coughing from little narrow ones,--now one, now another, now two or
three together, and then a minute's interval of silence in which to
think of it all and wonder who would begin next. One of the young
reprobates above me coughed so grotesquely, like the chopping of wood,
that I named him in my mind the Woodcutter. Now and then I found myself
coughing too, which may have added just a little to the poignant
distress these awfully constant and various sounds occasioned me. They
were good in one way; they made one forget what wretches they were who,
to all appearances, were so rapidly "chopping" their way to a pauper's
graveyard. I did not care about the more matured ruffians so much; but
though the youngest, the boys like Kay, were unquestionably among the
most infamous of my comrades, to hear what cold and hunger and vice had
done for them at fifteen was almost enough to make a man cry; and there
were boys there even younger than these.
At half past two, every one being asleep, or at least lying still, Daddy
came in and counted us,--one, two, three, four, and so on, in a whisper.
Then, finding the pail empty (it was nearly full at half past nine, when
I entered), he considerately went and refilled it, and even took much
trouble in searching for the tin pot which served as a drinking-cup, and
which the last-comer had playfully thrown to the farther end of the
shed. I ought to have mentioned that the pail stood close to my head; so
that I had peculiar opportunities of study as one after another of my
comrades came to the fountain to drink; just as the brutes do in those
books of African travel. The pail refilled, Daddy returned, and was seen
no more till morning.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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