'My dada's coming to see me,' Madeline exclaimed on the night of her death, with that full, pure, and thrilling tone which marked her when in health. 'I am sure he is coming to night, mama,' and then remembering that that could not be, she said 'write to him, mama, he will come to see me;' and these were the last words she uttered—and all that remains now is the memory of that cheerless, tireless room, and the midnight reverberation of that voice which I would give a new world to hear again.
For her father, he was debating in incoherence the vain proposition as to whether he could prevail on the Governor to let him go home for one night to smooth and watch over that dying pillow, and he would cheerfully and gratefully have expiated the privilege by six or twelve months' additional imprisonment.
O liberty! whom the nations welcome with triumphant shouts, Whom all to whom the world owes its progress have worshipped—over how many graves hast thou walked! Rising with the morning's dawn, making all people radiant with thy presence, the poet thrills as thy chariot is borne on the tarn's golden beams, and he hails thee as a goddess, and blesses thee as a bride, and sings of thy triumphs and benefactions! But those who serve thee—who make their lives a sad and desert waste that thy pathway through the world may be unobstructed—who kneel to thee in their dungeon-churches and pour out the incense of life's young warm blood at gibbet-altars: they know thee by thy gory garments dripping with the blood of the father and the tear of the orphan, and the desolation which precedes thy progress. The anthems of thy march are hollow voices from Siberia's mines, and Vinceanes' cells—the wail of women under the Russian knout, the groans of Konarski and the whistle of bullets which slay the Bandiera and Blum—thy trophies are the fresh graves of Hungary and Rome, thy throne is on a hecatomb of earth's noblest and bravest sons. Yet art thou still sacred in the eyes of man. Queen of Genius and Progress! emblem of that suffering through which Humanity is purified and developed! Thou hast trodden on the grave of my child, and I worship then still, although thou mayst yet tread on my own.
Yes, though I neither hope—for that would be presumptuous—nor expect it, seeing no foundation, I shall be pleased to find a life after this. Not a life where those are punished who were unable to believe without evidence, and unwilling to act in spite of reason—for the prospect of annihilation is pleasanter and more profitable to contemplate: not a life where an easy faith is regarded as 'easy virtue' is regarded among some men—but a life where those we have loved and lost here are restored to us again—for there, in that Hall where those may meet who have been sacrificed in the cause of duty—where no gross, or blind, or selfish, or cruel nature mingles, where none sit but those whom human service and endurance have purified and entitled to that high company, Madeline will be a Hebe. Yes, a future life, bringing with it the admission to such companionship, would be a noble joy to contemplate. But Christianity has no such dream as this.
On making arrangements for the burial, at the Birmingham Cemetery, the clerk asked whether they should provide a Minister, or whether the friends of the deceased would do so? The answer was—'A minister was not desired. 'Then I presume,' the clerk observed, 'you mean that you will provide one yourselves?' The answer again was, 'we do not require one at all. Please send the beadle merely.'
On the day of the interment the beadle attended as requested. He was instructed to conduct the burial party direct to the grave; and not into the chapel, which he did without remark: and when the coffin, plain but pretty, without tinsel or angels, was lowered, each threw a bouquet of flowers in, and when the grave was made up they returned home. Thus Madeline was buried, as became her innocence and her fate, without parade, without priest, or priestly ceremony. Had hesitation been displayed, or previous inquiries been made as to whether what was done could have been permitted, no question but that a priest would have been inflicted, as at the grave of Carlile and others—for Christianity, always officious and rude to the dissentient, is never more so than when opposition is paralysed by agony on the bed of death, or hushed in speechless sadness by the side of the grave.
As it would only be painful to Mrs. Holyoake, I never wished her to visit me; but after the death of Madeline she desired it, and she brought little 'Eveline' (a name given to her in lieu of her own because of its similarity to Madeline.) On this occasion Mr. Bransby Cooper sent to say that the magistrates' Committee-room, an elegant and cheerful apartment, should be at my service, at Mrs. Holyoake's visit. Mr. Cooper was the first of the magistrates to send a message of condolence on the death of Madeline, and in this instance his kindness was delicate and generous. As on the day Mrs. Holyoake came the magistrates happened to hold a meeting in it, an apology was sent me, and the Lodge placed at my service. No turnkey was sent in, and I was permitted to see my friends with an air of perfect freedom. My sister Caroline, who was one of the party, brought me a present of wine and cigars. As both were forbidden by the rules of the gaol, I declined to touch them. As I was trusted without restraint, I was doubly anxious to respect a liberty so generously conceded. Had they set a watch over me, I should have had less scruple, and perhaps have thought it a merit to defeat their suspicions.
Captain Mason, the governor, was a study—a type of the gentleman, official, and conventional, whose qualities were instructive. Bland, imperturbable, civil, and firm, he was never weak and never rude. Among the uneducated, all decisive action is announced in commotion or bluster. The gentleman is never in a hurry, never in a contention. If you annoy him, are rude to him, impose upon him, or menace him, perhaps he quietly indicates his opinion of the impropriety, perhaps his resolution is taken without. He avoids you. His defence is prevention. Renewal of offence, renewal of intercourse, chance of altercation or repetition, is simply impossible. Such was Captain Mason. I watched his manners with pleasure—he governed the gaol like a drawing room, excepting that the desserts were not quite the same. I saw rude men baffled, they could not make out how. Possibly he had nerves and sensibility, but these articles were not in common use. They were kept under lock and key, and never brought out in the routine of official duties. As blandly and courteously as he wished me good morning, he would have conducted me to the gallows, had instruction to that effect reached him. He would have apologised for the inconvenience, but he would have hung me while I was saying 'pray don't mention it.'
Excepting in one transaction our intercourse was unruffled. When I had left the gaol, a prisoner (the Master of a Post Office) the only gentleman on my side of the prison, addressed to me a letter of accusation against the governor—an act which made me a participator in his sentiments. As it passed through the governor's hands, he wrote under the name the crime and sentence of the writer—a brief and bitter retort. I reenclosed the letter to the writer with a note to Captain Mason, observing that on leaving the gaol I had expressed to him the only opinion I entertained of him, and I should regard it as unmanly to be a party to reproaches which I did not see reason to address to him in person. He wrote me back, with a soldier's honourable frankness, that 'I had always behaved honourably in my intercourse with him, and he did not believe I would do an unmanly thing.'
The exceptional transaction with the Captain referred to was this. One of my fellow-prisoners was an epileptic man, whose ignorance and irritability, more than any crime, had led to his imprisonment. As I kept a sort of school in our common room, and taught a few things to those about me who were disposed to learn, I had become interested in Upton, a humble and unhappy man, who learned at grammar anxiously. Some nights he would fall out of bed in an epileptic fit, and lie groaning on the stone floor for an hour or more together. It was in vain that we shouted to the turnkeys. They who can hear a man think of escaping, cannot hear when he breaks his neck. Upton representing that a little tobacco, to which he had been accustomed, would save him from the frequency of these fits, I procured him some. Smoking it one day in a corner, in a paper pipe made for the purpose out of one of my letters, the governor came upon him through a side door. Upon being asked how he procured it, he answered, 'From a man who had just come in from the Sessions.' This the governor did not believe. At night Ogden made an immense speech at me, in which that luminous functionary inserted several elephantine hints, to the effect that he knew the source whence the aforesaid tobacco came. It was a treat to hear Ogden hint; it was like a hippopotamus putting his paw out, or kicking a man down stairs. As soon as I could get to speak to Upton, I prevailed upon him to allow me to write to the governor, tell him the truth, and take the blame upon myself, reminding Upton that a good man might be surprised into a lie, but only a bad man would persist in one. The retaliation of the governor was refined and vindictive. Instead of ordering me into a dark cell on bread and water for two or three days, which was the authorised punishment, he ordered two gates to be locked between me and my visitors, so that those who spoke were obliged to shout to me. This he continued, with slight variation, to the end of my imprisonment. This deprived me of the pleasure of seeing ladies who called, as I would never consent to see them under circumstances of so much humiliation.