'll be a clever one at it before long. Only buckle to, and keep a civil tongue in your head, young fellow, and you'll do."

"Thank you," said Richard, mechanically.

"If you'll take my advice, you'll set about something at once; sweepin', or polis.h.i.+n', or readin' your Bible. Don't brood. But you will do as you like for this afternoon, since you won't begin regular business till to-morrow."

The warder looked keenly round the cell, probably to make sure that it afforded no facilities for suicide; but the gas was not yet turned on, and if it had been, his prisoner was unaware that by blowing it out, and placing the jet in his mouth, more than one in a similar strait to his own has found escape from his prison woes forever.

"I'll bring you some supper presently," he added; and with a familiar nod, good-naturedly intended for encouragement, he slammed the iron door behind him.

That he should have become an object of pity and patronage to a man like this would in itself have wounded Richard to the quick had he not been devoured by far more biting cares, and even now it galled him. His twenty years might possibly, then, by extremity of good luck, be curtailed by five. By diligent execution of menial drudgery; by performing to some overlooker's satisfaction his daily toil; by careful obedience and subservience to these Jacks in office, themselves but servants, and yet whose malice or ill-humor might cause them to report him for the most trifling faults, or for none at all, and thereby destroy even _this_ hope--he might be a free man in fifteen years! He would, even then, he was told, be still a young man. But that he would never be young again Richard was well aware. Within these last three weeks--nay, within that last hour, he had already lived a life, and one that had aged him beyond the power of years. High spirits, pleasure, hopefulness, love, and all the attributes of youth, were dead within him for evermore. For the future he was only to be strong and vigorous in a will that could not have its way for fifteen years at earliest.

Through the grating of his narrow window a few rays of the setting sun were streaming in, and fell upon the bare brown wall behind him. What a flood of glory they were pouring on the woods of Crompton, now in their autumn splendor--on the cliffs at Gethin--on the copse that hid the Wis.h.i.+ng Well--on the tower where he had first clasped Harry in his arms!

He saw them all, and the sunset hues upon them became suddenly blood-red. He was once more at Gethin, and in imagination taking his revenge upon old Trevethick, and for the moment he was almost happy.

"Pity on his gray hairs?" No, not he--though the gallows loomed before him, though h.e.l.l yawned for him, he would slake his thirst in the life-blood of that perjured villain; and as for her, he would drag her by the hair to look upon her father's corpse. Where was she? Ah, with Solomon upon the castled rock; and see!--he had pushed him from the edge, and there he hung exactly as he himself had hung when Harry had preserved him! How long would a man hold on like that, even a strong man like Coe, on such a narrow ledge, with the gulls screaming about him?

Not twenty years--no, nor fifteen!

The clatter of the trap in the door of his cell, as it fell in and formed a table, awoke him from this gloating dream. "Supper," said the warder, looking in at him through this orifice. "What! you're still brooding, are you?--that's bad;" then marched on to the next cell.

Some gruel and bread stood upon this little improvised side-board. If they had been the greatest luxuries imaginable, he could not have swallowed a morsel. The sunlight had faded away; his dream of retribution was over; he seemed to be touching the utmost verge of human wretchedness. Was it possible to kill himself? His neckerchief had been taken away; but he had his braces. The gas-pipe was the only thing to which he could attach them, and it would never bear his weight. He had read somewhere of some poor wretch who had suffocated himself by turning his tongue inward. Had he determination enough for such a device as that? Plenty. His will was iron; he felt that; but it was set on something else than suicide--that afterward, or death or life of any kind, he cared not what; but in the first place, and above all things, Vengeance! In the mean time, there were twenty years in which to think upon it! Twenty years!

The bar dined with the judge that night at Cross Key, and talked, among other things, "shop."

"A curious case that of that young fellow, Yorke," said one. "I wonder whether he has been playing his game long with these compet.i.tive examinations? That Chandos must be a queer one, too--son of Lord Fitzbacon's, is he not?"

"I dare say," answered another, carelessly. "It is only vicariously that the juvenile aristocracy ever get an appointment in these days, having no wits of their own. This conviction will be a great blow to them."

"Very good, Sharps.h.i.+ns! but you'd better not let old Bantam hear you, for he dearly loves the Swells. By-the-by, what a pretty girl that witness for the defense was, who turned out to be for the prosecution, eh?"

"Yes, she upset her lover's coach for him nicely. Is it true, I wonder, that the little traitress is going to marry that dull, heavy fellow whom Smoothbore had such work to pump? Gad! if I had been she, I'd have stuck to the other."

"Yes; but kissing goes by favor. She marries him next week, I hear. Is there any thing of interest at Bodmin?"

"Nothing of interest to _me_, at all events. Smoothbore and Balais get all there is between them, confound them! I say, just pa.s.s that claret."

Not another word about Richard. The judge himself had forgotten him except as a case in his notes. The jury forgot him in a week. A murder of a s.h.i.+pwrecked sailor happened soon afterward on that coast, and became the talk of the country-side in his place. The world went on its way, and never missed him; the rank closed up where he had used to march, and left no gap.

Richard Yorke was out of the world.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

IN COUPLES.

What tender-nurtured boy, newly-arrived at school--that Paradise when looked back upon from afar, that _Inferno_ of the present--has not awakened from sweet dreams of home with a heavy heart? Who has not pictured to himself the weary months that must elapse before he once more regains his freedom and his friends? The burden (one may say) is light, but then the back is also weak that bears it. It is a genuine woe. Something of this, but tenfold in intensity of wretchedness, did Richard feel when he awoke for the first time a convicted felon. He had dreamed that Carew was dead, and left him heir of Crompton; his mother and he were there, and Harry as his wife. The splendor of the house, the beauty of the grand domain about it, were as vividly presented to him as when he saw them with his eyes; and they were all his own. The hope of his youth, the desire of his manhood, were gratified to the uttermost; yet through all ran an undercurrent which mirrored a portion of the present reality. In the marshy pond where he had fought the Squire by moonlight lay two bodies; it was shallow, as it really had been, and he could see their faces as he peered into the water: they were those of Coe and Trevethick. He kept them there, and would not have the pond dragged; but would go thither and gloat upon them for half a summer's day. The mansion was full of gay folks--his old town companions invited to visit him, and behold his greatness (as he had often imagined they should be): Tub Ryll was _his_ jester now, and Parson Whymper his "chaplain." They were all playing pool as usual, and he was just about to make an easy hazard, when somebody jogged his elbow. It was the warder of the jail.

"Come, come--this won't do," said he, gruffly. "You must jump up when the bell rings, or we shall quarrel. Fold up your hammock, and clean your room."

Even the school-boy does not begin on his first morning to reckon on his chimney almanac, "One day gone; twenty-four hours nearer to the holidays;" and how should Richard make that cheerful note, who had twenty years of prison life before him, save one day!

He did as he was ordered, wearily, with a heart that had no hope: it seemed to the warder that his air was sullen.

"If this happens again, young fellow, I report you; and then good-by to your _V G_'s."

He did not mean to be brutal; but Richard could have stabbed him where he stood. There were times to come when the temptation to commit such an act was to be very strong within him; and when no thought of punishment, far less of right, restrained him, but that of his projected vengeance always did. Every rough word, every insult, every wrong, was treasured up in his mind, and added to the long account against those who had doomed him to such a fate. It should be paid in full one day; and in the mean time the debt was out at compound interest.

He took his sordid meals, his cocoa, his bread, his gruel, not because he had ever any appet.i.te for them, but because without them he should lose his strength. He must husband that for the long-expected hour when he might need it; when the moment had arrived to strike the blow for which his hand was clenched ten times a day. His hate grew every hour, and, like a petrifying spring, fell drop by drop about his heart, and made it stone. In the mean time, a fiend in torment could alone imagine what he suffered. He spoke to no one but his warders and the chaplain; for now he was a convict, there was no communication with his fellows; only once a day for an hour and a half he took his monotonous exercise in the high-walled prison-yard. Tramp, tramp, tramp, each half a dozen paces behind the other, with an officer on the watch to see that the limit was preserved.

"Keep your distance, you there, unless you want to be reported."

Richard did not want that; but at times his temper was like a devil unchained, and it got the better of him, and even of his treasured purpose; he sometimes returned a sharp answer. This weakness was almost the only feeling within him that reminded him that he was human. He was put on bread and water within the first fortnight; then cursed his folly for thus postponing the one object of his life, and amended. His case was quoted to the visiting justices as an exemplification of the efficacy of cutting short a prisoner's supplies.

While exercising one day he recognized Balfour, who happened to be on the opposite side of the ever-moving circle: the old jail-bird, without glancing toward him, threw his open hands out twice. By this he conveyed to him that his own sentence was also twenty years. During the nine months that Richard remained at Cross Key, this was all that happened to him which could be called an incident. At the end of three months his mother essayed to visit him, but he would not see her. She had been ill, it seemed, ever since that dreadful day of the trial, and was only just convalescent; she had had lodgings in the town, within a hundred yards of him, ever since: it was something, poor soul, to know that she was near him, however inexorably separated. "It would please him," she wrote, "to learn that, through Mr. Whymper's intercession, Carew had continued her pension. She had money enough, therefore, and to spare, but intended to go on with her business of lodging-house keeping in a new quarter of London, and under another name (that of Basil), that she might save, and her Richard find himself a rich man when he regained his liberty. In fifteen years--she had discovered that his time could be remitted to that extent--there would be quite a little fortune for him.

In the mean time, she thought of him night and day." But there was something else in the letter. "She confessed that in her agony at his dreadful doom, she had written to his prosecutor to adjure him to appeal for mercy to the crown, and he had refused to do so." This news had driven Richard almost to frenzy. He had written her such a letter as the prison authorities had refused to send, and now he would not see her.

He wrote again; more moderately, however, to bid her never mention Trevethick's name again, nor Coe's, nor Harry's, if she wished him to think of her as his mother: they were dead to him, he said, _for the present_. To be brief, Richard never saw his mother after his conviction. He wished to harden his heart, and not to have it melted within him; and perhaps his fury at her having appealed to Trevethick was purposely exaggerated with this object. His recollection of "the cage," it must be remembered, was also not such as to make the idea of an interview attractive; moreover, that his mother should see him in his convict dress, kept within iron bars like a wild beast, seemed to him to afford a triumph to his deadly enemies.

In the tenth month, Richard, with the other convicts, was transferred to Lingmoor, one of the great penal settlements. They were "removed," for some portion of the distance, in vans, like furniture, or, we might rather say, in caravans like wild beasts; but for some miles they traveled by railway. They were handcuffed and chained together two and two, as pointers are upon their journeys, except that the connection was at the wrist instead of the neck. Silence was strictly enjoined, but this one opportunity of conversing with their fellow-creatures was not to be let slip. Richard's other half was a notorious burglar called Rolfe; this man had pa.s.sed a quarter of a century in jail, and was conversant with every plan of trickery and evasion of orders. His countenance was not at all of that bull-dog type with which his cla.s.s is falsely though generally credited; he had good features, though somewhat hard in their expression, and very intelligent gray eyes. It was their very intelligence, so sharp, so piercing, and yet which avoided your gaze, that showed to those who studied such matters what he was. After one glance at Richard he never looked at him again, but stared straight before him, and talked in muttered tones unceasingly, and with lips as motionless as those of a ventriloquist. He was doing fourteen years for cracking a public-house, and had cracked a good many private ones, concerning the details of which enterprises he was very eloquent. When he had concluded his autobiography he began to evince some interest in the circ.u.mstances of his companion. Richard, however, did not care to enlighten him on his own concerns, but confined his conversation to the one topic that was common between them--jails. Rolfe gave him a synopsis of the annals of Lingmoor, to which he was bound not for the first time.

It was a place that had a bad reputation among those who became perforce its inmates; tobacco, for which elsewhere convenient warders charged a s.h.i.+lling an ounce, was there not less than eighteenpence: such a tariff was shameful, and almost amounted to a prohibition. A pal of his had hung himself there--it was supposed through deprivation of this necessary. It was "a queer case;" for he had "tucked himself up" to the bars of his cell by his braces, the buckles of which had left livid marks upon his neck. His Prayer-book had been found open at the Burial of the Dead, and it was understood that he had read that service over himself before taking leave of the world. He had also written his will with a point of the said brace-buckles upon the brick of his cell. He himself (Mr. Rolfe) had been called as a witness at the inquest, and had thereby obtained two hours' relaxation from labor; but upon the whole he would rather have been working with his gang--the affair had quite upset him; and, since its occurrence, the inmates of Lingmoor were forbidden to use braces.

"Were there any escapes from Lingmoor by any other means?" inquired Richard.

"Escapes?" Mr. Rolfe's countenance a.s.sumed a more solemn vacuity than ever. It was an indiscretion of his young friend to shape that word with his lips while a warder sat in the same carriage. Yes, there had been such things even at Lingmoor. But it was a difficult job, even for one used to cracking cribs. The outer wall was not to be scaled without a ladder, and ladders were even more difficult to procure than tobacco.

Even if you did get over the outer wall, the s.p.a.ce around the prison was very bare, and the sentries had orders to shoot you fleeing. If you got to Bergen Wood, two miles away, you might be safe so far, but it was a dangerous business. n.o.body had ever done it yet without "putting somebody out."