Grim-visaged men, with loaded gun, stalk through its ringing halls, while haunting faces peer out from behind steel bars. The tread of many feet is hard, in step, on the hardened floors, as the men file to their places, like trained dogs cringing before their masters; the thump of many hammers is like a dreadful funeral march for the lost; the chant of many a tune is heard, in the time of rest, as the only cheerful note issuing therefrom. And above all is the old familiar human smell.
In one corner of a cell, on a cot, lies a man. He is bleary-eyed, and his face is swollen. His feet are bleeding, and his worn-out shoes lie on the floor. His old blue overalls and check shirt are torn, filthy and ready to fall from him. He rolls his head from side to side, and beats his breast with his knotted hands. The spume of an hectic cough hangs around his mouth, and blood flows out his nostrils. He is Billy Barton—dying—dying—alone! While the hammers ring, and the men chant, and the guards pace to and fro; while the clock is ticking for other men to come and go; while the sun is shining somewhere for the happy, the good and the bad alike, and all life outside is palpitating with a vigorous existence, Billy is going upon his final journey.
He was brought from a nasty jail, where mephitic filth was supreme, to this place where brutal men are supreme in their cruelty. Emaciated, gaunt, and made desperate by reason of the abuse heaped upon his crazed head, he was terrible in his obstinacy of prison rules. He was put to work with ball and chain tied about his ankles, when lying down on a feather bed would have been a severe and painful task to him. He was weak. He could not work, let alone stand. He was faint, sick, heartsore. But no one saw his misery. No one wanted to see it. For why should they? He was only a vagabond, and why should he receive attention?
He was pushed and pounded and thumped and beaten because he could not work. He was fed on bread and water for his failure; he was straight-jacketed, hung up by the wrists, given the water-cure; thrown into the dungeon and flogged. But the brute rises in man, sometimes, when met by a brute, and Billy struck back. This was the beginning of his end; for the deputy, being not yet satisfied in the full exercise of his authority, threw more of his brutishness into display, and laid Billy low with a cudgel that he carried, and dragged him, like a dog, to his cell, and threw him on his cot to die—alone!
An investigation into poor Billy Barton's death by the Honorable Board of Authorities revealed one of the most peculiar and singular cases that ever came to their discriminating notice. Billy died of heart failure, they announced. Of course, every man dies when his heart ceases to beat. Even those good and upright members of the Honorable Board of Authorities will die of that disease some day; and no doubt a tombstone will have all their virtues enscribed upon it. Billy Barton's—will simply be, William Barton, that's all.
Who should claim the body? Had he any friends? they punctiliously inquired. Yes; they found one. A man of worth, too—Peter Dieman, the humble junkman; Billy's old friend, of course, who would provide a decent funeral, and see that the last sad rites were said over his corruptible remains. Yes; Peter Dieman would do all this, being very generous, and a philanthropic man; for who would impinge his motives?
The body was, in the true fiction of such events, conveyed in very solemn state to that hovel on the south side of the Monongahela river, near which and within which all of Billy Barton's living time was spent. All his children were present at the funeral, except that one of ill-repute who had preceded his father upon the long unknown trail. All his former friends were present, with one extra added: Peter Dieman. Another friend was present, in the person of John Winthrope, as the representative of Edith, who sent the only flowers.
Had Billy Barton been resurrected the time he lay in his coffin, supported on two chairs, he would have seen a change in the furnishings of his earthly home; he would have seen paper on the walls, where once were the smutchings of discoloring time; he would have seen a carpet on the floor, pictures on the walls, one of which he would have seen was Madonna and her child; he would have seen many things that were not there when he was its besotted, irresponsible master. Ah, he would have seen his little girls dressed in new frocks, with a simple imitation of pride in their deportment; and his boys he would have seen, although still very rude, in a feeble effort to be vain over their new toggery. He would also have seen his slattern wife in a new dress, with her hair done up, and a new hope masked behind her stoical face. And he would have seen that other one, his daughter Star, whom he maltreated all her sorrowful years, come to offer up to God supplication for his soul; and, if his spirit had not yet departed, he would have heard her weeping in her anguish. As he lay in his shroud he would have felt the warm touch of little hands on his hard face, as the little ones stood about his bier taking a last farewell look at "Pap" before the man in black had covered up his face from their view forever; and he would have seen John, in all the freshness and beauty of young manhood, a consoling support to his only child that shed a tear. Still more, he would have seen that exaggerated piece of humanity, Peter Dieman, in all his implacable hatred for him, sitting in one corner, listening with exhultation to the droning voice of the minister saying the ritual words and singing "Rock of Ages."
Solemnly went the funeral cortege through the crowded thoroughfares bearing him away; and as the people looked with awe on his passing, remembering, perhaps, that they would take the same long ride some day, little did they reck how he lived and how he died.