THE HOSPITAL.
Upon a narrow cot, in the Hospital apartment of the jail, they
laid Rodney, and immediately prepared the medicines suited to
his case. The medicines were at length administered, and, with a
pleasant consciousness of comfort and attention, he fell asleep.
When he awoke, it was evening; he was perfectly conscious, and felt
better; but it was a long time before he could recall his thoughts,
and understand where he was, and how he had come thither. He looked
around him, and saw a line of cots on each side of him. About a
dozen of them were occupied by sick men. A large case of medicines,
placed on a writing-desk, stood at one end of the room. Two or
three men, who acted as nurses, were sitting near it, talking and
laughing together. In another part of the room, by a grated window,
looking out upon the pleasant sunset, were two of the convalescent
prisoners, pale and thin, conversing softly and sadly. There was
not a face he knew,--none that seemed to feel the slightest
interest for him; and the wicked scenes of the past two months, and
the unhappy circumstances of the present hour, flashed through his
mind, and he hid his face in his pillow and wept.
He heard steps softly approach his cot, and knew that some one
was standing beside him. But he could not stifle his sobs, and
he did not dare to look up.
"I am glad to see that you are better, though I am sorry to see
you so much troubled, my poor boy," said a soft, kind voice.
It was long since he had been spoken to in a kind tone, and he
only wept the more bitterly, and convulsively pressed his face
closer to the pillow. Presently he felt an arm passed slowly
under the pillow, which wound around his neck, and gently drew
his head toward the stranger.
"Come, come," said the same soft voice, "don't give way to such
grief; look up, and talk to me. Let me be a friend to you."
Rodney yielded to the encircling arm, and turned his tearful
eyes to the man who spoke to him.
He was a tall, slender man, pale from sickness, decently
dressed, and with an intelligent, benevolent countenance. He was
one of those whom Rodney had observed looking out of the window.
"What is the matter?" said he; "what has brought you into this
horrible place?"
The confidence of the boy was easily won. He had felt an
inexpressible desire to talk to some one, and now he was ready
to lay open his whole heart at the first intimation of sympathy.
"I ran away from home," was the frank and truthful reply.
"But they do not put boys in jail for running away; you must
have done something else."
"I was charged with something else; but indeed, indeed, I am
innocent!"
"That is very possible," said he, with a sigh; "but what did
they charge you with doing?"
And Rodney moved closer to him, and leaned his head upon his
breast, and told him all. There was such an evident sincerity,
such consistency, such tones of truth in the simple narrative,
that he saw he was believed, and the sympathizing words and
looks of the listener inspired him with trust, as though he was
talking to a well-known friend.
For several days, they were constantly together; the stranger
waited upon Rodney, and gave him his medicine, and helped him
from his cot, talked with him, and manifested for him the
kindness of a brother. From several conversations, Rodney
gleaned from him the following history.
Lewis Warren,--so will we call him--(indeed, Rodney never knew
his true name),--was born and had lived most of his life in a
New England village. He was the son of a farmer; a pious man,
and deacon of a church, by whose help he received a liberal
education. Soon after he had graduated at ---- College, he came
on to Philadelphia, with the expectation of getting into some
business. At the hotel where he stopped, he became acquainted
with a man of very gentlemanly appearance and address, who said
that he, too, was a stranger in the city, and proposed to
accompany him to some places of amusement. Warren went with him
to the theatre, and, on succeeding evenings, to various places
of amusement. As they were one evening strolling up Chestnut-street,
this friend, Mr. Sharpe, stopped at the well-lighted vestibule
of a stately building, that had the air of a private house,
although it was thrown open, and proposed that they should go
in, and see what was going on there. Warren consented, and,
after ascending to the second floor, and passing through a hall,
they entered a large, brilliantly-lighted billiard saloon.
Around several tables were gathered gentlemanly-looking men,
knocking about little ivory balls, with long, slender wands or
cues, and seeming, evidently, engrossed in their respective
games. After looking around for a while, Sharpe proposed going
up stairs into the third story. They ascended to the upper
rooms. In the upper passage stood a stout, short negro-man, who
glanced at Sharpe, stepped one side, and permitted them to pass
unquestioned. They entered another smaller room,--for the third
story was divided into several rooms,--and found other games
than those exhibited below. After walking through some of the
rooms, and observing the different games, most of which were new
to Warren, his companion said to him:
"Do you understand anything about cards?"
"Not a great deal; I have occasionally played a game of whist or
sledge."
"Well, that is about the sum of my knowledge. Suppose we while
away a half-an-hour at one of these vacant tables."
Warren consented, and they sat down. After playing a game or
two, Sharpe proposed having a bottle of wine, and, said he,
laughingly, "Whoever loses the next game, shall pay for it."
"Agreed," said Warren; and the wine was brought, and he won the
game.
"Well, that is your good luck; but I'll bet you the price of
another bottle you can't do it again."
Warren won again.
They tried a third, and that Sharpe won; a fourth, and Warren
rose the winner.
The next evening found them, somehow, without much talk about
it, at the same place. They played with varied success; but when
they left, Warren had lost ten dollars.
He wanted to win it back, and himself proposed the visit for the
third night. He became excited by the game, and lost seventy
dollars.
Still his eyes were not open; he did not dream that he was in
the hands of a professed gambler, and, hoping to get back what
he had lost, and what he felt he really could not spare from his
small amount of funds, he went again.
"There!" said he, after they had been about an hour at the
table, "there is my last fifty-dollar bill; change that, and
I'll try once more."
"Well," said Sharpe, "here is the change; but the luck seems
against you. We had better stop for to-night."
But Warren insisted upon continuing, and he won thirty dollars
in addition to the fifty which Sharpe had changed for him. The
gambler then rose, and told him that he would give him a chance
to win all back another time, as fortune seemed to be again
propitious to him.
Warren never saw him after that night. The next morning he
determined to seek a more private boarding house, and economize
his remaining funds, and seek more assiduously some business
situation. He stepped to the bar to pay his board, handing the
clerk one of the notes he had received in change for his last
fifty-dollar bill. The clerk examined it a moment, and passed it
back, saying, "That is a counterfeit note, sir." He took it
back, amazed, and offered another.
"This is worse still," said the clerk. "I think we had better
take care of you, sir. You will please go with me before a
magistrate."
"But I did not know----!"
"You can tell that to the squire."
"You have no right to take me," said Warren; "you have no
warrant."
"No; but I can keep you here till I send for one, which I shall
certainly do, unless you consent to go willingly."
And Warren, conscious of his own innocence in this respect, and
never thinking of the difficulty of proving it, went to a
magistrate's office with the clerk at once.
The clerk entered his complaint, and, besides swearing to the
offer of the notes, swore that he had seen him, for several days
past, in the company of a notorious gambler.
Warren was stunned, overwhelmed, by this declaration. No
representation that he made was believed. His pockets were
searched, and all the money he had, except some small change,
was found to be counterfeit. A commitment was at once made out
against him, and he was sent to jail, to await his trial on the
charge of passing counterfeit money.
This is one of the methods by which professional gamblers
"pluck young pigeons." No young man is safe who allows himself
to play with cards, or to handle dice.
Rodney believed that Warren had told him the truth, and
fellowship in misfortune drew the hearts of the duped man and
the wronged boy towards each other; for though both had been
very much to blame, yet duped and wronged they had been by
knaves more cunning and wicked than themselves.
They had many serious conversations together, for both had been
piously instructed, and Warren, who seemed truly penitent for
his wanderings, as he sat by the bed-side of the sick boy,
encouraged him in his resolutions to lead a different life,--to
seek the forgiveness and grace of God through a merciful
Redeemer. Seldom has a poor prisoner received sweeter sympathy,
or more salutary counsel, than was given to Rodney within the
walls of that old Arch-street jail, by his fellow-prisoner.
[Illustration]
"Rodney," said Warren to him one day,--it was the first day
that he had left his cot,--"I shall soon leave this place; I
have written to my father, and he will be here at the trial with
such evidences in my favor, from the whole course of my life, as
cannot fail to secure me an acquittal. I feel no doubt that this
stain upon my character will be wiped away. And I believe that I
shall have reason to thank God, as long as I live, for having
permitted this trouble. It is a very hard lesson, but I trust it
will be a salutary one. Since I have been here, I have prayed
earnestly to God for the pardon of my sins. I have resolved, in
sincerity of soul, to consecrate my affections and my life to
his service. I have had a severe struggle; but I believe, I
_feel_, that God has heard my prayers, forgiven my iniquities,
and the last few days in this jail have been the happiest of my
life. I feel that I hate the sins of which my heart has been so
full, and that I love God even for the severe providences that
have checked my course of impenitence. I feel like a new man;
and if I am not deceiving myself,--and I pray that I may not
be,--I have experienced that regeneration of heart of which I
have so often heard, but which I could never before comprehend.
"I hope that you, too, will try and seek the Saviour, pray to
him for forgiveness, and beg the guidance of His Holy Spirit for
your future life. If we both do this sincerely, we shall have
reason forever to bless God for the way in which he has led us."
"Pray for me," said Rodney; while tears rolled down his pale
cheeks. "I want to be a Christian, and I hope that God will have
mercy upon me, and guide me, for the future, in the right path."
A few days after, Warren was called into court to take his
trial; and, to Rodney's great delight,--for he had learned to
love him like a brother,--he heard from one of the nurses that
he had been honorably acquitted.
During the same week, the case of Rodney was called up, and he
was conducted by an officer to the court-house.