CHAPTER XXXII.
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.