Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1897-02-10
THE QUEENS PARDON.


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 eyer-alert warders paced
monctonousiy 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 30, 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
hard voice. though with kindly eyes.
pronouncing sentence of fifteen years
penal seryitude. 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 a
ring of conviction in his voice The
Judges words to Thomas Harborde fell
on deaf ears. He stood stupidity gazing
at a young girl sitting at the back Of the
court in the company of a 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 %, Tom! Tom! They're going
~ take you away from mev rang out
In the court, over which the dusk Of
late afternoon was creeping. gradually
blotting out the features of those who
sat at all in shadow. The prisoner
turned round as though about to say
something to the Judge on the bench,
and then, led by the warder. he van
ished down the dock stairs to the cells,
to be known no longer as Thomas Har-
borde. but by various numbers; at Port
LAND Convict Prison as mo 81"
The sense of innocence brought him
sontrary TO all preconceived notions of
writers Of fictiOn-no need OF satisfac-
ton; II 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
II ever he were TO be one again. BY
GOOD conduct-against the very thought
Of which he al first rebelled refusing to
accept any boon at the hands of fate
be might reduce these years to two
thirds. maybe. What then: Millions
of seconds. each one to him, a prisoner.
an spprecia ble part Of life: hundreds Of
Thousands of leaden-fOOted minutes,
uach one filed 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
ouarries IL was all the same. 1heae
hours and minutes became embodied In
the person of the wardens and fellow
prisoners. in the presence or his chains,
From a possibly dangerous man he be
csme 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 hesh
and blood. az last ne tooled it with the
unthinking regularity CT an automaton-
It takes a year or two to trampie the
human element out of man OF har-
borde's type: but the eneet OF stone
walls. silence. and brutalized compan-
IONS. II slow. is none the less sure Only
IN his case he became an sutomatoI IN
stead OF an animal
Through the long December nlght,
while the mist enshrouded Portland
and restricted the range Of the lights at
che Bill to half mile or less, and whilst
che sirens sounded from the lighthouse
gallery almost continuously, answered
fsintly by others from vessels far OUT
O. sea. or booming harshly from others
near al hand Harborde lay awake recS'
.n,,g the weeks DAYS hours and min