“How long” he began to ask, and then his voice broke. The emaciated figure before him, the face bleached with the ghastly pallor which a sunless prison gives, the deep sunken eyes looking like coals of fire, eating their way into his brain, the tattered clothing, the long unkempt hair and beard, prematurely whitening, and filled with filth, the fingers grown claw-like and blue, with prison mould, the dull vacant look and the thought that this was Reuben, his brother; these things all filled him with such an unutterable, intolerable pity, that it seemed as if he should lose his head and go wild for very anguish of heart. “I 'spose I'm kinder thin and some changed, so ye didn't know me,” said Reuben, with a feeble smile. “Ye see I've been here a year, and am going into a decline. I sent word home to have father ask Deacon Nash if he wouldn't let me go home to be nussed up by mother. I should get rugged again if I could have a little o' mother's nussin. P'raps ye've come to take me home, Perez?” And a faint gleam of hope came into his face. “Reub, Reub, I didn't know you was here,” groaned Perez, as he put his arm about his brother, and supported his feeble figure. “How come ye here, then?” asked Reuben. “I was going home. I haven't been home since the war. Didn't you know? I heard o' George's being here, and came in to see him, but I didn't think o' you're being here.” “Where have ye been, Perez, all the time? I callated ye must be in jail, somewheres, like all the rest of the soldiers.” “I had no money to get home with. But how came you here, Reub? Who put you here?” “Twas Deacon Nash done it. I tried to start a farm arter the war, and got in debt to Deacon for seed and stock, and there wasn't no crop, and the hard times come. I couldn't pay, and the Deacon sued, and so I lost the farm and had to come here.” “Why didn't father help you? He ain't dead is he?” Almost any misfortune now seemed possible to Perez. “No, he ain't dead, but he ain't got nothin. I spose he's sold out by this time. Sol Gleason had a mortgage on the place.” “How much was your debt, Reub?” “Nineteen pound, seven shilling and six-pence. 'Leastways, the debt was nine pound, and the rest was lawyers', justices' and sheriffs' fees. I callate they'll find them figgers cut into my heart, when I'm dead.” And then he pointed to the sums in charcoal, covering the walls of the cell. “I callated the interest down to how much a minute. I allers liked cipherin, ye know, Perez, and I have a great deal of time here. Ye see, every day, the interest is a penny and twenty-six twenty-sevenths of a farthin. The wall round me gits that much higher and thicker every day.” He stepped closer up to the wall, and pointed to a particular set of figures.