Chapter 12

THE OLD PRISONER.

In America again. Yes, fate has swept most of the characters of our story across the ocean; but one remains behind to whom the kind heart must turn with more solemn interest than the young, the beautiful, or the lordly can inspire.

No changes had fallen upon that bleak, gloomy prison, whose very shadow, as it lay across the dusty road, streamed out like a pall. Human crime brings human misery, and that, crowded together and stifled under the heel of the law, is a terrible, most terrible thing.

In the midst of this desolation, that old woman had lived and suffered fourteen years, without a complaint, without once asking for the freedom, which would have been so sweet to her, even of her God. She had sinned deeply--how far, she and the Almighty, who knows all things, alone could tell; but she had borne her punishment with much humility; in her quiet way, had made her presence in that dreary place a blessing to those more wretched than herself.

During that long, weary time many a poor prisoner had felt the comfort of her presence near her sick couch and her grave. Kind looks had cheered other desponding souls when words of compassion were forbidden to her lips.

One day this woman sat at her task sewing on some heavy prison garments. A skein of coarse thread hung about her neck, and a steel thimble was upon her long, slender finger, where it had worn a ring about the nail with incessant use.

She did not look up when the matron entered the room, but worked on, with steady purpose, not caring to see that strange gentleman who came in with the matron, and stood looking kindly upon her.

"Mrs. Yates."

The old woman lifted her head with a suddenness that almost shook the iron spectacles from her face. Her eyes encountered those of the gentleman, and she stood up meekly, like a school-girl aroused from her task, and remained, with her eyes bent on the floor, waiting for the man to pass on. He did not move, however, but stood gazing upon her snow-white hair, her thin old face, and the gentle stoop that had, at last, bent her shoulders a little, with infinite compassion in his face.

"Mrs. Yates, why do you stand so motionless? How is it that your eyes turn so steadily to the floor?"

The old woman lifted her eyes slowly to that calm, thin face. She did not know it, had never seen it before in her life; but it was so seldom any one spoke to her, that a soft glow of comfort stole to her heart as she looked, and two great tears rolled from under her spectacles. Then she remembered that he had asked something.

"In prison, here, we get a down look," she said, with pathetic simplicity.

"But you will look in my face now."

She did gaze at him earnestly; but shook her head and dropped her eyes, for the force of habit was still upon her.

"I do not know you," she murmured.

"Did you then expect some friend?" asked the gentleman.

"I have no friends," was the sad reply.

"Does no one come to see you?"

"Years ago my son used to come and his wife, too; but they are both dead."

"Poor woman!"

She looked up again with a glance of earnest surprise. She was so unused to pity that the compassionate voice brought a dry sob to her throat.

"Are you content here? Tell me."

"Yes, I am content."

Her voice was low, but inexpressibly mournful.

"I know the crime for which you were committed," said the gentleman, "and have read the case over. Tell me, were you guilty?"

The old woman lifted her eyes slowly, and replied:

"Yes, I was a guilty woman."

"But were you, before God, guilty of murder?"

She met his eyes steadily. He saw a quiver of pain sweep over her features, and the thin lips began to stir.

"He is dead, my innocent, my honest son. Nothing can harm him now. I have not suffered in vain. Before God I was not guilty of murder, but terribly guilty in taking this crime on myself: but it was to save him, and I cannot repent, I cannot repent, and in that lies double guilt!"

The stranger searched her features keenly as she spoke. Perhaps he was prepared for this answer; but the light that came over his face was full of compassion.

"Have you done with me?" questioned the old woman, in the meek, sad voice that had become habitual to her. "Perhaps you will not believe me; but God knows!"

The man turned from her and stepped into the matron's room.

The old woman sat down upon the bench from which she had arisen, took the coarse needle from the bosom of her dress, where she had fastened it when spoken to, and threaded it again; but her hand shook a little, and the thread baffled her confused vision. Then the strange gentleman came back again, smiling, and with moisture in his eyes.

"My good woman," he said, "put up your work. You did not know it, but I am the Governor of New York, and your pardon has just gone to the warden."

The needle dropped from one quivering old hand--a thread fell from its companion.

"Pardon for me!"

Her lips were white, and the words trembled from them one by one. She did not comprehend that this man had given her back to the world.

"It is true," said the matron, weeping the glad, sweet tears of a benevolent heart, "His Excellency has pardoned you. This very hour you are free to leave the prison."

"God help me! Oh! God help me!" cried the poor old woman, looking around at her rude work and seating herself among it. "Where can I go?"

The Governor took some money from his pocket and laid it in her lap. Then he went hastily from the room.

The matron sat down upon the bench, and clasped the withered hand in hers.

"Have you no friend?"

"None."

"No duties left undone?"

The old woman drew herself up. Duties last longer than friends. Yes, she had duties, and God had taken the shackles from her limbs that she might perform them. Freedom was before her and an object. She arose gently and looked around a little wildly.

"I will go now."

The matron went out and returned with a bundle of clothes and a black bonnet upon which was some rusty crape; a huge, old-fashioned thing that framed in her silver-white hair like a pent-house. The very shape and fashion of this bonnet was pathetic--it spoke of so long ago. The black dress and soft shawl with which she had come to the prison were a little moth-eaten, but not much, for they had been carefully hoarded; but the poor old woman looked with a sigh on her prison-dress as it fell to the floor, and wept bitterly before she went out, as if that gloomy mass of stones had been a pleasant home to her.

Slowly, and with a downcast look, the old woman went out of the prison, up through the rugged quarries, where a gang of men were at work, dragging their weary limbs from stone to stone, with the listless, haggard effort of forced labor. Some of these men looked up, as she passed them, and watched her with bitter envy.

"There goes a pardon," they said to each other; "and that old woman with one foot in the grave, while we are young and strong! Freedom would be everything to us; but what good will it do to her?"

So the poor old prisoner passed on, sadly bewildered and afraid, like a homeless child, but thanking God for a mercy she could not yet realize.

There was one place to which she must go. It might be empty and desolate, but there her son had died, and she had seen the roof of his dwelling from the graveyard when they let her come out from prison to see him buried.

She knew the road, for her path led to the grave first, and after that she could find the way, for every step, so far, had been marked by a pang, to which her heart was answering back now.

At sunset, that day, some workmen, passing the village burying-place, saw an old woman sitting by a grave that had been almost forgotten in the neighborhood.

She was looking dreary and forlorn in the damp enclosure, for clouds were drifting low in the sky, and a cold rain was beginning to fall; but they did not know that this poor woman had a home-feeling by that grave, even with the rain falling, which belonged to no other place on earth.

A little later, when the gray darkness was creeping on, this same tall figure might have been discovered moving through the rough cedar pillars of the Yates cottage. There was no light in the house, for no human soul lived beneath its roof; but a door was so lightly fastened that she got it open with some effort, and entered what seemed to her like the kitchen; for the last tenant had left some kindling-wood in the fireplace, and two or three worn-out cooking utensils stood near the hearth, where they were beginning to rust.

When she left the prison, the matron had, with many kind words, thrust a parcel into the old woman's hand. Knowing her helplessness, she had provided food for a meal or two, and to this had added some matches and candles.

In the gray light which came through one of the windows, she untied this parcel and found the candles. It seemed to the forlorn creature as if a merciful God had sent them directly to her, and she fell upon her knees, thanking Him. The light which she struck gave her the first gleam of hope that her freedom had yet brought. She was at liberty to build a fire on that dark hearth, and to sit there just as long as she pleased, enjoying its warmth. The rain that began to rattle down on the low roof made her shelter more pleasant. She began to realize that even in such desolation liberty was sweet.

She built a fire with the dry wood, and its blaze soon filled the kitchen with a golden glow. Her garments were wet, and a soft steam arose from them as she sat, enveloping her in a gray cloud. The loneliness might have been terrible to another person, but she had been so long accustomed to the darkness and gloom of a prison cell, that this illuminated space seemed broad as the universe to her.

After her clothes were dry, the old woman lighted her candle and began to examine the house. The parlor was almost empty, and a gust of wind took her candle as she opened the door, flaring back the flame into her face. The wind came from a broken pane of glass in the oriel window, through which a branch of ivy, and the long tendril of a Virginia creeper had penetrated, and woven themselves in a garland along the wall. A wren had followed the creeping greenness and built her nest in the cornice, from which she flew frightened, when a light entered the room.

The old woman went out disappointed. The thing she sought was not there; perhaps it had been utterly destroyed. The man who had promised to keep it sacred, lay sleeping up yonder in the graveyard. How could she expect strangers to take up his trust? But if the object she sought could not be found, what was the use of liberty to her. The one aim of her life would be extinguished. She took up the candle and mounted a flight of narrow stairs which led to the chambers.

They were all empty except one small room, where she found an iron bedstead, on which some old quilts and refuse blankets were heaped. Behind this bed, pressed into a corner, was an old chair, covered with dust.

When she saw this, the light shook in her hand. She sat down upon the bedstead, and reaching the candle out, examined the old chair, through its veil of cobwebs. It was the same. How well she remembered that night when her own hands had put on that green cover.

The chair was broken. One of its castors dropped to the floor as Mrs. Yates drew it from the corner, and the carved wood-work came off in her hand; the cushion was stained and torn in places, but this dilapidation she knew had not reached her secret.

She took the chair in her arms and carried it down to the kitchen. Some of the brass nails dropped loose on the stairs, but she took no heed of them. All she wanted was some instrument with which she could turn the ricketty thing into a complete wreck. In the drawer of a broken kitchen table she found an old knife, with the blade half ground away. This she whetted to an edge on the hearth, and directly the little brass nails flew right and left, a mass of twisted fringe lay on the hearth, when the old woman stood in a cloud of dust, holding the torn rep in her hand. It dropped in a heap with the fringe, then the inner lining was torn away, handsful of hair were pulled out from among the springs, and that casket with a package of papers rustled and shook in the old woman's hands.

Mrs. Yates trembled from head to foot. It was many long years since she had touched heavy work like that, and it shocked her whole frame.

The dull monotony of sewing upon prison garments had undermined all her great natural strength. She sat there panting for breath, and white to the lips. The excitement had been too much for this poor prison woman.

She sat like a dazed creature, looking down into the casket which lay open in her lap, with ten thousand rainbow fires leaping out of it, as the blaze in the chimney quivered and danced and blazed over the diamonds. That morning the old woman had crept out of prison in her moth-eaten garments, and a little charity money in her bosom. Now a fortune blazed up from her lap.

There was money, too, a purse heavy with sovereigns, dropped there from the gold contained in that malachite box, from which all her awful sorrows had sprung. She gathered up these things in the skirt of her dress and sat brooding over them a long time, while the fire rose and crackled, and shed warm floods of light all around her, and the rain poured down in torrents. She was completely worn out at last, and thought itself became a burden; then her head fell back upon the ruined cushions of the chair, which held her in a half-sitting position, as the heaviest sleep that ever came to mortal eyes fell upon her.

Still the rain poured down continually upon the roof and overran the gutters in torrents. Up from the darkness of a hollow near by, the rush and roar of a stream, swollen into a torrent, came through the beating storm like a heavy bass voice pouring its low thunders through a strain of music. The great elm tree at the end of the house tossed its streaming branches, and beat them upon the roof, till a host of warriors seemed breaking their way through, while the old vines were seized by the wind and ripped from the sides of the house, as the storm seizes upon the cords of a vessel, and tears them up into a net work of tangled floss.

The old woman who had left her stone cell in the prison for the first time in fourteen years, heard nothing of this, but lay half upon the floor half on the broken chair, with the broad blaze of the fire flashing over her white hair, and kindling up the diamonds in her lap to a bed of living coals. She was perfectly safe with those treasures, even in that lonely house, for in the pouring rain no human being was likely to go about from his own free will. But one poor fellow, whose child was desperately sick, did pass the house, and saw the blaze of a fire breaking through a window, where the shutters were dashing to and fro on their hinges, and found breath to say, as he sped on in search of a doctor:

"So the cedar cottage has got another tenant at last. I wonder who it is?"

When the man went by to his work, the next morning, he saw the shutters swaying to and fro yet, and wondering at it, went into the enclosure, in hopes of meeting some of the new inmates; but everything was still, the doors were fastened, and through the kitchen window he saw nothing but a heap of ashes on the hearth, and an old chair, torn to pieces, standing before it.