THE HOSPITAL.
PON a narrow cot, in the Hospital apartment of the jail, they laid Rodney, and immediately prepared the medicines suited to his case. The medicines were at length administered, and, with a pleasant consciousness of comfort and attention, he fell asleep.
When he awoke, it was evening; he was perfectly conscious, and felt better; but it was a long time before he could recall his thoughts, and understand where he was, and how he had come thither. He looked around him, and saw a line of cots on each side of him. About a dozen of them were occupied by sick men. A large case of medicines, placed on a writing-desk, stood at one end of the room. Two or three men, who acted as nurses, were sitting near it, talking and laughing together. In another part of the room, by a grated window, looking out upon the pleasant sunset, were two of the convalescent prisoners, pale and thin, conversing softly and sadly. There was not a face he knew,—none that seemed to feel the slightest interest for him; and the wicked scenes of the past two months, and the unhappy circumstances of the present hour, flashed through his mind, and he hid his face in his pillow and wept.
He heard steps softly approach his cot, and knew that some one was standing beside him. But he could not stifle his sobs, and he did not dare to look up.
"I am glad to see that you are better, though I am sorry to see you so much troubled, my poor boy," said a soft, kind voice.
It was long since he had been spoken to in a kind tone, and he only wept the more bitterly, and convulsively pressed his face closer to the pillow. Presently he felt an arm passed slowly under the pillow, which wound around his neck, and gently drew his head toward the stranger.
"Come, come," said the same soft voice, "don't give way to such grief; look up, and talk to me. Let me be a friend to you."
Rodney yielded to the encircling arm, and turned his tearful eyes to the man who spoke to him.
He was a tall, slender man, pale from sickness, decently dressed, and with an intelligent, benevolent countenance. He was one of those whom Rodney had observed looking out of the window.
"What is the matter?" said he; "what has brought you into this horrible place?"
The confidence of the boy was easily won. He had felt an inexpressible desire to talk to some one, and now he was ready to lay open his whole heart at the first intimation of sympathy.
"I ran away from home," was the frank and truthful reply.
"But they do not put boys in jail for running away; you must have done something else."
"I was charged with something else; but indeed, indeed, I am innocent!"
"That is very possible," said he, with a sigh; "but what did they charge you with doing?"
And Rodney moved closer to him, and leaned his head upon his breast, and told him all. There was such an evident sincerity, such consistency, such tones of truth in the simple narrative, that he saw he was believed, and the sympathizing words and looks of the listener inspired him with trust, as though he was talking to a well-known friend.
For several days, they were constantly together; the stranger waited upon Rodney, and gave him his medicine, and helped him from his cot, talked with him, and manifested for him the kindness of a brother. From several conversations, Rodney gleaned from him the following history.
Lewis Warren,—so will we call him—(indeed, Rodney never knew his true name),—was born and had lived most of his life in a New England village. He was the son of a farmer; a pious man, and deacon of a church, by whose help he received a liberal education. Soon after he had graduated at —— College, he came on to Philadelphia, with the expectation of getting into some business. At the hotel where he stopped, he became acquainted with a man of very gentlemanly appearance and address, who said that he, too, was a stranger in the city, and proposed to accompany him to some places of amusement. Warren went with him to the theatre, and, on succeeding evenings, to various places of amusement. As they were one evening strolling up Chestnut-street, this friend, Mr. Sharpe, stopped at the well-lighted vestibule of a stately building, that had the air of a private house, although it was thrown open, and proposed that they should go in, and see what was going on there. Warren consented, and, after ascending to the second floor, and passing through a hall, they entered a large, brilliantly-lighted billiard saloon. Around several tables were gathered gentlemanly-looking men, knocking about little ivory balls, with long, slender wands or cues, and seeming, evidently, engrossed in their respective games. After looking around for a while, Sharpe proposed going up stairs into the third story. They ascended to the upper rooms. In the upper passage stood a stout, short negro-man, who glanced at Sharpe, stepped one side, and permitted them to pass unquestioned. They entered another smaller room,—for the third story was divided into several rooms,—and found other games than those exhibited below. After walking through some of the rooms, and observing the different games, most of which were new to Warren, his companion said to him:
"Do you understand anything about cards?"
"Not a great deal; I have occasionally played a game of whist or sledge."
"Well, that is about the sum of my knowledge. Suppose we while away a half-an-hour at one of these vacant tables."
Warren consented, and they sat down. After playing a game or two, Sharpe proposed having a bottle of wine, and, said he, laughingly, "Whoever loses the next game, shall pay for it."
"Agreed," said Warren; and the wine was brought, and he won the game.
"Well, that is your good luck; but I'll bet you the price of another bottle you can't do it again."
Warren won again.
They tried a third, and that Sharpe won; a fourth, and Warren rose the winner.
The next evening found them, somehow, without much talk about it, at the same place. They played with varied success; but when they left, Warren had lost ten dollars.
He wanted to win it back, and himself proposed the visit for the third night. He became excited by the game, and lost seventy dollars.
Still his eyes were not open; he did not dream that he was in the hands of a professed gambler, and, hoping to get back what he had lost, and what he felt he really could not spare from his small amount of funds, he went again.
"There!" said he, after they had been about an hour at the table, "there is my last fifty-dollar bill; change that, and I'll try once more."
"Well," said Sharpe, "here is the change; but the luck seems against you. We had better stop for to-night."
But Warren insisted upon continuing, and he won thirty dollars in addition to the fifty which Sharpe had changed for him. The gambler then rose, and told him that he would give him a chance to win all back another time, as fortune seemed to be again propitious to him.
Warren never saw him after that night. The next morning he determined to seek a more private boarding house, and economize his remaining funds, and seek more assiduously some business situation. He stepped to the bar to pay his board, handing the clerk one of the notes he had received in change for his last fifty-dollar bill. The clerk examined it a moment, and passed it back, saying, "That is a counterfeit note, sir." He took it back, amazed, and offered another.
"This is worse still," said the clerk. "I think we had better take care of you, sir. You will please go with me before a magistrate."
"But I did not know——!"
"You can tell that to the squire."
"You have no right to take me," said Warren; "you have no warrant."
"No; but I can keep you here till I send for one, which I shall certainly do, unless you consent to go willingly."
And Warren, conscious of his own innocence in this respect, and never thinking of the difficulty of proving it, went to a magistrate's office with the clerk at once.
The clerk entered his complaint, and, besides swearing to the offer of the notes, swore that he had seen him, for several days past, in the company of a notorious gambler.
Warren was stunned, overwhelmed, by this declaration. No representation that he made was believed. His pockets were searched, and all the money he had, except some small change, was found to be counterfeit. A commitment was at once made out against him, and he was sent to jail, to await his trial on the charge of passing counterfeit money.
This is one of the methods by which professional gamblers "pluck young pigeons." No young man is safe who allows himself to play with cards, or to handle dice.
Rodney believed that Warren had told him the truth, and fellowship in misfortune drew the hearts of the duped man and the wronged boy towards each other; for though both had been very much to blame, yet duped and wronged they had been by knaves more cunning and wicked than themselves.
They had many serious conversations together, for both had been piously instructed, and Warren, who seemed truly penitent for his wanderings, as he sat by the bed-side of the sick boy, encouraged him in his resolutions to lead a different life,—to seek the forgiveness and grace of God through a merciful Redeemer. Seldom has a poor prisoner received sweeter sympathy, or more salutary counsel, than was given to Rodney within the walls of that old Arch-street jail, by his fellow-prisoner.
"Rodney," said Warren to him one day,—it was the first day that he had left his cot,—"I shall soon leave this place; I have written to my father, and he will be here at the trial with such evidences in my favor, from the whole course of my life, as cannot fail to secure me an acquittal. I feel no doubt that this stain upon my character will be wiped away. And I believe that I shall have reason to thank God, as long as I live, for having permitted this trouble. It is a very hard lesson, but I trust it will be a salutary one. Since I have been here, I have prayed earnestly to God for the pardon of my sins. I have resolved, in sincerity of soul, to consecrate my affections and my life to his service. I have had a severe struggle; but I believe, I feel, that God has heard my prayers, forgiven my iniquities, and the last few days in this jail have been the happiest of my life. I feel that I hate the sins of which my heart has been so full, and that I love God even for the severe providences that have checked my course of impenitence. I feel like a new man; and if I am not deceiving myself,—and I pray that I may not be,—I have experienced that regeneration of heart of which I have so often heard, but which I could never before comprehend.
"I hope that you, too, will try and seek the Saviour, pray to him for forgiveness, and beg the guidance of His Holy Spirit for your future life. If we both do this sincerely, we shall have reason forever to bless God for the way in which he has led us."
"Pray for me," said Rodney; while tears rolled down his pale cheeks. "I want to be a Christian, and I hope that God will have mercy upon me, and guide me, for the future, in the right path."
A few days after, Warren was called into court to take his trial; and, to Rodney's great delight,—for he had learned to love him like a brother,—he heard from one of the nurses that he had been honorably acquitted.
During the same week, the case of Rodney was called up, and he was conducted by an officer to the court-house.