No answer.
“Come!”
No answer.
The chaplain took the box off the table, opened it and went up to Robinson and began quietly to apply some of the grateful soothing ointment to his frayed throat. The man trembled all over. The chaplain kept his eye calm but firm upon him, as on a dog of doubtful temper. Robinson put up his hand in a feeble sort of way to prevent the other from doing him good. His reverence took the said hand in a quiet but powerful grasp, and applied the ointment all the same. Robinson said nothing, but he was seized with this extraordinary trembling.
“Good-by,” said his reverence kindly. “I leave you the box; and see, here are some tracts I have selected for you. They are not dull; there are stories in them, and the dialogue is pretty good. It is nearer nature than you will find it in works of greater pretension. Here a carpenter talks something like a carpenter, and a footman something like a footman, and a factory-girl something like a girl employed in a factory. They don't all talk book—you will be able to read them. Begin with this one, 'The Wages of Sin are Death.' Good-by!” And with these words and a kind smile he left the cell.
“From the chaplain, sir,” said Evans to the governor, touching his hat.
“DEAR SIR—Will you be good enough to send me by the bearer a copy of the prison rules, especially those that treat of the punishments to be inflicted on prisoners?
“I am,
“Yours, etc.”
Hawes had no sooner read this innocent-looking missive, than he burst out into a tide of execrations; he concluded by saying, “Tell him I have not got a spare copy; Mr. Jones will give him his.”