The Revolution in Tanner's LaneWhite, William Hale
General
The Revolution in Tanner's Lane
White, William Hale
England -- Fiction; Religious fiction
“Let’s see, what’s your name?” said the warder. Then it suddenly struck
him that he had been fool enough, in the excitement of entering the
prison, to sign his real name in the book. There was no help for it now,
and he repeated that it was Coleman.
“Ah yes, Coleman,” echoed the man, in a manner which was significant.
“Who is the other visitor?” said Zachariah.
“It is his daughter.”
His first thought was to ask to be let in, but his next was, that it
would be profanity to disturb the intercourse of father and child, and he
was silent. However, he had been announced, and Caillaud appeared at the
grating begging permission for his friend to enter. It was at first
refused; but presently something seemed to strike the jailer, for he
relented with a smile.
“You won’t want to come again?” he observed interrogatively.
“No; that is to say, I think not.”
“No; that is to say, I think not,” he repeated slowly, word for word,
adding, “I shall have to stay with you while you are together.”
Zachariah entered, the warder locking the door behind him, and seating
himself on the edge of the bedstead, where he remained during the whole
of the interview, jingling his keys and perfectly unmoved.
The three friends spoke not a word for nearly five minutes. Zachariah
was never suddenly equal to any occasion which made any great demands
upon him. It often made him miserable that it was so. Here he was, in
the presence of one whom he had so much loved, and who was about to leave
him for ever, and he had nothing to say. That could have been endured
could he but have _felt_ and showed his feeling, could he but have cast
himself upon his neck and wept over him, but he was numbed and apparently
immovable. It was Caillaud who first broke the silence.
“It appears I shall have to console you rather than you me; believe me, I
care no more about dying, as mere dying, than I do about walking across
this room. There are two things which disturb me—the apprehension of
some pain, and bidding good-bye to Pauline and you, and two or three
more.”
There was, after all, but just a touch needed to break up Zachariah and
melt him.
“You are happier than I,” he cried. “Your work is at an end. No more
care for things done or undone; you are discharged, and nobly discharged,
with honour. But as for me!”
“With honour!” and Caillaud smiled. “To be hung like a forger of
bank-notes—not even to be shot—and then to be forgotten. Forgotten
utterly! This does not happen to be one of those revolutions which men
remember.”
“No! men will not remember,” said Pauline, with an elevation of voice and
manner almost oratorical. “Men will not remember, but there is a memory
in the world which forgets nothing.”
“Do you know,” said Caillaud, “I have always loved adventure, and at
times I look forward to death with curiosity and interest, just as if I
were going to a foreign country.”
“Tell me,” said Zachariah, “if there is anything I can do.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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