“For why, sir?”
“For attempting your life, which was His gift.”
“Oh! I needn't beg His pardon; He doesn't care what becomes of me; if He did He wouldn't let them bully me as they do day after day, drat 'em.”
“I am sorry to see one so young as you so hardened. I dare say the discipline of the jail is bitter to you, it is to all idle boys; but you might be in a much worse place—and will if you do not mend.”
“A worse place than this, your reverence! Oh, my eye!”
“And you ought to be thankful to Heaven for sending the turnkey at that moment (here I'm sorry to say little Gillies grinned satirically), or you would be in a worse place. Would you rather be here or in hell?” half asked, half explained the reverend gentleman in the superior tone of one closing a discussion forever.
“In hell!!!” replied Gillies, opening his eyes with astonishment at the doubt.
Mr. Jones was dumfounded; of all the mischances that befall us in argument this coup perplexes us most. He looked down at the little ignorant wretch, and decided it would be useless to waste theology on him. He fell instead into familiar conversation with him, and then Gillies, with the natural communicativeness of youth, confessed to him “that he had heard the warder at the next cell before he ventured to step off the chair and suspend himself.”
“Well! but you ran a great risk, too. Suppose he had not come into your cell—suppose he had been called away for a minute.”
“I should have been scragged, and no mistake,” said the boy, with a shiver. Throttling had proved no joke. “But I took my chance of that,” added Gillies. “I was determined to give them a fright; besides, if he hadn't come, it would all be over by now, sir, and all the better for me, I know.”