“For what?”
“Well, sir, then—having paper in my cell, and for writing—doing what you bade me—writing my life.”
Mr. Eden colored and winced. The cruelty and the personal insult combined almost took away his breath for a moment. “Heaven grant me patience a little longer,” said he aloud. Then he ran out of the cell, and returned in less than a minute with a great hunch of bread and a slice of ham. “Eat this,” said he, all fluttering with pity.
The famished man ate like a wolf; but in the middle he did stop to say, “Did one man ever save another so often as you have me! Now my belly is full I shall have strength to stand the jacket, or whatever is to come next.”
“But you are not to be tormented further than this, I hope?”
“Ah, sir!” replied Robinson, “you don't know the scoundrel yet. He is not starving me for nothing. This is to weaken me till he puts the weight on that is to crush me.”
“I hope you exaggerate his personal dislike to you and your own importance—we all do that.”
“Well,” sighed Robinson, “I hope I do. Any way now my belly is full I have got a chance with him.”
The visiting justices met in the jail. The first to arrive was Mr. Woodcock. In fact he came at eleven o'clock, an hour before the others. Had Mr. Hawes expected him so soon, he would have taken Carter down, who was the pilloried one this morning; but he was equal to the emergency. He met Mr. Woodcock with a depressed manner, as of a tender but wise father, who in punishing his offspring had punished himself, and said in a low, regretful voice, “I am sorry to say I have been compelled to punish a prisoner very severely.”
“What is his offense?”