Each man bent over his work as if he were absorbed in it. Rupert,
watching closely, noticed their eyes roved here and there, moving
quickly, sometimes fearfully; like the eyes of an animal ever on the
watch. Sometimes their lips moved, too, though not a sound escaped
them.
They passed into the kitchens—here there was blessed warmth again and
the smell of newly-baked bread—through innumerable corridors and
passages.
They were shown into a cell, A.C. 2061. "Just room enough to die"—as
Despard humorously expressed it.
The cells in which the majority of prisoners were confined were built in
the middle of a square, the floors rising one above the other, all
securely railed off, so that one warder on guard above, could command a
view of every cell in the square.
Rupert felt a sense of relief when they reached the porter’s lodge
again. They had to wait a moment while a gang of convicts marched in
through the courtyard. They were accompanied by warders with loaded
carbines. They had been at work out on the moorlands, quarrying and
farming and digging peat.
"Well, I hope you’re satisfied," Rupert said, when they found themselves
walking along the road towards Princetown. "I felt a beast all the
time. I only wonder the poor brutes didn’t get up and go for us."
"Oh, they’re happy enough," Despard said carelessly. "But, I confess
it’s good to be outside again in the air and the sunshine, and, by gad!
it has given me an appetite. I hope the local hotel can provide us with
something to eat."
They met Marjorie just outside the market-place, and though all she
wanted was a little bread and cheese and a glass of milk, Despard
insisted on ordering a big luncheon and opening a bottle of champagne.
"We want something to take the taste of the granite out of our mouths,"
he laughed.
Rupert’s spirits rose when they started to walk back to Blackthorn Farm.
Marjorie found an opportunity of telling him that she had bought herself
some material for a new dress, and made several purchases for her
wardrobe out of the money he had given her. Her pride and pleasure in
having money to spend made him realise how selfish he had been, and he
again made a solemn vow that when he returned to London he would work
day and night and not spend a penny more than was necessary.
Ruby would help him in that, he knew, and he would no longer have any
shame in appearing before her in his true light.
He had been afraid that when she knew he was a poor man he would lose
her. And but for her he would now be ruined!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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