Yes, it was a bonâ fide letter, it had a stamp on it, and the London post-mark. It was a bonâ fide letter, and his letter also—a letter directed to him. He gazed at it for a moment or two, then took it up and handled it carefully, and turned it round, and examined the back of it, and held it up to the light—then he put it down, and took a turn the length of his cell.
Unless we are quite dunned by creditors, and mean never to open anything that is sent to us by the post, we have a kind of interest in that sharp double knock, and a kind of pleasure in opening our various epistles.
However many we get, our pulses do beat just a quarter of a shade quicker as we unfasten the envelope. There is never any saying what news the contents may announce to us; perhaps a fortune, an advantageous proposal, the birth of a new relation, the death of an old friend, that appointment we never thought to have obtained, that prize we never hoped to have won: or perhaps, the loss of that prize, the filling up by another man of that appointment. A letter may bring us any possible or impossible news, therefore at all times these little missives, with the Queen’s head on them, are interesting.
But what if we are in prison, if we have just been confined for days and nights in the dark cell, fed on bread and water, sentenced to the horrors and silence of the tomb; if bad thoughts, and hardening thoughts, and maddening thoughts, if Satan and his evil spirits, have been bearing us company? What, if we are only addressed when spoken to at all as a number, and our human name, our Christian name, is never pronounced to us; and what if we have been going through this silent punishment, this unendurable confinement, for months, and we feel that it is right and just we should be so punished, right and just that all men should forsake us, and pass us by, and forget us—and all the time, though we know that justice is dealing with us, and we ought neither to cry out nor to complain, we know and feel also, that seven devils are entering into us, and our last state will be worse, far worse than our first?
And then, when we come back from the darkness, and feel again the blessed light of day, and the pure breeze of nature—coming in through the open window of our cell—is fanning our face, and though our spirit is still burning with mad and rebellious passions, our body is grateful for the relief of God’s own gifts of light and air, then we, who never before, never in our happiest days, received even a halfpenny wrapper’s worth through the post, see a letter—our first letter—pure, and thick, and white, awaiting us—a little dainty parcel bearing our baptismal name, and the name, unspotted by any crime, which our father bequeathed to us, lying ready for our acceptance?
Jenks had returned to his cell after all this severe punishment as hardened and bad a lad as ever walked—sullen, disobedient, defiant. The kind of boy whom chaplains, however tender-hearted, and however skilful in their modes of dealing with other men and boys, would regard as hopeless, as past any chance of reform.
He gazed at the letter, so unexpected, so welcome. At first he was excited, agitated, then he grew calm, a look of satisfaction changed utterly the whole expression of his face.
Somebody in that great, wide, outer world had not forgotten him. He sat down and ate his breakfast with appetite and relish; he could enjoy things again; he was still William Jenks to somebody—the boy felt human once more.
But he would not open his letter at once—not he. No irreverent fingers, no hasty fingers, should tear that precious envelope asunder.
When a man only gets a letter after three months of absolute silence he is never over-hasty in perusing its contents. The sweets of anticipation are very good, and must not be too quickly got over, and when a letter is once opened its great charm is more or less gone.