Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century -- Fiction
“Your reverence is a witch--you can see in the dark--look here, sir!”
and he flung a dirty ledger on the table. “Here's all the money, sir. He
did not get a farthing of it. I flattered the creature's pride, and
he dropped the cheese into my hand like the old carrion crow when they
asked him for one of his charming songs. But he had no notion it was
going out of the jail; so you'll bring it in and give it me back the
first thing to-morrow, sir. I must run back, time's up!--Good-night,
your reverence. Am I on your side or whose?”
“Good-night, my fine fellow; you shan't be turned out of the jail now.
Good-night.”
He wanted him gone. He went to a drawer and took out his own book, a
copy of Hawes's public log-book, which he had made as soon as he
came into the jail, with the simple view of guiding himself by the
respectable precedents he innocently expected to find there. He lighted
candles, placed his sheets by the side of Fry's well-thumbed ledger, and
plunged into a comparison.
It was as he expected. On one side lay the bare, simple, brutal truth
in Fry's hand, on the other the same set of facts colored, molded and
cooked in every imaginable way to bear inspection, with occasional
suppressions where the deed and consequences were too frightful to bear
coloring, molding, extenuating or cooking.
The book was a thick quarto, containing a strict record of the prison
for four years; two years of Captain O'Connor, and two of Hawes, the
worthy who had supplanted him.
Mr. Eden was a rapid penman; he set to, and by half-past eleven
o'clock he had copied the first part; for under O'Connor there were
comparatively few punishments. Then he attacked Hawes's reign. Sheet
after sheet was filled and numbered. He threw them on another table as
each was filled. Three o'clock; still he wrote with all his might. Four
o'clock; black spots danced before his eyes, and his fingers ached, and
his brow burned, and his feet were ice. Still the light, indefatigable
pen galloped along the paper. Meantime the writer's feelings were of
the most mixed and extraordinary character. Often his eye flashed with
triumph, as Fry exposed the dishonesty and utter mendacity of Hawes.
Oftener still it dilated with horror at the frightful nature of the very
revelations. At six o'clock Fry's record was all copied out.
Mr. Eden shaved and took his bath, and ran into the town. He knocked up
a solicitor, with whom he was acquainted.
“I want you to make my will, while your son attests this copy of this
ledger.”
“But my son is in bed.”
“Well! he can read in bed. Which is his room?”
“That one.”--Rap! (Come in.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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