Part 4 (1/2)
It was to be feared that, in the bewilderment of his final moments, the shade of the murdered ”Morris” might again torture him. On the day preceding his death, after reading from his prayer-book the services for the sick and dying, I sat painfully watching his laborious breathing, as he lay propped high with pillows, and with an expression of solemn expectancy on his awed face. From time to time a spasm of pain contracted his brow, already damp with the dew of death.
I wiped tenderly his moist forehead, put a spoonful of water between his poor lips, and, still mindful of the avenger, ”Morris,” stooped to his ear, and whispered rea.s.suringly, ”You're not at all afraid, _are_ you, Neilson.” He opened wide his eyes, and, with a half-reproachful glance, replied, distinctly, ”Afraid! afraid of _G.o.d_! Ah, madam, I wish I were _with_ Him now!” That night Neilson's prayer was answered.
With mighty throes (for he was originally a man of iron const.i.tution, all his forebears, as he told me, having outlived their ninetieth year) his spirit was loosed from the body of its sin and suffering, to return to G.o.d who gave it.
Neilson's obsequies were attended with a ceremony unusual in the prison, where burials are, for the most part, but slight occasions, and, in certain exigencies, _have_ taken place without even the grace of a prayer from the chaplain.
This funeral was honoured by the attendance of both warden and chaplain. Some thirty men from the shops had obtained permission to be present. One or two instructors and officers of ”low degree” were also there, and I, too, had been invited. The chaplain gave a slight sketch of Neilson's prison life, winding up with some words of exhortation for the benefit of the convicts. The warden made a simple and kindly address. A prayer was offered, after which the men, with uncovered heads, filed reverently to the coffin's side for a last look at the tranquil white face of their comrade, and then, with sobered mien, and attended by their officers, left the hospital. While the warden and chaplain made some final arrangement with the hospital officer, I lingered by the coffin to place a bunch of fresh violets in Neilson's listless hand; then, bidding him a mute farewell, followed, with a slow step and a saddened heart, the warden and chaplain; and we pa.s.sed together into the great guard-room.
As I stood, with tearful eyes, waiting for the turnkey to let me out of the prison, the warden came to my side. ”Well, Neilson is gone,” he said, gravely. ”He was an old resident, and will be missed in the prison; and, by the by, let me tell you that you are an heiress!
Neilson made his will, and committed it to my care. All his little savings, thirty dollars, he has bequeathed to you. Poor fellow,” he continued, ”no doubt in his day he's done his share of harm, but, whatever he was, Neilson knew his _friends_.”
One's first legacy, be it ever so small, is an event and often a surprise. Never before had my humble name been recorded in a will. I was not long, however, in determining the disposal of Neilson's pathetic request. It should be devoted to the erection of a simple stone to mark his last resting-place.
In common with all the unclaimed dead of the prison, he was carried to Tewksbury for interment in the pauper burying-ground.
At my request, the warden kindly wrote to the authorities there, asking them to designate the burial spot of Neilson, that I might be enabled to carry out my resolution. No reply having been vouchsafed, in my discouragement, I betook myself to the ”Board of State Charities” for information in regard to Neilson's missing remains.
Some inquiries into the matter were, I believe, made by that inst.i.tution, but so indifferently were they pursued that nothing came of it, and I was finally compelled to the sad supposition that Neilson had been denied that last cheap boon which even the poorest may claim of earth--a grave; and his legacy was, accordingly, consecrated to the procurement of fruit for the convict patients in hospital; and, perhaps, this disposition of his little savings would not have seemed unfitting to the poor fellow himself, had it been possible to consult him on this occasion.
All this happened twenty years ago; and no light having yet been thrown on the mysterious disappearance of Neilson's mortal part, it is reasonable to infer that it was long since dismembered in the interest of science; or, that, still partially intact, it now hangs fleshless and dishonored in some doctor's ”skeleton closet.”
From these gruesome conclusions one gladly takes refuge in the inspiriting hope that Neilson _himself_ still lives; and that, in some phase of existence beyond the ken of our meagre psychology, his moral evolution now goes uninterruptedly on.
”For yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood.”
A DISASTROUS SLEIGH-RIDE.
It is nightfall in the prison. In these sombre precincts where day is never fairly admitted, night falls grimly, as if the entire procedure were, at best, but a poor bit of irony. The convicts are safe in their unsavoury lodging-rooms. In the chilly corridors, light feebly struggles with the surrounding gloom; and the cells are half in shadow; yet, here and there, an unquiet figure may be discerned, pacing its irksome bounds with short, sharp turns, or standing moodily at its grated door; an unknown outcast; a unit in an aggregate of sin-wrecked humanity; yet (as G.o.d knows) endowed with a heart akin to our own,--a heart that can ache, repent, endure, and break!
In the deserted guard-room silence reigns. The night turnkey is seated in his place. His bowed head gradually inclines toward his ample chest, and presently, losing its poise, is righted with an abrupt jerk. Rubbing his eyes, he makes a drowsy attempt at official scrutiny, and sinks supinely into untroubled slumber. Meantime, yonder, in the ”North Wing,” a sly whispering goes undisturbedly on.
Pat Doniver, the prison runner, whose hour of dismissal has not yet come, is, informally, interviewing his fellow-convicts. To all intents and purposes Pat is innocently resting upon a pine stool, subject to official order, and upon the very brink of falling asleep. Truth, however, compels the severe statement that, between Mr. Doniver's doing and his seeming, there is often a lamentable discrepancy; but, to get at the ”true inwardness” of Pat, one must hear the story of that magnificent sleigh-ride, which, quite contrary to his intention, ultimately landed him in the State Prison.
Pat Doniver is an Irishman, although--as he will tell you--”not born in his own native counthry; but narrowly escapin' that same,” having been prematurely hustled upon the stage of life in the crowded steerage of an Atlantic steamer bound for Boston, and not yet fairly out of sight of Albion's chalky cliffs.
In form, Pat is lithe and trim; in face, a very Hibernian Apollo--if one may conceive an Apollo with a nose decidedly tip-tilted. All the same, Pat's facial development is good. His mouth is finely cut, with odd little smiles forever dimpling its handsome corners. His eyes are coal black, his hair ditto; and such curls! They are Pat's special weakness--the darlings of his heart! And it is known among the prison officers that Pat, having been bidden to submit these cherished raven wings to the initiatory prison shearing, had stoutly refused compliance to the ”Powers that be;” and had actually endured the horrors of a three days' ”Solitary” in defence of the inalienable right of an Irish-American citizen to the peaceful possession of his own hair!
In repose, Pat's visage has that air of demure mischief which lurks in the visage of a frolicsome kitten, dozing, with one eye open, in the suns.h.i.+ne. This is Pat's story; and looking into prison life, you will find it no uncommon one.
City-born, his juvenile days seem to have alternated unequally between ch.o.r.es and school, and to have exhibited long and frequent intervals of utter vagrancy. At twelve, he lost his mother (his father is a being entirely outside his knowledge), and, scrambling up to early manhood, as best he could, he finally rose to the dignity of a hack driver. Subsequently, Pat became an expert tippler. The two pursuits (as one must often have observed) do not in the least antagonize. Thus it eventually came to pa.s.s that, with Pat, to be tipsy was the general rule; to be sober, the rare exception. It was after the great snow-fall of 18--, that our hero resolved to ”trate himself” to a sleigh-ride. Sleigh-rides, in _his_ line, were, to be sure, every-day occurrences, but this, as he explained, in his own rich brogue, was to be ”a good social time, all aloon be meself.”
To this end (temporarily entrusting his hack to a friendly fellow Jehu) Mr. Doniver hired a fine horse and cutter, and, with the same, ”to kape himself warrum,” a big buffalo robe. Thus amply equipped, and having his pockets well lined with small coin, Pat set merrily forth.
The day was bitterly cold, the drinks delightfully warm, and, somehow, he took by the way more refreshment than he had, at the outset, counted on. Indeed, if truth must be told, at an early period in this jolly excursion Pat had reached that complex mental condition in which to count _at all_ is a most difficult matter, and, as the day wore on,--save a confused consciousness of more drinks in sundry bars than cash in a certain pocket,--Pat altogether lost his reckoning. In this awkward dilemma, it naturally occurred to our thirsty excursionist to dispose of certain marketable personal effects immediately at hand. Having at various halting-places drunk out his big silver watch, a huge pencil of the same salable metal, his new red silk bandanna, his pocketbook and pocket-comb, a smart new necktie, bought expressly for this superb occasion, and, last of all, his drab, many-caped overcoat, it now became obvious to his mind that, in the increasing warmth of temperature,--consequent upon infinite potations,--a buffalo robe was but the merest of superfluities. Having arrived at this stoical conclusion, Pat, thereafter, retains but a confused recollection of this disastrous excursion. ”An obleegin'
gintlemun,” as he remembers, had the goodness to exchange whiskey for wild buffaloes, which he, Pat, proposed to hunt and drive hither in countless herds. Pat awoke the next morning, to find himself in the lock-up, charged with drunkenness and the theft of a buffalo robe.
The smart cutter, with its unconscious occupant, had been obligingly delivered by the f.a.gged but sagacious steed to its proprietor, who, minus his buffalo robe, had, in turn, delivered Pat to the police.