Chapter Twenty One.
My Patient the Prison Warder.
“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.”