“I do not allude to feigned attempts, of which there have been several, but to desperate attempts; some of which have left the prisoner insensible, some have resulted in his death—how many of these?”
“Four or five, I believe.”
“Ah, you have not thought it worth while to inquire!! Hum!—well, fourteen, at least. Come in, Mr. Eden. Gentlemen, you have neglected your duty. Making every allowance for your inexperience, it still is clear that you have undertaken the supervision of a jail and yet have exercised no actual supervision; even now the life or death of the prisoners seems to you a matter of indifference. If you are reckless on such a point as this, what chance have the minor circumstances of their welfare of being watched by you? and frankly I am puzzled to conceive what you proposed to yourselves when you undertook an office so important and requiring so great vigilance. I say this, gentlemen, merely to explain why I cannot have the pleasure I did promise myself of putting one of your names into the royal commission which will sit upon this prison in compliance with the chaplain's petition.”
Mr. Eden bowed gratefully, and his point being formally gained, he hurried away to make up for lost time and visit his longing prisoners. While he passed like sunshine from cell to cell, Mr. Lacy took a note or two in solemn silence, and the injustices conferred. Mr. Palmer whispered, “We had better have taken Mr. Eden's advice.” The other two snorted ill-assured defiance. Mr. Lacy looked up. “You will hold yourselves in readiness to be examined before the commission.” At this moment Mr. Hawes walked into the room without his mask, and in his own brutal voice—the voice he spoke to prisoners with—addressed himself, with great insolence of manner, to Mr. Lacy. “Don't trouble yourself to hold commissions over me. I think myself worth a great deal more to the government than they have ever been to me. What they give me is little enough for what I have given them, and when insults are added to a man of honor and an old servant of the queen, he flings his commission in your face;” and the unveiled ruffian raised his voice, to a roar, and with his hand flung an imaginary commission into Mr. Lacy's face, who drew back astounded; then resuming his honeyed manner Hawes turned to the justices. “I return into your hands, gentlemen, the office I received from you. I thank you for the support you have afforded me in my endeavors to substitute discipline for the miserable laxity and slovenliness and dirt we found here; and your good opinion will always console me for the insults I have received from a crack-brained parson and his tools in the jail and out of it.”
“Your resignation is accepted,” said Mr. Lacy coldly, “and as your connection with —— Jail is now ended, in virtue of my powers from the Secretary of State, which I here produce, I give you the use of the jailer's house for a week, that you may have time to move your effects; but for many reasons it is advisable that you should not remain in the jail a single hour. Be so good, therefore, as to quit the jail as soon as you conveniently can. One of the turnkeys shall assist you to convey to your house whatever you have in this building.”
“I have nothing to take out of the jail, man,” replied Hawes rudely, “except”—and here he did a bit of pathos and dignity—“my zeal for her majesty's service and my integrity.”
“Ah,” replied Mr. Lacy quietly, “you won't want any help to carry them.”
Mr. Hawes left the room, bowing to the justices and ostentatiously ignoring the government official. Mr. Williams shouted after him. “He carries our respect wherever he goes,” said this magistrate with a fidelity worthy a better cause. The other two hung their heads and did not echo their chief. The tide was turned against Jailer Hawes, and these two were not the articles to swim against a stream even though that stream was truth.
Mr. Hawes took his time. He shook hands with Fry, who bade him farewell with regret. Who is there that somebody does not contrive to like? And rejecting even this mastiff's company he made a gloomy, solitary progress through the prison for the last time. “How clean and beautiful it all is; it wasn't like that when I came to it, and it never will again.” Some gleams of remorse began to flit about that thick skull and self-deceiving heart, for punishment suggests remorse to sordid natures. But his strong and abiding feeling was a sincere and profound sense of ill usage—long service—couldn't overlook a single error—ungrateful government, etc. “Prison go to the devil now—and serve them right.” At last he drew near the outer court, and there he met a sight that raised all the fiend within him. There was Mr. Eden ushering Strutt into the garden, and telling Evans the old man was to pass his whole days there till he was better. “So that is the way you keep the rules now you have undermined me! No cell at all. I thought what you would come to. You haven't been long getting there.”
“Mr. Hawes,” replied the other with perfect good temper, “Rule 34 of this prison enjoins that every prisoner shall take daily as much exercise in the open air as is necessary for his health. You have violated this rule so long that now Strutt's health requires him to pass many more hours in the air than he otherwise would; he is dying for air and amusement, and he shall have both sooner than die for the want of them, or of anything I can give him.”