“I hope not!”
“Well, I hope not too! For if it be, it’ll be mighty unpleasant for you. It’s not three years since a lad I knew myself was sent across seas for just being out at night with a rabbit-net. So it’s easy done and soon over! And too late crying when the milk’s spilt.” And once more snuffing the candle and telling Henrietta to leave her door open until she had crossed the yard, she took herself off. Once more, but now with a sick qualm, the girl heard the key turned on her.
“Transportation!” She did not know precisely what it meant; but she knew that it meant something very dreadful. “Transportation! Oh, it is impossible!” she murmured, “impossible! I have done nothing!”
Yet the word frightened her, the shadow of the thing haunted her. These locks and bars, this solitude, this cold routine, was it possible that once in their clutch the victim slid on, helpless and numbed—to something worse? To-day, deaf to her protests, they had sent her here—sent her by a force which seemed outside themselves. And no one had intervened in her favour. No one had stepped forward to save her or speak for her. Would the same thing befall her again? Would they try her in the same impersonal fashion—as if she were a thing, a chattel,—and find her guilty, condemn her, and hand her over to brutal officials, and—she rose from her bench, shuddering, unable to bear the prospect. She had begun the descent, must she sink to the bottom? Was it inevitable? Could she no longer help herself? Sick, shivering with sudden fear she walked the floor.
“Oh, it is impossible!” she cried, battling against her terror, and trying to reassure herself. “It is impossible!” And for the time she succeeded by a great effort in throwing off the nightmare.
No one came near her again that evening. And quite early the dip burned low, and worn out and tired she went to bed, only partially undressing herself. The bedding, though rough and horribly coarse, was clean, and, little as she expected it, she fell asleep quickly in the strange stillness of the prison.
She slept until an hour or two before dawn. Then she awoke and sat up with a child’s cry in her ears. The impression was so real, so vivid that the bare walls of the cell seemed to ring with the plaintive voice. Quaking and perspiring she listened. She was sure that it was no dream; the voice had been too real, too clear; and she wondered in a panic what it could be. It was only slowly that she remembered where she was and recognised that no child’s cry could reach her there. Nor was it until after a long interval that she lay down again.
Even then she was not alone. The image of a little child, lonely, friendless, and terrified, stayed with her, crouched by her pillow, sat weeping in the dark corners of the cell, haunted her. She tried to shake off the delusion, but the attempt was in vain. Conscience, that in the dark hours before the dawn subjects all to his sceptre, began to torment her. Had she acted rightly? Ought she to have put the child first and her romantic notions second? And if any ill happened to it—and it was a delicate, puny thing—would it lie at her door?
Remorse began to rack her. She wondered that she had not thought more of the child, been wrung with pity for it, sympathised more deeply with its fears and its misery. What, beside its plight, was hers? What, beside its terrors, were her fears? Thus tormenting herself she lay for some time, and was glad when the light stole in and she could rise, cold as it was, and set her bed and her cell in order. By the time this was done, and she had paced for half an hour up and down to warm herself, a girl of eight, the jailor’s child, came with a shovel of embers and helped her to light the fire—staring much at her the while.
“Mother said I could help you make your bed,” she began.