The captives went
To their own places, to their separate glooms,
Uncheered by glance, or hand, or hope, to brood
On those impossible glories of the past,
When they might touch the grass, and see the sky,
And do the works of men. But manly work
Is sometimes in a prison.--S. M. Queen Isabel
'Commutation of punishment, to penal servitude for life.'
Such were the tidings that ran through Stoneborough on Sunday morning,
making all feel as if a heavy oppression had been taken from the air.
In gratitude to the merciful authorities, and thankfulness for the
exemption from death, the first impressions were that Justice was at
last speaking, that innocence could not suffer, and that right was
reasserting itself. Even when the more sober and sad remembered that
leniency was not pardon, nor life liberty, they were hastily answered
that life was everything--life was hope, life was time, and time would
show truth.
Averil's first tears dropped freely, as she laid her head on Mary's
shoulder, and with her hand in Dr. May's, essayed to utter the words,
'It is your doing--you have twice saved him for me,' and Minna stood
calmly glad, but without surprise. 'I knew they could not hurt him;
God would not let them.'
The joy and relief were so great as to absorb all thought or
realization of what this mercy was to the prisoner himself, until Dr.
May was able to pay him a visit on Monday afternoon. It was at a
moment when the first effects of the tidings of life had subsided, and
there had been time to look forth on the future with a spirit more
steadfast than buoyant. The strain of the previous weeks was reacting
on the bodily frame, and indisposition unhinged the spirits; so that,
when Dr. May entered, beaming with congratulations, he was met with the
same patient glance of endurance, endeavouring at resignation, that he
knew so well, but without the victorious peace that had of late gained
the ascendant expression. There was instead an almost painful
endeavour to manifest gratitude by cheerfulness, and the smile was far
less natural than those of the last interview, as fervently returning
the pressure of the hand, he said, 'You were right, Dr. May, you have
brought me past the crisis.'
'A sure sign of ultimate recovery, my boy. Remember, dum spiro spero.'
Leonard attempted a responsive smile, but it was a hopeless business.
From the moment when at the inquest he found himself entangled in the
meshes of circumstance, his mind had braced itself to endure rather
than hope, and his present depressed state, both mental and bodily,
rendered even that endurance almost beyond his powers. He could only
say, 'You have been very good to me.'
'My dear fellow, you are sadly knocked down; I wish--' and the Doctor
looked at him anxiously.
'I wish you had been here yesterday,' said Leonard; 'then you would not
have found me so. No, not thankless, indeed!'
'No, indeed; but--yes, I see it was folly--nay, harshness, to expect
you to be glad of what lies before you, my poor boy.'
'I am--am thankful,' said Leonard, struggling to make the words truth.
'Wednesday is off my mind--yes, it is more than I deserve--I knew I was
not fit to die, and those at home are spared. But I am as much cut off
from them--perhaps more--than by death. And it is the same disgrace to
them, the same exile. I suppose Henry still goes--'
'Yes, he does.'
'Ah! then one thing, Dr. May--if you had a knife or scissors--I do not
know how soon they may cut my hair, and I want to secure a bit for poor
Ave.'
Dr. May was too handless to have implements of the first order, but a
knife he had, and was rather dismayed at Leonard's reckless hacking at
his bright shining wavy hair, pulling out more than he cut, with
perfect indifference to the pain. The Doctor stroked the chestnut head
as tenderly as if it had been Gertrude's sunny curls, but Leonard
started aside, and dashing away the tears that were overflowing his
eyes under the influence of the gentle action, asked vigorously, 'Have
you heard what they will do with me?'
'I do not know thoroughly. A year or six months maybe at one of the
great model establishments, then probably you will be sent to some of
the public works,' said the Doctor, sadly. 'Yes, it is a small boon to
give you life, and take away all that makes life happy.'
'If it were only transportation!'
'Yes. In a new world you could live it down, and begin afresh. And
even here, Leonard, I look to finding you like Joseph in his prison.'
'The iron entering into his soul!' said Leonard, with a mournful smile.
'No; in the trustworthiness that made him honoured and blessed even
there. Leonard, Leonard, conduct _will_ tell. Even there, you can
live this down, and will!'
'Eighteen to-morrow,' replied the boy. 'Fifty years of it, perhaps! I
know God can help me through with it, but it is a long time to be
patient!'
By way of answer, the Doctor launched into brilliant auguries of the
impression the prisoner's conduct would produce, uttering assurances,
highly extravagant in his Worship the Mayor, of the charms of the
modern system of prison discipline, but they fell flat; there could be
no disguising that penal servitude for life was penal servitude for
life, and might well be bitterer than death itself. Sympathy might
indeed be balm to the captive, but the good Doctor pierced his own
breast to afford it, so that his heart sank even more than when he had
left the young man under sentence of death. His least unavailing
consolations were his own promises of frequent visits, and Aubrey's of
correspondence, but they produced more of dejected gratitude than of
exhilaration. Yet it was not in the way of murmur or repining, but
rather of 'suffering and being strong,' and only to this one friend was
the suffering permitted to be apparent. To all the officials he was
simply submissive and gravely resolute; impassive if he encountered
sharpness or sternness, but alert and grateful towards kindliness, of
which he met more and more as the difference between dealing with him
and the ordinary prisoners made itself felt.
To Dr. May alone was the depth of pain betrayed; but another comforter
proved more efficient in cheering the prisoner, namely, Mr. Wilmot,
who, learning from the Doctor the depression of their young friend,
hastened to endeavour at imparting a new spring of life on this
melancholy birthday. Physically, the boy was better, and perhaps the
new day had worn off somewhat of the burthen of anticipation, for Mr.
Wilmot found him already less downcast, and open to consolation. It
might be, too, that the sense that the present was to have been his
last day upon earth, had made him more conscious of the relief from the
immediate shadow of death, for he expressed his thankfulness far more
freely and without the effort of the previous day.
'And, depend on it,' said Mr. Wilmot, 'you are spared because there is
something for you to do.'
'To bear,' said Leonard.
'No, to do. Perhaps not immediately; but try to look on whatever you
have to bear, not only as carrying the cross, as I think you already
feel it--'
'Or there would be no standing it at all.'
'True,' said Mr. Wilmot; 'and your so feeling it convinces me the more
that whatever may follow is likewise to be looked upon as discipline to
train you for something beyond. Who knows what work may be in store,
for which this fiery trial may be meant to prepare you?'
The head was raised, and the eyes brightened with something like hope
in their fixed interrogative glance.
'Even as things are now, who knows what good may be done by the
presence of a man educated, religious, unstained by crime, yet in the
same case as those around him? I do not mean by quitting your natural
place, but by merely living as you must live. You were willing to have
followed your Master in His death. You now have to follow Him by
living as one under punishment; and be sure it is for some purpose for
others as well as yourself.'
'If there is any work to be done for Him, it is all right,' said
Leonard, cheerily; and as Mr. Wilmot paused, he added, 'It would be
like working for a friend--if I may dare say so--after the hours when
this place has been made happy to me. I should not mind anything if I
might only feel it working for Him.'
'Feel it. Be certain of it. As you have realized the support of that
Friend in a way that is hardly granted, save in great troubles, so now
realize that every task is for Him. Do not look on the labour as
hardship inflicted by mistaken authority--'
'Oh, I only want to get to that! I have been so long with nothing to
do!'
'And your hearty doing of it, be it what it may, as unto the Lord, can
be as acceptable as Dr. May's labours of love among the poor--as
entirely a note in the great concord in Heaven and earth as the work of
the ministry itself--as completely in unison. Nay, further, such
obedient and hearty work will form you for whatever may yet be awaiting
you, and what that may be will show itself in good time, when you are
ready for it.
'The right chord was touched, the spirit of energy was roused, and
Leonard was content to be a prisoner of hope, not the restless hope of
liberation, but the restful hope that he might yet render faithful
service even in his present circumstances.
Not much passed his lips in this interview, but its effect was apparent
when Dr. May again saw him, and this time in company with Aubrey. Most
urgent had been the boy's entreaties to be taken to see his friend, and
Dr. May had only hesitated because Leonard's depression had made
himself so unhappy that he feared its effect on his susceptible son;
whose health had already suffered from the long course of grief and
suspense. But it was plain that if Aubrey were to go at all, it must
be at once, since the day was fixed for the prisoner's removal, and the
still nearer and dearer claims must not clash with those of the friend.
Flora shook her head, and reminded her father that Leonard would not be
out of reach in future, and that the meeting now might seriously damage
Aubrey's already uncertain health.
'I cannot help it, Flora,' said the Doctor; 'it may do him some
temporary harm, but I had rather see him knocked down for a day or two,
than breed him up to be such a poor creature as to sacrifice his
friendship to his health.'
And Mrs. Rivers, who knew what the neighbourhood thought of the good
Doctor's infatuation, felt that there was not much use in suggesting
how shocked the world would be at his encouragement of the intimacy
between the convict and his young son.
People did look surprised when the Doctor asked admission to the cell
for his son as well as himself; and truly Aubrey, who in silence had
worked himself into an agony of nervous agitation, looked far from fit
for anything trying. Dr. May saw that he must not ask to leave the
young friends alone together, but in his reverence for the rights of
their friendship, he withdrew himself as far as the limits of the cell
would allow, turned his back, and endeavoured to read the Thirty-nine
Articles in Leonard's Prayer-Book; but in spite of all his abstraction,
he could not avoid a complete consciousness that the two lads sat on
the bed, clinging with arms round one another like young children, and
that it was Leonard's that was the upright sustaining figure, his own
Aubrey's the prone and leaning one. And of the low whispering murmurs
that reached his would-be deafened ear, the gasping almost sobbing
tones were Aubrey's. The first distinct words that he could not help
hearing were, 'No such thing! There can't be slavery where one works
with a will!' and again, in reply to something unheard, 'Yes, one can!
Why, how did one do one's Greek?'--'Very
different!'--'How?'--'Oh!'--'Yes; but you are a clever chap, and had
her to teach you, but I only liked it because I'd got it to do. Just
the same with the desk-work down at the mill; so it may be the same
now.'
Then came fragments of what poor Aubrey had expressed more than once at
home--that his interest in life, in study, in sport, was all gone with
his friend.
'Come, Aubrey, that's stuff. You'd have had to go to Cambridge, you
know, without me, after I doggedly put myself at that place. There's
just as much for you to do as ever there was.'
'How you keep on with your _do_!' cried Ethel's spoilt child, with a
touch of petulance.
'Why, what are we come here for--into this world, I mean--but to _do_!'
returned Leonard; 'and I take it, if we do it right, it does not much
matter what or where it is.'
'I shan't have any heart for it!' sighed Aubrey.
'Nonsense! Not with all your people at home? and though the voice fell
again, the Doctor's ears distinguished the murmur, 'Why, just the
little things she let drop are the greatest help to me here, and you
always have her--'
Then ensued much that was quite inaudible, and at last Leonard said,
'No, old fellow; as long as you don't get ashamed of me, thinking about
you, and knowing what you are about, will be one of the best pleasures
I shall have. And look here, Aubrey, if we only consider it right, you
and I will be just as really working together, when you are at your
books, and I am making mats, as if we were both at Cambridge side by
side! It is quite true, is it not, Dr. May?' he added, since the
Doctor, finding it time to depart, had turned round to close the
interview.
'Quite true, my boy,' said the Doctor; 'and I hope Aubrey will try to
take comfort and spirit from it.'
'As if I could!' said Aubrey, impatiently, 'when it only makes me more
mad to see what a fellow they have shut up in here!'
'Not mad, I hope,' said Dr. May; 'but I'll tell you what it should do
for both of us, Aubrey. It should make us very careful to be worthy to
remain his friends.'
'O, Dr. May!' broke in Leonard, distressed.
'Yes,' returned Dr. May, 'I mean what I say, however you break in,
Master Leonard. As long as this boy of mine is doing his best for the
right motives, he will care for you as he does now--not quite in the
same despairing way, of course, for holes in one's daily life do close
themselves up with time--but if he slacks off in his respect or
affection for you, then I shall begin to have fears of him. Now come
away, Aubrey, and remember for your comfort it is not the good-bye it
might have been,' he added, as he watched the mute intensity of the
boys' farewell clasp of the hands; but even then had some difficulty in
getting Aubrey away from the friend so much stronger as the consoler
than as the consoled, and unconsciously showing how in the last
twenty-four hours his mind had acted on the topics presented to him by
Mr. Wilmot.
Changed as he was from the impetuous boyish lad of a few weeks since, a
change even more noticeable when with his contemporary than in
intercourse with elder men, yet the nature was the same. Obstinacy had
softened into constancy, pride into resolution, generosity made pardon
less difficult, and elevation of temper bore him through many a
humiliation that, through him, bitterly galled his brother.
Whatever he might feel, prison regulations were accepted by him as
matters of course, not worth being treated as separate grievances. He
never showed any shrinking from the assumption of the convict dress,
whilst Henry was fretting and wincing over the very notion of his
wearing it, and trying to arrange that the farewell interview should
precede its adoption.