He made a wry face and groaned, but did not complain.
When the strands were all divided his instructor showed him how to pull them to pieces.
Peace set to work, being perfectly well assured that the task must be got through. He soon found out—as others had done before him—that oakum-picking made his fingers and thumbs sore and painful; nevertheless he persevered—the task seemed to be an interminable one.
When he saw how little progress he had made in the first hour his heart seemed to sink, and he remembered the many miserable and lonely hours he had passed in convict prisons.
He was on the side of the gaol nearest to Newgate-street. His cell was on the top floor and the window was open, so that he now heard much plainer the noise of the street traffic, which spoke to him of the outside world.
There was something consolatory in even hearing the sounds of the passing vehicles as they rumbled along in one of the great thoroughfares of the busy city.
At chapel next morning he with others, who had been tried at the same sessions, were marched into a cage under the women’s gallery, and locked in. Once a day only were they exercised out of doors, and this took place in a much smaller yard than he had walked in before his conviction.
This was a matter of no very great importance; one yard was as good as another to him.
He bore up as best he could, hoping that sooner or later he might succeed in getting a commutation of his sentence. This hope, however, was never destined to be realised.
Every morning the quantum of “junk” was served out, and in the evening the taskmaster came round with weights and scales to take each man’s oakum.