Van Bibber and Others

by Richard Harding Davis

"Shut up," said Bronson.

They stopped a few yards before the great green double gate, with a smaller door cut in one of its halves, and with the light from a big lantern shining down on them. They could not see the clock-face from where they stood, and when Bronson took out his watch and looked at it, the girl turned her face to his appealingly, but did not speak.

"It will be only a little while now," he said, gently. He thought he had never seen so much trouble and fear and anxiety in so young a face, and he moved towards her and said, in a whisper, as though those inside could hear him, "Control yourself if you can," and then added, doubtfully, and still in a whisper, "You can take my arm if you need it." The girl shook her head dumbly, but took a step nearer him, as if for protection, and turned her eyes fearfully towards the gate. The minutes passed on slowly but with intense significance, and they stood so still that they could hear the wind playing through the wires of the electric light back of them, and the clicking of the icicles as they dropped from the edge of the prison wall to the stones at their feet.

And then slowly and laboriously, and like a knell, the great gong of the prison sounded the first stroke of twelve; but before it had counted three there came suddenly from all the city about them a great chorus of clanging bells and the shrieks and tooting of whistles and the booming of cannon. From far down town the big bell of the State-house, with its prestige and historic dignity back of it, tried to give the time, but the other bells raced past it, and beat out on the cold crisp air joyously and uproariously from Kensington to the Schuylkill; and from far across the Neck, over the marshes and frozen ponds, came the dull roar of the guns at the navy-yard, and from the Delaware the hoarse tootings of the ferry-boats, and the sharp shrieks of the tugs, until the heavens seemed to rock and swing with the great welcome.

Gallegher looked up quickly with a queer, awed smile.

"It's Christmas," he said, and then he nodded doubtfully towards Bronson and said, "Merry Christmas, sir."

It had come to the waiting holiday crowd down-town around the State-house, to the captain of the tug, fog-bound on the river, to the engineer sweeping across the white fields and sounding his welcome with his hand on the bell-cord, to the prisoners beyond the walls, and to the children all over the land, watching their stockings at the foot of their beds.

And then the three were instantly drawn down to earth again by the near, sharp click of opening bolts and locks, and the green gates swung heavily in before them. The jail-yard was light with whitewash, and two great lamps in front of round reflectors shone with blinding force in their faces, and made them start suddenly backward, as though they had been caught in the act and held in the circle of a policeman's lantern. In the middle of the yard was the carriage in which the prisoner's wife and her mother had come, and around it stood the wardens and turnkeys in their blue and gold uniforms. They saw them, dimly from behind the glare of the carriage lamps that shone in their faces, and saw the horses moving slowly towards them, and the driver holding up their heads as they slipped and slid on the icy stones. The girl put her hand on Bronson's arm and clinched it with her fingers, but her eyes were on the advancing carriage. The horses slipped nearer to them and passed them, and the lights from the lamps now showed their backs and the paving stones beyond them, and left the cab in partial darkness. It was a four-seated carriage with a movable top, opening into two halves at the centre. It had been closed when the cab first entered the prison, a few hours before, but now its top was thrown back, and they could see that it held the two women, who sat facing each other on the farther side, and on the side nearer them, stretching from the forward seat to the top of the back, was a plain board coffin, prison-made and painted black.

The girl at Bronson's side gave something between a cry and a shriek that turned him sick for an instant, and that made the office-boy drop his head between his shoulders as though some one had struck at him from above. Even the horses shied with sudden panic towards one another, and the driver pulled them in with an oath of consternation, and threw himself forward to look beneath their hoofs. And as the carriage stopped the girl sprang in between the wheels and threw her arms across the lid of the coffin, and laid her face down upon the boards that were already damp with the falling snow.

"Henry! Henry! Henry!" she moaned.