CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE DAYS O' SUMMER MERRILY SPENT IN THE LAND OF THE HEATHER.

In the cell next to mine was a prison genius named Heep, who was one of

the most singular characters I ever met. As I shall have occasion to

speak of him frequently, I may as well give here a sketch of his life as

related to me by himself. He was born in the town of Macclesfield, near

Manchester, in 1852, of respectable mechanics, or tradespeople as they

are called in England. His father died when Heep was about 5 years of

age, and after a time his mother married a carpenter and joiner of the

place.

Young Heep was a lively child, up to all sorts of tricks, and does not

remember the time since he could walk that he was not in some mischief,

and, as he remarked, "took to all sorts of deviltry as naturally as a

duck to water." As long as his father lived there was not much check on

his mischievous propensities, but his stepfather proved to be a severe

and stern judge, and brought him to book for every irregularity,

thrashing him most unmercifully for each offense. His mother could not

have filled her maternal duty very judiciously, judging from the fact

that before he was 12 years old she set him to follow and watch his

stepfather to the house of a woman of whom she was jealous. The boy

possessed great natural abilities, and in good hands would have turned

out something different than a life-long prison drudge. He was handsome,

genteel in appearance, an apt scholar, though very self-willed and

headstrong, and as he grew up his naturally hot temper became

uncontrollable. At an early age he had discovered that by threats of

self-injury he could bend his parents to his wishes, but found in his

stepfather one who would put up with no nonsense; even when he cut

himself so as to bleed freely, instead of the coveted indulgence it only

procured him an additional thrashing.

At 15 he had become ungovernable at home, and his father had him put in

the county insane asylum, where he remained a year and a half. While

there he caused so much trouble that the attendants were only too glad

when he escaped and went to Liverpool. Here he succeeded in getting a

situation with a dealer in bric-a-brac, rare books and antiquities. In a

short time the proprietor placed so much confidence in his integrity

that he gave him the charge of his place during his own absences, and

young Heep was not long in taking advantage of his position to rob his

employer by taking a book or other article which he sold to some one of

his master's customers. This went on for some time until on one occasion

he took the book to a shop kept by a woman to whom he had previously

sold several articles and offered it for a sovereign. She examined it

and found that it was an ancient, illuminated Greek manuscript, worth

fifty times more than the price young Heep asked for it, and, suspecting

something wrong, she told him to come again for the money the next

evening. At the appointed time he entered the place and was confronted

by his master, who contented himself with upbraiding him for his perfidy

and discharging him from his service.

At this period of his career he had contracted vicious habits, the most

pernicious for him being that of drink, for when sober he was in his

right mind, but the moment the drink was in his common sense departed,

and he became a raving maniac, ready to fight or perpetrate any other

act of folly. Up to this time he had never been tempted to steal only in

order to supply means for improper indulgences.

Not long after being discharged from his situation he was found by the

police acting in so insane a manner under the influence of drink that

the magistrate before whom he was taken had him sent to the Raynell

lunatic asylum. Here, being perfectly reckless, he carried on all sorts

of games which made him obnoxious, although making himself very useful

in work which he liked, such as gardening, etc. He also took up fancy

painting and soon became a skillful copyist of prints of any

description, enlarging or reducing, and painting them in oil or water

colors. He also became a good decorator and scene painter, besides

devoting time to various studies, including music.

At last he found means to effect his escape and lay in hiding until

night; then as he had on the asylum clothes, which would betray him, he

went back and got in through the window of the tailors' shop, which was

in an isolated building, and exchanged the clothes he had on for a suit

belonging to one of the attendants. Thinking himself now safe from

recognition he started off across the country, but had not gone more

than twenty miles when, in passing through a small town, a policeman who

had just heard of the escape from Raynell arrested him on suspicion.

The Raynell authorities sent some one to identify him; he was taken

back, tried on the charge of stealing the attendant's suit of clothes,

which he still had on, was convicted by the usual intelligent jury and

sentenced to five years' penal servitude.

He finished his term of imprisonment at Chatham, and instead of being

set at liberty was sent under guard back to the asylum!

According to English law, if a person confined in a lunatic asylum

escapes and keeps away fourteen days he cannot after that be arrested,

unless he commits fresh acts of insanity.

After several futile attempts he at last made good his escape and

obtained work with a farmer, where he remained safe for thirteen days,

and was congratulating himself that in less than another day he would be

free, when his thoughts were broken off by the appearance of two

attendants who seized and carried him back to the asylum.

The events above narrated had driven him into a state of desperation at

what he felt to be gross injustice, and he carried on in such a way that

the doctor ordered his head to be shaved and blistered as a punishment,

the straitjacket and all other coercive measures having been of no

avail. The night watchman had orders to watch him closely, but he kept

so sharp an eye on the watchman that he caught him asleep, and, creeping

to the closet window, which he had previously tampered with, crept out,

and after climbing the low wall found himself on a raw November night,

with the rain falling in torrents, a stark-naked,

head-shaved-and-blistered but once more a free man. In this condition he

wandered on throughout the night, and just before daylight he entered a

cemetery to find that refuge among the dead of which he thought himself

so cruelly deprived by the living.

Beneath the entrance to the church there was a passage which led to some

family vaults in the basement, and he crept down the passage to seek

some shelter for his nude body from the driving rain, which had chilled

him through. While groping about in the dark his hand rested on

something soft, which, to his unbounded delight, proved to be an old

coat which had probably been left there by the sexton and forgotten. He

remained hidden all day, and traveled through the fields all night,

during which he found a scarecrow, from which he transferred to his own

person its old hat and trousers.

He said that although so hungry, he never had felt so happy as he did at

finding himself once more dressed up. After proceeding a few miles

farther, he ventured into a laborer's cottage in quest of food, which

was given him, and with it a pair of old boots. As dilapidated, ragged,

vagabond-looking, honest people are common in England, no questions were

asked, and he proceeded on his way rejoicing in that freedom of which he

had been deprived for ten years or more.

Amid all his pranks he had never been charged with idleness, and now

worked at odd jobs about the farms until he had procured a decent suit

of clothes, when he applied to a master house painter for work as a

journeyman, though he had never done anything of that kind. The master,

pleased with his appearance, gave him a trial, but the first job showed

such ignorance of the art of house painting that he was forthwith

discharged with half a day's wages. However, he had picked up some

valuable hints, and being very apt by the time he had been more or less

summarily discharged from half a dozen places he had become a good

workman, and henceforth had no trouble about retaining any situation as

long as he refrained from beer and restrained his temper; but at the

slightest fault-finding on the part of the master he would fly into a

passion and throw up the situation, and this, especially, if he

suspected that anything had leaked out about his imprisonment.

While at work with a companion at painting the interior of a gentleman's

residence near Bradford a word or two was dropped which made him believe

his fellow workman had become aware of his being an ex-convict. Quitting

work, he went to a public house, passing the rest of the day in

carousing. About midnight, while on his way to his boarding house, it

occurred to him that he had noticed a good many valuable things about

the gentleman's house which he could obtain. No sooner thought than

done; the entrance was in a moment gained; he had just consciousness

enough left to gather a few things, then lie down by the side of them

and fell into a drunkard's sleep, in which the servants found him when

they came down in the morning. A constable was sent for, he was given in

charge, tried, convicted of the crime of burglary and sentenced to seven

years' penal servitude.

His former term of five years had made him proficient in all the dodges

of prison life, and he felt justified in his own mind in using all his

craft in order to put in his seven years as easily as possible. As he

had been in Raynell asylum, he knew that by "putting on the balmy" so as

to be sent to the lunatic department he would not be subjected to the

prison rules and be as well off as he had been in the free asylum.

Persistent attempts at suicide by cutting himself in the arms and legs

with a piece of glass so as to bleed freely accomplished his purpose.

Being placed with the other convict lunatics, he made himself useful,

but on account of his bad temper and overbearing, quarrelsome

disposition, obnoxious to his fellow prisoners.

Eventually he was discharged with an eighteen months' ticket-of-leave

and $2.50 as capital for a new departure.

He went to Liverpool, procured a passage on board a freight steamer to

America, which he paid for by working at painting. Landing at New York,

he made his way to Norfolk, Va., where he procured work as a painter.

Owing to his infirmity of temper he did not keep his place long, and

after knocking about for a few months he took a freak to return to

England--the last place of all for any man who has once been a prisoner.

[Illustration: George Bidwell

AFTER IMPRISONMENT. (From Photo. by Stuart, Hartford.)]

Once more in his native land, he procured work without difficulty at

house painting, but, as usual, remained in one place but a very short

time. His earnings, like those of a great majority of the working

class in England, were squandered in the public house.

Soon after the events just recorded, Heep concluded to visit his old

home in Macclesfield. He accordingly threw up his situation, and arrived

at the railway station an hour before the train was due. In order to

while away the time he entered a public house and drank several glasses

of ale. The compartment which he entered happened to be empty, and as

usual whenever he indulged his appetite for anything containing alcohol,

he was soon quite out of his mind and fancied that some one on the train

was coming to murder him, and leaped headlong from the train, which was

going at the rate of forty miles an hour. This came to a standstill, he

was taken on board again, not seriously injured, and left at Wrexham in

Denbighshire, from which he was sent to the Denbigh Insane Asylum. This

being a Welsh institution, did not, according to Heep, possess those

facilities for enjoying life which were so liberally supplied to the

inmates of the Raynell asylum near Liverpool. Accordingly he behaved

himself with so much propriety that the doctor discharged him as cured.

Not long after his return he got work near Manchester at painting in a

block of new houses where the plumbers were at work putting in the gas

and water pipes. On a Saturday, when he left work at noon, he met a

young plumber who was out of a job. This man said he knew where he could

earn a sovereign if he had tools to do a job in a butcher shop, and told

Heep that if he would go to the houses where he had been painting and

borrow a few plumbers' tools and assist him he would divide the amount.

Heep went back, but finding that the master plumber and all his men had

gone (Saturday afternoon in England being a half-holiday for laborers),

he took the few tools required, went and finished the job by 7 p.m.;

then instead of taking the tools back, they went into a public house

where they caroused till midnight, when they separated, Heep taking the

tools to his boarding house. On Monday he started early, so as to get

the tools back before the other workmen arrived. On nearing the houses

he passed a policeman who walked a little lame. He turned his head to

look back, and the policeman happened to do the same thing, and seeing

Heep looking at him his suspicions were aroused. Turning back, he came

up and asked him what he had in the two bosses (tool baskets). Heep

informed him, and on further questioning showed him the key to the house

from which he had taken the tools, and asked him to accompany him there,

which he did. They entered, Heep putting back the tools, and showed the

policeman where he had been painting and wished him to stay until the

master came in half an hour. This the policeman declined to do, and took

the tools and told Heep to come to the police station.

Heep lost his temper and began cursing him. The policeman went to the

door, and seeing another just passing beckoned him in, and the two

marched him to the station. The plumber was sent for, and was induced to

make a charge against Heep and value the stolen goods at ten shillings.

Seeing that the police were bound to make a case against him, he seized

the plumber's knife and cut his throat, severing the windpipe. The

doctor was sent for, he was transferred to the jail hospital, and in the

course of two or three weeks was well enough to appear before the

magistrate, though he could not speak, and was bound over for trial.

In the mean time the police had discovered that he had served two penal

terms, on the strength of which, when convicted, the magistrate

sentenced him to ten years' penal servitude.

At the trial he had not yet recovered the use of his voice, nor did he

have any one to defend him, for at that time, unlike the present, the

Crown did not furnish a lawyer for the defense of those who were unable

to employ one at their own expense. When the magistrate was about to

pronounce the sentence, he said that as the prisoner had escaped from

ordinary asylums he should send him to a place from which he could not

escape--meaning a prison.

[Illustration: BANK OF ENGLAND SCENE.--VISITOR HOLDING L1,000,000

($5,000,000) BANK OF ENGLAND NOTES.]