And, after all, if they had been but guilty! If there had not been men, aye, and women, too, who died in that prison by no fault of theirs! For the law of Hungary, that nobody can be punished until he has been sentenced by a competent judge, is a privilege of the nobility; and thus it would be difficult to point out any prison in which there are not a great many people, in consequence of an information against them,—and that but too often unfounded,—who for years suffer as much and more than the greatest criminals. This was the case in the Dustbury prison.
Among a variety of people who were arrested at the suit of some unknown informer, there was one man who was perfectly innocent, and who, after an incarceration of five months, had not yet been able to find out how, why, and wherefore he was in gaol. The poor man, whom his fellow-prisoners despised for his very honesty, sat apart from the rest in a corner of his cell. His young wife had done and sacrificed her all to obtain her husband's liberation. Three times daily did she come to the windows of the prison and looked in, and he, shaking off his despondency, came up to the window and told her that he was well, asking for his father and mother and his children; and when he felt that his voice trembled with inward weeping, he entreated her to go away, because he would not have her know how much he suffered. Völgyeshy's mediation availed the poor woman at length to prove her husband's innocence. Early in the morning, when the prison was opened, she went down to the cell; but her husband lay senseless on the straw. He was discharged, and a few days afterwards death set his seal to the warrant of his deliverance.
There were but two men who strove to soften the sufferings of these poor creatures. One of them was Vandory; the other was the Catholic priest of Dustbury. Religious questions ran at that time very high in the county, and the adherents of the two sects were engaged in a violent controversy about the most legitimate method of solemnising marriages between Protestants and Catholics. Vandory and the Catholic priest thought proper (in spite of the general displeasure which their proceedings excited) rather to act than to talk religion. The church militant was sufficiently represented in the county of Takshony; perhaps it was not amiss that there were at least two men who opined that the Church had some other duties besides fighting its own battles; and that amidst the violence of the contending parties there were two men who devoted themselves to peace-making, to instructing and comforting the quarrelsome, ignorant, and distressed. Whenever Vandory could manage to leave Tissaret for Dustbury, he passed the greatest part of his time in the prison. The priest followed his example; and the words of bliss and comfort of the two curates gave new hope to many a wretched heart. Some indeed there were who scorned the messengers of peace, but even they came at length round, and listened to them; for what man, especially in a season of distress, can do without the comforts of religion?
The effect of Vandory's words upon the prisoners was truly miraculous. When he entered the gaol, when they heard his voice, and even his step, their faces were radiant with joy. The inmates of the wards which he entered assembled round him in respectful silence, and the kind and loving manner with which he addressed them softened the hearts even of the most hardened. But most powerful was his influence on the Jewish glazier, on the man who was suspected of being an accessory to the assassination of Mr. Catspaw. The circumstance of his having been found in the attorney's chimney made his evidence of the greatest importance in the Tengelyi process; and Völgyeshy, the notary's counsel, insisted on the Jew being confined in a separate cell. The sheriff seconded this demand. A room, which was originally destined for the keeping of firewood, was prepared for the reception of the prisoner, who was at once consigned to it, to the unbounded delight of Mr. James Bantornyi, who considered this mode of disposing of the Jew as a glorious victory of the principles of solitary confinement. Lady Rety, indeed, objected to what she called an unnecessary harshness, in the case of a man of whose innocence she protested she was convinced. So strong was her feeling on this head, that she even condescended to visit the prisoner once or twice; and though she with genuine humility insisted on the turnkey keeping the secret of these visits, that generous man was equally eager to proclaim to the world this fresh instance of the condescension and charity of the excellent Lady Rety. Indeed, that charity was the more meritorious, inasmuch as no one else pitied the Jew. Nobody spoke to him. The very haiduk who brought him his scanty allowance of bread and greens treated him with contempt, and the prisoner was abandoned to all the torments of solitude. He had no hopes of the future, no gladdening reminiscences of the past.
Gladdening reminiscences! He was a Jew; that one word tells his whole history. Born to be a sharer of the distress of his family, brought up to suffer from the injustice of the masses, cast loose upon the world, to be not free but abandoned; struggling for his daily bread, not by honest labour, for that is forbidden to a Jew, but by trickery and cunning; crawling on the earth like a worm which anybody may tread upon and crush; hated, hunted, persecuted, scouted: such was his past. Such are the sufferings common to the Jews in Hungary; but Jantshi had a heavier burden to bear than the generality of Jews. His disgusting ugliness made him suspected even before he was guilty; and now that his features were still more distorted by fear, he was the very picture of misery and wretchedness. But nobody pitied him; and it seemed that he himself doubted whether any one could pity him. Vandory found him moody and uncommunicative; the curate saw that the Jew considered him as a spy. He strove hard to gain the prisoner's confidence; but in vain! Jantshi received him with the deepest humility. He replied to every question, and he seemed to have no objection to become a convert; but everything he said showed that he considered the curate's visits as a kind of examination.
This state of things changed suddenly when the prisoner was taken ill. He, too, was seized with the epidemic. His case was hopeless. He lay alone in his room; there was no one by to cool his parched lips with a draught of water. It seemed as if the people out of doors reckoned him as one of the dead; for even Lady Rety was quite comfortable in her mind when she understood that there was no hope of the patient's recovery, and that his delirious ravings were incoherent. Vandory alone showed his kindness of heart, by doing all he could for the poor man. When in Dustbury he called upon him twice a-day, and hired a woman to sit up with him. Awaking from his delirious dreams, the Jew saw Vandory sitting at his bedside; when he started up at night, moaning for water to slake his burning thirst, the nurse came and gave him to drink; and when he asked who it was that sent her, she told him it was Vandory. The curate was to him a providence, a guardian angel; in his wildest dreams he called for him, imploring his help; and as the days passed by, as he grew weaker and weaker, when the tide of the fever turned back, leaving his mind clear and unoppressed for the last time, he called out for Vandory; "For," said he to the nurse, "I cannot die unless I speak to the curate, and thank him for all he has done for me. Besides, there is a secret,—something which Mr. Vandory cares to know, and which I ought to tell him. I entreat you, my dear good woman, go and see whether he has come from Tissaret!"
The old woman left the cell, and shortly afterwards the curate entered it. On seeing him Jantshi broke out into a paroxysm of tears.
"Be comforted, my friend!" said Vandory, with deep emotion. "God is merciful, and His mercy will not forsake you!"
The prisoner seized Vandory's hand. His tears drowned his voice: he was silent.
"You are much better now," said the curate, sitting down by the bed. "You will recover, I am sure; and I trust you will be a useful member of society."