IN this roomy corner cell, which rejoices in a glazed window, and is far more cheerful than the ordinary hospital compartment, a pale, earnest man, with sensitive face and iron-gray hair, sits writing.
Looking over his shoulder, you would perceive that (absurd though it may seem) he is making entries in a regular nautical log-book. This has been, for many years, his daily practise; for this convict, whose bowed form and subdued mien retain no traces of the sometime "jolly tar," is a born sailor.
His prison name is Robert Henderson. His is the old, old story—a wild bout in port; a drunken quarrel with a drunken shipmate; a reckless assault; an unintentional murder, and a consequent life-term in the State Prison. Although in hospital for treatment, Henderson is still on his feet, and quite competent to undertake the care of the feebler sinners who are, from time to time, consigned to the other cot in this—his sleeping cell.
Eighteen slow years behind the bars have brought in their weary train salutary repentance and unavailing regret; and, under their pressure, he is gradually going to pieces. Time has been when his whole being was dominated by a restless, homesick yearning for the sea—a form of that nostalgia, recognized in medicine as a real malady, the passionate craving of the land-locked sailor for his wide, billowy home—the sea.
Long before his coming up to hospital, I had noted this mild-mannered convict, and had heard his story from official lips.
By his correct demeanour, and careful adherence to prison rules, he had found favour in the sight of the warden, who tacitly gave him such sympathy as, without in the least palliating crime, may be bestowed even upon a murderer, when his fatal act is the unfortunate result of momentary frenzy, and does not indicate innate depravity.
Henderson, being a creature of superabundant vitality, it is but inch by inch that he has physically succumbed to an environment absolutely antipodal to both temperament and training. Naturally reserved and reticent, he seldom complained; but, on a certain day, when the scent of some foreign fruit that I had brought him may have stirred within him old memories of tropical seas and gracious sunny lands, he gave voice to his yearning. It was on a prison reception-day, and I was his "visitor;" and long after, when the end came, I remembered his words, and thanked God that he had at last given this long-denied being the desire of his soul.
"Yes, lady," he said, "I was born and reared on the sea, my mother being a sea-captain's wife, and at the time making the round voyage with my father. Why! even now" he murmured passionately, "I could cross the Atlantic in my shirt-sleeves, lady, but here! in a close, damp cell! My God! I shiver with cold, and moan and fret like a sick baby. Often, of a night, I cannot sleep for thought of it all. I pace my den hour after hour, like a caged beast. I cry to Heaven, the sea! the sea! Almighty God, give me but once more to look upon it, to smell brine, to see a ship bound bravely over its broad billows! After that, let what will come, I can die content."
From the slow monotony of the prison shoe-shop, Henderson has, at last, been released by ill-health, and is now permanently established in the hospital; and, dismal though it be to find oneself a tenant of a hospital cell, and facing the blank certainty that there is for him no egress, save by that final inexorable door opening into the blind unknown, he is comparatively happy. So sweet is the merest taste of liberty to long-denied lips!