“Thou art the most strange wight ever I saw,” said the gaoler. “For the most part do they ramp and rage, beat head against wall, and curse blasphemously. Others there be lie in swoon, eat not, cry and make moan. But thou!”—
“I look into my past,” said Stephen. “I live over my life. By now I 'm a seven years child, and my mother died yesterday.”
“Lord!—'s lost his wits!” exclaimed the gaoler and fled incontinent.
The next day he pushed the door open very cautious, peered round the edge, and set the bread and water on the ground.
“Come in, br-br-brother,” Stephen called. “I be not mad. I do but muse on life, to discover wherein it may be bettered, and where 's the fault. When I 'm done with time past I 'll think on time to come, and what 's to do if ever I go free. By this device keep I my wits. I do love life, brother, I would live as long as I may.”
“Art thou a poet?” queried the gaoler.
“Nay, but I make rhymes as well as any other gentleman.”
This was before the hour of prime. At sunset, when the gaoler came again he questioned:—
“Dost thou find the fault in life, and wherein 't may be bettered?”
"There be a-many faults, brother, but one is this, that some men do make of themselves masters, and hold their fellows in bonds, and those may not choose,—but they must be bound whether they will or no.