Mr. Hawes showed no hurry. “What did he want to go in them for?”
“I have no idea, unless it was to see what it is like.”
“Well, but I like that!” said Hawes. “That is entering into the system. Let us see how he comes on.”
Mr. Hawes, Mr. Lepel and Hodges went to the dark cells; on their way they were joined by Evans.
The governor took out his own keys, and Evans having indicated the cell, for there were three, he unlocked it and threw the door wide open. They all looked in, but there was nothing to be seen.
“I hope nothing is the matter,” said Mr. Lepel, in considerable agitation, and he groped his way into the cave. As he put out his hand it was taken almost violently by the self-immured, who cried:
“Oh, Lepel!” and held him in a strong but tremulous grasp. Then, after a pause, he said more calmly: “The light dazzles me! the place seems on fire now! Perhaps you will be kind enough to lend me your arm, Lepel.”
Mr. Lepel led him out; he had one hand before his eyes, which he gradually withdrew while speaking. He found himself in the middle of a group with a sly sneer on their faces mixed with some curiosity.
“How long have I been there?” asked he quietly.
“Six hours; it is nine o'clock.”
“Only six hours! incredible!”
“Well, sir, I suppose you are not sorry to be out?”
“This is Mr. Hawes, the governor,” put in Mr. Lepel.
Hawes continued jocosely, “What does it feel like, sir?”
“I shall have the honor of telling you that in private, Mr. Hawes. I think, Lepel, we have an engagement with Mr. Jones at nine o'clock.” So saying, the new chaplain, with a bow to the governor, took his friend's arm and went to tea with Mr. Jones.
“There, now,” said Hawes to the turnkeys, “that is a gentleman. He doesn't blurt everything out before you fellows; he reserves it for his superior officer.”
Next morning the new chaplain requested Mr. Lepel to visit the prisoner's cells in a certain order, and make notes of their characters as far as he could guess them. He himself visited them in another order and made his notes. In the evening they compared these. We must be content with an extract or two.
The next day the new chaplain met the surgeon in the jail and took him into Josephs' cell.
“He only wants a little rest and nourishing food; he would be the better for a little amusement, but—” and the man of science shrugged his shoulders.
“Can you read?” said Mr. Lepel.
“Very little, sir.”
“Let the schoolmaster come to him every day,” suggested that experienced individual. He knew what separate confinement was. What bores a boy out of prison amuses him in it.
Hawes gave a cold consent. So poor little Josephs had a richer diet and rest from crank and pillory, and the schoolmaster spent half an hour every day teaching him; and above all, the new chaplain sat in his cell and told him stories that interested him—told him how very wicked some boys had been; what a many clever wicked things they had done and not been happy, then how they had repented and learned to pray to be good, and how by Divine help they had become good, and how some had gone to heaven soon after, and were now happy and pure as the angels; and others had stayed on earth and were good and honest and just men; not so happy as those others who were dead, but content (and that the wicked never are), and waiting God's pleasure to go away and be happy forever.
Josephs listened to the good chaplain's tales and conversation with wonderful interest, and his face always brightened when that gentleman came into his cell. The schoolmaster reported him not quick, but docile. These were his halcyon days.
But Robinson remained a silent basilisk. The chaplain visited him every day, said one or two kind words to him and retired without receiving a word or a look of acknowledgment. One day, surprised and hurt by this continued obduracy, the chaplain retired with an audible sigh. Robinson heard it, and ground his teeth with satisfaction. Solitary, tortured and degraded, he had still found one whom he could annoy a little bit.
The governor and the new chaplain agreed charmingly; constant civilities passed between them. The chaplain assisted Mr. Hawes to turn the phrases of his yearly report; and Mr. Hawes more than repaid him by consenting to his introducing various handicrafts into the prison—at his own expense, not the county's.
Parson must have got a longer purse than most of us, thought Hawes, and it increased his respect.
Hawes shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say, “You are just flinging your money into the dirt;” but the other, interpreting his look, said:
“I hope more good from this than from all the sermons I shall preach in your chapel.”
Probably Mr. Hawes would not have been so indifferent had he known that this introduction of rational labor was intended as the first step toward undermining and expelling the sacred crank.
This clergyman had a secret horror and hatred of the crank. He called it a monster got by folly upon science to degrade labor below theft; for theft is immoral, but crank labor is immoral and idiotic, too, said he. The crank is a diabolical engine to keep thieves from ever being anything but thieves. He arrived at this conclusion by a chain of reasoning for which there is no room in a narrative already smothered in words.
This antipathy to the crank quite overpowered him. He had been now three weeks in the jail, and all that time only thrice in the labor-yard. It cut his understanding like a knife to see a man turn a handle for hours and nothing come of it.
However, one day, from a sense of duty, he forced himself into the labor-yard and walked wincing down the row.
“These are our schoolmen,” said he. “As the schoolmen labored most intellectually and scientifically—practical result, nil, so these labor harder than other men—result, nil. This is literally 'beating the air.' The ancients imagined tortures particularly trying to nature, that of Sisyphus to wit; everlasting labor embittered by everlasting nihilification. We have made Sisyphism vulgar. Here are fifteen Sisyphi. Only the wise or ancients called this thing infernal torture; our old women call it salutary discipline.”
He was running on in this style, heaping satire and sorrow upon the crank, when suddenly, at the mouth of one of the farthest cells, he stopped and threw up his hands with an ejaculation of astonishment and dismay. There was a man jammed in a strait waistcoat, pinned against the wall by a strap, and throttling in a huge collar; his face was white, his lips livid, and his eyes rolling despairingly. It was Thomas Robinson. This sight took away the chaplain's breath. When he recovered himself, “What is this?” said he to the turnkeys, sternly.
“Prisoner refractory at the crank,” answered Hodges, doggedly.
The clergyman walked up to Robinson and examined the collar, the waistcoat and the strap. “Have you the governor's authority for this act?” said he firmly.
“Rule is if they won't do their work, the jacket.”
“Have you the governor's authority for this particular act?”
“In a general way we have.”
“In a word, you are not acting under his authority, and you know it. Take the man down this moment.”
The men hesitated.
“If you don't I shall.”
The turnkeys, a little staggered by his firmness, began to confer in whispers. The chaplain, who was one of your decided men, could not wait the consultation. He sprang to Robinson's head and began to undo the collar. The others, seeing this decided move,