IN PRISON.
When Paul heard the key turned upon him and the sound of voices die away
and began to realize that he could not get out if he wished to, a kind
of frenzy seized him and for a time he was beside himself. What business
had Max Allen to arrest him, innocent as he was of the dreadful
accusation brought against him? Why had his father and Tom allowed it
and left him there in jail, shut in with bars and bolts? He would get
out,—he would be free. Going to the heavy door, he shook it with all his
strength, but it did not yield to his blows. There was another one
leading to the passage connecting with the janitor’s rooms, and he tried
that next. But it was locked and bolted. He could not get out there. He
stood upon the chair and shook the iron bars across the open window. If
they moved he did not know it, and with a despairing look at the ocean
and the white sails against the evening sky he gave that up. There was
no way of escape unless it were through the wide chimney. He might get
out there, and going down on the hearth on his hands and knees, he
looked up the sooty flue to where a ledge of brick and mortar broke the
line and impeded the way. The chimney was impracticable. He was hemmed
in on every side,—a prisoner. The perspiration was rolling down his face
and back and arms,—there was a buzzing in his ears and a throbbing in
his head as he began to walk up and down his rather small apartment.
“Am I mad? If not, I soon shall be,” he said, and then his thoughts went
back to the time when a boy in the Boston High School he had spoken the
“Maniac’s Plea,”
“Stay, jailer, stay, and hear my woe,
She is not mad who kneels to thee.”
He had been greatly applauded and told he could not have done a maniac’s
part better had he really been one.
“I can do it better now,” he thought, repeating some parts of it with
fierce gestures and glassy eyes.
Outside the cool evening breeze came from the sea through his open
window and blew across his face. The tide was coming in, and there was
something soothing in the sound of the waves breaking on the shore a few
rods away, and as he listened he grew more calm and began to put things
together and recall the incidents of the last few hours. He remembered
how glad he was to be coming home and how pleasant the Bluff and Heights
had looked with their handsome villas and grounds sloping to the water.
The roof of the Ralston House, with its cupola and look-out, he had
saluted with a thought of his mother, of whom he was very proud, and who
would probably be at the wharf to meet him and Clarice. He had put his
arm around the latter as they drew near the landing and saw the crowd of
people, who, she said, had come to meet them. With an exclamation of
disgust he recalled his satisfaction and pride as he thought she was
right,—that because of her misfortune and his the people were sorry and
were showing it in that way. They _had_ come out to meet them, or him,
not to do him honor, but on the contrary to arrest him,—to drag him to
prison for a crime he never committed. Tom’s face, which he had not
noticed at the time, came back to him now, with Max Allen’s stammering
words of greeting and request to speak with him, and Clarice’s angry
exclamation as her dress was stepped on. The drive to the cottage, his
parting with the weeping girl, who clung to him just as she had never
done before when he said good-bye,—the drive back to the church, where
Max and a portion of the crowd were waiting for him, were all plainly
outlined before him, and then——! He could feel again the chill, followed
by a sensation as if hot lead were being poured through every vein and
scorching every nerve, when Max said: “I’ve got to arrest you.”
The words were sounding in his ears, as he continued his recollections
of all that passed after they were spoken. He had a faint remembrance of
sitting on the church steps with a lot of boys staring at him, and Max
saying occasionally a word of sympathy and encouragement. Then the black
horses came dashing up, flecked with white foam, and his father was
beside him, pale and hatless. This struck him now as it had not at the
time, and he said, aloud: “He was bare-headed, wasn’t he? Yes, he was.
Where was his hat, I wonder? I don’t think he had it on at all. It must
have blown off, and he didn’t stop to pick it up.”
It was some little diversion to settle the matter of the hat, and then
he returned to what followed his father’s arrival,—a recapitulation of
what he had heard before from Max, and which, had it been told him of
any other person than himself, would have stamped that person as a
criminal beyond doubt. Then came the arrest, how, or in what words, he
did not know. He heard Tom swear at the boys and girls, too,—for there
were girls there and women looking on, and he was sorry for them that
delicacy should not have kept them away. Tom had helped him into the
carriage with his father and Max, and they had driven to the causeway,
where a flying figure, with arms akimbo and a most wonderful sun-bonnet,
had met them and poured a torrent of abuse on Max, shriveled to half his
size as he listened. That was Miss Hansford, the grand old woman he
called her, who, at the door of the lock-up, with its mold and spiders,
had taken his hand and held him back and said he should not go in there.
He shuddered as he recalled the place. His present quarters were a great
improvement upon the lock-up, and he was grateful for them.
“But nothing very elegant here,” he said, taking a survey of his
surroundings.
Everything was clean and smelled of fresh lime, but was exceedingly
plain. A bare floor, a single bed, with straw mattress, and a crazy,
patchwork quilt spread over it. At this Paul rebelled and thought of his
brass bedstead at home, with its lace canopy and silken covering and
embroidered pillow cases. Then he continued his investigations. A hard
chair, a square table, with nothing on it but a Bible, which Paul was
sure had never been read,—a washstand, with a tin basin hanging over it,
and pail and dipper beside it,—a shelf with a turkey red drapery around
it, and on it a vase made of Gay Head pottery and warranted not to hold
water. In it was a dried carnation, put there for somebody by
somebody,—how long ago he could not guess, but the sight of it awoke a
throb of sympathy for the poor wretch shut up as he was, and for the
kind hand which had brought the little flower to make the solitude less
cheerless. Over the mantel was a lithograph,—a picture of the
crucifixion, with the Saviour’s dying eyes turned with love and
forgiveness toward the penitent thief.
Paul had completed the inventory of his furniture and stood
contemplating the picture.
“I s’pose it’s intended to point a lesson and tell the hardened criminal
that there’s mercy at the last moment,” he said. “Well, I’m not a
hardened criminal, and I do not need to be forgiven for shooting Jack.”
Then there came to his mind what Max and Miss Hansford and two or three
more around him had said of its being a mistake which would be cleared
up. He had told his father there was no mistake, and he said so again to
himself, but if Jack didn’t do it, who did?
“I didn’t,” he continued. “I wasn’t there, was I? Who said they saw me?”
He was in a chair now trying to think. Suddenly what in the excitement
attending the arrest he had forgotten came to him. “Elithe saw me,
Elithe!” and he groaned aloud. “How could she say so? Oh, Elithe!” Had
it been Clarice, it would have scarcely hurt him more cruelly. “If she
saw me, I must have been there and I didn’t know it. I certainly am mad,
or shall be soon if some one does not come to waken me from this
nightmare,” he said.
His reason had reached the last barrier and might have leaped over it if
Stevens, the jailer, had not come in with a lamp, which he put upon the
table.
“I am sorry I left you in the dark so long,” he said.
“I didn’t know it was dark,” Paul replied, glancing at the window and
surprised to see a star shining through it.
“Yes, it grows dark early now, and your supper is late, as we didn’t
expect company. Sarah Jane has taken a heap of pains with it. Here it
comes,” Stevens said, nodding towards the door, where his wife stood,
holding a large tray filled with the most appetizing food she could
think of.
Broiled chicken and coffee and peaches and cream, such as she had never
taken to a prisoner before. Paul was no ordinary charge. He had always
had a pleasant word for her, and once, when she was in town without an
umbrella and a heavy rain was falling, he had taken her home in his
covered phaeton. “Just as if I was a lady,” she said, and she never
forgot the attention. Now he was there in jail, and she was more sorry
for him than she had ever been for any one in her life. Like the most of
the people she did not believe he intended to kill Jack Percy, and she
wondered he did not say so.
“I hope you will enjoy your supper,” she said, putting the tray upon the
table and pouring his coffee for him.
He was young and he was hungry, and he ate with a keener appetite than
he would have thought possible half an hour ago. He was naturally very
social; he never liked to be alone, and the presence of the jailer and
his wife was company and made the place less dreary. His head was less
hot and dizzy, and he talked calmly of the calamity which had overtaken
him so suddenly.
“Nobody believes you meant to do it, and when you tell just how it was,
things will be easier,” Mrs. Stevens ventured to say, as she poured him
a second cup of coffee.
Paul looked at her quickly and asked: “They mean that I am to say I shot
him by mistake, not knowing he was there, and get off that way?”
“Yes, that’s about it,” Mrs. Stevens replied, and Paul continued: “Then
I shall never get off. I know no more of the shooting than you do. I was
not there.”
Mrs. Stevens looked distressed and puzzled. If Paul persisted in this
statement she did not know what could save him from State’s Prison at
least, if not from a worse fate, and her face was very grave as she took
up the tray and carried it from the room. Her husband had gone out
before her, and Paul was again alone. He knew the door had not yet been
locked, and he could get out if he chose. But he did not choose. The fit
of frenzy had passed, leaving him stunned and apathetic. The lamp was
burning very dimly, and he could still see the star looking at him
through the window, and began to recall his knowledge of astronomy and
try to think what star it was and in what constellation. It was very
bright, and reminded him first of Clarice’s eyes,—then of Elithe’s,—then
it was his mother looking at him, and he was nodding in his chair when
the rusty old key in the padlock outside aroused him, and he awoke to
find his father and Tom in the room, their arms full of bundles, which
they put down one by one. Soft pillows and bed linen, towels and a rug
and articles for the toilet, with his dressing gown and slippers, and a
large hand mirror. This was Tom’s idea. Indeed, nearly everything was
his idea. His quick eyes had noted the bareness of the room,—the absence
of everything to which Paul was accustomed, and he had suggested to the
judge that they take a few necessaries that night and furnish square the
next day. The judge was thinking more of the safety of Paul and how to
secure it than of present animal comfort, but he assented to Tom’s
proposal and said: “Do what you like. I don’t seem able to think of but
one thing,—how to prove my boy innocent,—and of my poor wife.”
The news, told her as carefully as it was possible to tell it, and with
as much concealed as could be concealed, had sent her into a deadly
faint, from which she recovered only to insist that Paul be brought to
her, and then to swoon again. This lasted for an hour or more, when she
grew quiet, but talked constantly of Paul, begging her husband to go for
him and bring him home.
“I can’t, Fanny,” the judge said to her. “They will not let him come
yet. There must be an examination, or something, and then we trust he
will he free. Tom and I are going to see him by and by. What shall I
tell him for you?”
“Tell him to come. His mother is sick and will die if he stays away. Who
says he shot Jack Percy?”
They did not tell her the particulars then. She was too weak to hear
them. She only knew Paul had been arrested and was lodged in jail and
that her husband and Tom were going to get him out. She put a great deal
of faith in Tom, who _guaranteed_ Paul’s speedy release over and over
again, until she began to believe it, and was comparatively quiet when
he started with the judge for the jail,—the carriage as full as it would
hold of articles which Tom’s thoughtfulness had suggested.
“There’s more coming to-morrow,” he said to Paul, who could not answer
at once.
The sight of his father and Tom and hearing of his mother’s illness had
unnerved him again, and he was lying on the cot with his face buried in
the pillow he knew was from his own bed.
“Seeing you makes me want to go home so badly,—to mother. Oh, mother,
mother,” he said at last.
It was like the heart-broken cry of a child, and it seemed to the judge
as if he must die if it were continued.
“Don’t, my boy, don’t,” he said, passing his arm under Paul’s neck and
bringing his face up to his own. “It’s not for long. I have offered ten
thousand dollars for the arrest of the real man and will offer ten more
if necessary. That will bring him down.”
“Then you don’t think I did it, even by accident, as Mrs. Stevens says
most people do?” Paul asked, and his father replied: “No, my son. I
believe you told the truth when you said you knew nothing of it.”
“I did, father; I did. If I knew it could save my life, I could not say
differently. I was not there.”
“And will prove it, too,” Tom said, his voice so full of courage and
hope that Paul felt stronger himself and began to look about with some
interest on what had been brought and what Tom was doing.
He had spread down the handsome Persian rug on the floor in front of the
cot,—had put the fine linen damask towels on the washstand, with a tilt
of his nose at the tin basin and pail, and a mental note of what he
would bring in their place. He laid Paul’s dressing gown on the foot of
the cot with another tilt of his nose at the patchwork quilt, and with
another mental memorandum. He took out Paul’s comb and brushes and soap
dish,—all silver-backed and looking on the old stand as much out of
harmony as the rug on the floor.
“I brought you this,” he said, holding up the hand glass. “Everybody
wants to see himself, if he is in prison. To-morrow I’ll bring a bigger
one, with more things. We’ll have you in good shape while you stay
here.”
He was very cheerful, and both the judge and Paul felt the magnetism of
his cheerfulness. Clarice’s name had not been mentioned, nor that of any
one except his mother, but she was in Paul’s mind, and when he could
trust himself he asked: “Does Clarice know where I am and what they
charge me with?”
“Yes, she knows. Everybody knows. The whole town is up in arms. She
takes it hard,” Tom said.
“Does she believe it?” was Paul’s next question.
“No. Nobody believes it,” was Tom’s reply, and Paul continued: “Yes,
they do. They believe I did it accidentally. Does Clarice think so?”
“Certainly not. She knows you didn’t,” Tom said, unhesitatingly, without
in the least knowing what Clarice believed or didn’t believe.
He had been told that when the news reached her she had shrieked so loud
that she was heard a block away, and had then gone into convulsions. He
had heard, too, that Elithe had turned as white as marble when her aunt
came with the intelligence of Paul’s arrest, and had not spoken since.
He did not mean to mention her name to Paul, knowing that what she saw
and heard was the pivot on which public opinion hung. But Paul spoke of
her and said: “Elithe says she saw me. I wish she would come here and
tell me why she thought it was I.”
“They say she’s like a dead lump, and would give the world if she had
held her tongue,” Tom replied, feeling more pity for poor little Elithe,
white and still and dumb with pain and terror, than for Clarice in
screaming hysterics. These would wear themselves out, but Elithe would
grow steadily worse with the dread of the trial and the witness stand
before her.
“Tell her not to feel so badly, but come and see me. Maybe I can
convince her it was not I whom she saw,” Paul said.
He did not say “Tell Clarice to come.” He was as sure of _her_ coming as
he was of his mother’s. Both might be there to-morrow, and this thought
buoyed him up when he at last said good-night to his father and Tom, and
heard the key turn in the lock to let them out and turn again to shut
him in. The few touches Tom had given to his room had made a difference
in his physical comfort, while his father’s confident words, emphasized
by Tom, had given him hope, and his heart was not so heavy when he knelt
down by his bed and asked that he might be freed at once, —that God, who
knew his innocence, would not suffer him to be brought to trial. When he
thought of that he recoiled with a feeling as if pins were piercing
every nerve.
“I couldn’t bear that. I couldn’t. A prisoner in the dock, with the
people looking at me and Elithe swearing against me. Oh, God! please
save me from that!”
For a few moments he was in an agony of excitement, which shook him like
a reed. Then he grew very calm. God would save him and all would yet be
well. Moving his cot in front of the window he lay down upon it, tired
but sleepless. The star which had shone upon him earlier in the evening
was still looking at him, with another near it. The higher and brighter,
flashing as it shone, he likened to Clarice; the lower and softer,
shining with a pure, steady light, was Elithe, whose eyes had often
looked at him steadily and quietly as this star shone upon him now,
bringing a sensation of rest and indifference to what had happened or
might happen in the future. Thoughts of Jack came to him in his
loneliness. Poor Jack! Cut off so suddenly. How he wished he hadn’t been
angry with him that morning at the hotel, and wished, too, that he had
found him in the woods when looking for him. In the confusion which
followed Jack’s death he had scarcely had time to think much of John
Pennington, the hero of Deep Gulch, but now, with Elithe’s star looking
at him, he remembered the scene in Miss Hansford’s rooms when Elithe
knelt by the dying man, whose last thoughts were for her,—whose last
word was her name, spoken as he, Paul, might speak Clarice’s, if he knew
he were dying. Elithe had disclaimed all love for Jack, saying he had
only been her friend.
“But Jack loved her, and this must influence her in her opinion of me. I
wish I could see her and talk with her about it,” he thought, still
watching the two stars.
That of Elithe was a little dim, with a fleecy cloud over it, but that
of Clarice was bright as ever.
“Poor Clarice, who was to have been a bride last week! I am so sorry for
her,” he said, forgetting Elithe at last and thinking only of Clarice
until he heard a clock strike one.
He had not slept. He didn’t feel as if he could ever sleep again, but
after an hour of tossing on his hard bed, which grew harder every
minute, he fell into a heavy slumber, from which he did not waken until
the sun was shining through the window, where the starry eyes of Clarice
and Elithe had looked at him the night before.