That night a woman who lived in a tall tenement house not very far from Smith’s grocery, was surprised by the entrance of two men, with whom she was doubtless on terms of great domestic intimacy, for she came out of her bedroom half dressed, and a little cross, for she had been working hard all day, and dropped to sleep while hushing the child upon the bed she had found no time to make. Something that the men proposed made her angry, for she protested, and had fierce words with the tallest of her visitors, who rudely ordered her to be silent, and go back to her child. With some grumbling she obeyed him.
After that, these men came up and down the numerous flights of stairs, again and again, carrying burdens on their shoulders. Then a wagon drove off, and, for an hour or two, the same men were moving like shadows around the house where the Laurence family lay sleeping.
CHAPTER LI.
A BOY IN PRISON.
The most mournful thing that I have ever witnessed was a child in prison. Once I saw a hardened little sinner of twelve years, laughing at his mother through the gratings of a cell-door. This child was evidently proud of the adroit theft that had brought him to that disgraceful pass, and put on airs that an old criminal would have been ashamed of, while the poor mother looked on speechless with wonder and distress.
In the same prison, and in a cell like that, a boy younger than twelve, knelt the week after Mrs. Carter’s party—knelt and prayed by the meagre prison-bed, which shook under the fearful power of his weeping. Once he lifted up his face, and looked wildly around his dungeon. Then his face fell, and a shudder passed over him. A grave, walled in with stone, could not have been so terrible. Eternal disgrace seemed to have closed him in forever. Alas! alas! what had he done to deserve such hard treatment! What would become of his mother, whom he had fondly believed himself protecting? The two sisters, so lovely and good, who had really looked up to him, and loved him dearly—would they ever speak his name again without blushes!
How fearfully lonesome it was. The strange, close atmosphere oppressed him like the breath of a pestilence. The cold whiteness of the walls chilled him. Over and over he repeated the Lord’s Prayer—the most holy words that ever came from a child’s lips; but they seemed insufficient to his anguish, and he cried out, “Oh, Father! Oh, my God! keep this from them! Let me drop down dead here, and I will not say a word; only do not let them know. It would kill them! It would kill them!”
Then the poor boy would rest a little time in deadly quiet, as if he expected God to answer him then and there; but instead of the still, small voice that he listened for, came the clang of the cell-door, and a fierce cry of distress from some prisoner just brought in. This semi-lunatic from drink, pleaded for brandy just as earnestly as he prayed for help, but in language which made him shudder, as if the torment of some great crime were already upon him.
The night closed in upon him, filling the prison with heavy gloom, inexpressibly mournful. The grating of that iron-door was closed: slowly the gray shadows of sunset fell through the long, narrow slit of stone, so cut in the wall that God’s beautiful sunshine could never creep through, and an awful darkness fell upon him. The clang of each door, as it swung into place along those long iron galleries, had gone through and through him like a dull sword. The heavy step of the keeper, walking from cell to cell, seemed to fall on his heart.
The boy did not sleep that night, but shrunk away from his bed shuddering. Its heavy, gray blankets seemed laden with disease and sorrow left by some one who had gone before. The dull atmosphere of the prison settled down upon him with sickening density. Into the farthest corner of his whitewashed cell he shrunk, and cowering there, like some poor wounded fawn in its covert, listened to all the noises of the night with ears rendered keen by terror. The smothered moans of the prisoners, the scuttle of rats about the water-pipes, the tramp of the keeper on the stone pavement, far below, all had a weird effect upon him, which amounted almost to madness.
Is it strange that the boy did not sleep, and that he crouched low in that dark corner all night long? The dull gray of the morning found him there pale, still, and wildly expectant, as if the next thing that could reach him must be death itself. Then came the clang of opening doors, the harsh sound of feet moving to and fro on the stone pavement, a confusion of voices in command, complaint, piteous expostulation, and coarse oaths; for bad men might be chained by the ankle, but nothing could manacle the vile speech to which they had become so used that it was second nature to them.