Part 152

“During the first seven months of Mr. Judson’s imprisonment, there was but little change. The white men all wore three pairs of fetters; but they were suffered to walk about the prison-yard, as well as they could with their ankles only a few inches apart, and always followed by keepers. They were from time to time subjected to almost innumerable annoyances, vexations, and extortions; and they were obliged to be the witnesses of wanton cruelties which they could not prevent, and of intense sufferings which they could not alleviate. For the most of the time, through Mrs. Judson’s continual exertions, and by help of occasional presents, they were allowed to spend the day in the open shed in the yard, and Mrs. Judson was even permitted to build a little bamboo shelter for her husband, where he could be, some portion of the time, by himself. Mr. Judson was exceedingly nice in his personal habits, nice even to a fault; and this herding together, even if he had been permitted to choose his associates, would have been exceedingly unpleasant to him. They were not all, belonging as they did to five different nations, educated in his notions of cleanliness, and even he was often, from necessity, offensive to himself. Sometimes he was denied the use of water, and sometimes the admission of clothing was forbidden; and the act of dressing, with the ankles made fast by fetters, proved to be no simple art. With all his efforts, and the care taken by his wife of his wardrobe, he was sometimes in a very forlorn state. His food was such as Mrs. Judson could provide. Sometimes it came regularly, and sometimes they went very hungry. Sometimes, for weeks together, they had no food but rice, savored with ngapee—a certain preparation of fish, not always palatable to foreigners. But once, when a term of unusual quiet gave her time for the softer and more homely class of loving thoughts, Mrs. Judson made a great effort to surprise her husband with something that should remind him of home. She planned and labored, until, by the aid of buffalo beef and plantains, she actually concocted a mince pie. Unfortunately, as she thought, she could not go in person to the prison that day; and the dinner was brought by smiling Moung Ing, who seemed aware that some mystery must be wrapped up in that peculiar preparation of meat and fruit, though he had never seen the well-spread boards of Plymouth and Bradford. But the pretty little artifice only added another pang to a heart whose susceptibilities were as quick and deep as, in the sight of the world, they were silent. When his wife had visited him in prison, and borne taunts and insults with and for him, they could be brave together; when she had stood up like an enchantress, winning the hearts of high and low, making savage jailers, and scarcely less savage nobles, weep; or moved, protected by her own dignity and sublimity of purpose, like a queen along the streets, his heart had throbbed with proud admiration; and he was almost able to thank God for the trials which had made a character so intrinsically noble shine forth with such peculiar brightness. But in this simple, homelike act, this little unpretending effusion of a loving heart, there was something so touching, so unlike the part she had just been acting, and yet so illustrative of what she really was, that he bowed his head upon his knees, and the tears flowed down to the chains about his ankles. What a happy man he might have been had this heavy woe been spared them! And what was coming next? Finally the scene changed, and there came over him a vision of the past. He saw again the home of his boyhood. His stern, strangely revered father, his gentle mother, his rosy, curly-haired sister, and pale young brother were gathered for the noonday meal, and he was once more among them. And so his fancy revelled there. Finally he lifted his head. O, the misery that surrounded him! He moved his feet, and the rattling of the heavy chains was as a death-knell. He thrust the carefully prepared dinner into the hand of his associate, and as fast as his fetters would permit, hurried to his own little shed.