He was a man of simple heart,Patient and meek, the Christian partCame to his soul as came the airThat heaved his bosom; hope, despair,Were chastened by a holy faith!—Meek in his life he feared not death.
He was a man of simple heart,Patient and meek, the Christian partCame to his soul as came the airThat heaved his bosom; hope, despair,Were chastened by a holy faith!—Meek in his life he feared not death.
He was a man of simple heart,Patient and meek, the Christian partCame to his soul as came the airThat heaved his bosom; hope, despair,Were chastened by a holy faith!—Meek in his life he feared not death.
He was a man of simple heart,
Patient and meek, the Christian part
Came to his soul as came the air
That heaved his bosom; hope, despair,
Were chastened by a holy faith!—
Meek in his life he feared not death.
Perhaps in the whole world there is not a building where all the horror, the wild poetry of sin and grief is so forcibly written out in black shadows and hard stone, as in the city prison of New York. A stranger passing that massive pile would unconsciously feel saddened, though entirely ignorant of its painful uses, for the very atmosphere fills him with a vague sensation of alarm. The Egyptian architecture, so heavy and imposing; the thick walls which no sunshine can penetrate, and against which cries of anguish might, unheard, exhaust themselves forever, chill the very heart. The ponderous columns, lost in a perspective of black shadows in the front entrance—piles of granite sweeping toward Broadway, and interlocking with the black prison that rises up, like a solid wall, gloomy, windowless, and penetrated only with loop-holes, like a fort which has nothing but misery to protect—fills the imagination with gloom.
The moment you come in sight of the building, your breath draws heavily; the atmosphere seems humid with tears—oppressive with sighs—a storm of human suffering appears gathering around. The air seems eddying with curses which have exhausted their sound against those walls; you feel as if sin, shame, and grief were palpable spirits, walking behind and around you; and all this is the more terrible, because the waves of life gather close up to the building, swelling against its walls on every side.
The prison sits like a monster, crouching in the very heart ofa great city; the veins and arteries of social evil weave and coil close around it, like serpents born in the same foul atmosphere with itself. Placed on foundations lower than the graded walks, nestled in a dried up swamp that has exchanged the miasma of decayed nature for the miasma of human guilt; the neighborhood close at hand sunk, like this building, deep in the grade of human existence; is there on earth another spot so eloquent of suffering, so populous with sin?
"The Tombs," this name was given to the prison years ago, when its foundations were first sunk in the swampy moisture of the soil. Then you could see the vast structure sinking, day by day, into its murky foundations, and enveloped in clouds of palpable miasma. There the poor wretches huddled within its walls, died like herds of poisoned cattle; pine coffins were constantly passing in and out of those ponderous doors. Pauper death-carts might be seen every day lumbering up Centre street, on their road to Potter's Field. The man, innocent or guilty, who entered those walls, breathed his death warrant as he passed in.
This only continued for a season; it was not long before the tramp of human feet, and the weight of that ponderous mass of stone crushed the poisonous moisture from the earth, but the name which death had left still remained—a name deeply and solemnly significant of the place to all who deem moral evil and moral death as mournful as the physical suffering which had baptized it.
The main building, which fronts on Centre street, opens to a dusky and pillared vestibule, that leads to various rooms, occupied by the courts and officials connected with the prison. At the right, as you enter, is the police court, a spacious apartment, with deep casements. A raised platform, railed in from the people, upon which the magistrates sit, contains a desk or two, and beyond are several smaller rooms, used for private examinations.
In one of these rooms, the smallest and most remote, sat a mournful group, early one morning, before the magistrates hadtaken their seats upon the bench. One was an old man, thin, haggard and care-worn, but with a placid and even exalted cast of countenance, such as a stricken man wears when he has learned "to suffer and be strong." He sat near a round table covered with worn baize, upon which one elbow rested rather heavily, for he had tasted little food for several days; and the languor of habitual privation, joined to strong nervous reaction, after a scene of horror, impressed his person even more than his face. That, as I have said, was pale and worn, but tranquil and composed to a degree that startled those who looked upon him, for the old man was waiting there to be examined on a charge of murder, and men shuddered to see the calmness upon his features. It seemed to them nothing but hardened indifference, the composure of guilt that had ceased to feel its own enormity.
Close by this man sat two females, an old woman and a girl, not weeping, they had no tears left, but they sat with heavy, mournful eyes gazing upon the floor. Marks of terrible suffering were visible in their faces, and in the dull, hopeless apathy of their motionless silence. Now and then a low sigh rose and died upon the pale lips of the girl, but it was faint as that which exhales from a flower which has been trodden to death, and the poor girl was only conscious that the pain at her heart was a little sharper that instant than it had been.
The woman, pale, still, and grief-stricken in every feature and limb, did not even sigh. It seemed as if the breath must have frozen upon her cold lips, she seemed so utterly chilled, body and soul.
An officer of the police stood just within the room, not one of those burly, white-coated characters we find always in English novels, but a tall, slender and gentlemanly person, who regarded the group it had been his duty to arrest with a grave and compassionate glance. True, he searched the old man's face as those who have studied the human lineaments strive to read the secrets of a soul in their expression—but there was nothing rude either in his look or manner.
After awhile the officer remembered that his prisoners had not tasted food since the day previous, and, with a pang of self-reproach, he addressed them.
"You are worn out for want of food—I should have remembered this!" he said, approaching the table; "I will order some coffee."
The old man raised his head, and turned his grateful eyes upon the officer.
"Yes," he said, with a gentle smile, "they are hungry; a little coffee will do them good."
The young female looked up and softly waved her head; but the other continued motionless, she had heard nothing.
The officer whispered to a person outside the door, and then began to pace up and down the room like a sentinel, but treading very lightly, as if subdued by the silent grief over which he kept guard.
Directly the coffee was brought in, with bread and fragments of cold meat.
"Come now," said the officer, cheerfully, "take something to give you strength. The examination may be a long one, and I have seen powerful men sink under a first examination—take something to keep you up, or you will get nervous, and admit more than a wise man should."
"Yes," said the old man, meekly, "you are right, they will want strength—so shall I." He took one of the tin-cups which had been brought half full of coffee, and reached it toward the woman.
"Wife!" he said, bending toward her.
The poor woman started, and looked at him through her wild, heavy eyes.
"What is it, Wilcox? What is it you want of me?"
"You observe she is almost beside herself," said the old man addressing the officer, and his face grew troubled—"what can I do?"
"Oh! these things are very common. She must be roused!" answered the man, kindly. "Speak to her again."
The old man stooped over his wife, and laid his hand gently upon hers. She did not move. He grasped her thin fingers, and tears stood in his eyes; still she did not move. He stood a moment gazing in her face, the tears running down his cheeks. He hesitated, looked at the officer half timidly, and bending down, kissed the old woman on the forehead.
That kiss broke up the ice in her heart. She stood up and began to weep.
"You spoke to me, Wilcox—what was it you wanted? I am better now—quite well. What is it you wanted me to do?"
"He only wishes you to eat and drink something," said the officer, deeply moved.
"Eat and drink—have we got anything to eat and drink? That is always his way when we are short, urging us, and hungry himself."
"But there is enough for all," said the old man. "See, I too will eat, and Julia!"
"Why, if there is enough we will all eat, why not," said the poor woman, with a dim smile.
She took the coffee, tasted it, and looked around the room with vague curiosity.
"What is all this?—where are we now, Wilcox?" she said, in a low, frightened voice.
The old man kept his eyes bent on hers, they were full of trouble, and this stimulated her to question him again.
"Where are we? I remember walking, wading, it seemed to me, neck deep through a crowd, trying to keep up with you. Some one said they were taking us to prison; that I had done nothing, and they would not keep me. That you and Julia would stay, but I must go into the street, because a wife could not bear witness against her husband, but a grandchild could. Have I been crazy, or walking in my sleep, Wilcox?"
"No, wife, you are worn out—frightened; drink some more of the coffee, by and bye all will be clear to you."
The old woman obeyed him, and drank eagerly from the cup in her hand. Then she looked on her husband, on Julia, andthe officer, as if striving to make out why they were all together in that strange place. All at once she set down the cup and drew a heavy breath.
"I remember," she said, mournfully—"I remember now that dead man, with his open eyes and white clenched teeth; I know who he was—I knew it at first."
The officer drew a step nearer and listened, the spirit of his vocation was strong within him. There might be important evidence in her words, and for a moment the humane man was lost in the acute officer. The prisoner remarked this movement, and looked on the man with an expression of mild rebuke.
"Would you take advantage of her unsettled state, or of the words it might wring from me?" he said.
"No," answered the officer, stepping back, abashed. "No, I would not do anything of the kind, at least deliberately."
But this remonstrance had aroused distrust in the old woman, she drew close to her husband, and whispered to him—
"I cannot quite make it out, Wilcox. The people—the crowd said over and over again that they were taking us to prison. This is no prison! carpets on the floor, chairs, window blinds, all so pretty and snug, with us eating and drinking together. This is no prison, Wilcox, we have not had so nice a home these ten years."
"This is only a room in the prison, not the one they will give me by and bye!" answered the old man with a faint smile, "that will be smaller yet."
"You sayme!" said the wife, holding tight to the hand that clasped hers. "Why do you not say that the room—let it be what it will—is large enough for us both, husband? I say you did not mean that it will not hold your wife too."
The old man turned away from those earnest eyes; he could not bear the look of mingled terror and entreaty that filled them.
"Remember, Wilcox, we have not spent one night apart in thirty years!"
"I know it," answered the old man with quivering lips.
"And now will you let me stay with you?"
"Ask him," said the old man, turning his face away, "ask him!"
She let go her hold of the prisoner's hand with great reluctance, and went up to the officer.
"You heard what he said, you must know what I want. We have lived together a great many years, more than your whole life. We have had trouble—great trouble, but always together. Tell me—can we stay together yet?"
"I do not know," said the man, deeply moved. "Your husband is charged with a crime that requires strict prison rules."
"I know, he is charged with murder! but you see how innocent he is," answered the wife, and all the holy faith, the pure, beautiful love born in her youth and strengthened in her age, kindled over those wrinkled features—"you see how innocent he is!"
The man checked a slight wave of the head, for he would not appear to doubt that old man's innocence, strong as the evidence was against him.
"You will not send me away!" said the old woman, still regarding him with great anxiety.
"I have no power—it is not for me to decide—such things have been done. In minor offences, I have known wives to remain in prison, but never in capital cases that I remember."
"But some one has the power. It is only for a little while—it cannot be for more than a week or two that they will keep him, you know."
"It may be—from my heart I hope so—but I can answer for nothing, I have no power."
"Who has the power?—what can we do?"
It was the young girl who spoke now. The entreaties of her grandmother—the tremulous voice of her grandsire, at length aroused her feelings from the icy stillness that had crept over them. The mist cleared away from her eyes, and though heavy with sleeplessness and grief, they began to kindle with aroused animation.
"No one at present, my poor girl—nothing can be done till after the examination."
Julia had drawn close to her grandmother, and grasped a fold of her faded dress with one hand. The officer could not turn his eyes from her face, so sad, so mournfully beautiful. He was about to utter some vague words of comfort, but while they were on his lips a door from the police-court opened, and a man looked through, saying in a careless, off-hand manner, "bring the old man in."
The court-room was crowded with witnesses ready to be examined, lawyers, eager for employment, and others actuated by curiosity alone, all crowded and jostled together outside the bar. As the prisoner entered, the throng grew denser, pouring in through the open door, and spreading out into the vestibule to the granite pillars, all pressing forward with strained eyes to obtain a view of one feeble old man.
They made a line for him to pass, crushing against each other with their heads thrown back, and staring in the old man's face as if he had been some wild animal, till his thin hand clutched the bar. There he stood as meek as a child, with all those bright, staring eyes bent upon him. A faint crimson flush broke through the wrinkles on his forehead; and his hand stirred upon the railing with a slight shiver, otherwise his gentle composure was unbroken.
The crowd closed up as he passed, but the two females clinging together, breathless and wild with fear, least they should be separated from him, pressed close upon his steps, forcing their way impetuously one moment, and looking helplessly around the next. Still resolutely following the prisoner, they won some little space at each step, not once losing sight of his grey head as it moved through the sea of faces, all turned, as they thought, menacingly upon him. At length they stood close behind the old man, and, unseen by the crowd, clung to his garments with their hands.
The judge bent forward in his leathern easy-chair, and looked in the prisoner's face, not harshly, not even with sternness.Had a lighter offence been charged upon the old man, his face might have borne either of these expressions, but the very magnitude of the charge under investigation gave dignity to the judge, and true dignity is always gentle.
He stooped forward, therefore, not smiling, but kindly in look and voice, informed the prisoner of his right, and cautioned him not to criminate himself ignorantly in any answer he might make to interrogations of the court.
The old man raised his eyes, thanked the judge in a low voice, and waited.
"Your name?"
"I am known in the city as Benjamin Warren, but it is not my real name."
"What is the real name then?"
"I would rather not answer."
The old man spoke mildly, but with great firmness. The judge bent his head. A dozen pens could be heard at the reporters' desk taking down the answer. A hush was on the crowd; every man leaned forward, breathless and listening. Those even in the vestibule kept still while the old man's reply ran among them in whispers.
"Did you know the man who was found dead in your house on the nineteenth of this month?"
"Yes, I knew the man well!"
"Where and when had you met before!"
"I do not wish to answer!"
"Did you see him on the evening of the eighteenth?"
"No!"
"Did evil feeling exist between you?"
The old man turned a shade paler, and his hand shook upon the railing; he hesitated as if at a loss for words which might convey an exact answer.
"I cannot say what his feelings were—but of my own I can speak, having asked this same question of my soul many times. William Leicester had wronged me and mine—but I forgave the wrong; I had no evil feeling against him."
"Were there not high words and angry defiance between you that morning?"
"He was angry—I was not; agitated, alarmed, I was—but not angry."
"Were you alone with him?"
"Yes!"
"How long?"
"Maybe ten minutes!"
"Once more," said the judge; "once more let me remind you that in another court these answers may be used to your prejudice. Now take time, you have no counsel, so take time for reflection before you reply. What business had Leicester with you?—what was the subject of conversation between you?"
The old man bent his forehead to the railing, and thus stood motionless without answering. His own honest sense told him that every question that he refused to answer gave rise to doubt, and kindled some new prejudice against him. His obvious course was silence, or a frank statement of the truth. He raised his head, and addressed the judge gently as he might have consulted with a friend.
"If I have a right to refuse answers to a part of what you ask me, may I not, by the same right, remain silent?"
"There is no law which forces you to answer where a reply will prejudice your cause."
"Will anything I can say help my cause?"
"No!"
"Then I will be silent. But I never lifted my hand against that man—never, so help me God!"
The judge felt this to be a wise conclusion, and a faint gleam of satisfaction came to his lips. The meek dignity of that old men, the beautiful pale face now and then peering out from behind his poverty-stricken garments—the feeble old woman crowding close to his side, all had aroused his sympathy. It was impossible to look on that group and believe any one of those feeble creatures guilty of the blood that had reddenedtheir poverty-stricken hearth, and yet the evidence had been fearfully strong before the coroner's inquest.
Some commotion arose in the crowd after this. Men began to whisper opinions to each other—now and then a rude joke or laugh rose from the vestibule. People began to circulate in and out at the various doors, and during all this several witnesses were examined. These persons had seen a gentleman, well, nay, elegantly dressed, enter the miserable basement occupied by the prisoner and his family, very early on the morning of the nineteenth. One, a person who lived in the front basement, testified to high words, and a sound as if some one had stamped several times on the floor. Then he heard quick footsteps along the entry; saw the stranger an instant in the front area, and then heard him go back again. This excited considerable curiosity in the witness, who opened the door of his own room and looked out. He caught a glimpse of the stranger going, quickly, through the next door, and saw two females.
The old woman and girl now standing behind the prisoner were crouching in the back end of the entry, apparently much frightened, for both were pale; and the old woman wrung her hands while the girl wept bitterly. A little after, perhaps two minutes, this man heard a sound from the next room, as if of some heavy body falling; this was followed by ahushthat made him shiver from head to foot. He went out and saw the two females clinging together, and creeping pale and terror-stricken up to the door, which the old woman tried to open, but could not, her hands shook so violently.
The witness himself turned the latch and looked in, leaning over the females, who, uttering a low cry, stood motionless, blocking up the entrance. He saw the stranger lying upon the floor, stretched back in the agony of a fierce death pang; his teeth were clenched; his eyes wide open; the chin protruded upward; and both hands were groping and clutching at the bare boards.
While the witness looked on, the limbs, half gathered up and strained against the floor, gave way, and settled down likeridges of withered grass. The room was badly lighted, but it seemed to the witness that there was some faint motion, after this a shudder, or it might be a fold of the dead man's clothes settling around him, but except this all signs of life went out from the body.
Then the witness had time to see the other objects in the room. The first thing that his eyes fell upon was the face of old Mr. Warren, the palest, the most deathly face he ever saw on a living man; he was stooping over the corpse, grasping what seemed a handful of snow, stained through and through with blood which he pressed down upon the dead man's side.
The witness grew wild with the terror of this scene. He pushed the two females forward and went in. The prisoner looked up, still pressing his hand upon the dead man; his lips moved, and he tried to speak, but could not. On stooping down, the witness saw that the stained mass clenched in the old man's fingers was one side of a white silk vest, clutched up with masses of fine linen, which the dead man had worn. He also saw a knife lying on the floor wet to the haft. After a minute or so, the prisoner spoke, apparently feeling the body grow stiff under his hand; he turned his head with a piteous look, and whispered—"What can we do?"
The witness stated that his answer was "Nothing—the man is dead!"
Then the old man got up, and went to a bed huddled on the floor in one corner of the room, where his wife and grand-daughter had dropped, when the witness pushed them with unconscious violence from the threshold. He said something in a low voice to the woman, and she answered—
"Oh, Wilcox, tell me that you did not do it!"
The prisoner looked at her—at first he seemed amazed as if some horrid thought had just struck him, then he looked grieved, wounded to the heart. The expression that came upon his face was enough to make one cry, but his voice, when he spoke, was even worse than the look; it seemed choked up with tears, that he could not shed.
"My wife!" he said nothing more, but that was enough to make the old woman cover her face with both hands and sob like a child. Julia, his grandchild, who had been sitting white and still as death till then, lifted her eyes to the old man's face, and you could see them deepen with sorrowful astonishment, as if she too had been suddenly wounded. The look of horror died on her features, leaving them full of tenderness. She arose with the look of an angel, and clasping her hands over the old man's arm, as he stood gazing mournfully upon his wife, pressed her head against his side.
"Grandfather, she did not think it. It was the terror that spoke, not her, not my grandmother!"
The old man would have laid his hand upon her head, but it was crimson and wet. He saw this, and dropped it again.
The dim light, the pale faces, the man stark and dead upon the floor, made the scene too painful even for a strong man. The witness went out and aroused the neighborhood. He did not go back; more courageous men would have shrunk from the scene as he did.
I have given this man's evidence, not in his own words. He was a German, and spoke rude English; but the scene he described was only the more graphic for that. It impressed the judges and the crowd; it gratified that intense love of the horrible that is becoming a passion in the masses, and yet softened it with touches of rude pathos, that also gratified the populace. Here and there you saw a wet eye in the crowd. Men who were strangers to each other, exchanged whispered wishes that the prisoner might be found innocent. The old woman and her grand-daughter became objects of unceasing curiosity. Men pressed forward to get a sight at them. The reporters paused to study their features, and to take an inventory of their poverty-stricken garments.
Other witnesses were called, all testifying to like facts, that served to fasten the appearances of guilt more closely upon that fallen old man. When all had been examined but the grand-daughter, the excitement became intense; the crowd pressedcloser to the bar; those in the vestibule rushed in, filling every corner of the room.
The poor girl moved when her name was pronounced, and with difficulty mounted the step which lifted her white face to a level with the judge. The little hands grasped the railing till every drop of blood was driven from the strained fingers; but for this she must have fallen to the earth, for there was no strength in her limbs, no strength at her heart, save that which one fixed solemn thought gave. There was something deeper than the pallor of fear in those beautiful features—something more sublime than sorrow in the clear violet eyes which she lifted to the magistrate. He saw her lips move, and bent forward to catch the sound of words that she seemed to be uttering,—
"I cannot answer any questions; don't ask me, sir, please don't!"
He caught these words. He saw the look of meek courage that spoke even more forcibly than the tremulous lips. No one saw the look, or heard the voice, but himself, not even the prisoner; for age had somewhat dulled his ear. The face, the look, the gentle bearing of this poor girl, filled the judge with compassion. It is a horrible thing for any law to force evidence from one loving heart that may cast another into the grave. The magistrate had never felt the cruelty so much before. The questions that he should have propounded sunk back upon his heart. It seemed like torturing a lamb with all the flock looking on.
Still, the magistrates of our courts learn hard lessons even of juvenile depravity; not to be suspicious would, in them, be a living miracle. This girl might be prompted by advice, and thus artfully acting as the tool of some lawyer. You would not look in her eyes and believe it, but soft eyes sometimes brood over falsehood that would make you tremble. No one is better aware of this than the acute magistrate; still there is something in pure simplicity that convinces the heart long before the judgment has power to act.
"Who told you not to answer my questions?" he said, in a low voice.
"No one!"
"Then why refuse?"
"Because my grandfather never killed the man, but what I should say, might make it seem as if he did."
"But do you know that is contempt of court—a punishable offence."
"I did not know it!"
"That I have power to make you answer?"
A faint beautiful smile flitted across her face. You might fancy a youthful martyr smiling thus when threatened with death by fire. It disturbed in no degree the humility of her demeanor, but that one gleam of the strength within her satisfied the magistrate.
Not even the reporters had been able to catch a word of the conversation. His dignity was in no way committed. He resolved to waive the cruel power, which would have wrung accusation from that helpless creature unnecessarily; for the evidence that had gone before was quite sufficient to justify a commitment.
"We shall not require the evidence of this young girl," he said, addressing a fellow-magistrate, who had been writing quietly during the proceedings.
"No," answered the magistrate, without checking his pen or raising his head, "what is the use? The story of that German was enough. I should have committed him after that. The poor girl is frightened to death. Let her go!"
"But in the other court, there she will be wanted!"
"True, she must be kept safe. Anybody forthcoming with the bonds?"
"I fear not. It seems hard to keep the poor thing in prison!"
"Like caging a blackbird!" answered the man, racing over the paper with his gold-mounted pen. "Hard, but necessary; bad laws must be kept the same as good ones, my dear fellow! Disgrace to civilization, and all that, but the majesty of the lawmust be maintained, even though it does shut up nice little girls with the offscourings of the earth."
"It goes against my heart!" answered the sitting magistrate with a sigh. "It seems like casting newly fallen snow before a herd of wild animals. I never hated to sign my name so much!"
"Must be done though. You have stretched a point to save her. Just now, the reporters were eyeing you. Another step of leniency, and down comes the press!"
"I shall act rightly according to my own judgment, notwithstanding the press."
"A beautiful sentiment, only don't let those chaps hear it. Would not appreciate the thing at all!"
The sitting magistrate spoke the truth. Never in his life had he signed papers of commitment so reluctantly; but they were made out at length, and handed to the officer. The old man was conducted from the bar one way, and a strange officer took Julia by the hand, forcing her through the crowd in another direction. At first she supposed that they were going with her grandfather. When they were separated in the crowd, she began to struggle; a faint wail broke from her lips, and the officer was compelled to cast his arm around her waist, thus half carrying her through the crowd.
The woman had followed her husband and grandchild mechanically, but when they were separated, the cry that broke from Julia's lips made her turn and rush back; the crowd closed in around her; she cast one wild look after the prisoner, another toward the spot whence the wail came. They both were lost through a door in the dark vistas of the prison. She saw an arm flung wildly up as if beckoning her, and rushed forward, blindly struggling against the crowd. In the press of people, she was hurried forth into the vestibule, and there leaning, in dreary helplessness, against one of the massy stone pillars, she stood looking vaguely around for her husband and child. It was a heart-rending sight, but every day those ponderous walls witness scenes equally mournful.
When souls come freshly from their God,They breathe the very air of Heaven!To children on this earthly sod,Angelic trusts are sometimes given.And like bright spirits wandering throughThe haunted depths of tears and sin,Their gentle words drop down like dew,Where wisdom fails, they charm and win.
When souls come freshly from their God,They breathe the very air of Heaven!To children on this earthly sod,Angelic trusts are sometimes given.And like bright spirits wandering throughThe haunted depths of tears and sin,Their gentle words drop down like dew,Where wisdom fails, they charm and win.
When souls come freshly from their God,They breathe the very air of Heaven!To children on this earthly sod,Angelic trusts are sometimes given.
When souls come freshly from their God,
They breathe the very air of Heaven!
To children on this earthly sod,
Angelic trusts are sometimes given.
And like bright spirits wandering throughThe haunted depths of tears and sin,Their gentle words drop down like dew,Where wisdom fails, they charm and win.
And like bright spirits wandering through
The haunted depths of tears and sin,
Their gentle words drop down like dew,
Where wisdom fails, they charm and win.
It is strange—nay, it is horrible—that so much of barbarism still lingers in the laws and customs of a free land. Without crime or offence of any kind, a person may be taken, here in the city of New York, and confined for months among the most hideous malefactors; his self-respect broken down; his associations brutalized; and all, that the law may be fulfilled. What must that law be which requires oppression, that it may render justice?
In New York, the poor witness—a man who has the misfortune to know anything of a crime before the courts, is himself exactly in the place of a criminal. Like the malefactor, he must give bonds for his prompt appearance on the day of trial, or lacking the influence to obtain these, must himself share the prison of the very felon his evidence will condemn. Strangers thus—sea-faring men, and persons destitute of friends—are often imprisoned for months among the very dregs of humanity; innocent, and yet suffering the severest penalties of guilt.
This injustice, so glaring that a savage would blush to acknowledge it, exists almost unnoticed in a city overrun with benevolent societies, crowded with churches, and inundated with sympathies for the wronged of every nation or city on earth. If ostentatious charity would, for a time, give way to simple justice, New York like all the American cities we know of, would obtain for itself more respect abroad and more real prosperity at home.
It was under this law that Julia Warren, a young creature,just bursting into the first bloom of girlhood, pure, sensitive, and guileless as humanity can be, was dragged like a thief into the city prison. She had known the deepest degradation of poverty, and that is always so closely crowded against crime in cities, that it seems almost impossible to keep the dew upon an innocent nature. But Julia had been guarded in her poverty by principle so firm, by love so holy, that neither the close neighborhood of sin nor the gripe of absolute want had power to stain the sweet bloom of a nature that seemed to fling off evil impressions as the swan casts off waterdrops from its snowy bosom, though its whole form is bathed in them.
This young creature, in all her gentle innocence, without crime, without even the suspicion of a fault, was now the inmate of a prison, the associate of felons, hand-in-hand with guilt of a kind and degree that had never entered even her imagination.
At first, when the officer separated the poor girl from her grandparents, she struggled wildly, shrieked for help, and at last fell to imploring the man, with eyes so wild and eloquence so startling, that he paused in one of the dark corridors leading from the court, and strove to soothe her, supposing that she was terrified by the gloom of the place.
"No, no!" she answered. "It is not that. I did not see that it was dark. I did not look at anything. My grandfather—poor grandma! Let me go with them. I'm not afraid. I don't care for being in prison, only let me stay where they are!"
"Your grandmother is not here!"
"Not here—not here!" answered the poor creature, wildly and aghast. "Then what has become of her? Let me go—let me go, I say. She will die!"
Julia unlocked the hands that she had clasped, flung back the hair from her face, and fled down the corridor so swiftly, that the keeper, taken by surprise, was left far behind. An officer, coming in from the court, seized her by the arm as she was passing him.
"Not so fast, canary bird; not quite so fast. It takes swifter wings than yours to get out of this cage."
Julia looked at the man, breathless with affright.
"What do you hold me for? Why can't I go?" she gasped forth.
"Because you are a prisoner, little one!"
"But I have done nothing!"
"Nobody ever does anything that comes here," said this man, with a contemptuous smile. "Never were so many innocent people crowded together."
As he spoke, the man tightened his hold on her arm, and moved forward, forcing her along with him.
The poor creature winced under the pain of his grasp.
"You hurt my arm," she said, in a low voice.
"Do I?" replied the man, affected by the despondency of her tone. "I did not mean to do that; but it would be difficult to touch a little, delicate thing like you without leaving a mark. Come, don't cry. I did not hurt you on purpose."
"I know it. It is not that," answered the girl, lifting her eyes, from which the big tears were dropping like rain.
"Well, well, go quietly to the women's department. They will not keep you long, unless you have been stealing, or something of that sort."
"Stealing!" faltered the girl, "stealing!" The color flashed into her pale, wet cheeks; a faint, scornful smile quivered over her lips.
The officer from whom she had fled now came up. "Come," he said, with a shade of impatience, "I cannot be kept waiting in this way."
"I am ready!" answered the poor girl, in a voice of utter despondency, while her head dropped upon her bosom. "If I am a prisoner, take me away. But what—what have I done?"
"Never mind; settle that with the court. I am in a hurry, so come along!"
Julia neither expostulated nor attempted to resist.
She gave her hand to the officer, who led her quicklyforward. They threaded the dim, vault-like passage, and paused before a grated door, through which the trembling girl could see dark, squalid figures moving about in the dusky twilight that filled the prison. Two or three faces, haggard and fiend like, were pressed up against the bars. One was that of a negro woman, scarred with many a street brawl, whose inflamed eyes glared wickedly upon the innocent creature whom the laws had sent to be her companion.
"Get back—back with you!" commanded the officer, dashing his keys against the grating. "Your hideous faces frighten the poor thing!"
The faces flitted away, grinning defiance, and sending back a burst of hoarse laughter that made Julia shiver from head to foot. She drew close to the man, clinging to his garments, while he turned the heavy lock and thrust the door half open. The dim vista of a hall, with cells yawning on one side, and filled with gloomy light, through which wild, impish figures wandered restlessly to and fro, or sat motionless against the walls, met Julia's gaze. She shrank back, clinging desperately to her conductor—
"Oh, mercy, mercy! Not here—not here!" she cried, pallid and shivering.
The man raised her firmly in his arms, and passing through the door, set her down. She heard the clank of keys; the shooting of a heavy bolt. She saw the shadow of this, her last friend, fall across the grating; and then, in dreary desolation, she sat down upon a wooden bench, and leaning her cold cheek against the wall, closed her eyes. The tears pressed through those long, dark eyelashes, and rolled, one by one, in heavy drops, over her face. Her arms hung helplessly down; all the energies of her young life seemed utterly prostrated.
The hall was full of women of all ages, and bearing every stamp that vice or sorrow impresses on the countenance. Some, old and hardened in evil, stood aloof looking upon the heart-stricken girl with their stony, pitiless eyes; others, younger, more reckless and fierce in their sympathies, gathered aroundin a crowd, commenting upon her grief, some mockingly, others with a touch of feeling. Black and white, all huddled around the bench she occupied, pouring their hot breath out, till she sickened and grew faint, as if the boughs of a Upas tree were drooping over her.
"She's sick—she's fainting away!" cried one of the women. "Bring some water!"
"No," cried another. "If we had a drop of brandy now. But water, bah!"
"It's the horrors—see how she trembles," exclaimed a third, with a chuckle and a toss of the head.
"No such thing. She's too young—too handsome!"
"Oh, get away! Don't I know the symptoms?" interrupted the first speaker, with a coarse laugh. "Ain't I young—ain't I handsome? Who says no to that? And yet haven't you heard me yell—haven't you heard me rave with the horrors?"
"That was because the doctor prescribes brandy," interposed a sly-looking mulatto woman, folding her arms and turning her head saucily on one side. "When that medicine comes, you are still enough."
This retort was followed by a general laugh, in which the object joined, till the tears rolled down her cheeks.
In the midst of this coarse glee, Julia had fallen like a withered flower, upon the bench. That moment, the huge negress, who had so terrified the poor creature at the grating, plunged out from a cell in the upper end of the hall, and came toward the group with a tin cup full of water in her hand.
Had a fiend come forth on an errand of mercy, it would not have seemed more out of place than that hideous creature under the influence of a kind impulse. She came down the hall as rapidly as her naked feet, hampered by an old pair of slip-shod shoes, could move. The dress hung in rents and festoons of dirty and faded calico around her gaunt limbs, trailing the stone floor on one side, and lifted high above her clumsy ankles on the other.
The women scattered as she approached, giving her a full view of the fainting girl.
"So you've done it among you—smothered her. How dare you? Didn't you see that I took a fancy to her, before she came in? Let her alone. I want a pet, and she's mine."
"Yours!" "Why, it was your face that frightened her to death. There hasn't been a bit of color in her lips since she saw you," answered the woman that had so eagerly recommended brandy, and who kept her place in spite of the formidable negress. "Here, give me the water, and get out of my sight."
The negress pushed this woman roughly aside, and kneeling down by the senseless girl, bathed her forehead with the water. Julia did not stir. Her face continued deathly white; a faint violet tinge lay upon her lips and around her eyes; her little hands fell down to the stone floor; her feet dropped heavily from the bench. This position, more than the still face even, was fearfully like death.
"Call a keeper," cried half a dozen voices, "she is scared to death!"
"The doctor!" urged as many more voices. "It will take a doctor to bring her out of that fit!"
"We won't have a doctor," exclaimed the old negress, stoutly. "He'd call it tremens, and give her brandy or laudanum. I tell you, she isn't one of that sort! Don't believe a drop of the ardent ever touched her lips!"
Again a coarse laugh broke up from among the prisoners.
The negress dashed a handful of water across the poor face over which that laughter floated like the orgies of fiends around a death couch. She rose to one knee, and turned her fierce eyes upon the scoffers.
I have never stained a page in my life with profane language, even when describing a profane person; never have placed the name of God irreverently into the lips of an ideal character. Sooner would I feel an oath burning upon my own soul, than register one where it might familiarize itself to a thousandsouls, surprised into its use by their confidence in the author. Even here, where profanity is the common language of the place, I will risk a feebler description in my own language, rather than for one instant break through the rule of a life. Yet amid language and scenes which I could not force this pen to write, and creatures, most of them, brutalized by vice to a degree that I shrink from describing, this young guileless creature was plunged by the laws of an enlightened people. When she opened her eyes, that scarred, black face, less repulsive from a touch of kindly feeling, but hideous still, was the first object that greeted them.
The woman, as I have said, had risen to one knee. The holy name of God trembled on her coarse lips, prefacing a torrent of abusive expostulation that broke from them in the rudest and most repulsive language.
"You needn't laugh, don't I know better—fifty times better than any of you? Haven't I been here—this is the fifteenth time? Don't I go to my country-seat on Blackwell's Island every summer of my life? How many times have you been there, the best of you, I should like to ask? Twice, three times. Bah! what should you know of life? Stand out of the way. She's beginning to sob. You shan't stifle her again, I promise you. It was the water did it. Which of you could be got out of a fit with water—tell me that? Here, just come one of you and feel her breath, while the tears are in it—sweet as a rose, moist as dew. I tell you, she never tasted anything stronger than bread and milk in her life!"
The woman clenched this truth with an imprecation on herself which made the young girl start up and look wildly around, as if she believed herself encompassed by a band of demons.
"What is the matter? Are you afraid?" said the white prisoner, that had formerly spoken, bending over her.
"Get out of the way," said the negress, with another oath. "It's my pet, I tell you."
The terrible creature, whose very kindness was brutal, reachedforth her arm and attempted to draw Julia to her side, but the poor girl recoiled, shuddering from the touch, and fell upon her knees, covering her ears with both hands.
"Are you afraid ofme? Is that it?" shouted the negress, almost touching the strained fingers with her mouth.
"Yes, yes!" broke from her tremulous lips, and Julia kept her eyes upon the woman in a wild stare. "I am afraid."
"This is gratitude," said the woman, fiercely. "I brought her to, and she looks at me as if I was a mad dog."
Julia cowered under the fiery glance with which these words were accompanied. This only exasperated her hideous friend, and with an angry grip of the teeth, she seized one little hand, forcing it away from the ear, that was on the instant filled with a fresh torrent of curses.
"Oh, don't! Pray, pray. It is dreadful to swear so!"
"Swear! Why, I didn't swear—not a word of it. Have been talking milk and water all the time just for your sake. Leave it all to these ladies, if I haven't!" said the woman, evidently impressed with the truth of her assertion, and appealing, with an air of simple confidence, to her fellow-prisoners: for profanity had become with her a fixed habit, and she was really unconscious of it.
A laugh of derision answered this singular appeal, and a dozen voices gave mocking assurance that there had been a mistake about the matter, saying,
"Oh, no! old Mag never swore in her life."
Tortured by the wild tumult, and driven to the very confines of insanity, Julia could scarcely forbear screaming for help. She started up, avoiding the negress with a desperate spring sidewise, and staggered toward the grated door. It seemed to her impossible to draw a deep breath, in the midst of those wretched beings!
"Mamma, mamma!" said a soft, sweet voice, from one of the cells, and as Julia turned her face, she saw through the narrow iron door-way the head of a child, bending eagerly forward and radiant with joyous surprise.
Julia paused, held forth both her trembling hands, and entered the cell, smiling through her tears as if an angel had called.
The child arose from the floor, for it had been upon its hands and knees, and putting back its golden hair, that broke into waves and curls in spite of neglect, with two soiled and dimpled hands, it gazed upon the intruder in speechless disappointment. Julia saw this, and her heart sank again.
"It was not me you wanted," she said, laying her hand tremblingly on the child's shoulder. "You are sorry that I came?"
"Yes," answered the child, and his soft, brown eyes filled with tears. "I thought it was mamma. It was dark, and I could not see, but it seemed as if you were mamma."
Julia stooped down and kissed the child. In that dim light, it was difficult to say which of those beautiful faces seemed the most angelic.
"But I love you. I am glad to see you," she said, in a voice that made the little boy smile through his tears. He fixed his eyes upon her in a long, earnest gaze, and then nestling close to her side, murmured, "And I love you!"
There was a narrow bed in the cell, and Julia sat down upon it, lifting the child to her knee. In return, she felt a little arm steal around her neck and a warm cheek laid against her own. The innocent nature of the child blended with that of the maiden, as blossoms in a strange atmosphere may be supposed to lean toward each other.
"Do they shut up children in this wicked place? How came you here, darling?"
"I don't know!" answered the child, shaking its beautiful head.
"But did you come alone?"
"Oh, no!Shecame with me."
"Who—your mamma?" questioned Julia, so deeply interested in the child, that for the moment, her own grief was forgotten.
"No, not her. They call her my mamma, but she isn't. Come here, softly, and I will let you see."
He drew Julia to the entrance, and pointed with his finger toward a female, who sat cowering by a stove a little distance up the passage. There was something so picturesque in the bold, Roman outlines of this woman's face, that it riveted Julia's attention. The large head was covered with masses of dull, black hair, gathered up in a loose coil behind, and falling down the cheeks in dishevelled waves. The nose, rising in a haughty and not ungraceful curve; the massive forehead and heavy chin, with a large mouth coral red and full of sensual expression, gave to that head, bending downward with its side-face toward the light, the interest and effect of some old picture, which, without real beauty, haunts the memory like an unforgotten sin.
This woman had evidently received some injury on the forehead, for a scarlet silk handkerchief was knotted across it, the ends mingling behind with the neglected braids of her hair, which, but for it, must have fallen in coils over her neck and shoulders.
Her dress, of blue barége, had once been elegant, if not rich; but in that place, faded and soiled, with the flounces half torn away, and the rents gathered rudely up with pins that she had found upon the stone-floor of her prison, it had a look of peculiar desolation. Every fold bespoke that flash poverty which profligacy makes hideous.
A book with yellow covers, soiled and torn, lay open upon this woman's lap; and with her large, full arms loosely folded on her bosom, she bent over it with a look of gloating interest, that betrayed all the intensity of her evil nature. You could see her black eyes kindle beneath their inky lashes, as she impatiently dashed over a leaf, or was molested in any way by the noise around.
You could not look upon this woman for an instant without feeling the influence which a strong character, even in repose, fixes upon the mind. Powerful intellect and strong passions—the one utterly untrained, the other curbless and fierce—broke through every curve of her sensual person and every line of her face.
As Julia stood in the cell-door, with one arm around the child, this woman chanced to look up, and caught those beautiful eyes fixed so steadily upon her. She returned the glance with a hard, impudent stare, which filled the young creature with alarm, while it served to fascinate her gaze.
The woman seemed enraged that her glance had not made the stranger cower at once. Crushing her book in one hand, she arose and came forward, sweeping her way through the prisoners with that sort of undulating swagger into which vice changes what was originally grace. She came up to Julia with an oath upon her lips, demanding why she had been staring at her so?
Julia did not answer, but shrunk close to the child, who cringed against her, evidently terrified by the menacing attitude and fierce looks that his temerity had provoked.
"Come here, you little wretch," exclaimed the termagant, securing him by the arm, and jerking him fiercely through the cell-door. "How dare you speak to anybody here without leave? Come along, or I'll break every bone in your body."
With a swing of the arm, that sent the child whirling forward in fierce leaps, she landed him at her old seat, and sitting down, crowded the beautiful creature between her and the hot stove, setting one foot, bursting through a white slipper of torn and dirty satin, heavily in his lap to hold him quiet, while she went on with her French novel.
The poor little fellow bent his head, dropped his pretty hands on the floor, each side of him, and sat motionless and meek, like some heavenly cherub crushed beneath the foot of a demon. Once he struggled a little, and made an effort to creep back, for the heat pouring from the huge mass of iron which stood close before him, had become insupportable.
The woman, without lifting her eyes from the book, put her hand down upon his shoulder with a fierce imprecation, and ordered him to be quiet. The poor infant dared not move again, though his face, his neck, and his little arms became scarlet with the heat, and perspiration stood upon his foreheadlike rain, saturating his golden hair, and even his garments. He lifted his soft eyes, full of terror and of entreaty, to the hard face above him, but it was gloating over one of those foul passages with which Eugene Sue has cursed the world, and the innocent creature shrank from the expression as he had cowered from the heat. Tears now crowded into his eyes, and he turned them, with a look of helpless misery, upon the young girl who stood regarding him, with looks of unutterable pity.
Julia Warren could not withstand this look. She was no longer timid; the prison was forgotten now; her very soul went forth in compassion for the one being more helpless than herself, whom she might have the power to protect. She went softly up to the woman, and touched her upon the arm. Compassion gave the young creature that exquisite tact which makes generous impulses so beautiful.
"Please, madam, let the child stay with me a little longer; I will keep him very quiet while you read!"
The meek demeanor, the soft, sweet tone in which this was uttered, fell upon the sense like a handful of freshly gathered violets. The woman had loved pure things once, and this voice started her heart as if a gush of perfumed air had swept through it. She looked up suddenly, and fixing her large, bold eyes upon the girl, seemed wondering alike at her loveliness and courage in thus addressing her.
Julia endured the gaze with gentle forbearance, but she could not keep her eyes from wandering toward the child, who, seizing her dress with one hand, was shrouding his face in the folds.
"How came you here?" demanded the woman, rudely.
"I don't know," was the meek answer.
"Don't know, bah! What have you done?"
"Nothing!"
"Nothing!" repeated the woman, with a sickening sneer; "so you're not a chicken after all; know the ropes, ha! nothing! I never give that answer—despise it—always have the courage to own what I have the courage to act; it's original; I like it.Take my advice, girl, own the truth and shame the—the old gentleman. He's an excellent friend of mine, no doubt, but I love to put the old fellow out of countenance with the truth now and then. The rest of them never do it; not one of them ever committed a crime in their lives—unfortunate, nothing more."
"Will you let me take up the child?" said Julia, with a pleading smile; "see, the heat is killing him!"
The woman glanced sharply at the little creature, half moved her foot, and then pressed it down again, and drew back a little, dragging the child with her; but she resisted the effort which Julia made to release him.
"Not now, the child's mine; I'll make him as wicked as I like myself, but he shan't run wild among the prisoners!"
"Are you really his mother?" said Julia.
"Yes, I am really his mother!" was the mocking reply; "what have you against it?"
"Nothing, nothing—only I should think you would be afraid to have him here!"
"And your mother—she isn't afraid to have you here, I suppose."
"I have no mother!" said Julia, in a tone of sadness, that made itself felt even upon the bad nature of her listener.
"No mother, well don't mourn for that," said the woman, with a touch of passionate feeling. "Thank God for it, if you believe in a God; she won't follow you here with her white, miserable face; she won't starve to keep you from sin—or die—die by inches, I tell you, because all is of no use. You won't see her crowded into a pine coffin, and tumbled into Potter's Field, and feel—feel in the very core of your heart that you have sent her there. Thank God—thank God, I say, miserable girl, that you have no mother!"
The woman had risen as she spoke, her imposing features, her whole form quivering with passion. Tears crowded into her lurid eyes, giving them fire, depth, and expression. She ceased speaking, fell upon the seat again, and, covering her face with the soiled novel, sobbed aloud.
The child, released from the bondage of her foot, stood up, trembling beneath the storm of her words; but when she fell down and began to weep, his lips grew tremulous, his little chest began to heave, and climbing up the stool upon which his mother crouched, he leaned over and kissed her temple.
This angel kiss fell upon her forehead like a drop of dew; she dashed the novel from her face, and flung her arm over the child.
"Look!" she cried, with a fierce sob, turning her dusky and tear-stained face upon the young girl. "He has got a mother; look on her, and then dare to mourn because you have none!"
"But I have a grandfather and grandmother that love me as if I were their own child," said Julia, deeply moved by the fierce anguish thus revealed to her.
"And where are they?"
"My grandfather is here."
"Here! How came it about? What is he charged with?"
Julia's lips grew pale at the word "murder!" Even the woman seemed appalled by the mention of a crime so much more serious than she had expected.
"But you—they do not charge you with murder?" she questioned, in a subdued voice.
"No!" said Julia, innocently. "They charge me with being a witness!"
Once more a torrent of fiery imprecations burst from the lips of that miserable woman—imprecations against a law hideous almost as her own sins. Julia recoiled, aghast, beneath this profane violence. The child dropped down from the stool, and crept to her side, weeping. The woman saw this, and checked herself.
"Then you have really done nothing?"
Julia shook her head and smiled sadly.
"A beautiful country—beautiful laws, that send an innocent child to take lessons in life here, and from women like us. Oh, my dear, it's a great pity you haven't been in the Penitentiaryhalf a dozen times; lots of benevolent people would be ready to reform you at any expense then."
Julia smiled dimly. She did not quite understand what the woman was saying.
"It makes my heart burn to see you here," continued the woman, vehemently; "it's a sin—a wicked shame; but I'll take care of you. There's some good left in me yet. Just get acquainted with that little wretch, and no one else; stay in your cell; the keeper won't let them crowd in upon you. The matron will be here by-and-bye. She'll be a mother to you; she's a Christian—a thorough, cheerful, hard-working Christian. I believe in these things, though I would not own it to every one. Kind, because she can't help it without going against her own nature. I like that woman—there isn't a creature here wicked enough not to like her."
"When shall I see her?" questioned Julia, brightening beneath this first gleam of hope.
"To-morrow morning—perhaps before—I don't know exactly. She's in and out whenever there is good to be done. But come, go into my cell—they haven't given you one yet, I suppose—the whole gang of them are coming this way again."
Julia looked up and saw a crowd of women coming up from the grated door, where they had been drawn by some noise in the outer passage. Terrified by the dread of meeting that horrible old negress again, she grasped the little hand that still held to her garments, and absolutely fled after the woman, who entered the cell where she had first seen the child.
The prisoners were amused by her evident terror, and gathered around the entrance; but as Julia sat down upon the bed, pale and panting with affright, her self-constituted guardian started forward and dashed the iron door in their faces, with a clang that sounded from one hollow corridor to another, like the sudden clang of a bell.
"There," she said, with a smile that for a moment swept away the fierce expression from her face, "I'd like to see one of them bold enough to come within arm's length of that. Myhome's my castle, if it is in a prison. I've been here often enough to know my rights. If the laws won't keep you free from that gang, I will!"
It was wonderful the influence that gentle girl had won over the depraved being who protected her thus. After she entered the cell, no rude or profane word passed the woman's lips. She seemed to have shut out half that was wicked in her own nature when she dashed the iron door against her fellow-prisoners. Her large, black eyes brightened with a sort of rude pleasure as she saw her child creep into Julia's lap, and lay his head on her bosom.
"How naturally you take to one another," she said, letting down the black masses of her hair, and beginning to disentangle the braids with her fingers, as if the pure eyes of her guest had reproached their untidy state. "When I was a little girl, we had plenty of wild roses in a swamp near the house. It is strange, I have not thought of them in ten years; but when I saw you and the child sitting there together, it seemed as if I could reach out my hands and fill them."
Julia did not answer; her eyes were bent on the child, who had ceased to cry, and lay quietly in her arms—so quietly that she could detect a drowsy mist stealing over his eyes. The woman went on threading out her long hair in silence. After awhile Julia, who had been watching the soft, brown eyes of the child as the white lids dropped over them gradually like the closing petals of a flower, looked up with a smile, so pure, so bright, that the woman unconsciously smiled also.
"He is sound asleep," said the young girl, putting back the moist curls from his forehead. "See what a smile, I have been watching it deepen on his face since his eyes began to close."
The woman put back her hair with both hands, and turned her eyes with a sort of stern mournfulness upon the sleeping boy.
"He never goes to sleep on my bosom like that," she said, at last, with a bitter smile, and more bitter tone. "How could he? My heart beats sometimes loud enough to scare myself; I wonder if wild flowers really do blossom over Mount Etna?If they do, why should not my own child rest over my own heart?"
"My grandfather has told me that flowersdogrow around volcanoes," said Julia, with a soft smile, "but it is because the fire never reaches them; if scorched once they would perish!"
"And my heart scorches everything near it. Is that what you mean?" said the woman, with a degree of mildness that was peculiarly impressive in a voice usually so stern and loud.
"When you were angry to-day, he trembled; when you wept he kissed you," answered the gentle girl, looking mildly into the dark face of her companion, whose fierce nature yielded both respect and attention to the moral courage that spoke from those young lips.
"Well, what if I do frighten him? We love that best which we fear most. It is human nature; at any rate it was my nature, and should be my child's," said the woman, striving to cast off the influence of which she was becoming ashamed.
"And did you ever fear any one?"
"Did I everloveany one?" was the answer, given in a voice so deep, so earnest, that it seemed to ring up from the very bottom of a heart where it had been buried for years.
"I hope so, I trust so—do you not love your child?"
The woman dashed back the entire weight of her hair with an impetuous sweep of one hand; then, with the whole Roman contour of her face exposed, she turned a keen look upon the young face lifted so innocently to hers. Long and searching was that look. The shadows of terrible thoughts swept over that face. Some words, it might be of passion, it might be of prayer—for bitterness, grief and repentance, all were blended in that look—trembled unuttered on her lips. Then she suddenly flung up her arms and falling across the bed, cried out in bitter anguish—"Oh, my God!—my God! can I never again be like her?"