He remembered at that time the accident that occurred to him in the rolling mills where he worked; and he remembered also his own long illness and tardy recovery after his leg had been set; but then he had a mother and sister to attend upon him, and he was a free man—in humble circumstances, it is true—but, nevertheless, free.
As he thought of being seized with illness in a convict prison, he shuddered.
The miserable patient, under these circumstances, has not one kind or sympathising face to smile upon him.
The chances are that he is rudely tended by some fellow-prisoner, and he has to take his chance—and a very poor one it is—as to the sort of man whom the authorities have thought fit to appoint as hospital nurse.
In most cases men who volunteer their services in cases of this sort do so for the purpose of shirking hard work, and but too frequently they feast themselves on the few little dainties ordered by the doctor, of which they rob the sick man when a warder’s back is turned. It is in their nature to do these sort of things; they have no compunction, no pity, no mercy. There are of course exceptions; sometimes indeed a convict makes an excellent nurse, but as we before observed the sick man has to take his chance; he has no voice in the matter. To complain would be of little avail; prison officials are so used to complaints that they take but little heed of grumblers, as they call them.
To be ill whilst a convict is sad—to die a convict is terrible, and yet there are hundreds, and indeed, thousands, who are doomed to such a miserable fate. When a convict is sentenced to be imprisoned for his natural life, it of course means that he is to die in prison.
To die at sea, and to be cast into the waves, rolled up in a hammock with a shot to carry the poor soulless body deep down where no mortal eye may see it, seems a sad and piteous fate. Anyway it is not pleasant to reflect on.
To be shot down, or mangled by the bursting of a shell while fighting one’s country’s battles, yields, at least, some satisfaction to those who risk their lives in honour’s cause; but to die a convict, to be buried in an unknown, uncared-for grave, thrust into a prison coffin, filled up with dirty sawdust, as Peace had seen them done at Dartmoor, so that the ragged old shirt given out to do duty as a shroud may be served for other purposes, is but a sorry end for a man who had once lived respected and beloved.
Peace was very glad when his window-cleaning job was over, he did not feel at all well, and the idea crossed his mind that probably he might be very shortly down upon the sick list, and be sent to the infirmary.
This reflection was by no means a pleasant one; however, in the course of a few days he was in better health and spirits.