The next day he was put on the crank, and not being able to complete the task that was set him before dinner, he was strapped up until the evening. The next day the governor tried another tack. He took away his meat soup and gruel, and gave him nothing but bread and water. Strange to say, this change of diet did not supply the deficiency; he could not do the infant Hercules his work even on bread and water. Then the governor deprived the obstinate little dog of his chapel. “If you won't work, I'm [participle] if you shall pray.” The boy missed the recreation of hearing Mr. Jones hum the Liturgy; missed it in a way you cannot conceive. Your soporific was his excitement; think of that.
Little Gillies became sadly dispirited, and weaker at the crank than before; ergo, the governor sentenced him to be fourteen days without bed or gas.
But when they took away his bed and did not light his gas little Gillies began to lose his temper; he made a great row about this last stroke of discipline. “I won't live such a life as this,” said little Gillies, in a pet. “Why don't the governor hang me at once?”
“What is that noise?” roared the governor, who was in the corridor and had long ears.
“It is No. 50 kicking up a row at having his bed and gas taken,” replied a turnkey, with a note of admiration in his voice.
The governor bounced into the cell. “Are you grumbling at that, you rebellious young rascal? you forget there are a dozen lashes owing you yet.” Now the boy had not forgotten, but he hoped the governor had. “Well, you shall have the rest to-morrow.”
With these words ringing in his ears, little Gillies was locked up for the night at six o'clock. His companions darkness and unrest-for a prisoner's bed is the most comfortable thing he has, and the change from it to a stone floor is as great to him as it would be to us—darkness and unrest, and the cat waiting to spring on him at peep of day. Quae cum ita erant, as the warder put the key into his cell the next morning he heard a strange gurgling; he opened the door quickly, and there was little Gillies hanging; a chair was near him on which he had got to suspend himself by his handkerchief from the window; he was black in the face, but struggling violently, and had one hand above his head convulsively clutching the handkerchief. Fry lifted him up by the knees and with some difficulty loosed the handkerchief.
Little Gillies, as soon as his throat could vent a sound, roared with fright at the recent peril, and then cried a bit, finally expressed a hope his breakfast would not be taken from him for this act of insubordination.
This infraction of discipline was immediately reported to the governor.
“Little brute,” cried Hawes, viciously, “I'll work him!”