spoken toat all as a number, and our human name, our Christian name, is neverpronounced to us; and what if we have been going through this silentpunishment, this unendurable confinement, for months, and we feel thatit is right and just we should be so punished, right and just that allmen should forsake us, and pass us by, and forget us--and all the time,though we know that justice is dealing with us, and we ought neither tocry out nor to complain, we know and feel also, that seven devils areentering into us, and our last state will be worse, far worse than ourfirst?
And then, when we come back from the darkness, and feel again theblessed light of day, and the pure breeze of nature--coming in throughthe open window of our cell--is fanning our face, and though our spiritis still burning with mad and rebellious passions, our body is gratefulfor the relief of God's own gifts of light and air, then we, who neverbefore, never in our happiest days, received even a halfpenny wrapper'sworth through the post, see a letter--our first letter--pure, and thick,and white, awaiting us--a little dainty parcel bearing our baptismalname, and the name, unspotted by any crime, which our father bequeathedto us, lying ready for our acceptance?
Jenks had returned to his cell after all this severe punishment ashardened and bad a lad as ever walked--sullen, disobedient, defiant.The kind of boy whom chaplains, however tender-hearted, and howeverskilful in their modes of dealing with other men and boys, would regardas hopeless, as past any chance of reform.
He gazed at the letter, so unexpected, so welcome. At first he wasexcited, agitated, then he grew calm, a look of satisfaction changedutterly the whole expression of his face.
Somebody in that great, wide, outer world had not forgotten him. He satdown and ate his breakfast with appetite and relish; he could enjoythings again; he was still William Jenks to somebody--the boy felt humanonce more.
But he would not open his letter at once--not he. No irreverentfingers, no hasty fingers, should tear that precious envelope asunder.
When a man only gets a letter after three months of absolute silence heis never over-hasty in perusing its contents. The sweets ofanticipation are very good, and must not be too quickly got over, andwhen a letter is once opened its great charm is more or less gone.
But the first letter of all, the first letter received in one's entirelife, and received in prison, must be made a very long pleasure indeed.
Jenks had hitherto found Sunday at Wandsworth the most unendurable dayof the seven: the slow hours seemed really leaden-weighted.
On other days he had his oakum to pick, his routine of labour to getthrough--on this day, with the exception of chapel and meals, he hadnothing whatever wherewith to wile away the long hours. True, thechaplain supplied him with books, but Jenks could not read well enoughto take pleasure in reading for its own sake, and never was there anature less studiously inclined than his.
So on Sunday he thought his darkest thoughts, and hatched his worstplots for the future, and prepared himself for the week of rebellion andpunishment which invariably ensued.
But, on this Sunday all would be different, his letter would give himemployment and satisfaction for many hours. He grudged the time he mustspend in chapel, he wanted the whole day to hold his little missive, togaze at the cover, to put it up to the light, to spell out the beloveddirection, after a time to spell out the contents. First of all he mustguess who sent it.
If it took him two hours, three hours, he must guess from whom it came.
Who could have written to him? He was popular in his way--he had toobright a manner, too merry a face, not to be that. He had a good manyacquaintances, and friends and chums, lads who, with all their thievingpropensities and ruffianly ways, would have shared their last crust withhim, and one and all voted him a jolly good fellow.
But not one of these would write to him; he passed them over in silentcontempt, at the bare possibility of their being either able or willingto write to him.
Jim Stokes, or Bob Allen, or any of those other fine daring youngfellows, send him a letter! Send him too a letter looking like this, ordirected like this! Why, _this_ letter had a more genteel appearancethan long ago the letters his sailor father had sent to his mother hadworn. Was it likely that either Jim or Bob, or any of the companions ofJim or Bob, those ignorant lads who could hardly sign their names, wouldsend him a letter like this? Had they wished it ever so much, the thingwas impossible.
Could it be from Dick?
Well, that was certainly an unlikely guess. Dick, who was also inprison, able to write to another boy? He passed this thought by with alittle laugh of derision.
His next idea was Flo.
He had been really in his own rough fashion fond of Flo, he had likedher pretty little face, and enjoyed in his flush and successful daysbringing home dainties for her to cook for all their suppers. In spiteof himself he had a respect for Flo, and though he might have loved herbetter if she had been willing to learn his trade, and help him in histhieving, yet the pluck she showed in keeping honest, roused a certainundefined respect within him.
But of all the ignorant children he ever met, he often said to himselfthat Flo was the most ignorant. Why she knew nothing of the world,nothing whatever.
How he had laughed at her ideas of earls and dukes and marquises--at herabsurd supposition that she could be the queen.
Was there ever before in the records of man, a London child sooutrageously ignorant as this same little Flo? _She_ write him aletter! she had probably never heard of a letter.
Besides, even if she could write, would she? What were her feelings toJenks now, that she should show him so great a kindness? He had brokenhis word to her, he had converted her brother, her much-loved, brightlittle brother, into a thief. By means of him he had tasted prisondiscipline, and was branded with a dishonest stain for ever. Heremembered the reproach in her eyes when she stood in the witnesses'box, and gave those funny little reluctant answers about him and Dick.
Even there too she had shown her ignorance, and proclaimed to the wholepolice-court that she was the greatest little simpleton that everwalked.
No, be she where she might now, poor child, it was his wildest guess ofall to suppose that she could write to him.
_Who_ wrote the letter? There was no one else left for him to guess,unless! but here his breath came quick and fast, the beads ofperspiration stood on his forehead, he caught up the letter and gazed atit, a white fear stealing over him. No, thank God! He flung it downagain with a gesture of intense relief--that was not _her_ writing. Sheknew how to write, but not like that. She had not written to him. No,thank God!--he murmured this again fervently,--things were bad with him,but they had not come to such a dreadful pass as that. _She_ thoughthim dead, drowned, come to a violent end; anyhow, done with this presentlife--she did _not_ know that he, his honest, brave father's only son,had stood in the prisoner's dock, had slept in the dark cell, had wornthe prisoner's dress, with its mask, and distinguishing brand!
The chapel-bell rang; he started up, thrust his precious unopened letterinto his pocket, adjusted his, mask, and walked with hisfellow-prisoners in silent, grim, unbroken order into chapel.
Had any one looked beneath the mask, they would have seen, for the firsttime since perhaps his entrance into that prison, that the old sullenexpression had left his face, that it wore a look of interest andsatisfaction. He hugged his letter very close to his breast, and edgedhimself into the queer little nook allotted to him, from which he couldjust see the chaplain, and no one else. As a rule he either went tosleep in chapel, or made faces at the chaplain, or fired pellets ofbread, which he kept concealed about him, at the other prisoners. Onone occasion the spirit of all evil so far possessed him, that one ofthese, as hard as any shot, came with a resounding report on the mildnose of the then officiating chaplain, as he was fumbling for a loosesheet of his sermon, and nobody discovered that he was the offender.How often he had chuckled over this trick, over the discomfiture of theRev Gentleman, and the red bump which immediately arose on his mostpro
minent feature; how often, how very often, he had longed to do itagain. But to-day he had none of this feeling: if he had a thousandbread pellets ready, they might have lain quite harmless in his pocket.He was restless, however, and longed to get back to his cell, not toopen his letter, he did not mean to do that until quite the evening, butto hold it in his hand, and turn it round and gaze at it; he wasrestless, and wished the hour and a quarter usually spent in chapel wasover, and he looked around him and longed much to find somebody orsomething to occupy his attention, for Jenks never dreamed of joining inthe prayers, or listening to the lessons.
The prison chapel is not constructed to enable the prisoners to gazeabout them, and as the only individual Jenks could see was the chaplain,he fixed his eyes on him.
He did this with a little return of his old sullenness, for though hewas a good man, and even Jenks admitted this, he was so tired of him.He had seen him so very, very often, in his cell and at chapel. Afterspending his life amid the myriad faces of London, Jenks had found