Chapter 4

But Margaret Hogarth did not come; a defending counsel finished examination, counsel on the other side again addressed the Court, and again defending counsel. The judge then held the scales, the jury trooped away, the crowd buzzed.

The light in the room seemed to brood to a denser yellow, and anon to grow dim; the stuffed court festered; voices spoke, but low. The King of Terrors was here.

When the jury came, the judge was called, Hogarth stood up, and the clerk of arraigns put a question to the foreman.

The foreman said: “We find the prisoner guilty: but beg to recommend him to the mercy of the Crown”.

“On what grounds?” asked his lordship.

“On the grounds of past good conduct and strong provocation”.

The judge then placed on his head a square of velvet and passed the sentence of the Court.

During the reign of stillness that followed, while the court clock's ticking was still loud, something which was thrown struck Hogarth on the arm, a red rose, black at heart, that had lain on the breast of Rebekah, who, when Hogarth looked round at her, was calmly drawing her mass of cloak about her throat.

XIII

OUT OF THE WORLD

A week later a governor and a chaplain together entered Hogarth's cell with news of his reprieve.

Eight months later he was being trundled in “Black Maria” to Paddington Station amid a Babel of escaped tongues, when, sitting in his pigeonhole, he heard the unknown voice before him cry: “Well, Jim, we're away to the mountain's brow!”

Jim, nothing but a voice, was heard: “Worse luck! I knows Colmoor, and I knows the Scrubs, and I knows Portland; and of the five I say--give me Jedwood. Who's the guy in front o' you?”

“Hi, you in front there, who _are_ yer?” cried the first, pounding.

He was answered by a deep voice, which said:

“I AM WHO I AM”.

“All right, keep yer 'air on, if you've any left! It's the Lawd Chief Justice, mate! 'E says 'e's 'oo 'e are!”

“'Old on! _I_ knows who it is: it's that new-comer, 33. They say he was once a priest--”

But now speech was swallowed up in hubbub, as the van ran battering down a rough street near the station.

Then again Hogarth was whirled into night and space, and, toward morning, after the bumping climb of a van, was bidden to alight on moorland, where he spied, far off, set on a hill, a mighty palace of Romance, all grim, aloof, which was Colmoor.

The next morning while the outdoor gangs were being searched on parade before the exit, Hogarth saw a face which he knew; and “You, Bates”, he said, “I thought you were in Eternity!”

But no: there stood Bates, all capped and arrowed, cropped and neat, not wearing the filthy old scarf of liberty any more.

The neighbor of Hogarth now was a stout man, with black hair, and grey eyes.

He it was who had been--a priest: and in “Black Maria” had given that answer: “I am who I am”.

XIV

THE PRIEST

A year passed, during which John Loveday exhausted the resources of civilization, (1)in seeking Margaret, and (2)in investigating the innocence of Richard.

He had, however, a sprightly, adventurous nerve in the mind, and would pull his velvet sleeves busily up--such was his little way. He began to plot.

About the same time the ex-priest, in that far-off world of Colmoor, said one day to Hogarth: “_You_ won't be here long!”

“You jest,” Hogarth answered; “if I had the chance of escape, I should never take it. I am here by due legal process”.

“Tut, if I say that you will escape, it is not because I am a prophet, but a man of the world, and know what happens in it”.

Converse with this deep, world-wise, and fluent man had now become to Hogarth like manna, or rather a vice, like opium: for in those grey eyes of the cleric was hinted anon the baleful glint of the cobra's.

That day, a Saturday, outdoor gangs were recalled early, to “clean up” for Sunday, and out across the heath rang the great bell, Colmoor being famous for its bell, its tone and great size, larger than even the eight-ton “Mighty Tom” of Christ Church, for though its thickness was only six inches, it weighed, bell and clapper, ten tons, and was seven feet high and seven in diameter.

A busy Saturday afternoon ensued, and whatsoever Hogarth's hand found to do he did it with his might, though his face now seemed all eyes--brown, bloodshot, imperially large, morbidly staring.

He was giving the finishing touches of order to his wooden spoon and salt-cellar, his tin knife, plate, and pint cup for gruel, when a Warder Jennings peeped in with, “No. 76--you are to follow the assistant warder at once”, and Hogarth descended to an ante-room where an official handed him a letter, which had been read and initialed by governor and chaplain.

An event!--a letter in Colmoor, like a shark's fin on the voyages of old sailing ships.

It was from Loveday, and concluded with a reference to Hogarth's “poor old grandmother”.

So Hogarth, who had no “grandmother”, propped his forehead to ponder that thing; and presently said: “Oh, it is a cypher”.

And by noting little peculiarities in the shapes of the letters, a double cross to a t, a q like a g, etc., he soon had “flemecops-leftquary”--which he took to mean: “flee to me in the copse to the left of the quarry”.

He smiled with tenderness at the dear heart planning and daring so very much for him. But in his smile was a touch of disdain also, he not intending to “flee”.

XV

MONSIGNOR

Hogarth's first thought, as getting-up bell clattered réveille through the gallery, was of Loveday's cypher, and by the time the warder came to ask if he would see governor or doctor, a thought of Monsignor O'Hara had somehow mixed itself with the thought of the cypher; when an orderly handed in the day's brown loaf, he was thinking, “Strange that he never told me what he has done”; eating his pint of gruel, he thought: “If I will not escape myself, I might perhaps let another.”

“What!” said O'Hara on the march out, “you still here?”

“Where should I be?” answered Hogarth, dull and sullen.

“Where palaces stand open for you, and bank-notes--have you ever realized something very charming in the Helen pallor of a bank-note, Hogarth? And gold-yellow, sparkling gold! Hogarth, I--_love_ gold! It is a confession--”

“Is it that love which brought you here?” Hogarth asked with his sideward stare.

Whereupon the priest turned a cold gaze upon him--had regarded Hogarth as a well-bred man, or would hardly have conversed with him.

“I had a motive for asking”, said Hogarth, eyeing the face of the prelate--a man of very coarse feature; a small head, made to receive the tonsure, with a low brow; a stern bottom lip, and long upper; a fat neck held majestically erect; and up stuck his double chin. In profile, the part between the sharp edge of the bottom lip and the chin-tip was divided, down near the chin tip, by an angle and crease; and the lower face seemed too massive for the size of the head.

Nothing could be more exquisite than the contrast between his air of force, authority and importance, and the knickerbockers, the coarse cap, the canvas slop-jacket, which he wore.

Outwardly calm, he was yet very excited by that “I had a motive”; he said to himself: “Suppose this man has some plan! He could invent ten, if he only knew it. And suppose he would tell me it, if I make him believe me innocent! It would be like him!”

When the eleven o'clock dinner-bell rang, and they two were again together, O'Hara said: “Hogarth, I have for some time been intending to give you my story. Have I in your eyes the air of a guilty man?”

“God knows,” answered Hogarth, with a shrug; “you talk nicely, and you know much”.

“So much for the hollowness of friendship!”

“Don't be sentimental”, said Hogarth: “I never pretended to be any friend of yours; but I do respect your talents, do pity your misery: and if I knew the solid facts of, as you have said, your 'innocence', I might--”

“_What_?” whispered O'Hara with a thievish, fierce glance.

“Help you”.

“_In God's truth?_”

“I might”.

O'Hara said: “I don't find it so cold as it was this morning. You must have observed a certain peculiarity of moorland climates--the same being true of the Roman Campagna, and of Irish peat-lands--that they are colder than elsewhere in the absence of the sun, and warmer in its presence. This afternoon--_I will tell you_--”

They had reached the great gates, and were marched to parade-ground for the second of the four daily searches; then, after three ounces of fat mutton and forty minutes' rest, the third search, the second march-out.

And immediately beyond the gates O'Hara began: “In order to paint you my life, Hogarth, I must give you at once to understand what has been its mainspring and secret: my passion for my Church--”

He paused, while his lips moved in prayer, and he crossed himself.

“From boyhood my dream was to see my Church supreme in the warfare of the world, I being a King's College and Maynooth man, at twenty-three was Senior Chancellor's Medallist, and seven years later, sent to Rome was quickly received into the Vatican household. It was recognized that I had a future: both gifts and graces; piety; a versatile tongue; a powerful voice; some learning; could dine, I could look august; above all, I knew my man and could talk him over. My great day came when, one morning, in St. Gregory the Great on Mount Coelius, I was consecrated Bishop Coadjutor to his Eminence the Archbishop of Westminster. Now I was on the heights. My life during the next ten years was a life of bustling action--and was led always with one unselfish object. No man ever spoke a greater number of words than I, Hogarth. I have breakfasted with the Prime Minister, lunched with a President of the Conference, and dined with the Bishop of London: between the three meals I have written a hundred letters and pitched into ten cabs. Such a life is very exhilarating, in comparison, for example, with quarrying. Oh, my God what am I fallen! Most of that time I was running over Europe: from Madrid to Vienna, from Rouen to Rome. It happened that the Archbishop of Paris was organizing a scheme of Church-workhouses in France, in the absence of municipal ones, such as we have here.... Well, it was a grand thing, but was falling through for lack of funds: so I, on my way to Rome, undertook the mission to plead the cause before his Holiness, and succeeded to this extent that, on my return, I had with me a casket from the good old man containing seven diamonds, which I might either dispose of personally, or hand over to the Paris fund. Now, it was during my stay at Rome that that series of events, culminating in the Jewish exodus from Europe, occurred; and on my journey home I was seized with the mighty thought that, since many of the Jews were perishing of want, _that_ was the moment to reach their spirit through the body, and add their race to the trophies of the Church. Was it not a thought? You yourself, who are a Jew--”

Hogarth's eyes opened in surprise.”_I_ am not a Jew “.

“No? I should have said that there was a hint of expression somewhere--But to resume. I retained those seven diamonds, and disposed of them”.

“Honest behaviour!”

“Perfectly honest! I acquainted the Pope--he sanctioned it! And now, I, single-handed almost, threw myself into that task. I hired, I built, I begged, I borrowed, I formed committees, I haunted Religious Houses, I sweated, I ran, I wept, I visited dens, I smoked opium, I drank gin, I framed memorials, I learned Yiddish, I read the Mishna and Gemara, I interviewed Rabbonim, I wrote tracts: I was busy. In the midst of it, I had to visit Rome ceremoniously, to assist at an interview between the Duke of York and his Holiness--arrived on the Monday, and on the Wednesday, I remember, attended a Court Ball in the suite of his Royal Highness. That night, when I returned to the Vatican, I found all the Piazza di San Pietro crowded. I do not know if you were free at the time when my friend, M. Tissot, startled everybody by predicting the collision of an asteroid with the earth? Tut, the silly being--he should have known from the body's response to the spectroscope that its condition was too friable to resist our atmosphere. But I never yet knew an astronomer not imbued with sensationalism they acquire a certain megalomania from their intercourse with space. But, at all events, the people, dreading the destruction of everything, had crowded toward the Vatican. The Duke of Genoa, I, and some of the College of Cardinals, stood watching from a balcony; and very imposing, I remember, was the moment when a glare appeared--I must stop--”

They were at the face of the rock, and the “halt” and “set to work” parted them.

But again on the final march back at 5.15 when nightshades were falling fast like snow, and the arm now felt the pick a load, O'Hara began his muttering:

“I was telling you about the asteroid”, he said. “Now this body, it was given out, contained diamonds in large evidence, and the mere thought of such a thing bursting in mid-air, and scattering itself about was, I--I confess, a little fascinating to my mind. A man might let his soul gloat upon such a hope till he went lunatic with lust! I--I confess, the thought was alluring to me. Diamond, my son: lucid--But when the body burst, and none of it came my way, I drove it from my mind: in fact, I never heard of a trace of it having been seen--hissed itself into gases in mid-air. Except in one instance--one instance.

“When I reached Calais on my homeward way, stopped there a day, awaiting the coming of Rouen, for whom I had nuncio communications, and in the evening went to visit a cottage where I had once been a great favourite with an old fellow called Santé-you know those Calais fishers, with painted sabots, and ochred trousers. And 'What!' said I to Santé, 'the nets already spread at this hour?' 'Nothing to be done to-day, my Father', he answered, and explained that he had attempted to pick up a stone before his door, and--it had burned him: he showed it me: it had the appearance of a piece of ferruginous rock, stuck with pieces of dirty glass; and it had burned Santé on the midnight of the asteroid's scattering.

“Imagine my excitement: 'The asteroid', I thought, 'may add fifty thousand Jews to the Church'. I asked Santé for the stone--Do you blame me?”

“Go on,” said Hogarth.

“That day two months I had the diamonds lying polished in a casket in my house. My evil destiny, Hogarth, ordained that the casket was the one given me for Paris by the Pope, the number of the new diamonds the same--seven: and one day, about that time, the Vatican organ, the _Osservatore Romano_, published a dreadful article, hinting that I had applied to my own purposes seven diamonds entrusted me for Paris: the Pope, just dead, must have left some record of his gift. My friend, before I had heard a whisper of the attack upon me, the casket, whose lid was mosaicked with the Papal fanon, was secretly searched by a secretary in my house: the seven diamonds were seen.

“Imagine the horror of what followed: I was abandoned by all--superior and inferior; the story of the meteor was received with sneers. The scandal reached the public papers--the public prosecutor. And here now is the wretch, Patrick O'Hara.”

The latter part of this narrative was fiction! The Pope's diamonds O'Hara had duly handed to the Archbishop! and though there was such a man as Santé, no asteroid had ever fallen at his door. In fact, O'Hara was “serving time” for an assault upon a lady in a railway compartment between Whitchurch and Salisbury.

But Hogarth spent that night in meditating the pros and cons as to O'Hara's escaping; and, in a moment of destiny, said at last: “If he is undeservedly doomed--” and swooned to sleep.

The very next day was foggy....

On the march out O'Hara said: “Here is something like a fog. On the Carinthian Alps, where you have dense woolly fogs, there is a race of goats, which--”

“Would you like to escape?” whispered Hogarth.

“_Who?_”

“You”.

“Hogarth--! My God--!”

A trembling seized the priest's leathery left cheek, he at that instant seeing a vision of the world--Andalusian wines, hued ices, the opera-house, and great greyhounds of the sea, and a snuff which his gross nose loved at Gorey.

“Hogarth, you are not mocking me?” chattered the priest's jaws, hurrying like a jarred spring.

“I am quite serious. You will have to run for it though”.

“_Run!_ I am not such a young man! Have pity Hogarth”.

“Bah! Be a man”.

The priest approached his mouth to Hogarth's ear: “_I should die of fright!_ My heart--”

“What would it matter? I thought you had more beans”.

“But have you--a plan?”

“Yes. You must run to the copse--”

“I shall be shot!”

“Probably”.

“I _could_ not--”

“Then, do not”.

“Tell me, boy! Tell me, Hogarth...”

“Within the copse to the left of the quarry there is almost certainly at this moment waiting a man who, as soon as you pronounce my name, will help you--”

“You say _almost_ certainly”.

“I can't see him, O'Hara. But I should say he is there on a morning like this”.

“_What_ a risk! _What_ a risk!” went the priest with lifted eyelids each time.

“You cannot escape from prison without risk. But I, personally, would venture upon ten times as much, if I thought it becoming. There is, however, another risk: that you may not strike the part of the copse where he is. But near the 1 middle it is high--”

“Why, it is nothing but risks!” whined O'Hara with opening arms.

“You are not bound to try it. By the way--can you swim?”

“Yes--I suppose so--yes”.

“Then lift yourself to it, and risk it. I should, if I were you. Think of liberty, activity. Prick your spirit, grip at it, and spring it”.

“Do you think I shall be shot?”

“No! It does not matter! Crush your doubts, martyr yourself to your aim, and your aim will give you the crown of martyrdom”.

“Well--God reward you--I will think of it--”

“_Do_ it!”

“I will!”

“In that case, don't trust to your own eyes--_I_ will give you the signal with my handkerchief--so: you keep your eyes fixed on me. Then run, zigzagging. And tell Loveday for me to look after you, and not make any more plans for me. Good-bye, O'Hara! All this is very unselfish of me, for I lose my old talky-talky O'Hara--”

They parted at the rock, and set to work.

As minutes, half-hours passed, the condition of O'Hara became piteous, hideous. His knees knocked together. Like death he dreaded, like life awaited, that signal. He said to himself: “This Hogarth will be my ruin...God deal not with me after my sins...!”

Hogarth was waiting that the warders' morning watchfulness might yield to the influence of use and time; but near nine, when the morning fog showed signs of thinning, he approached the water-can to ask for a drink, O'Hara being then two yards from him, wheeling a barrow.

As he stooped to the water, his huge stare ranged the moor, took in the truth of it, and, after waiting ten, fifteen seconds, he upset the can. As two officers, at the outcry, ran toward the spot, Hogarth, his eyes fixed upon them, waited--and all at once, with a flourish, drew his handkerchief.

O'Hara, with a heavy but impassioned run, was away...

He had not run five yards when a chorus of whistles was shrilling.

And quick, that monotony reels into a very frenzy of sensation: it is no more the same world, the same men. Lo, in the Palace of Continuity is an Event.

33 was off.

Five hundred pairs of eyes lit up, and the flurried warders ran in random dismay to see to it! How if all the five hundred should do the like, simultaneously?--a possibility underlying, through all its breadth, the little social “system” which has produced Colmoor.

But the five hundred, exhorted, stamped at, shouted at, remained quiet, though restive, only the wild eye showing the wild thought, while two of the warders pursued O'Hara who had also to run the blockade of two pickets of the civil guard.

The escaping convict, however, has this advantage: that his mind is strung to a far higher pitch than his pursuers'; and, given a certain ecstasy, everything can be accomplished.

So O'Hara separately dodged the two pickets, and was making bolt for the copse before three rifles, aimed at a large vague ghost, rang out, and did not hit. He plunged madly into the brambly bush.

Immediately a bleating like a child's trumpet was heard from its midst; and in a few seconds, not one, but _four_, men were seen to rush toward the river, all in convict knickerbockers, stockings, caps, all in black overcoats: and one carried a bundle.

Beyond the river one was shot in the leg--a black sailor, who, with two roughs, had undertaken the risk for lucre. The rest escaped.

XVI

THE ROPE

Soon after this Hogarth was taken with vomitings, his heart retching at Colmoor. His dark cheeks jaundiced; those mobile nostrils of his small bony nose yawned, like an exhausted horse's; his face was all a light of eyes.

Whether or not some suspicion of his complicity with O'Hara had occurred to the authorities, he now found himself transferred to another “graft”: from quarrying was set to trenching.

Four things are inexhaustible in the earth: the hope of a gambler; the sea; the lip of a lover; and the capacity of Colmoor to be trenched and quarried.

And in Hogarth's new gang was--Fred Bates.

One day, Hogarth, intent upon his work, heard a sob and, glancing, saw that Bates had dropped his spade and buried his face in his hands.

“What, Fred, not giving in?” He went quickly and pressed his palm on Bates' brow, saying: “Patience! Stiffen your back: look how _I_ slip into it!”

“Ah, Hogarth, you don't know. I am an innocent man”.

“So am I.”

“Yes, but _I_ was certain in my own mind to be out within anyway, six months; _you_ wasn't. That makes a difference, don't it? That touches the nerve, don't it? Ah!”

“And how did you expect to be out?”

“I had a brother-Bob-in the 9th Lancers in Punjab and his regiment was ordered home just a week before I was arrested. Well, the morning after the missus was killed, I went early--for I knew I'd soon be arrested--to a stableman at Beccles--you know old Harris--and I made him swear to give a letter to Bob the moment Bob put foot in Southampton, and to nobody else. In the letter I told Bob where he was to look for so-and-so, and how he was to prove my innocence--”

“But I don't understand a word of what you are saying”, interrupted Hogarth.

“I'll tell you. I did not kill my Kit. The burn on her face, and on my hand, wasn't any red-hot poker. Did you ever hear such bosh? Look here, you mind, don't you, the talk that week about the world getting blowed up by some comet? Well, about 3 P.M. on the comet day, as I was walking home through Lagden Dip, an old gent, the same as took the farm over after you, he comes up to me, and he says: 'If you should happen to see anywhere in your travels', sez 'e, laughin' and rubbin' his hands, 'a piece of hot iron after eleven to-night, you bring it to me, and I'll put a cheque for One Thousand Pounds there in the middle of your palm'. Well--I said it was a Wednesday, didn't I? And Wednesday bein' the pay-day on the Eastern, me and the missus had a drop o' beer that afternoon, and you know 'ow you come and catched me a-paying of her--dirty dog that I was those days. But, Hogarth, you hadn't hardly gone when we made it up between us, and the rest of that evening we was just like--well--two bloomin', cooin' doves! kissin', blubblin', havin' drinks, and doin' our week's shoppin' together. Well--stop, here's Black--”

They were interrupted, and for two days found no other chance.

Two days during which Hogarth received another letter from Loveday, of which one paragraph was as follows: “The fifteen pounds which you left in Lloyd's Bank I have managed to withdraw for you on the authority of your aunt, Miss Sarah Hogarth”, and at once he scented a cypher, having no fifteen pounds, and no aunt.