With a hard iron clang, the door closed behind me. Descending a roomy flight of steps, I found myself in the prison yard, and, at the same moment, confronted by,—yes, it must be that dreadful fellow, Neilson, himself! And a sinister-visaged wretch he was, with his small, ferrety eyes, his coarse mouth, and heavy chin. He shuffled as he went, and, with an evil look, stared boldly in my face.
"A tough subject," I mentally determined; but "total depravity" is not an article of my creed, and I do believe in humanity. In a moment, I had dismissed all fear of Neilson, in my zeal for his reformation, and, stepping up to him with a friendly good-afternoon, into which I insinuated all the approval I could conscientiously bestow upon so forbidding a creature, I handed him, from my basket, a bunch of violets. He took them, and, with a clumsy nod, but not a word of thanks, passed on, leaving me with a lightened heart. And, now, I stopped a moment to exchange civilities with the officer whom I had descried from the guard-room window. We were fast friends, and I was indebted to him for many a kind turn. He glanced disparagingly at my flowers, and, as a relief to my chagrin, I said, "Well, I have just given Neilson a bunch of violets; do you imagine that he cares at all for them?"
"Neilson?" he questioned, in evident perplexity.
"Yes, Neilson," I replied, "that short, stout man yonder, there he is now! going into that door!"
"Bless your heart, my good lady," exclaimed the officer, "that ain't Neilson! There he is; can't you see him, the tall fellow with his nose in the air, standing there by the crocus bed? If there's any flowers in the yard, Neilson's about sure to fetch up near 'em."
"Is he?" I said; and from that moment "a fellow-feeling made me kind." I felt sure of the ultimate good-will of Neilson. Meantime, having exhausted the attraction of the crocus bed, he was moving in my direction, but so slowly that I had time to make a critical survey of this famous personage,—a grave, quiet man of slender but firm build, and, even in his coarse prison uniform, bearing himself with a certain air of (if I may so express it) scholarly elegance.
Suitably clothed, he might have been taken for a clergyman, or a Harvard professor. Selecting the very choicest nosegay from my basket, I bade him, as we met, a cheerful good-afternoon, and, offering the flowers, said timidly (for I found this grave, lordly being somewhat unapproachable), "Would you like a bunch of violets to-day?" Absorbed in his own reflections, he had not, until now, observed me. He stopped, came out of his reverie, and, lifting his worn prison cap with a highly ceremonious bow, took the flowers from my hand, composedly smelt them, and said, slowly: "Thank you, madam, they would be very refreshing." Though Neilson's demeanour was eminently stoical, his face was pitiably wan and thin, and in his faded blue eye there was a world of patient pathos that went straight to my heart.
As he was about to pass on, I detained him for a moment, and said, eagerly, "If you like flowers—if you—if you think they would help you, I might bring you a few every Monday, as I come to the hospital."
"Flowers," he replied sententiously, "are refreshing; and if it will not be putting you to too much inconvenience, madam, I would be glad to receive a few from you every week." After this it was arranged with the obliging guard-room turnkey, that every Monday afternoon, along with his own buttonhole posy, a bouquet of "seasonable flowers" should be left on his desk, and should be sent by him to Neilson's cell. And, moreover, ascertaining that Neilson had no "visitor," I obtained permission of the warden to put his name on my visiting list, among those of some forty other unvisited convicts, who, in lieu of dearer company, received me once in three months, in the big guard-room. On these occasions, I was allowed to bring my sorry acquaintances flowers, fruit, drawing and writing materials, books, tracts and magazines, together with such sound moral advice as could be,—like the "sheep in the Vicar's family picture,"—"thrown in for nothing." In their turn, my friends confided to me such passages in their lives as might properly be told to a lady; acquainted me with their desires and aspirations, and, almost invariably, craved my intercession with the governor. (For, whatever his crime, each prison convict hopes that, with some friendly go-between to present his case, that mild-hearted executive will promptly "pardon him out.") But of this service I was conscientiously chary. Gladly it was, however, that I undertook the sale of such inlaid boxes, photograph frames, and other articles as the men found time and material to fashion, the proceeds of which enabled them to subscribe for "Harper's," to own a book or two, or, better still, to make an occasional remittance to some dependent mother, wife or child, left in want by their own wicked folly. Of all the convicts on my list, none proved more satisfactory than Neilson. Our conversation, carried on, according to the prison rules, within earshot of an officer, related chiefly to literature; for this sometime robber and murderer was a man of no mean intellect; and his mental energies, now necessarily diverted from more deplorable channels, had, in these years of solitary leisure, been so well applied to self-improvement, that from almost utter ignorance he had come to be, after his own fashion, an educated man.