The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-24

 1 the almost regular routine for the es- | specially favored objects of MT.
 Hawes' zeal. The governor received daily reports of the minister's condi-
 tion and did not conceal his satisfac-
 ton when he heard at last that MT. | Eden was dying.
 But aid came to the clergyman un- | expectedly. Susan Merton, hearing of | his illness, hurried to him with her aunt, brought great physician and | saved him. The result was that the | clergyman, weak and shaken, but fiery | in his purpose as never before, ap peared one day in the prison. He arrived just in time to find the | jailers, frightened and excited, crowd \ ing into the cell occupied by Joseph. The boy had been tossed in there the night before dripping wet from the | bucket of water that had been thrown | over him after three hours in the | jacket. They had taken his bed away and deprived him of light, and the lit- | tie prisoner. moaning with pain and 1 trembling with cold had escaped them at last-by hanging himself to the gratings of the window.
 Before the prison authorities could J hurry him into his coffin the prison l inspector arrived, sent by the home I secretary, and evidently primed to find l the cleryman's charges hollow and in- 1 spired by weak sentimentality. The mute witness in the cell made such a programme impossible. MT. Eden mar 1 shaled proof on proof, convicted MT. | Hawes and the justices out of thei- own mouths of falsehood and ignorance | of the rules, and at last drove the gov ernor into so tight a corner that his only escape was to resign on the spot, which he did.
 The clergyman, left in temporary au- I thority while commission was being ap- l pointed, introduced rational labor. The stupid cranks were relegated to idleness. ! The jacket was packed up and sent to London Ejaculations of thanksgiving perhaps the most truthful that the liars, thieves, forgers and other rogues in the place ever had uttered-burst from the cells From no cell came a more devout and truthful prayer than that which was uttered from cell 19 begging God to re- | ward and bless the priest who had saved | not only his body but his soul-the prayer | of Tom Robinson, thief.
 On that night of triumph and gratitude none of all those whose fortunes were to be affected by the thiefs regeneration neither Susan Merton, nor Tom Robinson 1 nor George Fielding under the southern stars-dreamed of the great strand that was woven into the fabric of their lives ! when his destiny sent Francis Eden to | minister to his fellow mortals in prison. George Fielding, in particular. did not dream of any fortune. He had tolied With | all his might and accumulated herd of 1 cattle, only to lose them in a drought. Twice he had seen his herds of sheep suc- cumb to the pest of the Australian range I the scab.
 At last after 20 months he was just where he was when he started, or rather , worse, for his sheep herder left him sud- denly. lured by higher wages elsewhere, and George Fielding found himself utterly l alone in the bush with flock of 400 in- fected sheep.
 1 Hopeless as he was, he wasted not moment in complaint, but picked up sheep after sheep and carried it to the dipping l trough. Forty times that day he carried
 A beast 20 yards, flung 1t in and rubbed
 it. Suddenly his head began to reel He felt a miserable shiver steal over him de- | snite the great heat. He crawled to his ] bu+ and his senses left him. His last conscious thought was that this was his
 end.
 His end it would have been; and George Fielding, ten miles from the nearest neigh bor. would have died, as so many died Tn tha Australian bush, If some months be-
 fore that there had been no victorious battIe between a clergyman and a jaier
 ia an English prison.
 The first fruits of that victory fell to Tom Robinson, in whose behalf MT. Eden
 represented to the authorities that sol- tarv confinement was breaking him down,
 with the result of getting his Jail sen- | tence shortened in favor of immediate transportation to Australia, where he was to get a ticket of leave, securing for him | comparative freedom to work out his new l life in new land.
 The clergyman did not deceive himself | about the thief He knew that there was
 only too much danger of relapse into crime. Therefore he wrote to Susan ask | ing her to give him letter to George Fielding. whose influence, he felt sure, l would keep him in the right path 1 So it was that one day when George could not have held out much longer Tom Robinson walked into his hut, bringing d | letter from Susan. It were hard to say
 whether the letter or Toms faithful nurs-