Robbery Under Arms [260]
the younger I should look and feel when I came out. She was sure I repented truly of what I had done wrong in the past; and she for one, and George -- good, old, kind George -- had said he would go bail that I would be one of the squarest men in the whole colony for the future. So I was to live on, and hope and pray God to lighten our lot for her sake.
. . . . .
It must be years and years since that time as I last wrote about. Awful long and miserable the time went at first; now it don't go so slow somehow. I seemed to have turned a corner. How long is it? It must be a hundred years. I have had different sorts of feelings. Sometimes I feel ashamed to be alive. I think the man that knocked his head against the wall of his cell the day he was sentenced and beat his brains out in this very gaol had the best of it. Other times I take things quite easy, and feel as if I could wait quite comfortable and patient-like till the day came. But -- will it? Can it ever come that I shall be a free man again?
People have come to see me a many times, most of them the first year or two I was in. After that they seemed to forget me, and get tired of coming. It didn't make much odds.
But one visitor I had regular after the first month or two. Gracey, poor Gracey, used to come and see me twice a year. She said it wouldn't do her or me any good to come oftener, and George didn't want her to. But them two times she always comes, and, if it wasn't for that, I don't think I'd ever have got through with it. The worst of it was, I used to be that low and miserable after she went, for days and days after, that it was much as I could do to keep from giving in altogether. After a month was past I'd begin to look forward to the next time.
When I'd done over eleven years -- eleven years! how did I ever do it? but the time passed, and passed somehow -- I got word that they that I knew of was making a try to see if I couldn't be let out when I'd done twelve years. My regular sentence was fifteen, and little enough too. Anyhow, they knock off a year or two from most of the long-sentence men's time, if they've behaved themselves well in gaol, and can show a good conduct ticket right through.
Well, I could do that. I was too low and miserable to fight much when I went in; besides, I never could see the pull of kicking up rows and giving trouble in a place like that. They've got you there fast enough, and any man that won't be at peace himself, or let others be, is pretty sure to get the worst of it. I'd seen others try it, and never seen no good come of it. It's like a dog on the chain that growls and bites at all that comes near him. A man can take a sapling and half kill him, and the dog never gets a show unless he breaks his chain, and that don't happen often.
Well, I'd learned carpentering and had a turn at mat-making and a whole lot of other things. They kept me from thinking, as I said before, and the neater I did 'em and the more careful I worked the better it went with me. As for my mats, I came quite to be talked about on account of 'em. I drew a regular good picture of Rainbow, and worked it out on a mat with different coloured thrums, and the number of people who came to see that mat, and the notice they took of it, would surprise any one.
When my twelve years was within a couple of months or so of being up I began to hear that there was a deal of in-and-out sort of work about my getting my freedom. Old George Storefield and Mr. Falkland -- both of 'em in the Upper House -- and one or two more people that had some say with the Government, was working back and edge for me. There was a party on the other side that wasn't willing as I should lose a day or an hour of my sentence, and that made out I ought to have been hanged `right away', as old Arizona Bill would have said, when I was first taken. Well, I don't blame any of 'em for that; but if they could have known the feelings of a man that's done a matter of twelve years, and thinks he might -- yes, might -- smell the fresh air and feel
. . . . .
It must be years and years since that time as I last wrote about. Awful long and miserable the time went at first; now it don't go so slow somehow. I seemed to have turned a corner. How long is it? It must be a hundred years. I have had different sorts of feelings. Sometimes I feel ashamed to be alive. I think the man that knocked his head against the wall of his cell the day he was sentenced and beat his brains out in this very gaol had the best of it. Other times I take things quite easy, and feel as if I could wait quite comfortable and patient-like till the day came. But -- will it? Can it ever come that I shall be a free man again?
People have come to see me a many times, most of them the first year or two I was in. After that they seemed to forget me, and get tired of coming. It didn't make much odds.
But one visitor I had regular after the first month or two. Gracey, poor Gracey, used to come and see me twice a year. She said it wouldn't do her or me any good to come oftener, and George didn't want her to. But them two times she always comes, and, if it wasn't for that, I don't think I'd ever have got through with it. The worst of it was, I used to be that low and miserable after she went, for days and days after, that it was much as I could do to keep from giving in altogether. After a month was past I'd begin to look forward to the next time.
When I'd done over eleven years -- eleven years! how did I ever do it? but the time passed, and passed somehow -- I got word that they that I knew of was making a try to see if I couldn't be let out when I'd done twelve years. My regular sentence was fifteen, and little enough too. Anyhow, they knock off a year or two from most of the long-sentence men's time, if they've behaved themselves well in gaol, and can show a good conduct ticket right through.
Well, I could do that. I was too low and miserable to fight much when I went in; besides, I never could see the pull of kicking up rows and giving trouble in a place like that. They've got you there fast enough, and any man that won't be at peace himself, or let others be, is pretty sure to get the worst of it. I'd seen others try it, and never seen no good come of it. It's like a dog on the chain that growls and bites at all that comes near him. A man can take a sapling and half kill him, and the dog never gets a show unless he breaks his chain, and that don't happen often.
Well, I'd learned carpentering and had a turn at mat-making and a whole lot of other things. They kept me from thinking, as I said before, and the neater I did 'em and the more careful I worked the better it went with me. As for my mats, I came quite to be talked about on account of 'em. I drew a regular good picture of Rainbow, and worked it out on a mat with different coloured thrums, and the number of people who came to see that mat, and the notice they took of it, would surprise any one.
When my twelve years was within a couple of months or so of being up I began to hear that there was a deal of in-and-out sort of work about my getting my freedom. Old George Storefield and Mr. Falkland -- both of 'em in the Upper House -- and one or two more people that had some say with the Government, was working back and edge for me. There was a party on the other side that wasn't willing as I should lose a day or an hour of my sentence, and that made out I ought to have been hanged `right away', as old Arizona Bill would have said, when I was first taken. Well, I don't blame any of 'em for that; but if they could have known the feelings of a man that's done a matter of twelve years, and thinks he might -- yes, might -- smell the fresh air and feel