‘A very plain box for the poor soul—just the rough elm, you see.’ The corner of the cloth had blown aside.
‘Yes, for a very poor man. Well, death’s all the less insult to him. I have often thought how much smaller the richer class are made to look than the poor at last pinches like this. Perhaps the greatest of all the reconcilers of a thoughtful man to poverty—and I speak from experience—is the grand quiet it fills him with when the uncertainty of his life shows itself more than usual.’
As Springrove finished speaking, the bearers of the coffin went across a gravelled square facing the two men and approached a grim and heavy archway. They paused beneath it, rang a bell, and waited.
Over the archway was written in Egyptian capitals,
‘COUNTY GAOL.’
The small rectangular wicket, which was constructed in one of the two iron-studded doors, was opened from the inside. The men severally stepped over the threshold, the coffin dragged its melancholy length through the aperture, and both entered the court, and were covered from sight.
‘Somebody in the gaol, then?’
‘Yes, one of the prisoners,’ said a boy, scudding by at the moment, who passed on whistling.
‘Do you know the name of the man who is dead?’ inquired Baker of a third bystander.
‘Yes, ‘tis all over town—surely you know, Mr. Springrove? Why, Manston, Miss Aldclyffe’s steward. He was found dead the first thing this morning. He had hung himself behind the door of his cell, in some way, by a handkerchief and some strips of his clothes. The turnkey says his features were scarcely changed, as he looked at ‘em with the early sun a-shining in at the grating upon him. He has left a full account of the murder, and all that led to it. So there’s an end of him.’