"Last door on the right,--you know, mum," says the official: "boy
will follow, lightly: whist! whist!"
"I know, to my sorrow," is her reply, delivered in a whisper. Ah!
her emotions are too tender for prison walls; they are yielding
tears from the fountain of her very soul.
"He's sick: walk softly, and don't think of the prisoners. Knock at
the door afore enterin'," says a staid-looking warden, emerging
from a small door on the left hand of the vestibule.
"Zist! zist!" returns the other, pointing with the forefinger of his
right hand down the aisle, and, placing his left, gently, on
Franconia's shoulder, motioning her to move on.
Slowly, her handkerchief to her face, she obeys the sign, and is
moving down the corridor, now encountering anxious eyes peering
through the narrow grating of huge black doors. And then a faint,
dolorous sound strikes on their listening ears. They pause for a
moment,--listen again! It becomes clearer and clearer; and they
advance with anxious curiosity. "It's Daddy Bob's voice," whispers
Harry; "but how distant it sounds!
"Even that murmurs in his confinement," returns Franconia.
"How, like a thing of life, it recalls the past-the past of
happiness!" says Harry, as they reach the cell door, and,
tremulously, hesitate for a few moments.
"Listen again!" continues Harry. The sound having ceased a moment or
two, again commences, and the word "There's a place for old mas'r
yet, And de Lord will see him dar," are distinctly audible.
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