Sarah Warner Brooks

“ The warden, as I presently recollected, had, at that time, told me that Adam was serving out five years' sentence for passing a forged check. Well, here, like a Jack-in-a-box, Adam himself had turned up.
It was now my turn to "take unto myself shame and confusion of face,"—found harbouring in a shed, alone, and at midnight! To give the man, an ex-convict, and alone with me, in this forlorn place, that explanation demanded by the situation, would undoubtedly put me absolutely at his mercy, yet, perceiving that there was no other way out of it, I at once made a clean breast. ”

“ Why, to love him would be "worth while." And when, during their first week out, on that wild, windy night in Jack's watch below, the boy, fevered and seasick, mistook his sailor nurse, with those clumsily tender ways, for his own fond mother, and, throwing his young arms about the watcher's burly neck, begged him never, never, to forget him, Jack made a strong, silent vow that he never would. Alas, he never did, for that was his bitter destiny, never, never to forget Will Ferguson! This ailing spell well past, the lad mended steadily, and was, ere long, able to be on deck and on duty. ”

“ Faces of prison visitors, of prison officers, and instructors; faces of that motley throng behind the bars; faces hard and evil, reckless and defiant, cowed and sullen, or sorrowful, shamed, and forlorn; yet none, among them all, turned disapprovingly upon her, the prison child, the single sunbeam, the one pure and beautiful presence in this attainted, unlovely place! Convict fathers,—hungry for baby faces, foregone through their own graceless folly and crime,—catching a passing glimpse of the golden head, a distant flutter of the white baby gown, were, for the moment, glad and blest. ”

“ The old sea longing is again hot within him. Outside these cruel bars it lies, broad and fair, as of old. The whole wide world is there! Liberty, happiness, and maybe health. At least, leave to die outside of prison walls.
"Why! Men smothering in subterranean dungeons have, like burrowing moles, groped their slow way to freedom; while he"—a swift thought illumines his seething brain,222 sending the life-tide swifter through his pulses, and electrifying his entire being! The saw! the dead man's saw! There it is, safe in the shoe, and not in vain has Heaven graciously discovered it to him! ”

“ Thus persuaded, the poor worn lady seeks her chamber, and is soon in a troubled, but heavy sleep. Harmy in a flowered "loose gown," wonderful in color and design, watches the death-bed of May-blossom. Peter Floome, silent, motionless, with bowed gray head, still holds his place—rejecting every advance of his comforter, who says irritably to herself, "Land sakes, I'd 'bout as soon be stark alone!"
How still the night is! A mother robin, brooding her fledglings in the tall linden, beside the open window, twitters drowsily, from time to time. ”

“ Dropping upon the rude stool beside it, he leans his yet dizzy head upon the sill. A wandering breath of the summer night steals gently in. How balmy it is, this tender night wind! And he, a worn creature at a prison grating, might be a gentle lady at her lattice, so softly it caresses his wasted cheek!
Yet, kindly as it is, it does not wholly restore his wonted vigour. At intervals, a deathly faintness oppresses him. A fearful sinking of heart and limb, as if life and courage were, together, oozing away. What if the end were indeed come, and he were to die to-night, unattended and alone ”

“ Miss Paulina hears the graveyard pines wailing in weary monotone, while, gliding serenely beneath the sapphire heaven of June, the river repeats the mournful undersong. Alas, and alas, that ever life, and death, and true love should dwell side by side in this goodly world! Faithful old Peter, never wearying in his love-labour, bears hither and thither, in careful arms, the wasted young form, now too feeble to bear its own light weight. ”

“ Here, in the dimly-lighted room, close to the murdered warden, whose face she has uncovered,—like some exquisite statue of Pity, mute, motionless, and scarce less pallid than the marble before her,—stands the night-robed figure of May-blossom.142 No childish recoil from that awful presence disturbs her sweet, earnest face. A solemn awe is in the wistful gray eyes, a mute interrogation of that confronting mystery, blent with the tender pathos of commisserating love. ”

“ How dismal will the long night be locked in here alone with a corpse! Death sits horribly on these evil features. Upon the hard, set face, one may still trace the footprints of unholy and unbridled desire. The mouth is much drawn. Its strong white teeth show grimly between the blue parted lips, and, to the watcher's nervous fancy, they seem, even in death, to snarl viciously at the beholder. Livid circles underline the sunken eyes, now wide and glassy, beneath their heavy brows, and, as Henderson morbidly conceives, turned wrathfully upon him. ”

“ Yet now a never-to-be-mistaken voice comes cooingly from the kitchen. "Who can the darling be fondling? (Harmy Patterson, though staunch and loving, is not one to unbend to endearments!) Her kitten, most likely."
She softly opens the kitchen door. Amazement stays her feet upon the threshold! Harmy, mute with horror, indicates with stretched forefinger her own clean patchwork-cushioned rocker, wherein, bolt upright, sits an unknown man,—and such a man! ”

“ Here in the hospital the quiet of the hour is less unbroken. Five consumptives (as is their wont, poor fellows!) will cough the slow night away; and, in yonder cell, a man, with a great carbuncle under his ear, groans, sotto-voce, at every breath.
On the second floor, in the large cell or room at the head of the stairway (which is, as occasion requires, used for the sick, for the holding of prison inquests, or for an operating-room, and but one of whose several cots is now occupied) , a convict is dying. He has been long about it, for his vitality is tremendous. ”

“ Sensation gradually returning to the overwrought watcher, he finds himself still miserably faint and weak. It is, however, something to have escaped the spell of those death-glazed eyes, and, thanking God, he strives to get upon his feet. In his effort to rise, he stumbles clumsily over a small dark object upon the floor, close beside the bed. Regaining his poise, he discerns that it is the coarse, heavy shoe of a convict. He lifts it, thinking to place it beside its fellow beneath the cot. His hand is weak and nerveless. ”

“ Often on these occasions a dash of the old cynicism gives pungency to his speech, but, ordinarily, he is amiably at one with destiny, and at peace with himself and his neighbour. Behold him to-night, already in his talking-cap. Harmy and Mandy Ann are seated upon the summer-house steps; Reuben, wearied by a long day's haying, is reclining lazily upon the grass; Peter, meantime, is graciously intent in serving up for the three his most relishing prison tidbits. Harmy, being rheumatic, does not often grace these out-door assemblages with her august presence ”

“ And this forlorn being, craving still of humanity but leave to carry on its shoulders the shamed head of a man, is a convict,—our old prison acquaintance, Peter Floome, May-blossom's sometime nurse, and always friend!
Lightly springing from her unseemly perch, the child hastens to greet Miss Paulina, and, hanging fondly upon her hand, cries eagerly, "Oh, auntie, darling, I'm so glad you've come! Here's Peter, dear old Peter! He's pardoned out, auntie, and, isn't it nice? He can come and see me every day now if he likes. ”

“ Prison life, on the solitary plan, is not conducive to colloquial glibness, nor is Peter Floome habitually garrulous. Many cups of Harmy's strong green tea have, however, limbered his tongue, and, once he is well seated, and has made a final, though terribly unsatisfactory, disposal of his long arms and obtrusive legs, he finds himself sufficiently at ease for narrative effort, and, at the request of his gracious hostess, wades desperately into his subject. ”

“ For it is still May-blossom's delight to swing dreamily in a low hammock, hung from the stout boughs of two gigantic elms, sometimes thinking to herself, oftener confiding her innocent dreams to Peter, or Miss Paulina. Often her thought goes back to the gray old prison. Loving memories of her child-life, and tender reminiscences188 of shabby old friends in that dreary abode, are still with her. To this young, gladsome creature, not yet replete with its sweet new wine, existence is still infinitely dear ”

“ The unanimous good-will of instructors in the prison shops made the daintiest materials easily attainable to the poor fellow, and his ivory charms, his mother-of-pearl crosses, and inlaid satin-wood boxes, found, outside the prison, a ready market, and a price which enabled him, probably for the first time in his whole life, to become the possessor of money honestly earned. In the hospital it was that Neilson evolved, with fanciful ingenuity, for my poor self, the most remarkable of inkstands. ”

“ Rough-handed men come, with heavy tread, to bear the dead man from the room, but it is Miss Paulina, herself, who tenderly disengages the interclasped hands, and, then stooping reverently to the bowed gray head, she lays her own in silent benediction upon it, and voicelessly transposes the gracious words that, centuries ago, fell from the blessed lips of the divine man: "His sins, though many, are forgiven, for he loved much." ”

“ And well it is, for the coffin and the tomb, even to the "life undone," are not things to brood upon.
While Peter Floome, armed and equipped with a splint fly-brush of his own clumsy manufacture, presides, dragon-like, over the out-door siestas of his enchanted princess, the summer grows old, and it behooves us to look after the ex-convict's housekeeping. Harmy Patterson, has, to be sure, anticipated us, and, as a result of her observations, has long since averred that "it's awful to see that man mess 'round, an' spill grease on the summer-house floor!" ”

“ Many of these cells are temporarily inhabited by refractory prisoners, and, as I went, a discordant chorus of groans, yells, and oaths, mingled with the dissonance of maniacal mirth from some ill-balanced wretch, gone mad in this horrible solitude, saluted my unwilling ear. On the extreme end of the doleful corridor, a narrow, cobwebbed window shed its feeble light. Pausing at the left-hand corner cell, my conductor fitted his key to the padlock, turned it, removed the heavy bar, and, throwing back the door, ushered me into Neilson's presence. ”

“ Peter's gentle inoffensiveness, his ever-respectful deference to Harmy's wishes, and Harmy's judgment, and, above all, his idolatrous devotion to "that blessed lamb, May-blossom," bid fair, at last, to overcome even Harmy's social prejudices. One morning, when the poor man is ailing, and for a day or two has been "sloppy, poky, and messy," beyond his wont, the good woman is encountered by Miss Parker on her way to the summer-house, bearing a breakfast-tray, fit to serve a king. ”

“ Then it was that our hero first knew that supreme good for which he had been instinctively yearning through all his lonely life—the true love of a human soul.
Will Ferguson, a delicate boy of eighteen, neither by birth or education suited to a sailor's life, was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. He had a persistent cough, came of consumptive stock, and the doctor assured Madame Ferguson that a long sea voyage, if she could but bring her mind to it, would be the very thing for the lad. ”

“ My God! I shiver with cold, and moan and fret like a sick baby. Often, of a night, I cannot sleep for thought of it all. I pace my den hour after hour, like a caged beast. I cry to Heaven, the sea! the sea! Almighty God, give me but once more to look upon it, to smell brine, to see a ship bound bravely over its broad billows! After that, let what will come, I can die content."
212
From the slow monotony of the prison shoe-shop, Henderson has, at last, been released by ill-health, and is now permanently established in the hospital ”

“ May-blossom, too, is more ailing.187 Peter's advent at the homestead, with its attendant excitement, has been too much for the delicate little frame. Already those deceitful tokens of convalescence, so cheering to Miss Paulina's heart, have disappeared. Before the summer roses go, it is plain to all, that, ere long, death will claim for his own this bud that "never will become a rose." ”

“ For the last ten years of his term, he had been a "runner" in the prison, the right-hand man of the warden, the well approved of inferior officials, the universal favourite of convicts, and head singer in the chapel choir; and in all that time had never once broken a rule of the prison! A convict could no more; an angel might have accomplished less!
110
By what occult process a murderer had been evolved from material so seemingly impracticable—from a man of whom it might reasonably be predicated that he would not, of malice prepense, destroy a fly—let the sages tell us ”

“ A neighbouring clock is striking two. The night is cloudy. There will be no moon, and not a star to be seen. It is an easy thing to manage the rest; and, well beyond the prison walls, it cannot be far to that goal of his longing—the sea. ”

“ Yes, I suppose so; but then, most ventures are, more or less, unsafe. And, after all, what is a single diamond, or, indeed, a whole cluster of them, when weighed against the possibility of restoring a man to the safe path of rectitude, the saving of a soul?
This risky transaction well over, Adam, by his own election, retired to pass the remainder of this strange night in the woodshed. I bestowed upon him a pillow and some warm comforters, and the cat politely kept him company, glad, no doubt, to escape from her dull imprisonment in the kitchen. ”

“ Miss Paulina bows, a pause, ensues. Peter looks admiringly at May-blossom, and, thereby gaining inspiration, finds himself equal to a second attempt at conversation.
"She's growed, marm, like the mischief!" he asserts; "but I knowed her, I did, the minute I sot eyes on her out there in the mowin' lot! an' she knowed me, she did! Yes, yes, she knowed Peter; she knowed him. Poor old Peter! who don't hardly know himself nowerdays." Here Peter's voice gets husky, and, brushing away a dirty tear, with his greasy coat sleeve, he seems to await the issue. ”

“ The sun, half-obscured, is going down. The burying-ground stands drearily out against the murky sky. The pines wail mournfully, and the river—at ebbing tide—murmurs in sad refrain. Old Harmy, moulding tea-biscuits at her kitchen window, imparts to Mandy Ann—who is shaving the dried beef for tea—her belief that Miss Paulina "hes gone clean crazy, settin' out-doors with that child, an' the dew a fallin' this very minnit, like sixty!" Miss Paulina—recovering her wits—hurries her darling in. ”