In ante bellum days, when States' Rights was a sacred faith, a revered
and precious palladium, State pride blossomed under Southern skies, and
State coffers overflowed with the abundance wherewith God blessed the
land. During that period, when it became necessary to select a site for
a new Penitentiary, the salubrity and central location of X---had so
strongly commended it, that the spacious structure was erected within
its limits, and regarded as an architectural triumph of which the State
might justly boast. Soon after this had been completed, the old county
jail, situated on the border of the town, was burned one windy March
night; then the red rain of war deluged the land, and when the ghastly
sun of "Reconstruction" smiled upon the grave of States' Rights,
Municipal money disappeared in subterranean channels. Thus it came to
pass, that with the exception of a small "lockup" attached to Police
Headquarters, X--had failed to rebuild its jail, and domiciled its
dangerous transgressors in the great stone prison; paying therefor to
the State an annual amount per capita.
Built of gray granite which darkened with time and weather stains, its
massive walls, machicolated roof, and tall arched clock-tower lifted
their leaden outlines against the sky, and cast a brooding shadow over
the town, lying below; a grim perpetual menace to all who subsequently
found themselves locked in its reformatory arms. Separated from the
bustling mart and busy traffic, by the winding river that divided the
little city into North and South X--, it crested an eminence on the
north; and the single lower story flanking the main edifice east and
west, resembled the trailing wings of some vast bird of prey, an
exaggerated simulacrum of a monstrous gray condor perched on a "coigne
of vantage," waiting to swoop upon its victims. Encircled by a tall
brick wall, which was surmounted by iron spikes sharp as bayonets, that
defied escalade, the grounds extended to the verge of the swift stream
in front, and stretched back to the border of a heavily timbered tract
of pine land, a bit of primeval forest left to stare at the encroaching
armies of Philistinism.
Within the precincts of the yard, the tender conservatism of our
great-hearted mother Nature, gently toned the savage stony features;
and even under the chill frown of iron barred windows, golden sunshine
bravely smiled, soft grasses wove their emerald velvet tapestries
starred and flushed with dainty satin petals, which late Autumn roses
showered in munificent contribution, to the work of pitying love.
In a comfortably furnished room situated in the second story of the
main building, sat a woman apparently thirty-five years old, who was
singing to a baby lying face downward on her lap, while with one hand
she rocked the wicker cradle beside her, where a boy of four years was
tossing. Her hazel eyes were full of kindly light, the whole face
eloquent with that patient, limitless tenderness, which is the magic
chrism of maternity, wherewith Lucina and Cuba abundantly anoint
Motherhood. The blessed and infallible nepenthe for all childhood's
ills and aches, mother touch, mother songs, soon held soothing sway;
and when the woman laid the sleeping babe on her own bed, and covered
her with a shawl, she saw her husband leaning against the partly open
door.
"Come here, Susie. The kids are snug and safe for the present, and I
want you."
"For shame, Ned! To call our darlings such a beastly name. Kids,
indeed! My sweetest, loveliest lambs!"
"There! Hear yourself! If I can see any choice of respectability
between kids and lambs, may I turn to a thoroughbred Southdown, and
take the blue ribbon at the next Fair. Beasts of the field, all of
them. The always-wide-awake-contrariness of womankind is a curious and
fearful thing. If I had called our beloved towheads, lambs, you would
have sworn through blue ruin that they were the cutest, spryest pair of
spotted kids, that ever skipped over a five-railed fence!"
"So much the worse for you, Ned Singleton, that you are such a hopeless
heathen; you do not even know where the Elect are appointed to stand,
at that great day when the sheep come up on the right hand of the Lord,
and the goats go down to the left. If you read your Bible more, I
should have less to teach you."
"Oh! but let me tell you, I thought of all that before I made up my
mind to marry the daughter of a Presbyterian preacher. I knew your dear
little blue-nose would keep the orthodox trail; and being one of the
Elect you could not get the points of the celestial compass mixed.
Don't you forget, that it is part of the unspoken marriage contract,
that the wife must not only keep her own soul white, but bleach her
husband's also; and no matter what a reprobate a man may be, he always
expects his better-half, by hook or by crook, to steer him into heaven."
He put his hands on his wife's shoulders, shook her, in token of
mastery, and kissed her.
"What do you want of my 'always-wide-awake-contrariness'? I have half a
mind not to help you out of your scrape; for of course you have mired
somewhere. What is the matter now, Ned?"
"Yes--stuck hard and fast; so my dear little woman, don't you go back
on your wedding-day promises, but just lend a helping hand. I don't
know what is to be done with that poor young woman in No. 19. One of
the under-wardens, Jarvis, sleeps this week right under her cell, and
he tells me that all night long she tramps up and down, without
cessation, like some caged animal. This is her third day in, and she
has not touched a morsel; though at Judge Dent's request I ordered some
extras given her. Jarvis said she was not sullen, but he thought it
proper to report to me that she seemed to act very strangely; so I went
up to see after her. When I opened the door she was walking up and down
the floor, with her hands locked at the back of her head, and I
declare, Susie, she looks five years older than when she came here.
There are great dark hollows under her eyes, and two red spots like
coals of fire on her cheeks. I said: 'Are you sick, that you reject
your meals?' To which she replied: 'Don't trouble yourself to send me
food; I cannot eat!' Then I told her I understood that she was restless
at night, and I advised her to take a mixture which would quiet her
nerves. She shook her head, and I could not bear to look at her; the
eyes seemed so like a wounded fawn's, brimful of misery. I asked her if
there was anything I could do, to make her more comfortable; or if she
needed medicine. All this time she kept up her quick walk to and fro,
and she answered: 'Thank you. I need nothing--but death; and that will
come soon.' Now what could I say? I felt such a lump in my throat, that
if Solomon had whispered to me some kind speech, I could not have
uttered it, so I got out of the room just as fast as possible, to dry
the tears that somehow would blur my eyes. When they are surly, or
snappish, or violent, or insolent, I know exactly what to do, and have
no trouble; but hang me, if I can cope with this lady--there it is out!
She is a lady every inch, and as much out of place here as I should be
in Queen Victoria's drawing-room. Men are clumsy brutes, even in kid
gloves, and bruise much oftener than they heal. Whenever I am in that
girl's presence, I have a queer feeling that I am walking on eggs, and
tip-toe as I may, shall smash things. If something is not done, she
will be ill on our hands, and a funeral will balk the bloodhounds."
"O, hush, Ned! You give me the shivers. My heart yearns toward that
beautiful young creature, and I believe she is as innocent as my baby.
It is a burning shame to send her here, unless there is no doubt of her
guilt. Judge Dent is too shrewd an old fox to be baited with chaff, and
I am satisfied from what he told you, that he believes her statement.
There is nothing I would not do to comfort her, but I would rather have
my ears boxed than witness her suffering. The day I carried to her a
change of clothes, until her own could be washed, and sewed up her
dress sleeve. I did nothing but cry. I could not help it, when she
moaned and wrung her hands, and said her mother's heart would break. I
have heard all my life that justice is blind; I have learned to believe
it, for it stumbles, and gropes, and lays iron claws on the wrong
person. As for the lawyers? They are fit pilots: and the courts are
little better than blind man's buff. Don't stand chewing your mustache,
Ned. Tell me what you want me to do, while baby is asleep. She has a
vexatious habit of taking cat naps."
"Little woman, I turn over the case to you. Just let your heart loose,
and follow it."
"If I do, will you endorse me?"
"Till the stars fall."
"Can you stay here awhile?"
"Yes, if you will tell Jarvis where he can find me."
"Mind you, Ned, you are not to interfere with me?"
"No--I swear I won't. Hurry up, or there will be much music in this
bleating fold; and you know I am as utterly useless with a crying
child, as a one-armed man in a concert of fiddlers."
The cell assigned to the new prisoner was in the centre of a line,
which rose tier above tier, like the compartments in a pigeon house, or
the sombre caves hewn out of rock-ribbed cliffs, in some lonely Laura.
Iron stairways conducted the unfortunates to these stone cages, where
the dim cold light filtered through the iron lattice-work of the upper
part of the door, made a perpetual crepuscular atmosphere within. The
bare floor, walls, and low ceiling were spotlessly clean and white; and
an iron cot with heavy brown blankets spread smoothly and a wooden
bench in one corner, constituted the furniture. Scrupulous neatness
reigned everywhere, but the air was burdened with the odor of carbolic
acid, and even at mid-day was chill as the breath of a tomb. Where the
doors were thrown open, they resembled the yawning jaws of rifled
graves; and when closed, the woful inmates peering through the black
lattice seemed an incarnation of Dante's hideous Caina tenants.
When Mrs. Singleton stopped in front of No. 19, and looked through the
grating, Beryl was standing at the extremity of the cell, with her face
turned to the wall, and her hands clasping the back of her neck. The
ceiling was so low she could have touched it, had she lifted her arms,
and she appeared to have retreated as far in the gloomy den as the
barriers allowed. Thinking that perhaps the girl was praying, the
warden's wife waited some minutes, but no sound greeted her; and so
motionless was the figure, that it might have been only an alto rilievo
carved on the wall. Pushing the door open, Mrs. Singleton entered, and
deposited on the iron bed a waiter covered with a snowy napkin. At the
sound, Beryl turned, and her arms fell to her side, but she shrank back
against the wall, as if solitude were her only solace, and human
intrusion an added torture.
Mrs. Singleton took both hands, and held them firmly:
"Do you believe it right to commit suicide?"
"I believe in everything but human justice, and Divine mercy."
"Your conscience tells you that--"
"Am I allowed a conscience? What ghastly mockery! Thieves and murderers
are not fit tenements for conscience, and I--I--am accused of stealing,
and of bloodshed. Justice! What a horrible sham! We--her victims--who
adored the beneficent and incorruptible attribute of God Himself--we
are undeceived, when Justice--the harpy--tears our hearts out with her
hideous, foul, defiling claws."
She spoke through set teeth, and a spasm of shuddering shook her from
head to feet.
"Listen to me. Suspicion is one thing, proof something very different.
You are accused, but not convicted, and--"
"I shall be. Justice must be appeased, and I am the most convenient and
available victim. An awful crime has been committed, and outraged law,
screaming for vengeance, pounces like a hungry hawk on an innocent and
unsuspecting prey. Does she spare the victim because it quivers, and
dies hard?"
"Hush! You must not despair. I believe in your innocence; I believe
every word you uttered that day was true, and I believe that our
merciful God will protect you. Put yourself in His hands, and His mercy
will save, for 'it endureth forever.'"
"I don't ask mercy! I claim justice--from God and man. The wicked
grovel, and beg for mercy; but innocence lays hold upon the very throne
of God, and clutches His sword, and demands justice!"
"I understand how you feel, and I do not wonder; but for your own sake,
in order to keep your mind clear and strong for your vindication, you
certainly ought to take care of your health. Starvation is the surest
leech for depleting soul and body. Do you want to die here in prison,
leaving your name tarnished, and smirched with suspicion of crime, when
you can live to proclaim your innocence to the world? Remember that
even if you care nothing for your life, you owe something to your
mother. You have two chances yet; the Grand Jury may not find a true
bill--"
"Yes, that tiger-eyed lawyer will see that they do. He knows that the
law is a cunning net for the feet of the innocent and the unwary. He
set his snare dexterously, and will not fail to watch it."
"You mean Mr. Dunbar? Yes, you certainly have cause to dread him; but
even if you should be indicted, you have twelve human hearts full of
compassion to appeal to--and I can't think it possible a jury of sane
men could look at you and condemn you. You must fight for your life;
and what is far more to you than life, you must fight for your good
name, for your character. Suspicion is not proof of crime, and there is
no taint on you yet; for sin alone stains, and if you will only be
brave and clear yourself as I know you can, what a grand triumph it
will be. If you starve yourself you seal your doom. An empty stomach
will do you more harm than the Grand Jury and all the lawyers; for it
utterly upsets your nerves, and makes your brain whirl like a top. For
three days and nights you have not tasted food: now just to please me,
since I have taken so much trouble, sit down here by me, and eat what I
have brought. I know you would rather not; I know you don't want it;
but, my dear child, take it like any other dose, which will strengthen
you for your battle. It is very fine to rant about heroism, but
starvation is the best factory for turning out cowards: and even the
courage of old Caesar would have had the 'dwindles,' if he had been
stinted in his rations."
She removed the napkin, and displayed a tempting luncheon, served in
pretty, gilt-banded white china. What a contrast it presented, to the
steaming tin platter and dull tin quart cups carried daily to the
adjoining cell?
Beryl laid her hand on Mrs. Singleton's shoulder, and her mouth
trembled.
"I thank you, sincerely, for your sympathy--and for your confidence;
and to show my appreciation of your kindness, I wish I could eat that
dainty luncheon; but I think it would strangle me--I have such a
ceaseless aching here, in my throat. I feel as if I should stifle."
"See here! I brought you some sweet rich milk in my little boy's cup.
He was my first-born, and I lost him. This was his christening present
from my mother. It is very precious, very sacred to me. If you will
only drink what is in it, I shall be satisfied. Don't slight my angel
baby's cup. That would hurt me."
She raised the pretty "Bo-Peep" silver cup to the prisoner's lips, and
seeing the kind hazel eyes swimming in tears, Beryl stooped her head
and drank the milk.
The warden's wife lifted the cup, looked wistfully at it, and kissed
the name engraved on the metal:
"You know now I must think you pure and worthy. I have given you the
strongest possible proof; for only the good could be allowed to touch
what my dead boy's lips have consecrated. Now come out with me, and get
some pure fresh air."
Beryl shrank back.
"These close walls seem a friendly shelter from the horrible faces that
cluster outside. You can form no idea how I dread contact with the vile
creatures, whose crimes have brought them here for expiation. The
thought of breathing the same atmosphere pollutes me. I think the
loathsomeness of perdition must consist in association with the
depraved and wicked. Not the undying flames would affright me, but the
doom of eternal companionship with outcast criminals. No! No! I would
sooner freeze here, than wander in the sunshine with those hideous
wretches I saw the day I was thrust among them."
"Trust me, and I will expose you to nothing unpleasant. Take your hat
and shawl; I shall not bring you back here. There is time enough for
cells when you have been convicted and sentenced; and please God, you
shall never stay in this one again. Come."
"Stay, madam. What is your purpose? I have been so hunted down, I am
growing suspicious of the appearance of kindness. What are you going to
do?"
Mrs. Singleton took her hand and pressed it gently.
"I am going to trust, and help, and love you, if you will let me; and
for the present, I intend to keep you in a room adjoining mine, where
you will have no fear of wicked neighbors."
"That will be merciful indeed. May God bless you for the thought."
Down iron staircases, and through dim corridors bordered with dark
cells, gloomy as the lairs of wild beasts whom the besotted inmates
resembled, the two women walked; and once, when a clank of chains and a
hoarse human cry broke the dismal silence, Beryl clutched her
companion's arm, and her teeth chattered with horror.
"Yes, it is awful! That poor woman is the saddest case we have. She
waylaid and stabbed her husband to death, and poisoned his mother. We
think she is really insane, and as she is dangerous at times, it is
necessary to keep her chained, until arrangements can be made to remove
her to the insane asylum."
"I don't wonder she is mad! People cannot dwell here and retain their
reason; and madness is a mercy that blesses them with forgetfulness."
Beryl shivered, and her eyes glittered with an unnatural and ominous
brilliance.
The warden's wife paused before a large door with solid iron panels,
and rang a bell. Some one on the other side asked:
"What is the order? Who rang?"
"Mrs. Singleton; I want to get into the chapel. Let me out, Jasper."
The door swung slowly back, and the guard touched his hat respectfully.
Through an open arcade, where the sunlight streamed, Mrs. Singleton led
her companion; then up a short flight of stone steps, and they found
themselves in a long room, with an altar railing and pulpit at one end,
and rows of wooden benches crossing the floor from wall to wall. Even
here, the narrow windows were iron barred, but sunshine and the sweet,
pure breath of the outside world entered freely. Within the altar
railing, and at the right of the reading desk where a Bible lay, stood
a cabinet organ. Leaving the prisoner to walk up and down the aisle,
Mrs. Singleton opened the organ, drew out the stops, and after waiting
a few moments, began to play.
At first, only a solemn prelude rolled its waves of harmony through the
peaceful sunny room, but soon the strains of the beautiful Motet "Cast
thy burden on the Lord," swelled like the voice of some divine
consoler. Watching the stately figure of the prisoner who wandered to
and fro, the warden's wife noticed that like a magnet the music drew
her nearer and nearer each time she approached the chancel, and at last
she stood with one hand on the railing. The beautiful face, sharpened
and drawn by mental agony, was piteously wan save where two scarlet
spots burned on her cheeks, and the rigid lips were gray as some
granite Statue's, but the eyes glowed with a strange splendor that
almost transfigured her countenance.
On and on glided the soft, subtle variations of the Motet, and
gradually the strained expression of the shining eyes relaxed, as if
the soul of the listener were drifting back from a far-off realm; the
white lids quivered, the stern lines of the pale lips unbent. At that
moment, the face of her father seemed floating on the sunbeams that
gilded the pulpit, and the tones of her mother's voice rang in her
ears. The terrible tension of many days and nights of torture gave way
suddenly, like a silver thread long taut, which snaps with one last
vibration. She raised her hands:
"My God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?"
The cry ended in a wail. Into her burning eyes merciful tears rushed,
and sinking on her knees she rested against the railing, shaken by a
storm of passionate weeping.
Mrs. Singleton felt her own tears falling fast, but she played for a
while longer; then stole out of the chapel, and sat down on the steps.
Across the grass plot before the door, burnished pigeons cooed, and
trod their stately minuet, their iridescent plumage showing every
opaline splendor as the sunlight smote them; and on a buttress of the
clock tower, a lonely hedge-sparrow poured his heart out in that
peculiarly pathetic threnody which no other feathered throat
contributes to the varied volume of bird lays. Poised on the point of
an iron spike in the line that bristled along the wall, a mocking bird
preened, then spread his wings, soared and finally swept downward,
thrilling the air with the bravura of the "tumbling song"; and over the
rampart that shut out the world, drifted the refrain of a paean to
peace:
"Bob White!" "Peas ripe?" "Not quite!"
In the vast epic of the Cosmos, evoked when the "Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters"--an epic printed in stars on blue abysses
of illimitable space; in illuminated type of rose leaf, primrose petal,
scarlet berry on the great greenery of field and forest; in the
rainbows that glow on tropical humming birds, on Himalayan pheasants,
on dying dolphins in purple seas; and in all the riotous carnival of
color on Nature's palette, from shifting glory of summer clouds, to the
steady fires of red autumn skies--we find no blot, no break, no blurred
abortive passages, until man stepped into creation's story. In the
material, physical Universe, the divine rhythm flows on, majestic,
serene as when the "morning stars sing together" in the choral of
praise to Him, unto whom "all seemed good"; but in the moral and
spiritual realm evolved by humanity, what hideous pandemonium of
discords drowns the heavenly harmony? What grim havoc marks the swath,
when the dripping scythe of human sin and crime swings madly, where the
lilies of eternal "Peace on earth, good will to man," should lift their
silver chalices to meet the smile of God?
A vague conception of this vexing problem, which like a huge
carnivorous spectre, flaps its dusky wings along the sky of sociology,
now saddened Mrs. Singleton's meditations, as she watched the
lengthening shadow cast by the tower upon the court-yard; but she was
not addicted to abstract speculation, and the words of her favorite
hymn epitomized her thoughts: "Though every prospect pleases, and only
man is vile."
The brazen clang of the deep-throated bell rang out on the quiet air,
and a moment later, the piercing treble of a child's cry made her
spring to her feet. She peeped into the chapel all was still.
On tiptoe she passed swiftly down the aisle to the chancel, and saw the
figure crouched at the altar, with one arm twined through the railing.
For many days and nights the tortured woman had not known an instant of
repose; nervous dread had scourged her to the verge of frenzy, but when
the flow of long-pent tears partly extinguished the fire in her brain,
overtaxed Nature claimed restitution, and the prisoner yielded to
overwhelming prostration. Death might be hovering near, but her twin
sister sleep intervened, and compassionately laid her poppies on the
snowy eyelids.
Stooping close, Mrs. Singleton saw that tears yet hung on the black
lashes which swept the flushed cheeks, but the parted lips were at
rest, and the deep regularly drawn breath told her that at last the
weary soul reposed in the peaceful domain of dreams. Deftly, and softly
as thistledown falls, she spread her own shawl over the drooping
shoulders, then noiselessly hurried back to the door. Locking it, she
took the key, ran across the grass, into the arcade, and up to the
great iron barrier, which the guard opened as she approached. With
flying feet she neared her own apartments, whence issued the indignant
wail of her implacable baby girl. As she opened the door, her husband
held the disconsolate child toward her.
"You are in time for your share of the fun; I have had enough and to
spare. How you stand this diabolical din day in, day out, passes my
comprehension. You had not been gone fifteen minutes when Missy tuned
up. I patted and, 'She-e-d' her, but she got her head above cover,
squinted around the room, and not finding you, set up a squall that
would have scared a wildcat. The more I patted, the worse she screamed,
and her feet and hands flew around like a wind-mill. I took her up, and
trotted her on my knee, but bless you! she squirmed like an eel, and
her little bald head bobbed up and down faster than a di-dapper. Then I
walked her, but I would as soon try to swing to a greased snake. She
wriggled and bucked, and tied herself up into a bow knot, and yelled--.
Oh! a Comanche papoose is a dummy to her. As if I had not hands full,
arms full, and ears full, Dick must needs wake up and pitch head
foremost out of the cradle, and turn a double summerset before he
landed upside down on the floor, whereupon he lifted up his voice, and
the concert grew lively. I took him under one arm, so, and laid Missy
over my shoulder, and it struck me I would join the chorus in self
defence, so I opened with all my might on 'Hold the Fort'; but great
Tecumseh! I only insulted them both, and finding my fifth fiddle was
nowhere in the fray, I feared Jarvis would hear the howling and ring
the alarm bell, so I just sat down. I spread out Dick in a soft place,
where he could not bump his brains out, and laying my lady across my
lap, I held her down by main force, while she screamed till she was
black in the face. If you had not come just when you did, I should have
turned gray and cross-eyed. Hello, Missy! If she is not cooing and
laughing! Little vixen! Oh! but--'lambs'!--I believe they are!
Hereafter tend your own flock; and in preference I will herd young
panthers."
He wiped his forehead where the perspiration stood in drops, and
watched with amazement the sudden lull in the tempest.
Clasped in her mother's arms, the baby smiled and gurgled, and Dick,
drying his eyes on the maternal bosom, showed the exact spot where she
must kiss his bruised head.
"Ned, what have you done? This baby's hair is dripping wet, and so is
the neck of her dress."
"Serves her right, too. I sprinkled her, that's all."
"Sprinkled her! Have you lost your senses?"
"Shouldn't wonder if I had; people in bedlam are apt to be crazy. Yes,
I sprinkled Missy, because she turned so black in the face, I thought
she was strangling; and my step-mother always sprinkled me when I had a
fit of tantrums. But let me tell you, Missy will never be a zealous
Baptist, she doesn't take to water kindly."
"When I want my children step-mothered I will let you know. Give me
that towel, and baby's woollen cap hanging on the knob of the bureau.
Bless her precious heart! if she does not keep you up all night, with
the croup, you may thank your stars."
"Susie, just tell me how you tame them, so that next time--"
"Next time, sir, I shall not trust you. I just love them, and they know
it; that is what tames the whole world."
Edward Singleton stooped over his wife, and kissed her rosy cheek.
"Little woman, what luck had you in No. 19?"
"The best I could wish. I have saved that poor girl from brain-fever, I
hope."
"How did you manage it?"
"Just simply because I am a flesh and blood woman, and not a
blundering, cast-iron man."
"How does she seem now?"
"She has had a good, hearty spell of wholesome crying; no hysterics,
mind you, but floods of tears; and now she is sound asleep with her
head on the altar railing, in the chapel. I locked her up there, and
here is the key. When she wakes, I want her brought up here, put in
that room yonder, and left entirely to me, until her trial is over. I
never do things half way, Ned, and you need not pucker your eyebrows,
for I will be responsible for her. I have put my hand to the plough,
and you are not to meddle with the lines, till I finish my furrow."