CHAPTER XV. THE REUNION.
“Sorrow endureth for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
[figure description] Page 228.[end figure description]
When Harry, after his sudden retreat from Clapham's
presence, recovered his self-possession,
“How long,” he asked the jailer, “has Clapham Dunn
been in this way?”
“What way?”
“Why, playing cards, and drinking, and quarrelling?”
“I don't know, I'm sure. They mostly fall to it
as soon as they have a chance. I never noticed the
lad in partic'lar, but they are all birds of a feather;
and I can tell you there's no partic'lar credit in
keeping up an acquaintance with them, in partic'lar,
for young folks that haven't any settled character in
partic'lar.” The jailer accompanied his advice with
-- 229 --
[figure description] Page 229.[end figure description]
a knowing wink, which did not make it the more
pleasing to Harry.
“I have no fears,” he said, “about my character
suffering.”
“O, I dare say not. Young folks are never afeard
of nothing; but see, if you lay dirty clothes and clean
together, the dirty clothes don't get any the cleaner
that ever I heard of, and the clean ones get rather
frouzy. You can't teach me nothing about these kind
of cattle; after they once get under my lock and key,
there's an end on 'em.”
“Most likely,” thought Harry, “and that is a reason
why they should be got from under your lock and
key as soon as possible. I still wish to see this
Clapham Dunn,” he said.
“Well, you must take it out in wishing. I can't
no how attend to you this afternoon. Saturdays is
busy days. I must be going.”
“I will come again, then, to-morrow morning, early.”
“You need not trouble yourself to come so very
early,” said the jailer, rudely. Sunday is a day of
rest, and I don't turn out with the sun.”
-- 230 --
[figure description] Page 230.[end figure description]
“Is this the man,” thought Harry, as he left the
prison, “selected to take charge of the sick — `the
sick and in prison,' — the worst sickness — sickness of
the soul?”
On the whole, the delay was no disadvantage,
except that it left poor Clapham pining and despairing,
and believing that the last ray of hope had
vanished from him. Harry went to look after a certain
Mr. Norton, a very flourishing carpenter in L—,
a distant relative of his mother. Mr. Norton received
him most kindly, and insisted on his staying at his
house; and, during the evening, they had much conversation
that had an important influence on Harry's
destiny. Mr. Norton fully sympathized with Harry's
hopes, and encouraged them. “Such a boy as you
describe this Clapham,” he said, “who so early resisted
bad influences, cannot have been ruined by a
few months in jail, though he may have lost ground.
It is a sad place, I believe.”
“Have you never been in it, sir?” asked Harry,
with some surprise.
“No, I never have.” He was silent for a
-- 231 --
[figure description] Page 231.[end figure description]
moment, and then added, “To my shame I confess it,
I never have.”
At eight o'clock, the next morning, Harry could
restrain his impatience no longer. He was again at
the jail. After he had waited a long while, the jailer
came, gaping and grumbling. “It was trouble enough,”
he said, “to take care of the rascals, without waiting
on their comrades.”
Harry, without noticing his ill-humor, asked if he
could speak with Clapham alone.
“I guess,” he answered, “it will be a job to get
him to speak at all. One of the fellows told me
he had not spoke nor ate since you was here. Them
that drinks and fights always have their sulky turns.”
Harry again asked if he could see Clapham alone,
and the jailer said, “yes, there were lock-up places
enough empty, but he should not trust him with his old
mate without turning the key.” At this moment, Mr.
Norton, who had followed Harry, entered.
“You are quite mistaken in this young man,
Patten,” he said; “he is a relation of mine. Give
him a decent room to see his acquaintance in, and
-- 232 --
[figure description] Page 232.[end figure description]
while he is talking with him, let me go in to see
your prisoners.”
The jailer's manner changed instantly. He went
eagerly for Clapham, and, shaking him, he said, “Come,
wake up, uncover your face.”
“Do let me be,” replied Clapham, drawing the
coverlet again over his face.
“You do look ghastly!” said the jailer. He did.
His face was pale, his lips were blue, and the blood
had mingled with the tears and run over his face,
neck, and hands. “You are a scarecrow,” continued
the jailer; “but come; they're wanting you out here.”
“Who? who wants me?” cried the poor boy, now
throwing off the cover and starting up.
“That youngster that was here last night.”
“Has he come? Does he want to speak with me?”
exclaimed Clapham, springing to his feet, and towards
the door; and when it was opened, he said not a
word, but he looked Harry steadily in the face, and
his soul was in his eye. Harry grasped his hand,
and Mr. Norton said, almost aloud, “There's good
in the Rhigi boy!”
-- 233 --
[figure description] Page 233.[end figure description]
Two hours passed before Clapham and Harry again
separated; and in that time Clapham related all that
he had suffered, thought, and felt, since they parted
on the mournful day of little Lucy's burial. He did
not try to palliate his fault in the jail. It was Harry
that thought of the palliation. When Harry spoke
of the death of Clapham's parents, a deep gloom overshadowed
him, and he was silent and downcast for
a few moments; then a sudden gleam lit up his face,
and he said, “But, Harry, I have some honest blood
in my veins, and my poor father, perhaps — perhaps
if he had been cared for as I have — if he had had
a Harry Davis for a friend, he might have turned out
very different.” Clapham then related how he had
discovered his progenitor. “So you see, Harry,” he
concluded, “I have a fair name to begin upon —
Hale. Hale is a good name, isn't it?”
“Hale!” exclaimed Harry, his face lighting up
with an expression Clapham did not quite understand;
Hale is the pleasantest sounding name in the world.”
Mary Hale, if he had spoken the whole truth, he should
have said.
-- 234 --
[figure description] Page 234.[end figure description]
When the boys parted, Clapham said, “O Harry,
if all the land on Rhigi had been given to me, and
leave to fish and hunt with you for life, I should
not be so happy as I now am.”
“Almost as happy as I was, Clapham,” replied
Harry, “when I received my mother's letter containing
the account, from your father's lips, of the robbery.
I always felt that you had no heart in it;
but to know that I could prove my faith by your
works was joy beyond telling.”
At this moment, the cup of both boys was brimming
with well-earned happiness.
Before Harry left L—, it was settled between
him and Mr. Norton that Deleau should be written
to for a testimonial of Clapham's good conduct while
Deleau was in the jail. Very favorable testimony Mr.
Norton had already obtained from a sharp questioning
of Hunt, Slocum, and Plum. Prepared with all this
evidence in Clapham's favor, and with the document
made from Norman Dunn's dying confession, Mr. Norton
did not doubt he should obtain an immediate
pardon from the governor. Ten days after, he wrote
-- 235 --
[figure description] Page 235.[end figure description]
to Harry, “My dear young friend, the thing is done.
The governor cheerfully granted the pardon, and
Clapham Hale is now my indented apprentice, and a
member of my family. You might, but few others
would, know the Rhigi boy in his new Sunday, or
even his working-day, suit. `He shows blood,' as they
say, — the blood of his grandfather, the high-minded
Felix Hale. We must confess it was somewhat corrupted
in the veins of Norman Dunn. How much
of the sin of such corruption lies at the door of those
who neglect their duty to orphan and outcast children,
is a fearful question.
“My dear cousin, — I am proud to call you so, —
Harry Davis, your visit to me has done me, as I
humbly hope, great good. I had lived here ten years,
within a stone's throw of this jail, and never seen
the inside of it. I call myself a Christian. I am
a professor. I pray daily in my family for those
who are in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity,
and yet I have never, till you came here, lifted
one of my fingers to loosen these bonds. I pray that
missionaries, preaching the good news of salvation,
-- 236 --
[figure description] Page 236.[end figure description]
may be sent to the whole human family. I subscribe
to charitable societies, — and so I should, as God has
prospered me, — and yet I have not done the duty
nearest to me. If I had, or if my Christian neighbors
had, the scenes of filth, idleness, and iniquity in that
jail would never have existed to witness against us.
I have taken measures to have that rascally jailer
removed. They talk of a disinfecting fluid. There
should be a moral disinfection in the character of the
man who has the care of the tenants of a jail — morally
diseased creatures.
“Clapham sends a world of love to you and yours.
He has already begun with his evening school, and
so earnestly that I am sure he will soon be able
to write for himself.
“How much I wish that, instead of the uncertain
life of a city merchant, you had chosen to come and
learn with me my good trade, which will thrive as
long as men live in houses. But wherever you are,
God bless you, as He ever does His faithful servants.
“Truly, your obliged friend,
“Benjamin Norton.”
-- -- p348-246
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria, 1789-1867 [1848], The boy of Mount Rhigi (Charles H. Peirce, Boston) [word count] [eaf348].
