Mr. Dring left him to go to someone else.
Peace had nothing to read, and did not like to ask for a book or two in his present early stage, so he had nothing for it but to sit and listen to the noises that were going on, and there were a few.
As far as the acoustic principle of Dartmoor is concerned it is something very near perfection; indeed, it is aggravatingly resonant.
The entire block of four hundred cells in that part of the prison in which Peace was confined were framed in iron.
The consequence was that there was hardly a door slammed in the whole building that did not vibrate more or less throughout the cell. This fact was made manifest to every prisoner upon first entering Dartmoor; after being there for some little time the men got used to the noises.
The effect when every cell door in the whole hall was slammed at once is not easy to describe; it was like a volley of musketry.
Peace remembered what Mr. Dring had told him, and being anxious to obey that worthy functionary to the very letter, he watched and listened for the signal “beds down.”
When he heard the order given he let go his hammock; all the other convicts did the same, and the consequence was that the whole fabric seemed to be shaken.
Peace was pretty well used to prison hammocks, and therefore had no difficulty in arranging his.
Some men on their first acquaintance with these snug resting places make a great muddle of them.