Part 4 (1/2)

RODNEY IN JAIL.

Such are the rewards which sin gives to its votaries; full of soft words and tempting promises in the beginning, they find, in the end, that ”it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” Thoughts like these pa.s.sed through Rodney's mind, as the jailer led him to a room in which were confined three other lads, all older than himself. At that time, the system of solitary confinement had not been adopted in Pennsylvania, and prisoners were allowed to a.s.sociate together; but it was deemed best to keep the boys from a.s.sociating with older and more hardened culprits, whose conversation might still more corrupt them, and they were therefore confined together, apart from the ma.s.s of the criminals.

At first Rodney suffered the most intense anguish. A sense of shame and degradation overwhelmed him. He staggered to a corner of the room, threw himself on the floor, and, for a long time, sobbed and wept as though his very heart would break. For a while the boys seemed to respect his grief, and left him in silence. At last one of them went to him, and said,

”Come, there's no use in this; we are all here together, and we may as well make the best of it!”

Rodney sat up, and looked at them, as they gathered around him.

They were ragged in dress, and pale from their confinement, and Rodney involuntarily shrank from the idea of a.s.sociating with them, regarding them as criminals in jail. But he soon remembered his own position,--that he was now one of them,--and he thought he would take their advice, and ”make the best of it.”

”Well, what did they squeeze you into this jug for, my covey?”

asked the eldest boy.

Rodney told them his story, and protested that he was innocent of any crime.

The boy put his thumb to the end of his nose, and twirled his fingers, saying, ”You can't gammon us, my buck; come, out with it, for we never _peach_ on one another.”

Rodney was very angry at this mode of treating his story. But, in spite of himself, he gradually became familiar with the companions thus forced upon him, and, in a day or two, began to engage with them in their various sports, to while away the weary hours.

Sometimes they sat and told stories, to amuse one another; and thus Rodney heard tales of wickedness and depredation and cunning, that almost led him to doubt whether there was any honesty among men.

They talked of celebrated thieves and robbers, burglars and pirates, as if they were the models by which they meant to mould their own lives; and, instead of detesting their crimes, Rodney began to admire the skill and success with which they were perpetrated. The excitement and freedom, and wild, frenzied enjoyment of such a life, as depicted by the young knaves, began to fascinate and charm his mind. Something seemed to whisper in his ear, ”As you are now disgraced, without any fault of your own, why not carry it out, and make the most of it? They have put you into jail, this time, for nothing; if they ever do it again, let them have some reason for it.” Who knows what might have been the result of such temptations and influences, had these a.s.sociations been long continued, and not counteracted by the interposition of G.o.d?

But then the instructions of childhood, the lessons of home and of the Sabbath-school, were brought back to his memory, and he said to himself, ”What, be a thief! Make myself despised and hated by all good people! Live a life of wickedness and dread,--perhaps die in the penitentiary, and then, in all probability, lose my soul, and be cast into h.e.l.l! No, never! I shall never dare to steal, or to break into houses; and as for killing anybody for money, I shudder even at the thought!”

So did the bad and the good struggle together in the heart of the poor boy. How many there are who, at the first, feel and think about crime as he did, but who, in the end, become familiar with vice, lose their sense of fear and shame and guilt, become bold and reckless in sin, having their consciences seared as with a hot iron, and violating all laws, human and divine, without compunction, and without a thought save that of impunity and success!

All the elements of a life of crime were in the heart of this wayward boy; and had it not been for the instructions of his childhood, which counteracted these evil influences, and the providence and grace of G.o.d, which restrained him, he would have become a miserable outcast from society, leading a wretched life of shame and guilt.

”I wish we had a pack of cards here,” said one of the boys, one weary afternoon.

”Can't we make a pack?” inquired another.

And then the lads set their wits to work, and soon manufactured a subst.i.tute for a pack of cards. They had a couple of old newspapers, which they folded and cut into small, regular pieces, and marked each piece with the spots that are found on playing cards, making rude shapes of faces, and writing ”_Jack_,” ”_King_,” ”_Knave_,” &c., under them. With these, they used to spend hours shuffling and dealing and playing, until Rodney understood the pernicious game as well as the rest.

”Joe,” said Rodney, one day, to the oldest boy, ”what did they put you in here for?”

”Well,” said he, ”I'll tell you. Sam and I run with the Moyamensing Hose Company. Many a jolly time we have had of it, running to fires, and many a good drink of liquor we have had, too; for when the people about the fires treated the firemen, we boys used to come in for our share of the treat. There was a standing quarrel between us and the 'Franklin' boys, and we used to have a fight whenever we could get at them. I heard one of the men say, one day, that if there was only a fire down Twelfth or Thirteenth-street, and the 'Franklin' should come up in that direction, we could get them foul, and give them a good drubbing. Well, there _was_ a fire down Twelfth-street the next night! I don't mean to say who kindled it; but a watchman saw Sam and me about the stable, and then running away from it as fast as we could. The fellow marked us, and as we were going back to the fire with the machine, he nabbed us, and walked us off to the watch-house, and the next day we were stuck into this hole.”

”But _did_ you set fire to the stable?”

”What would you give to know? I make no confessions; and if you ever tell out of doors what I have said here, I'll knock your teeth down your throat, if I ever catch you.”

These two boys had actually been guilty of the dreadful crime of setting fire to a stable. It was used by two or three poor men for their horses and carts, which was the only means they had of making an honest living; and yet these wicked boys had tried to burn it down, just for the fun of going to a fire, and getting up a fight! There are other boys, in large cities, who will commit similar acts; but such young villains are ripe for almost any crime, and must, in all human probability, come to some dreadful end.

”Hank,” said Rodney to another boy,--his real name was Henry, but Hank was his prison name,--”tell us now what you have done.”

”I'll tell you nothing about it.”