 | XLIV.
RETRIBUTION. Neighbor Jackwood |  |
44. XLIV.
RETRIBUTION.
Alone, within the compass of narrow walls, behind an irongrated
door, sat Robert Greenwich.
The faint gleam of the sunset that tinged the high, barred
windows had long since faded. The twilight gloom deepened.
What was Robert thinking, at that hour? What change had
come over him since, haughty and erect, but ghastly pale, tearing
his glossy moustache with his shaking hand, he marched through
the iron doors, under the sheriff's charge?
Darker still grew the prison. What silence! What awful
solitude! Suddenly there was a clanking of doors and jingling
of keys. The jailer, entering with a lantern, approached the prisoner's
cell.
The yellow light revealed an appalling picture. Robert was
scarcely recognizable. His visage was distorted he seemed to
have grown old a dozen years.
“Mr. Greenwich,” spoke the jailer. A fierce down-look, a
dark, despairing scowl, but no motion or word of reply. “Is
there any person you wish to send for?”
Robert looked up. His mouth was bloody, his hair torn, his
eyes haggard. “Does my father know?” By that hollow voice
one would not have guessed the speaker.
“He has been sent for. He should be here soon. Anything
else?”
“No!” The keeper hung his lantern upon a pendent chain,
in the common hall; then, walking away with his jingling keys,
the heavy prison-doors closed after him, with a dismal jar.
Two prisoners, at large in the common hall, placed a light
pack of cards, commenced a cheerful game of all-fours. No
other society in the jail; no sounds but their quiet conversation.
Robert shrunk back within the shadow of his cell, burying his
face in his hands, that he might neither see nor hear.
In a little while supper was brought him. The men ate at
their table, with appetite, putting aside their cards. Robert
seized his pitcher and drank plentifully, but left the food untasted;
then sat still, as before, save that now and then his choked breath
came hissing through his teeth, and the ague of despair shook the
stool on which he sat.
Once more the iron doors opened, and a visitor, entering, was
locked in the jail. He was a spare man, with a wrinkled face,
and a stern, dictatorial expression. Walking with a quick step
towards the cell to which the keeper pointed him, he gazed at the
wretched object seated within. “Son Robert!” he enunciated,
in amazed and indignant accents.
“Ha! you have come!” cried Robert, starting up.
He sprang to the grated door with infuriate looks, and quivering
hands half closed, as if, in the madness of his rage, he would
have torn the other limb from limb. The apparition was so sudden
that 'Squire Greenwich recoiled with the instinct of fear.
Robert pressed against the iron bars, glaring out upon him
savagely.
“Son Robert, what is the meaning of this?”
“It means death!” said Robert's husky voice.
Drops of sweat started upon the 'squire's astonished face.
“Son Robert, are you insane?”
The prisoner wiped the foam from his lips unconsciously, and,
after a pause, struggling with himself, appeared more calm.
“Does it seem so strange to you, to find me here?”
“Strange, son Robert? Strange?” and, for the first time in
his life, the prisoner heard a tremor of emotion in his father's
voice. “You assuredly are not guilty —”
“I 'm guilty of all! And I might have been guilty of more,
could this hand have reached you!” Robert wiped his bleeding
lips again, and thrust his forehead, with its tangled hair, against
ends here. And I have you to thank! Do you understand?
You, sir, YOU!”
“Son Robert,” articulated the 'squire, “I do not understand;
I am overwhelmed! I could not believe my ears when that I
heard of your arrest. I cannot now believe my senses when that
I see and hear you! Is it my son Robert whom I see caged like
an enraged beast?”
“Old man!” said Robert, “hear me! It is for the last time,
so heed me! Since the earliest years I can remember, I have
had a burning hatred in my heart for you! When I was a
child, not a day passed but I said, `Some time he shall hear of
this!' That time has come. The hell that has been all my life
kindling is bursting forth.”
“Son Robert! beware! Pause before you speak. Remember
whom you address! Respect the paternal head!”
“Remember! — would I could forget! Respect! — how have I
learned to hate! I cannot recall a single kind or loving word
that ever you spoke to me. You were the tyrant — always!
You ruled with a rod of iron. My most trivial faults were punished
with cruelty. If there was any goodness in me, you
crushed it out; while every evil trait I inherited — from you —
was kept alive by you — provoked and strengthened by your despotism!
Revenge became a part of me. Because I dared not
vent it against you, I poured it upon others. That passion fired
the rest. Now you behold me here! And I tell you I have you
to thank! Take that, my parting gift, and hug it to your breast
when I am gone!”
“Me to thank! Truly, truly,” — the 'squire's agitated hands
struggled convulsively with his stifling cravat, and his broken
voice was pitiful to hear, — “truly, son Robert, you are beside
yourself! Who reared you up, from infancy, with unswerving
care? Who disciplined your youth in all wholesome exercises
of the mind? Who kept you at the Sabbath-school and at
church? Who put into your hands healthful moral treatises,
and gave you tasks from the Scriptur's to commit to memory?
Who taught you filial reverence, and respect for gray hairs?
keeping? Where are the seeds a pious parent planted?”
“The talents have brought me here; this is the harvest of the
seeds! You did all that you boast of, and so I say I thank you;
for, by the very means you used, you made me hate you and your
lessons. I loathed the Sabbath-school, because driven to it with
a rod. I never came near a Bible but I struck or kicked it,
because of those hated tasks. I am calm now; I utter my solemn
convictions, and you know I tell truths!”
“Indeed,” groaned the 'squire, “indeed, I do not know! My
pride was in you, my son, O, my son! I longed for the time
when that we should behold you an ornament and an honor to the
respectable name of Greenwich. I labored faithfully to that end.
And is this the result?”
Sobs broke the old man's utterance. Still he struggled, as
from long habit, to maintain his dignified speech and deportment;
and it was touching to see the flood of his emotions bursting
through the wreck of his poor, shattered pride. Robert looked
on luridly.
“There may be points” — the 'squire confessed, wiping his
wrinkled brow — “wherein I have fallen somewhat short of the
highest wisdom. But, had I erred in all, I find no excuse for
you. Still, you are my son. You bear the respectable name of
Greenwich. And, whatever your faults, how glaring soever your
ingratitude to my venerable hairs, I can yet find it in my heart to
render you service.”
“You can render none. I will accept none. My hands have
plunged into crime, and I choose to meet the penalties.”
“Crime! crime! a son of 'Squire Greenwich? crime!”
“That is the word! Would you be gratified to know the
history?”
“I would know, though my heart be cleft in twain! But, I
beseech you, speak not in such bitterness and wrath.”
“Fair words, then, they shall be; I 'll be tender with your
nerves, old man! And the story shall be short, though it goes
back to times long before I left home. My vices ripened early.
But I had learned hypocrisy in so perfect a family school, that
house by stealth, and seizing what pleasure I could, in recompense
for your tyranny by day. When I came of age, you gave me
the liberty you could no longer restrain; I went south, and there,
in the hot-bed of vice, my nature flourished. I ended by running
away with a slave-girl, leaving more debts and sins behind
than I will stop to count. To provide myself with means, I
forged a note, and followed her to Canada, where I fell in with
a villanous speculator. He knew an ingenious rogue, who had
invented a spurious coin; and, as they proposed to set up, on a
small scale, an opposition to the legitimate mint, I was invited to
join them. I asked nothing better; and we fitted up an old house
in the woods, and established an apparatus. I have distributed
a good deal of the proceeds. In short, I was brought here for
counterfeiting. I might have escaped, but by ill-luck I fell in
first with that accursed Hector, then with the sheriff. On my
way here, I learned of my friend Sperkley's arrest, in Burlington.
His faithful housekeeper, who passes for his wife, will expect him
home in vain. Then there are the slave-catchers; they will concentrate
all their rage on me. I set them on Camille's track;
and no questions were to be asked; but I had not the virtue to be
faithful even to them. So, you see, the son of respectable
'Squire Greenwich” — what fierce sarcasm in those words! — “is
provided for. I staked everything — I have lost — and this is
the end!”
“God of mercies!” groaned the 'squire, “what do I hear!
Son Robert, my only son, the hope of my old age! — you a
double criminal — arrested — to be brought before a public court
— tried, condemned, sentenced — O, God! can all this be in
store?”
“Not quite!” said Robert, with dark significance. “'T will
be a shorter agony. Good-by; remember what I have said. I
have thrown that burden off. Now go — I would be alone.”
“But, my son,” sobbed the broken-hearted old man, “while
that I return to my dishonored and desolate home, let me at least
carry with me the consolation of knowing that you are contrite
and repentant —”
“Carry with you my hatred and my curse!” said Robert;
“it 's all I have for you, and a good-night to you! May your
sleep be always peaceful as it will be this night!”
The keeper reäppeared; and now the prisoner shrank back
into his cell. The heart-crushed parent, shaking with the palsy
of his grief, struggled long within himself before he found voice
again to speak.
“Son Robert,” — the keeper was looking on, and it was sad to
see the flickering ghost of the poor old man's dignity rise up
once more, — “I shall see you in the morning.”
“Let me advise you to come early!” muttered Robert.
The keeper advanced. “I shall do all in my power to make
your son comfortable, 'Squire Greenwich; and if he has any commands
—”
“What are these men in for?” asked Robert, designating the
card-players.
“The one in shirt-sleeves, for stealing a horse; the other, for
killing one of his children in a drunken fit.”
“Is the thing of which I am accused so much worse than
theft or murder, that, while they have the liberty of the jail, it is
necessary to keep me caged?”
“O, by no means! But, when you were brought in, it was
thought advisable, for a while —”
“You see I am calm now.”
The keeper selected a particular key from the bunch, and cheerfully
unlocked the door of the cell. The 'squire, meanwhile, had
tottered to the entrance. The two went out together. Then
Robert threw himself upon his bunk, and lay there, tossing about,
and tearing his flesh and hair by fits, until the suspended lamp
burned out, and the card-players groped their way in the dark to
their separate cells.
O, night! O, agony! O, remorse! — darkness, and woe, and the
worm that gnaweth the heart! — how mysterious, how terrible,
are ye all! Swords of flame flash all around the eden of the soul,
and the sinner, seeking to rush in with impure feet, is lightning-stricken
with their fiery tongues. Only through righteousness, in
the white robe and celestial armor of Christ, can you enter the
remorse, — darkness, and woe, and the worm that gnaweth the
heart, — God sends to teach the LAW.
All night Robert lay in his torment. But at the earliest glimmer
of dawn he arose, and sat upon his bed. There was now a
sort of calmness in his face, a fearful repose. And so he sat,
while the slow, cold dawn advanced, twirling and twirling his
silken cravat in his hands. At length he got up, and opened the
door of his cell.
Darkness still hovered in the jail. But from the high windows
a faint grayish light radiated upon the walls, and streamed along
the floor. Robert stepped noiselessly across the hall. He reached
the table where the card-players had sat the night before, stepped
upon it with his knotted cravat in his hand, listened for a moment
to the heavy breathing in the cells, then carefully removed the
lantern from the chain.
What stillness! what solemnity! what gloom! Suddenly there
was a crash. The table had fallen; the lantern rattled upon the
floor. The horse-stealer started from his sleep. He rose up; he
gazed listening, affrighted, in his cell. But did he hear the
struggles, the conflict of life and death, or see the dim, ghastly
figure swinging by the chain?
| XLIV.
RETRIBUTION. Neighbor Jackwood | |