Chapter 41

In the best room that could be allotted to him consistently with safe imprisonment, and with such comforts around as money might obtain, Falkner passed the lingering days. What so forlorn as the comforts of a prison! the wigwam of the Indian is more pleasing to the imagination—that is in close contiguity with Nature, and partakes her charm—no barrier exists between it and freedom—and Nature and freedom are the stanch friends of unsophisticated man. But a jail’s best room sickens the heart in its very show of accommodation. The strongly-barred windows, looking out on the narrow court, surrounded by high frowning walls; the appalling sounds that reach the ear, in such close neighbourhood to crime and wo; the squalid appearance given to each inhabitant by the confined air—the surly, authoritative manners of the attendants—not dependant on the prisoner, but on the state—the knowledge that all may come in, while he cannot get out—and the conviction that the very unshackled state of his limbs depends upon his tame submission and apparent apathy; there is no one circumstance that does not wound the free spirit of man, and make him envy the meanest animal that breathes the free air, and is at liberty.

Falkner, by that strange law of our nature which makes us conceive the future, without being aware of our foreknowledge, had acquainted his imagination with these things—and while writing his history amid the far-stretched mountains of Greece, had shrunk and trembled before such an aspect of slavery; and yet now that it had fallen on him, he felt in the first instance more satisfied, more truly free, than for many a long day before.

There is no tyranny so hard as fear; no prison so abhorrent as apprehension; Falkner was not a coward, yet he feared. He feared discovery—he feared ignominy, and had eagerly sought death to free him from the terror of such evils, with which, perhaps—so strangely are we formed—Osborne had infected him. It had come—it was here—it was his life, his daily bread; and he rose above the infliction calmly, and almost proudly. It is with pride that we say that we endure the worst—there is a very freedom in the thought, that the animosity of all mankind is roused against us—and every engine set at work for our injury—no more can be done—the gulf is passed—the claw of the wild beast is on our heart—but the spirit soars more freely still. To this was added the singular relief which confession brings to the human heart. Guilt hidden in the recesses of the conscience assumes gigantic and distorted dimensions. When the secret is shared by another, it falls back at once into its natural proportion.

Much had this man of wo endured—the feeling against him throughout the part of the country where he now was was vehement. The discovery of poor Alithea’s remains—the inquest, and its verdict—the unhappy lady’s funeral—had spread far and wide his accusation. It had been found necessary to take him into Carlisle by night; and even then, some few remained in waiting, and roused their fellows, and the hootings of execration were raised against him. “I end as I began,” thought Falkner; “amid revilings and injustice—I can surely suffer now that which was so often my lot in the first dawn of boyhood.”