But a fear had stolen into his mind: for the string of tin was not strong, and the winds of the last month may have dislocated it. In any case, he might have to wait a year, two, ten....
Occasionally he would redden with suppressed and turbulent energy.
But on the 17th of March, toward evening, England was visited by a storm long remembered, lasting three days, during which the poor prisoners were comforted with rations of hot soup and cocoa.
On the morning of the fourth day when the gangs were once more taken out Hogarth was hardly conscious of frigid winds or agued limbs: for three days the great bell of Colmoor had not rung; and his ears were open.
Of the prisoners, who, by practised instinct, get to know the moment at which it should sound, three presently straightened up, spade in hand, to glance at the prison: and suddenly heard—a sound.
A dull something somewhere—from the prison? unless it was some shock of the wind...Hogarth gazed piteously into the faces near him...No one seemed to have heard.
A few seconds, like eternities...Then he saw a warder look at his watch; then—another! and—they glanced at the prison; and—they approached each other; and—they laid whispering heads together.
Then—joy!—came five officers, wildly running from the prison gates, calling, waving....
And now he knew, and smiled: the babble of that lalling tongue was dumb.
And the very next day, when the afternoon-gangs were marching out, they saw descending from a carriage before the Deputy Governor's house a gentleman with a roll of diagram-paper—a bell-foundry expert, summoned by telegraph from Cardiff.