BROODING.
Not a syllable of the judge's exhortation was lost upon the prisoner at
the bar. He listened to it as attentively as one who is waiting for the
thunder listens to the muffled menace that precedes it, and the fall of
each big drop of rain. When the words of doom smote upon his ear a
solemn hush succeeded them; and then one piteous, agonized shriek, and a
dull fall in the gallery above.
"This way," said a warder, sharply; and Richard was seized by the arm,
and hurried through the trap-door, and down the stairs, by the way he
had come. It seemed to him like descending into hell itself.
Twenty years' penal servitude! It was almost an eternity of torment!
worse than death! and yet not so. He already beheld himself, at the end
of his term of punishment, setting about the great work which alone was
left him to do on earth--the accomplishment of his revenge. He had
recognized his mother's voice in that agonized wail, and knew that her
iron will had given way; that the weight of this unexpected calamity had
deprived even her elastic and vigorous mind of consciousness--had
crushed out of her, perhaps, even life itself. Better so, thought he, in
his bitterness, if it had; there would then be not a single human
creature left to soften, by her attachment, his heart toward his
fellows--none to counsel moderation, mercy, prudence.
If the view taken by the judge had even been a correct one, as to
"motive," Richard had been hardly dealt with, most severely sentenced;
but in his own eyes he was an almost innocent man--the victim of an
infamous conspiracy, in which she who, was his nearest and dearest had
treacherously joined. After flattering him with false hopes, she had
deserted him at the eleventh hour, and in a manner even more atrocious
than the desertion itself. He knew, of course, that it was mainly owing
to her evidence, to which he had looked for his preservation, that his
ruin had been so complete and overwhelming; but what he hated her worst
for was for that smile she had bestowed upon him as she entered the
witness-box, and which had bade him hope where no hope was. He could not
be mistaken as to that. She had known that she was about to doom him by
her silence to years of misery, and yet she had had the devilish cruelty
to smile upon him, as she had often smiled, when they had sat, cheek to
cheek, together! Since they had done so, he could never lift his hand
against her (he felt that even now)--never strike her, slay her, nor
even poison her; but he would have revenge upon her for all that. He
would smite her, as she had smitten him, no matter how long the blow
might be in falling: if her affections should be entwined in any human
creatures, against them should his rage be directed; he would make her
desolate, as she had rendered him; he would turn their love for her to
hate, if it were possible, and, if not, he would destroy them. As for
her father--as for that stone devil Trevethick--it choked him to think
that nature herself might preserve him from his wrath, that the old man
might die before his hour of expiation could arrive. But Solomon Coe
would live to feel his vengeance. His hatred was at white heat now; what
would it be after twenty years of unmerited torture? To think that this
terrible punishment had befallen him through such contemptible
agencies--through such dull brains and vulgar hands--was maddening; and
yet he must needs feed upon that thought for twenty years, and keep his
senses too, that at the end they might work out his purpose to the
uttermost. There was plenty of time to plan and scheme and plot before
him, and henceforth that should be his occupation. Revenge should be his
latest thought and his earliest, and all night long he would dream of
nothing else. His wrath against judge and jury, and the rest of
them--though if he could have slain them all with a word he would have
uttered it--was slight compared with the vehemence of his fury against
those three at Gethin. Rage possessed him wholly, and, though without
numbing him to the painful sense of his miserable doom, rendered him
almost unconscious of what was going on about him.
When he found himself in his cell again he had no recollection of how he
had got there; and the warder had to repeat his sharp command, "Put on
these clothes," before he could get him to understand that he was to
exchange his garments for the prison suit that lay before him. It was a
small matter, but it brought home to him the reality of his situation
more than any thing that had yet occurred. With the deprivation of his
clothes he seemed to be deprived of his individuality, and, in adopting
that shameful dress, to become an atom in a congeries of outcasts. From
henceforth he was not even to bear a name, but must become a number--a
unit of that great sum of scoundrels which the world was so willing to
forget. That he was to suffer under a system which had authority and
right for its basis made his case no less intolerable to him; he felt
like one suddenly seized and sold into slavery. That his master and
tyrant was called the Law was no mitigation of his calamity; nay, it was
an aggravation, since he could not cut its throat.
"It is no use, young fellow," said the warder, coolly, as Richard looked
at him like some hunted beast at bay. "If you was to kill me and a dozen
more it would do you not a morsel of good; the law has got you tight,
and it's better to be quiet."
Richard uttered a low moan, more woeful than any cry of physical
anguish. It touched his jailer, used as he was to the contemplation of
human misery. "Look here," said he; "you keep up a good heart, and get
as many _V G_'s as you can. Then you'll get out on ticket-of-leave in
fifteen years: it ain't as if you were a lifer."
He meant it for consolation; but this unvarnished statement of the _very
best_ that could by possibility befall poor Richard seemed only to
deepen his despondency.
"Why, when you've done it," pursued the warder, "you'll be quite a young
man still--younger than I am. There's Balfour, now; he's got some call
to be down in the mouth, for he'll get it as hot as you, and he's an old
un, yet he's cheery enough up yonder"--and he jerked his head in the
direction of the court-house--"you may take your 'davey he is. You get
_V G_'s."
"What are those?" said Richard, wearily.
"Why, the best marks that can be got; and remember that every one of 'em
goes to shorten your time. You must be handier with your room, to begin
with. You might be reported by some officers for the way in which that
hammock is folded, and then away go your marks at once; and you must
learn to sweep your room out cleaner. We couldn't stand _that_ in one of
our regulars, you know;" and he pointed to some specks of dust upon the
shining floor. "As for the oakum pickings which will be set you
to-morrow, I'll show you the great secret of that art. Your fingers will
suffer a bit at first, no doubt, but you'll be a clever one at it before
long. Only buckle to, and keep a civil tongue in your head, young
fellow, and you'll do."
"Thank you," said Richard, mechanically.
"If you'll take my advice, you'll set about something at once; sweepin',
or polishin', or readin' your Bible. Don't brood. But you will do as you
like for this afternoon, since you won't begin regular business till
to-morrow."
The warder looked keenly round the cell, probably to make sure that it
afforded no facilities for suicide; but the gas was not yet turned on,
and if it had been, his prisoner was unaware that by blowing it out, and
placing the jet in his mouth, more than one in a similar strait to his
own has found escape from his prison woes forever.
"I'll bring you some supper presently," he added; and with a familiar
nod, good-naturedly intended for encouragement, he slammed the iron door
behind him.
That he should have become an object of pity and patronage to a man like
this would in itself have wounded Richard to the quick had he not been
devoured by far more biting cares, and even now it galled him. His
twenty years might possibly, then, by extremity of good luck, be
curtailed by five. By diligent execution of menial drudgery; by
performing to some overlooker's satisfaction his daily toil; by careful
obedience and subservience to these Jacks in office, themselves but
servants, and yet whose malice or ill-humor might cause them to report
him for the most trifling faults, or for none at all, and thereby
destroy even _this_ hope--he might be a free man in fifteen years! He
would, even then, he was told, be still a young man. But that he would
never be young again Richard was well aware. Within these last three
weeks--nay, within that last hour, he had already lived a life, and one
that had aged him beyond the power of years. High spirits, pleasure,
hopefulness, love, and all the attributes of youth, were dead within him
for evermore. For the future he was only to be strong and vigorous in a
will that could not have its way for fifteen years at earliest.
Through the grating of his narrow window a few rays of the setting sun
were streaming in, and fell upon the bare brown wall behind him. What a
flood of glory they were pouring on the woods of Crompton, now in their
autumn splendor--on the cliffs at Gethin--on the copse that hid the
Wishing Well--on the tower where he had first clasped Harry in his arms!
He saw them all, and the sunset hues upon them became suddenly
blood-red. He was once more at Gethin, and in imagination taking his
revenge upon old Trevethick, and for the moment he was almost happy.
"Pity on his gray hairs?" No, not he--though the gallows loomed before
him, though hell yawned for him, he would slake his thirst in the
life-blood of that perjured villain; and as for her, he would drag her
by the hair to look upon her father's corpse. Where was she? Ah, with
Solomon upon the castled rock; and see!--he had pushed him from the
edge, and there he hung exactly as he himself had hung when Harry had
preserved him! How long would a man hold on like that, even a strong man
like Coe, on such a narrow ledge, with the gulls screaming about him?
Not twenty years--no, nor fifteen!
The clatter of the trap in the door of his cell, as it fell in and
formed a table, awoke him from this gloating dream. "Supper," said the
warder, looking in at him through this orifice. "What! you're still
brooding, are you?--that's bad;" then marched on to the next cell.
Some gruel and bread stood upon this little improvised side-board. If
they had been the greatest luxuries imaginable, he could not have
swallowed a morsel. The sunlight had faded away; his dream of
retribution was over; he seemed to be touching the utmost verge of human
wretchedness. Was it possible to kill himself? His neckerchief had been
taken away; but he had his braces. The gas-pipe was the only thing to
which he could attach them, and it would never bear his weight. He had
read somewhere of some poor wretch who had suffocated himself by turning
his tongue inward. Had he determination enough for such a device as
that? Plenty. His will was iron; he felt that; but it was set on
something else than suicide--that afterward, or death or life of any
kind, he cared not what; but in the first place, and above all things,
Vengeance! In the mean time, there were twenty years in which to think
upon it! Twenty years!
The bar dined with the judge that night at Cross Key, and talked, among
other things, "shop."
"A curious case that of that young fellow, Yorke," said one. "I wonder
whether he has been playing his game long with these competitive
examinations? That Chandos must be a queer one, too--son of Lord
Fitzbacon's, is he not?"
"I dare say," answered another, carelessly. "It is only vicariously that
the juvenile aristocracy ever get an appointment in these days, having
no wits of their own. This conviction will be a great blow to them."
"Very good, Sharpshins! but you'd better not let old Bantam hear you,
for he dearly loves the Swells. By-the-by, what a pretty girl that
witness for the defense was, who turned out to be for the prosecution,
eh?"
"Yes, she upset her lover's coach for him nicely. Is it true, I wonder,
that the little traitress is going to marry that dull, heavy fellow whom
Smoothbore had such work to pump? Gad! if I had been she, I'd have stuck
to the other."
"Yes; but kissing goes by favor. She marries him next week, I hear. Is
there any thing of interest at Bodmin?"
"Nothing of interest to _me_, at all events. Smoothbore and Balais get
all there is between them, confound them! I say, just pass that claret."
Not another word about Richard. The judge himself had forgotten him
except as a case in his notes. The jury forgot him in a week. A murder
of a shipwrecked sailor happened soon afterward on that coast, and
became the talk of the country-side in his place. The world went on its
way, and never missed him; the rank closed up where he had used to
march, and left no gap.
Richard Yorke was out of the world.