Family Column.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVII, Issue 1781, 21 October 1862, Page 4

Family Column.

TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. The last Christmas Tale by Dickens. (IN SEVEN CHAPTERS.) CHAPTEB 111. PICKING TJP TEBRIBLE COMPANY. While the artist was still engaged in telling his story, another visitor had come in at the gate, and had politely remained in the background, so as not to interrupt the proceedings. When the story was over, he came forward, and presented himself (in excellent English) as a Frenchman on a visit to this country. In the course of an eventful life, opportunities had occurred to him of learning our language, on the Continent, and necessity had obliged him to turn them to good account. Many years had passed, since that 'time, and had allowed him no earlier chance of visiting England than the chance of which he had now availed himself. He was staying with some friends in the neighbourhood — the Hermit had been mentioned to him — and here he was, on the ground of Thomas Tiddler, to deposit his homage at the feet of that illustrious landed proprietor. Was the French visitor surprised ? Not the least in the world. His face showed deep marks of former care and trouble — perhaps he was past feeling surprised at anything? By no means. If he had seen Mr. Mopes on French ground, he would have been petrified on the spot. But Mr. Mopes on. English ground was pnly a new developement of the dismal national character. Given British spleen, as the cause — followed British suicide, as the effect. Quick suicide (of which the works of his literary countrymen had already informed him) by throwing yourself into the water. Slow suicide (of which his own eyes now informed him) by burying yourself among Boot and cinders, in a barred kitchen. Curious either way — but nothing to surprise a well-read Frenchman. " Leaving our national character to assert itself to better advantage, when time had given this gentleman better opportunities of studying it, Mr. Traveller politely requested him to follow the relation of the artist's experience with an experience 0 ' his own. After a moment's grave consideration, the Frenchman said that his early life had been marked by perils end sufferings of no ordinary kind. He had no objection to relate- one of hia adventures — but he warned his audience beforehand that they must to be a little startled ; and he begged that they would suspend their opinions of himself and his conduct, until they had heard him to the end. After those prefatory words, he began as follows: lam a Frenchman by birth, and my name is Francois Thierry. I need not weary you with my early history. Enough, that I committed a political offence — that I was sent to the galleys for it —that I am an exile for it to this day. The brand was not abolished in my time. If I chose, I could show you the fiery letters on my shoulder. I was arrested, tried, and sentenced* in Paris, I went out of the court with my condemnation ringing in my ears. The rumbling wheels of the prison-van repeated it all the way from Paris to Bicetre that evening, and all the next day, and the next, and the next, along the weary road, from Bitfetre to Toulon. When I look back upon that time, I think a must have been stupefied by the_unexpected severity of my sentence ; for I remember nothing ol the journey, nor of the places where we stopped — nothing bnt the eternal repetition of " trevaux force's — travaux force's, travaux force's a perpe"tuite"," over and over again. Late in the afternoon of the third *day, the van stopped , the door was thrown open, and I was conducted across a stone yard, through a stone corridor, into a huge stone hall, dimly lighted from above. Here I was interrogated by a military superintendent, and entered by name in a ponderous ledger bound and clasped with iron, like a book in fetters. "Number Two Hundred and Seven," said the superintendent. " Green." They took nic into an adjoining room, searched, stripped, and plunged me into a cold bath. When I came out of the bath, I put on the livery of the galleys — a coarse canvas shirt, trousers of tawny serge, a red serge blouse, and heavy shoes clamped with iron. Last of all, a green woollen cap. On each leg of the trousers, and on the breast and back of the blouse, were printed the fatal letters "T. F." On a brass label in the front of the cap, were engraved the figures' " 207." From that moment I lost my individuality. I was no longer Francois Thierry. I was number Two Hundred and Seven. The superintendent stood by and looked on. " Come, be quick," said he, twirling his long moustache between his thumb and forefinger. " It grows late, and you must be married before supper." "Married!" I repeated. The superintendent laughed, and lighted a cigar, and hiß langh was echoed by the guards and jailers. Down another stone corridor, across another yard, into another gloomy hall, the very counterpart of the last, but filled with 6qualid figures, noisy with the clank of fetters, and pierced at each end with a circular opening, through which a cannon's mouth showed grimly. "Bring Number Two Hundred and Six," , said the superintendent, " and call the priest." Number Two Hundred and Six came from a farther corner of the hall, dragging a heavy chain, and along with him a blacksmith, barearmecTand leather-aproned. "Lie down," said the blacksmith, with an insulting spurn of the foot. . 1 lay down. A heavy iron ring attached to a chain of eighteen links was then fitted to ray ankle, and riveted with a single stroke of the hammer A second ring next received the disengaged ends of my companion's chain and mine, and was secured in the same manner. The echo of each blow resounded through the vaulted roof like a hollow laugh. | |" Good," said the superintendent, drawing a email red book from his pocket. " Number Two Hundred and Seven, attend to the prison code. If you attempt to escape without succeeding, you will be bastinadoed. If you succeed in getting beyond the port, and are then taken, you will receive three years of double-chaining. As soon as you are missed, three cannon shots will be fired and flags will be hoisted on every bastion. Signals will be telegraphed to the maritime guards, and to the police of the ten neighboring districts, a price will be set upon your head. Placards will be posted upon the gates of Toulon, and sent to every town throughout the empire. It will be lawral to fire upon you, if you cannot be captured alive." * Having read this with grim complacency, the superintendent resumed his cigar, replaced the book in his pocket, and walked away. All was over now — all the incredulous wonder, the dreamy dulness, the smouldering hope, of the past three days. I was a felon, and (slavery in slavery !) chained to a fellow-felon. 1 looked up and found his eyes upon me. He was a swart heavy-bTowed sullen-jawed man of about forty ; not much taller than myself, but of immensely powerful build. " So," said he, " you're for life, are you ? So am I." " How do you know lam for life?" I asked, wearily. "By that." And he touched my cap roughly with the back of his hand. " Green, for life. .Bed, for a term of years. What are you in for ?" " I conspired against the Government." He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "Devil'smafls! "Then you're a gentlemanconvict, I suppose ! Pity you've not a berth to yourselves— we poor forcats hate such fine company," " Are there many political prisoners ?" I asked after o, moment's pause, '

" None, in this department." Then, aa if detecting my unspoken thought, " 1 am no innocent," he added with an oath. " This is the fourth time I have been here. Did you ever hear of Gasparo ?" " Gasparo the forger?" He nodded. " Who escaped three or four months since and " " And flung the sentinel over the ramparts, just as he was going to give the alarm. I'm the man." I had heard of him, as a man who, early in his career, had been sentenced to a long solitary imprisonment in a gloomy cell, and who had come forth from his solitude hardened into an absolute wild beast. I shuddered, and, aa I shuddered, found his evil eye taking vindictive note of me. From that moment he hated me. From that moment I loathed him. A bell rang, and a detachment of convicts came in from labour. They were immediately searched by the guard, and chained up, two and two, to a sloping wooden platform that reached all down the centre of the hall. Our afternoon meal was then served out, consisting of a mßss of beans, an allowance of bread and ship-biscuit, and a measure of thin wine. I drank the wine ; but I could eat nothing. Gasparo took what he chose from my untouched allowance, and those who were nearest, scrambled for the rest. The supper over, a shrill whistle echoed down the hall, each man took his narrow mattress from under the platform which made our common bedstead, rolled himself in a piece of seaweed matting, and lay down for the night: In less than five minutes, all was profoundly silent. Now and then I heard the blacksmith going round with his hammer, testing the gratings, and trying the locks, in all the corridors. Now and then, the guard stalked past with his muskefc on his shoulder. Sometimes a convict moaned, or shook his fetters in his sleep. Thus the weary hours went by. My companion slept heavily, and even I lost consciousness at last. I was sentenced to hard labour. At Toulon the hard labour is of various kinds: such as quarrying, mining, pumping in the docks, lading and unlading vessels, transporting ammunition, and so forth. Gasparo and I were employed with about two hundred other convicts in a quarry a little beyond the port. Day after day, week after week, from seven in the morning until seven at night, the rocks echoed with our blows. At every blow, our chains rang and rebounded on the stony soil. In that fierce climate, terrible tempests and tropical droughts succeed each other throughout the summer and autumn. Often aod often, after toiling for hours under a burning sky, have I gone back to prison and to my pallet, drenched to the skin. Thus the last days of the dreary spring ebbed slowly past; and then the more dreary summer, and then the autumn-time, came round. My fellow convict was a Piedmontese. He had been a burglar, a forger, an incendiary. In his last escape he had committed manslaughter. Heaven alone knows how my sufferings were multiplied by that abhorred companionship — how I shrank from the touch of his hand — how I sickened if his breath came over me as we lay side by side at night. I strove to disguise my loathing ; but in vain. He knew it ag well as I knew it, and he revenged himself upon me by every means that a vindictive nature could devise. That he should tyrranise over me was not wonderful ; for his physical strength was gigantic, and he was looked upon as'an authorised despot throughout the port: ■ but simple tyranny was the least part of what I had to endure. I had been fastidiously nurtured ; he purposely and continually offended my sense of delicacy. I was unaccustomed to bodily labour ; he imposed oq me the largest share of our daily work. When I needed vest, he would insist on walking. When my limbs were cramped, he would lie down obstinately, and refuse to stir. He delighted to sing blasphemous songs, and relate hideous stories of what he had thought and resolved on in his solitude. He would even twist the chain in such wise that it should gall me at every step. I was at that time just twenty-two years of age, and had been sickly from boyhood To retaliate, or to defend myself, would have been alike impossible. To complain to the superintendent, would only have been to provoke my tyrant to greater cruelty. There came a day, at length, when his hatred seemed to abate. He allowed me to rest when our hour of repose came round. He abstained from singing the songs I abhorred, and fell into long fits of abstraction. The next morning, shortly after we had begun work, he drew near enough to speak to me in a whisper. '• Francois, have you a mind to escape ?" I felt the blood rush to my face. I clasped my hands. I could not speak. " Can you keep a secret ?" " To the death." " Listen, then. To-morrow, a renowned marshal will visit the port. He will inspect the docks, the prisons, the quarries. There will be plenty of cannonading from the forts and the shipping, and if two convicts escape, a volley more or less will attract no attention round about Toulon. Do you understand ?" " You mean that no one will recognise the signals ?" " Not even the sentries at the town-gates — not even the guards in the next quarry. Devil's mass ! What can be easier than to strike off each other's fetters with the pickaxe when the superintendent is not looking, and the salutes are firing ? tVill you venture ?" " With my life !" " A bargain. Shake hands on it." I had never touched his hand in fellowship before, and I felt as if own were blood-stained by the contact. I knew by the sullen fire in his glance, that he interpreted my faltering touch aright. We were roused an hour earlier than usual the following morning, and went through a general inspection in the prison-yard. Before going to work, we were served with a double allowance of wine. At one o'clock, we heard the first far-off salutes from the ships of war in the harbour. The sound ran through me like a galvanic shock. One by one, the forts sook up the signal. It was repeated by the gun-boats closer in shore. Discharge followed discharge all along the batteries on both sides of the port, and the air grew thick with smoke. "As the first shot is fired yonder." whispered Gaspardo, pointing to the barracks behind the prison, " strike at the first link of my chain close to the ankle." A rapid suspicion flashed across me. •' If 1 do, how cau I be sure that you will free me afterwards ? No, Gasparo ; you must deal the first blow." "As you please," he replied, with a laugh and ' an imprecation. At the same instant, came a flash from the battlements of the barrack close by, and then a thunderous reverbation, multiplied again and again by the rocks around. As the roar burst over our heads, I sawjiim strike, and felt the fetters fall. Scarcely had the echo of the first gun died away, when the second was fired. It was now Gasparo's turn to be free. I struck ; but less skilfully, and had twice to repeat the blow before breaking the stubborn link. W e then went on, apparently, with our work, standing somewhat close together, with the chain huddled up between . us. No one had observed us, and no one, at first Bight, could have detected what we had done. At the third shot, a party of ofßcers and gentlemen made their appearance at the bend, of the road leading up to the quarry. In an instant, every head was turned in their direction ; every felon paused in his work ; every guard presented arms. At that moment we flung away our caps and pick-axes, scaled the rugged bit of cliff on which we had been toiling, dropped into the ravine below, and made for the mountain passes that lead into the valley. Encumbered still with the iron anklets to which our chains had been fastened, we could not run very swiftly. To add to our difficulties, the road, was uneven, strewn with

flints and blocks of fallen granite, and tortuous as the windings of a snake. Suddenly on turning a sharp angle of projecting clifl', we came upon a little guard -house and a couple of sentries. To retreat was impossible. The soldiers were within a few yards of us. They presented their pieces, and called to us to surrender. Gasparo turned upon me like a wolf at bay. 1 ' Curse you !" said he, dealing me a tremendous blow, " stay and be taken ! I have always hated you !" I fell, as if struck down by a skdge hammer, and, as 1 fell, saw him dash one noldier to the ground, dart past the other, heard a shot* and then ... all became dark,, and I know no more. When I next opened mv eyes, I found myself lying on the floor of a amall unfurnished room, dimly lighted by a tiny window close against the ceiling. It seemed as if weeks had gone by, since I lost consciousness. I had scarcely strength to rise, and, having risen, kept my feet with difficulty. Where my head had lain, the floor was wet with blood. Giddy and perplexed, I leaned against the wall and tried to think. In the first place where was I ? Evidently in no part of the prison from which I had escaped. There, all was solid stone and iron grating : here, was only whitewashed lath and plaster. I must be in a chamber of the little guard-house i probably in an upper chamber. Where, then, were the soldiers? Where was Gasparo? Had I strength to clamber up to that window, and if so, in what direction did that window look out? I stole to the door and found it locked. I listened, breathlessly, but could hear no sound either below or above. Creeping back again, I saw that the little window was at least four feet above my head. The smooth plaster offered no projections by vvhich I could raise myself, and there was not j even a fireplace in the room from which I could have wrenched a bar to dig out holes in the wall for my feet and hands. Stay ! There was my leathern belt, and on the belt, the iron hook which used to sustain my chain when I was not at work. I tore off the hook, picked away the lath and plaster in three or four places, climbed up, opened the window, and gazed out eagerly. Before me, at a distance of not more than thirty-five or forty feet, rose tue rugged cliff under whose shelter the guard-house was built ; at my feet, lay a little kitchen garden, divided from the base of the rock by a muddy ditch which seemed to run through the ravine ; to the right and left, as well aa I could judge, lay the rocky path along which our course had been directed. My decision was taken at once. To stay was certain capture ; to venture, at all hazards, would make matters no worse. Again I listened, and again all was quiet. I drew myself through the little casement, dropped as gently as 1 could upon the moist earth, and, crouching against the wall, asked myself what I should do next. To climb the cliff would be to offer myself as a target to the first soldier who saw me. To venture along the ravine would be, perhaps, to encounter Gasparo and his captors face to face. Besides, it was getting dusk, and, under cover of the night, if I could only conceal myself till then. I might yet escape. But where was that concealment to be found? Heaven be thanked for the thought ! There was the ditch. Only two windows looked out upon the garden from the back of the guard-house. From one of those windows I had just now let myself down, and the other was partly shuttered up. I did not dare, however, openly to cross the garden. I dropped upon my face, and crawled in the furrows between the rows of vegetables, until I came to the ditch. Here, the water rose nearly to my waist, but the banks on either side were considerably higher, and by stooping, I found that I could walk without bringing my head to the level of the road. I thus followed the course of the ditch for some two or three hundred yards in the direc^on of Toulon, thinking that my pursuers would be less likely to suspect me of doubling back towards prison, than of pushing forward towards the country. Half lying, half crouching under the rank grasses that fringed the bank above. I then watched the gathering 6hadows. By-and-bye I heard the evening gun, and a moment after, something like a distant sound of voices. Hark ! was that a shout ? Unable to endure the agony of suspense, I lifted my head, and peeped cautiously out. There were lights moving in the windows of the guard-house — there were dark figures in the garden — there were hasty tratnplings of feet upon the road above ! Presently a light flashed over the water only a few yards from my hiding-place ! I slid gently down at full length, and Buffered the foul ooze to close noiselessly over me. Lying thus, I held my breath till the very beatings of my heart seemed to suffocate me, aud the veins in my temples were almost bursting. I could bear it no longer — I rose to the surface — I breathed again — I looked — I listened. All was darkness and silence. My pursuers were gone by ! I suffered an hour to go by, too, before I ventured to move again, fiy that time it was intensely dark, and had begun to rain heavily. The water in the ditch became a brawling torrent, through which I waded, unheard, past the very windows of the guard-house. After toiling through the water for a mile or more, I ventured out upon the road again : and so, with the rain and wind beating in my face, and tile scattered boulders tripping me up continually, I made my way through the whole length of the winding pass, and came out upon the more open country about midnight. With no other guide than the wind , which was blowing from the-north-east, and without even a star to help me, I then struck off to the right, following what seemed to be a rough by road lying through a valley. By-and-bye the rain abated, and I discerned the dark outlines of a chain of hills extending all along to the left of the road. These, I concluded, must be the Maures. All was well, ao far. I had taken the right direction, and was on the way to Italy. (To be continued in our next.)