The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1897-01-29
THE QUEENS PARDON.

On the heights of Portland the De
cember mists, still undispersed by sun
rise, hung thick, obliterating all traces
of the prison buildings from the roads,
where several ships Of the Channel
Squadron lay at anchor. and also from
the struggling row of houses at the
base of the northwest slope. In the
prison itself there was no light as yet
save in the corridors, up and down
which the ever-alert warders paced
monotonously to and fro. In most of
the cells the prisoners slept, tired out
with the previous days hewing of stone
and uncongenial tasks; but in one the
occupant, a man of 35, good-looking in
spite Of prison garb, close-cropped hair,
and the ravages of toll and despair, lay
on his bed awake.
A little more than ten years ago he
had stood in the dock of a West of Eng
land city listening to a judge with a
hard voice, though with kindly eyes.
pronouncing sentence of, fifteen years
penal servitude. All that an eloquent
counsel could do had been done for
him, but to no avail. The evidence
seemed conclusively damnatory, and
the foreman of the jury, after an alb
sence of half an hour, answered
"Guilty" to the usual question, with
ring Of conviction in his voice. The
Judges words to Thomas Harborde fell
on deaf ears. He stood stupidity gazing
at young girl sitting at the back of the
court in the company of sweet-faced
old lady, as though he saw nothing. At
last warder touched him on the shoul-
der, and the same instant a piteous
cry of 20, Tom! Tom! They're going
to take you away from me-" rang out
In the court, over which the dusk of
late afternoon was creeping, gradually
blotdng out the features of those who
sat at all in shadow. The prisoner
turned roundA as though about to say
something to the Judge on the bench,
and then, led by the warder, he van
ashed down the dock stairs to the cells,
20 be known no longer as Thomas Har-
oorde, but by various numbers; at Port
Hand Convict Prison as NO 27"
The sense of innocence brought him
contrary to all preconceived notions of
writers Of fictfon-no need Of satisfac-
tion; 1t merely filed him with desper-
ate wrath and blackest despair. In the
early period of his solitary confinement
he found himself confronted day in and
day out with the crushing sense of the
legions of hours, minutes, and seconds
before he could hope to be free man
df ever he were to be one again. By
good conduct-against the very thought
of which he at first rebelled, refusing to
accept any boon at the hands of fate
he might reduce these years to two
thirds, maybe What then? Millions
of seconds, each one to him, a prisoner,
an appreciab BILE part of life; hundreds of
thousands of leaden-footed minutes
each one filled with poignant despair,
must pass ere the time of release drew
near. At work, under the scorching
sun or in the keen air of winter, in the
quarries it was all the same. These
hours and minutes became embodied in
the person of the wardens and fellow
prisoners, in the presence of his chains,
From possibly dangerous man he be-
came almost an inanimate machine, a
mere cogwheel in the round of daily
toll and poison discipline. At first he
attacked the stone as though he were
revenging his wrongs upon human flesh
and blood, at last he fooled it with the
unthinking regularity of an automaton.
1t takes year or two to trample the
human element out of a man of Har-
borde's type; but the effect of stone
walls, silence, and brutalized compan-
ions. if slow, is none the less sure. Only
in his case he became an automaton in
stead of an animal.
Through the long December night,
while the mist enshrouded Portland
and restricted the range of the lights at
the Bill to half mile or less, and whilst
the sirens sounded from the lighthouse
gallery almost continuously, answered
family by others from vessels far out
to sea, or booming harshly from others
near at hand, Harborde lay awake reck-
oning the weeks. days. hours. and min
utes which comprise the remaining two
years of his term. He had but just
dropped off into a half-sleeping condi-
ton when his cell door opened, and in
stead of the hard face of the warder
come to tell him to tidy up he saw the
Governor and chaplain, with the ward
er in the background.
What could 1t mean? He sprang up.
rubbing his eyes, and almost before he
knew what was happening the Cover
nor had told him in a few words that
he had received the Queens pardon,
and then proceeded to read the same.
What did 1t all mean? No other thought
germinated in his dull brain. Freei
Free to go where he willed! Free to
b ant Of fha roc fo
return within the stone walls which
had shut him in from the outside world,
as surely as though no world other
than that contained within them exist
ed. The prison bell changed, startling
him into state of wakefulness. The
Governor had finished reading the Of
.acial-looking paper. and with the coz