* * * * *
The four found themselves so much at ease here, that the dessert was
brought in to them where they sat; and it was then that the first
unhappy word was spoken.
"Mr. Simpson!" said Garlick suddenly. "Is there any more news of him?"
Mr. John shook his head.
"He hath not yet been to church, thank God!" he said. "So much I know
for certain. But he hath promised to go."
"Why is he not yet gone? He promised a great while ago."
"I hear he hath been sick. Derby gaol is a pestiferous place. They are
waiting, I suppose, till he is well enough to go publicly, that all the
world may be advertised of it!"
Mr. Garlick gave a bursting sigh.
"I cannot understand it at all," he said. "There has never been so
zealous a priest. I have ridden with him again and again before I was a
priest. He was always quiet; but I took him to be one of those
stout-hearted souls that need never brag. Why, it was here that we heard
him tell of Mr. Nelson's death!"
Mr. John threw out his hands.
"These prisons are devilish," he said; "they wear a man out as the rack
can never do. Why, see my son!" he cried. "Oh! I can speak of him if I
am but moved enough! It was that same Derby gaol that wore him out too!
It is the darkness, and the ill food, and the stenches and the misery. A
man's heart fails him there, who could face a thousand deaths in the
sunlight. Man after man hath fallen there--both in Derby, and in London
and in all the prisons.
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