CHAPTER XXI.
IT was a bright morning. The world awoke. The working Englishman, dead drunk at the public-house overnight, had got rid of two-thirds of his burning poison by the help of man's chief nurse, sleep; and now he must work off the rest, grumbling at this the kind severity of his lot. Warm men, respectable men, among whom justices of the peace and other voluptuous disciplinarians, were tempted out of delicious beds by the fragrant berry, the balmy leaf, snowy damask, fire glowing behind polished bars—in short, by multifarious comfort set in a frame of gold. They came down.
“How did you sleep, dear sir?”
“Pretty well,” said one with a doubtful air. “Scarce closed my eyes all night,” snarled another.
Another had been awakened by the barking of a dog, and it was full half an hour before he could lose the sense of luxurious ease in unconsciousness again. He made an incident of this, and looked round the table for sympathy, and obtained it, especially from such as were toadies.
Now all these had slept as much as nature required. No. 1, ar hyd y nos—like a top. No. 2, eight hours out of the nine. The ninth his sufferings had been moderate; they had been confined to this—a bitter sense of two things; first, that he was lying floating in a sea of comforts; secondly, that the moment he should really need sleep, sleep was at his service.
In —— Jail, governor, turnkeys, chaplain, having had something to do the day before, slept among Class 1, and now turned out of their warm beds as they had turned into them, without a shade of anxiety or even recollection of him whom they had left last evening at eight to pass the livelong night in a sponge—upon a stone.
Up rose refreshed with sleep that zealous officer, Hawes. He was in the prison at daybreak, and circulated with inspecting eye all through it. Went into the kitchen—saw the gruel making—docked Josephs and three more of half their allowance; then into the corridors, where on one of the snowy walls he found a speck; swore; had it instantly removed. Thence into the labor-yard, and prepared a crank for an athletic prisoner by secretly introducing a weight, and so making the poor crank a story-teller, and the prologue to punishment. Returning to the body of the prison, he called out, “Prisoners on the list for hard labor to be taken to the yard.”
He was not answered with the usual alacrity, and looked up to repeat his summons, when he observed a cell open and two turnkeys standing in earnest conversation at the door. He mounted the stairs in great heat.