LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6090, 21 November 1887, Page 1

LITERATURE.

THE SILENCE OF DEAN MAITLAND. [Bt MAxwßid- Gbat.] FABT n. Cmrsza 111. (Contaiiued.) The chaplain was a man foz whom the human soul had np secret sanctuary in which angelg, much leas foolish and sinful men, might fear to tread, and for. whom the highest mysteries of the divine nature were but SCrapß Of glib commonplace? a man who expected men steeped in years of vice and foulness to be converted at once by the rude and sudden enunciation of tin well-worn formula ; a sincere and well-meaning man withal, who looked upon earth, aa, an ante-chamber toan unspeakable hell, ftoin a whicl^ a : very Bmall and numbered few might occasionally be snatched by a sort of chance-medley jugglery, of which he and half a dozen more alone knew the catchword or enchanted password ; the chaplain pronounced him an utter reprobate. "But haye youno care for your poor soul ?" he asked one *3ay, after wearisome exhortations and endless questioning, to which the priso-der.hfld given no reply. " None whatever," he replied at last. He was no favourite with the warders, whom he despieed in his unjust resentment of their authority, or with his fellowprisoheia>,whohawd him, firstly, because he was a gentleman ; and, secondly, because all his looks and words silently rebuked the viciousnefls of their own. Espessiye labour and hopeless brooding brought him to the hospital at last. The prison doctor knew his history, and felt for him as for a brother in trouble, and accustomed. as he was to snt?pect and discover malingering, saw at onoe that No. 62's strange malady was no feigned one, but arose ficom the mind rather than the body. One day, after many rongh but kindly efforts to rouse Mm, he said at laBt: .„ , "If you go on like this you will lose your reason before long." "Reason!" retorted the patient, with bitter acorn. "And what use is reason to me?" , ' , " It is of little ujie to you, perhaps," rejoined the officer, moving away, " but the 1053.0 fit will make you a dangerous nuisance to others." This drastic observation had a wholesome eSeet upon the prisoner's stricken mind. The notion of ; Sinking into a dangerous nuisance stung, him into a sense of the unman&aess of -giving himself up to his miseries; it aWoke in him the bracing thought that some £aint remnants of duty remained even to one so cut ofE from his kind aa himßelf. He thought that he probably would become insane ; hiß medical knowledge told hia? Tiow much he had to fear on that score from his terrible life; but he was resolved that at least he would do his best to preserve his wits. He therefore took counsel with the aurgeon, and during Bis hospital leisure, formed a scheme of intellectual and moral discipline. He forced himself to an interest- in the repnMve human creatures and the dreary occupations of the prison. Ho made a mental time-table, in which certain days or hours were to be given to the recollection of particular fields of knowledge, certain days to the mental, speaking of Latin, Greek, &c. Such poetry as he knew by heart he arranged for periodical mental repetition. He did the same with the plots of, Jkchylus and others which he loved, and could not obtain from the prison library. He told himself the Btory of Troy and the wanderings of Ulysses on many a lonjaly night. He traced the minutest recesses of his fellowprisoners' anatomy beneath their outward semblance, mentally depriving them of flesh, muscle, and sinew> as easily as Carlyle's dispossessed his fellows of their garments ; and lost no opportunity of observing whatever crossed his limited fleld of vision. It was weary work, but it saved him. He fed his starving heart with memories of ho«rfl passed with Lilian andi others dear to Mm-^wemoijes as full of pain as pleasure, particularly those which recalled the few last vivid days at Malbouxne before his arrest. Yet his heart was still bitter with black despair. Chapel-going was a, dreary thing, and little calculated to edify one less full of despairing doubt than Everard. It wa3 difficult to preserve a devotional spirit amid that crowd of- foul-mouthed malefactors, who mingled ribaldry and blasphemy with the responses they uttered and the hymns they sang for the sake of using their voices. Qne day Everard was aroused from a menial review of the symptoms in a coin? plicated and interesting case he once con-, quered, during the sleepy drone of the Litany, by a rush through the air near him, followed by a, crash. He looked up in time to see. the bent head, of tlie governor struck by the shoe of the prisoner next him, and the governor himself looked up in time to receive the second shoe full in his face. This incident, typical of many similar ones, seriously interfered with tiie inornisg'B devotion. Qne drowsy, warm autumn morning, about six months after bis conviction, Everard was m,ore than usually depressed, and had taken refuge in sorrowful dresmg of happier days. The prisoners were quieter than usuf-d, some dosing, some refreshed by the "Te Deum" they had been loudly singing, some really touched by the awful pathos of the gospel which wqs being read, when suddenly a phrase seeped to detach itself from the rest of the narrative, and, as if uttered by a trumpet voice, to trace itself deeply upon Everard's mind, waking hin* from his melancholy" dream, and starting him into a newer life. The phrase consisted of those heart-shak-ing words: " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Every detail, of the agony and crucifixion flashed clear upon his mind, strangely mingled with the feeling of calm strength with which the picture of Gethsemane in the study at Melbourne had inspired him in the hour of his extremity. Tears rushed to his eyes and he trembled. All those weary .months his heart had been echoing that inoßt bitter cry, without remembering that Christ had been forced to utter it in the hour in which He accom- 1 plished man's redemption. _ j The darkness which had come upon him in the prisoner's dock at the discovery of his friend's baseness rolled away, and he recognised his own wroiig-doing. What was Cyril, after all, that his faith in divine and human goodness should depend on him ? Had he not idolised the poor, we^k, erring lad, whom his strength should rather have pitied ? And what was he that he Bhould escape that darkness which brooded over the very cross ? How many men down the long roll of the ages had suffered bonds and treachery, being innocent? Cyril's cynical "She is not the firet," flashed upon him, and he wondered that he should have cried out s*> loud when he found himself enrolled inthe vast army of the world's sufferers. What claim had he for exemption from earth's anguish ?" " There is a God, and there is good, and the bitterest lot has comfort," he said within himself, reversing his despairing utterances in the dock when the conviction of Cyril's treachery flashed upon him, as ho marched with his fellow sufferers into the yard, where an hour of sunlight and freedom within four walls was permitted them on. Sundays. - The mid-day sky wasiransparently blue and Buffiised with^Bgh^ -so Jkat .itiWftSA

joy to look npon j the .B-any antumn air was sweet to breathe; and the sheets of sunshine fell pleasantly upon him, in spite ofthe garb of shame and bondage they lighted, and the prison walls whose shadow litftited them, and forthe first moment since his imprisonment Everard felt that enjoyment was possible, even to one so -stricken as himself, since Heaven smiled still upon him, captive though he was. Just then an oblong packet was put in his hand. He looked at it with mute amazement for a moment, for he had forgotten how it feels to receive a letter ; and then he uttered a faint cry, for the handwriting waß Lilian's. His first i instinct was to conceal it from the vulgar ! crew around him; and he scarcely noticed that the sacred cover, closed by the beloved hand, had been violated by some j stranger's touch, according to the stern prison rule. He walked up and down the yard as one whose steps are on air, his eyes full of soft fire, happy merely to hold the treasure in his hand. He did not open it till he was alone in his cell, that narrow witness of so much agony, which now became a palace of delight. It was a letter such as only the tenderness of a good and loving woman for one in deep affliction could inspire. It had touched even the offioial reader, accustomed to moving letters full of ill-spelled pathos from broken-hearted and often injured women to the villains they loved, and it went into the very marrow of Everard's being, and steeped him in an atmosphere of pure thought and high-souled feeling, to which he had long been a stranger, and which refreshed his parched spirit like waters in a desert pf burning sand. Lilian briefly mentioned Cyril's terrible illness and her own, and described his state, which was still- one of doubtful sanity, requiring the most watchful care j there were few tidings besides. Then eho spoke of Henry's affliction, and bade him keep up his heart, and pray constantly, aa she did, that his innocence might be made clear. That the truth must come out sooner or later she was convinced, referring him to the great promises made to the jnst man in the Scriptures. In the meantime, who could tell but that some wise and beneficent end was to be fulfilled by his sojourn in prison. The purposes of the Almighty were deep and unsearchable, far hidden from the thoughts of men ; but whatever treachery and wickedness had brought Everard to that pass of shame and misery, she bade him remember that without the Divine permission he conld not be there. What if some nobler and higher use than he could ever have wrought outside in the free world were to be hia in that dreary place ? Who could say what the influence of one solitary man of stainless life might be in that crowd of degraded, yet still human creatures, or what sorrow might be there to comfort? Let him only remember that the Almighty had placed him in that dreary dungeon as surely as he had placed tho sovereign on the throne, the priest at the altar, and the bright blossom in the sunshine, and take comfort. These opportune words soothed and strengthened Everard's soul, the more so as Lilian did not underrate the magnitude of the sacrifice he had been called upon to make, but spoke feelingly of the cruel denials and degradations of his lot, and of the frustration of their common hopes, and of the separation, which she trusted might soon be at an end. She bade him remember also that, as a true lover, he must keep up his courage for her sake, and hope in the future, which they might still enjoy together. Nor was this noble letter wanting in those assurances of love which are so cordial to parted lovers* Its effeot upon the lonely prisoner is difficult to imagine, much less describe. But it was greatly due to the hope and faith which it inspired that from that day the prison became to Everard no longer a place of darkness and despair, but a part of God's own world, over which divine wisdom and mercy still smiled, and in which a man's soul might still find its necessary celestial food. (T7iis Story will le continued in our issuo of Sotwrday neat.)