Boys may imagine with what astonishment Jim Halliday discovered, on
receiving the legacy bequeathed him by his dead friend, that I was the
very watch which years before he had known so familiarly as the property
of Charlie Newcome. At first he could not believe it, and marvelled how
any two watches could be so much alike. Then he discovered the "C.N."
scratched long ago inside, which he well remembered. And further
inquiries enabling him to trace me back to the Muggerbridge silversmith,
and from him to the pawnbroker's sale in London, he had no doubt left
that I was actually the watch of which nothing had been heard since Tom
Drift owned me.
My new master did not long remain in Cambridge after the death of his
friend. He left the University in many respects a more thoughtful and
earnest man than he had entered it, and in leaving it set himself
honestly and faithfully to the work for which he had prepared, and on
which his heart was fixed.
I shall not follow him through all the labours of his first village
curacy, which lasted a year, during which time many people learned to
love the manly, open-hearted young clergyman, and to bless the day when
he had been sent among them.
At the end of a year he was removed to the charge of a church in a
distant large seaport, where everything was in strangest contrast with
the scenes he had just left. Instead of simple villagers and rustics,
his work now lay amongst labourers and artisans of the poorest and
lowest class. Instead of fresh country air he had now to breathe the
vitiated air of close courts and ill-kept streets; and instead of an
atmosphere of repose and innocence, he had now to move in an atmosphere
of vice and disorder, from which very often his soul turned with a deep
disgust. Still he worked manfully at his post with a bold heart, ready
to face any hardship in the service of his Master, and never weary of
striving by the Spirit's help to bring into the hard lives around him
the elevating joys which they alone know who can call Christ the Saviour
theirs. One day an adventure befell him which had a strange bearing on
my own fortunes, and the fortunes of more than one of my several
masters.
The gaol chaplain at Seatown had recently died, and during the interval
necessary for appointing a successor Jim was asked and undertook to add
to his other labours that of visiting the prisoners confined there. It
was melancholy, and on the whole monotonous work, for the persons whom
he thus attended, were mostly stupid, ignorant beings on whose hardened
souls it was difficult indeed to make the slightest impression. They
listened sulkily to what the chaplain had to say, but to all appearance
neither understood nor cared about a single word, and he had the
disappointment of noticing, week after week, and month after month,
scarcely a sign of good rising out of his labours in the case of any one
of them.
One day the governor met him as he was about to pay his customary
visits.
"Oh, good-morning, sir. You'll find a new customer to-day."
The gaol governor, you will observe, spoke about his prisoners in a very
commercial sort of way.
"Yes, and a queer one too," he added; "he doesn't look like one of our
regular customers."
"What is he imprisoned for?"
"He was drunk, and quarrelled with a sailor on the quay, and pushed him
into the water, I believe."
"Was the sailor drowned?"
"No, they fished him out, but this gentleman has got six months for it.
He seems very down about it, so I'd like you to see him."
"All right; I will make a point of visiting his cell. Good-morning."
And Jim went on his round, thinking very little about the governor's
communication.
Presently he came to the gallery in which the new prisoner's cell was,
and asked the turnkey to show him the door.
"No use you a-going in there," muttered that functionary.
"Why?" asked Jim.
"He do swear so as I never hear a cove swear afore."
"Ah," said Jim, "and I suppose you've heard a good deal too in your
time."
"So you may say, but this here young fellow comes out with it as if he'd
skin you alive."
"Well, I must see him. Let me in, please."
When the door was opened the prisoner's back was turned, nor did he
alter his position as Jim entered the cell.
There was undoubtedly something unusual about the man. His figure was
not that of a labourer or a rough, nor was his attitude one of stolid
brutishness, such as the chaplain had grown only too familiar with.