The Day of Judgment

by Joseph Hocking

"Ay, Paul, lad," he said, "I'm delighted to see you. Mr. Whitman and I were just talking about you." And he turned, as he spoke, to an old, pale-faced, kindly man who stood by his side. Old William Whitman was the town missionary for Brunford, and was beloved by everybody.

"Ay," assented the old man, "and we've been praying for thee too, lad. I'm afraid your cross has been hard to bear, but, never mind, the sun will shine again now."

"It will, too," assented the hosier. "We think none the worse of thee, lad, for what thou hast undergone, and 'appen thou wilt find that this strange working of Providence 'll be oal for thy good."

"I don't see much of Providence in it," said Paul, "except that it makes me realise how kind the people here are. There seems a great deal more of the Devil than of God."

At that moment the shopkeeper's attention was drawn away from him by the coming of another customer, leaving him and the town missionary together.

"Nay, but you mustn't say that, Paul lad," said the missionary. "Happen in a few months you will get over all these things."

"I shall never get over it," said Paul. "For six months I have been wearing prison clothes; I have been sleeping in a cold, dark cell; my name has been taken away from me, and I have simply been known by a number, and I have been looked upon not as a man, but as a beast. There's not much to make one think of God in all that, Mr. Whitman!"

"Ay, it's been hard on thee," replied the old man, "and there's many a one in Brunford who thinks something should have been done for thee. I suppose Ned Wilson felt very bitter towards you, and when he was instructing the counsel, he made him believe that you were the ringleader. There's more than one who have said that Bolitho was very unfair. However, the Lord will make everything right."

"I shall never believe that the Lord has made everything right until Bolitho and Wilson have suffered as I have suffered," replied Paul bitterly. "If I could see Bolitho in prison clothes; if he were known by a number; if he had to tramp the prison yard among the scum of the earth, as I have; if he had to lie in a cold cell with the darkness of hell in his heart, as I have, then I could believe in Providence perhaps. But when I remember that I was regarded as a beast and not as a man, while he was drinking wine and faring sumptuously, there did not seem much justice in the world."

Hearing a rustle by his side as he spoke, Paul turned and saw that the customer who had been talking with the shopkeeper was looking straight at him, and his heart beat violently as the eyes of the two met. It was a young girl he saw, not more than twenty years of age, and, as far as he knew, she was a stranger to the town. He had never seen her before, and she appeared different from the young women with whom he had happened to meet. He noticed, too, as their eyes met, that hers were full of horror. She seemed to regard him as she might regard a snarling dog. He saw her lips quiver, and he thought for a moment that she was about to speak to him. The intensity of her gaze made him almost beside himself, and then, acting on the impulse of the moment, and speaking with the freedom so common to the Lancashire operative class, he went on: "Yes, miss, and I mean it too. You, by the look of you, belong to that class, but, remember, the time will come when men like Bolitho will be paid for what they have done. But, there!" And he laughed. "I suppose he had to speak to his brief, and, justice or no justice, he had to do what his employer told him to do. 'Ten pounds more for every extra month you get him,' would be Wilson's cry, and Bolitho would be anxious to get the ten pounds."