But it was not till afterwards that he learned that the watchers had
lain behind the stone fence, to hear what he and Harriet talked about.
So, he was called up the first time and went. He was summoned to
Penzance, and drove over with Harriet, expecting to return for the time
at least. But he was ordered to proceed the same afternoon to Bodmin,
along with sixteen or seventeen other fellows, farm hands and working
men. He said good-bye to Harriet, who was to be driven back alone across
the moors, to their lonely cottage on the other side.
“I shall be back to-morrow,” he said.
England was still England, and he was not finally afraid.
The train-journey from Penzance to Bodmin with the other men: the fat,
bragging other man: the tall man who felt as Somers did: the change at
the roadside station, with the porters chaffing the men that the
handcuffs were on them. Indeed, it was like being one of a gang of
convicts. The great, prison-like barracks--the disgusting evening meal
of which he could eat nothing--the little terrier-like sergeant of the
regulars, who made them a little encouraging speech: not a bad chap. The
lounging about that barracks yard, prisoners, till bed time: the other
men crowding to the canteen, himself mostly alone. The brief talks with
men who were for a moment curious as to who and what he was. For a
moment only. They were most of them miserable and bitter.
Gaol! It was like gaol. He thought of Oscar Wilde in prison. Night came,
and the beds to be made.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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