"To tell you the truth, doctor," said a grey old patient of mine, "I
don't think I was ever fit to be a prison warder: I'm too soft. All the
same, though, I've been at it for twenty-five years; and I'm head warder
now, and could retire when I like upon a pension. I don't know how I
drifted into it, but I did. A dozen times over I've wanted to get into
something else, but it has always seemed as if I was forced to stay on
for the rest of my days. It's been worse for me because I've always
lived in the prison. It's a dull life, perhaps; not that I feel it,
for, according to my way of thinking, it is not the occupation, but the
man's heart which makes him dull. Depend upon it, hands and a
thoughtful mind were not given us for nothing, and the more I think, the
nearer I come to the conclusion that the busy life is the happy one
after all. Now here I am, with plenty to take up my time in my duties,
and plenty of studies of character within reach shut up all ready for me
in the different cells.
"Gloomy place this, you'll say, barred and bolted to keep any friends
from getting in unasked; but I'm contented enough, and too busy
generally to find fault.
"Yes, you may depend upon it your busy man is the happiest, for I've
seen it again and again. The greatest punishment you can inflict upon a
man is to shut him up with nothing to do, nothing to employ his time
with, nothing to hinder the constant drag, drag of his thoughts, pulling
him towards the past.
"Not always borrow and contrition, but recollections of drinking-bouts
and successful robberies and their profits, debaucheries, and then
longings for liberty once more. Of course, now and then we do get a
really repentant fellow--not one of your cringing, fawning rascals, who
turn up their eyes and feel so much better for the chaplain's words, and
so carefully learn all his texts; but honest rogues--men who have been
sent here for their term of imprisonment, and who feel the bitterness
and shame of their position--men who shudder as the barber's scissors
crop their hair, and who soon show in their appearance how their
punishment is telling upon them. They don't get fat and sleek, and jump
up to make bows when you enter their cell, but hide all their troubles
in their hearts, and go about their duties silently and doggedly.
"We had such a man here not long back now--Amos Ridding, in for
poaching--and how that poor fellow beat against his cage bars! Poor
fellow! I believe he was not a bad one at heart, but he had got himself
mixed up with a poaching gang, and a keeper having been half killed,
Amos was taken, and rightly or wrongly sent here for two years.
"We can soon pick out what I call the canters, and act accordingly;
while where we see a poor fellow taking his confinement to heart, why,
knowing how it tells on his mind, I do all I can for him to brighten him
up--setting him at odd jobs about the place, gardening, and so on; while
if he knows a trade, one that can be worked at in here, speaking to the
governor, we set him to do something in that way, never letting him
stand still for tools or material.
"But this poor fellow was unmanageable; he would work as hard as I
liked, and as long as I liked, but the moment he was by himself he was
pining again, fretting for his wife and children, and wearing himself
away to skin and bone. I did not know what to do with him, and grew
quite troubled at last, for I began to be afraid of having a summons
from one of the under-warders, telling me that in a fit of that weary,
despairing madness which comes upon men, poor Ridding had made away with
himself.
"The summons came at last, but in a different form; for one morning I
was roused at five o'clock to be told that the bird had beaten down the
wires, and had escaped, and I had to go and tell the governor.
"`Why, how did he manage it?' I exclaimed angrily.
"`Come and see,' said the warder, and I went to the cell where the
prisoner had been locked in the night before at eight o'clock, and then
apparently he must have gone to work at once with an old nail at the
setting of one of the iron bars in the window till he picked it slowly
out, and then wrenched out first one and then another, leaving a passage
big enough to allow his body to pass. The blankets and rug were gone,
while a piece of the former yet hung to one of the bars, evidently
having been used to let the prisoner down into the yard below.
"We were not long in reaching the lesser yard, which was about twenty
feet beneath his window, and surrounded on all sides by high buildings.
Here it was evident that he had made his way into the long passage
between the workshops, a place covered in for the whole length with iron
bars. But about half-way down we found where he had leaped up and
caught the bars, and evidently, by placing his feet against them and
forcing while he held on with his hands, strained till the iron gave way
sufficiently for him to force his body through, when he would be able to
lower himself into the large yard, where the high wall is, whose top is
covered with loose heavy bricks, which are sure to fall if an attempt at
escape is made.
"Not a brick was out of place, though, as far as I could see, till one
of the men pointed out where three had fallen, and then, feeling
satisfied in my own mind that the prisoner had escaped, I returned with
the governor to his office, and sent out notices to the police.
"All at once one of the men ran in. `Found him, sir,' he said.
"`How? where?' I said. `Is he in a cell?'
"`No, sir,' said the warder, `he's a-top of the prison.'
"I jumped up, and hurried into the yard, to find men at watch, for some
people had caught sight of the poor fellow's head from a neighbouring
house, and given notice to the gatekeeper.
"It was now plain enough that the prisoner had reached the top of the
high wall, and then, probably from its being daylight, been afraid to
descend, so he had climbed from thence, by means of a water-pipe, right
on to the top of the prison, and was now lying concealed in one of the
gutters.
"I sent up three men to the top of the prison, and then went up one of
the buildings to see the capture made. I did not have to wait long
before first one head and then another appeared above the trap-door,
till the three men were upon the roof, which is rather extensive,
consisting of high slated ridges, separated by wide lead gutters.
"The noise they made must have aroused the prisoner, for I saw him start
up all at once, as if from sleep, and stand facing his pursuers.
"`Of course he'll give up, poor fellow,' I muttered to myself; but I was
mistaken, for the next moment I saw him scramble up one side of a ridge
and slide down the other, in a way which showed that submission was far
from his intention.
"Not to be outdone, the three men separated, and as one followed in the
prisoner's steps, the others tried to cut him off right and left.
"But for duty, I felt so much sympathy for the poor fellow, that I
should have said, `Let him go.' But all I could do was to gaze
horror-stricken at the scene going on about thirty feet from where I
stood. Once a warder was near enough to touch the prisoner, but he
eluded the grasp, and led his pursuers right to the end of the building,
each man, in the excitement of the chase, running fearlessly along the
coping of the parapet, or dashing up and down the ridges in a way that
chilled me with horror, as I thought of a fall full fifty feet into the
stone-yard below.
"`Thank God!' I ejaculated at last, for at the second race round the
building I saw one of the men drop behind a projection in hiding, and
then, as the prisoner came round, the warder leaped up, caught him by
the throat, and I thought all was over. But directly after I shuddered
as I saw a deadly struggle going on within a foot of the parapet, and
felt that the next moment must see the pair falling headlong to the
ground. It was almost a relief to see them go down heavily into the
gutter, and the prisoner leap up and continue his flight, pursued by the
other two men, who had lagged behind to cut off their quarry.
"But a new plan was now being adopted by the pursuers, who crawled on
hands and knees between the ridges, one going one way, the other another
way, while to my astonishment I saw the prisoner stop at the corner
where the brick-burdened wall touched the building, and let down a rope
of knotted blanket, hitherto hidden in the lead gutter, to which it was
somehow secured. The next instant the poor fellow was over the side,
swinging backwards and forwards, and turning round and round as he
lowered himself quickly, staring upwards at the men, who now came up and
looked over at him.
"In that moment of peril I could do nothing but look on, for I felt, I
may say, that something was going to happen. My hands were wet, the big
drops stood upon my brow, while, when Ridding swung round, and I saw his
dilated eyes, I shuddered again, just as the weak-knotted rope parted,
and he fell with his back striking the wall, and dislodging some of the
loose bricks, when I turned away from the window to run down; but not
quickly enough to avoid hearing the sickening crash of the poor fellow's
fall upon the hard flags in the yard.
"The doctor was standing over Ridding when I went into his cell, and
then, answering my inquiring look with a slight raising of the eyelids
and a shake of the head, he went out and left me with the poor fellow,
who smiled as I leant over his bed.
"`Are you in much pain?' I said.
"`Only in one place,' he whispered, touching his breast; and then no
more was said for a minute or two, when I spoke a few encouraging words.
"`No use, sir, no use,' he murmured. `Don't be cross with me. I
couldn't bear it any longer. I wanted to be with the wife and little
ones once more. Tell 'em how it was.'
"The next morning the poor fellow was free--free from prison bonds--
earthly bonds--all; and I was so upset with that affair that I sent in
my resignation. It was returned to me with a note begging that I would
reconsider my determination: and I did. But we have some most
heart-rending cases at times."