My Ten Years Imprisonment | Page 9

think them very salutary, and calculated to excite attention), but from
the circumstance of my being unable to go through them at length,
without becoming so far abstracted as to make me forget the solemn
duty in which I am engaged. This habitual observance of prayer, and
the reflection that God is omnipresent as well as omnipotent in His
power to save, began ere long to deprive solitude of its horrors, and I
often repeated, "Have I not the best society man can have?" and from
this period I grew more cheerful, I even sang and whistled in the new
joy of my heart. And why lament my captivity? Might not a sudden
fever have carried me off? and would my friends then have grieved less
over my fate than now? and cannot God sustain them even as He could
under a more trying dispensation? And often did I offer up my prayers
and fervent hopes that my dear parents might feel, as I myself felt,

resigned to my lot; but tears frequently mingled with sweet
recollections of home. With all this, my faith in God remained
undisturbed, and I was not disappointed.
CHAPTER VII.

To live at liberty is doubtless much better than living in a prison; but,
even here, the reflection that God is present with us, that worldly joys
are brief and fleeting, and that true happiness is to be sought in the
conscience, not in external objects, can give a real zest to life. In less
than one month I had made up my mind, I will not say perfectly, but in
a tolerable degree, as to the part I should adopt. I saw that, being
incapable of the mean action of obtaining impunity by procuring the
destruction of others, the only prospect that lay before me was the
scaffold, or long protracted captivity. It was necessary that I should
prepare myself. I will live, I said to myself, so long as I shall be
permitted, and when they take my life, I will do as the unfortunate have
done before me; when arrived at the last moment, I can die. I
endeavoured, as much as possible, not to complain, and to obtain every
possible enjoyment of mind within my reach. The most customary was
that of recalling the many advantages which had thrown a charm round
my previous life; the best of fathers, of mothers, excellent brothers and
sisters, many friends, a good education, and a taste for letters. Should I
now refuse to be grateful to God for all these benefits, because He had
pleased to visit me with misfortune? Sometimes, indeed, in recalling
past scenes to mind, I was affected even to tears; but I soon recovered
my courage and cheerfulness of heart.
At the commencement of my captivity I was fortunate enough to meet
with a friend. It was neither the governor, nor any of his under- jailers,
nor any of the lords of the process-chamber. Who then?--a poor deaf
and dumb boy, five or six years old, the offspring of thieves, who had
paid the penalty of the law. This wretched little orphan was supported
by the police, with several other boys in the same condition of life.
They all dwelt in a room opposite my own, and were only permitted to
go out at certain hours to breathe a little air in the yard. Little deaf and

dumb used to come under my window, smiled, and made his obeisance
to me. I threw him a piece of bread; he took it, and gave a leap of joy,
then ran to his companions, divided it, and returned to eat his own
share under the window. The others gave me a wistful look from a
distance, but ventured no nearer, while the deaf and dumb boy
expressed a sympathy for me; not, I found, affected, out of mere
selfishness. Sometimes he was at a loss what to do with the bread I
gave him, and made signs that he had eaten enough, as also his
companions. When he saw one of the under-jailers going into my room,
he would give him what he had got from me, in order to restore it to me.
Yet he continued to haunt my window, and seemed rejoiced whenever I
deigned to notice him. One day the jailer permitted him to enter my
prison, when he instantly ran to embrace my knees, actually uttering a
cry of joy. I took him up in my arms, and he threw his little hands about
my neck, and lavished on me the tenderest caresses. How much
affection in his smile and manner! how eagerly I longed to have him to
educate, raise him from his abject condition, and snatch him, perhaps,
from utter ruin. I never even learnt his name;