I.

Discharged! They call me a free man to-night. Well, free in body I am. My eyes can range over the eastern heavens, and watch the great luminous globe of the moon, full and yellow, swimming half submerged in faint bars and wisps of thin vapour. Then I can turn to the west, and watch how Venus outshines the stars, her neighbours. I can listen to the night wind rustling in the pine branches of that black coppice close at hand, and can note how the silvery light softens roofs and leaves, and how dark, by contrast, seem the shadows underneath. I can put down my hand and feel the grass-how wet it is already with the dew; and I can expand my lungs, and drink in the wandering air, soft, fresh, cool, and fragrant. Ah! that I could add calming and soothing also! Surely, if anything could calm and soothe, this sweet breath of heaven should be that thing.

I am called a free man! I can walk fifty paces forwards in a straight line—I can put out my arms in the darkness—without touching stone or iron. I have heard no key turn, no door clang to-night; I am dressed like other men, and can walk through a crowd without seeing faces turned in disgust or curiosity; strangest of all, I have a name once more—I was called by it to-day—I am no longer a unit, a mere numeral, I am a man!

For seven years and a-half I have not seen the spacious cum of the star-lit sky, or felt the night-breeze on my face, or smelled its sweet odours, or brushed the dew, or paced backwards and forwards uncontrolled. For seven years and six months I have not stretched out my arms in freedom, or looked boldly up; I have looked down; I have not been a man, anthropos.

Seven years and a-half! O men and women, you who pray "for all prisoners and captives," can you dream how I have waited and longed for this day? How I have counted those hundreds of weeks, those thousands of days, those tens of thousands of hours? How their numeration is burnt into my brain, in indelible figures? I can tell you, off-hand, how many hours there are in a week, a month, a year, seven years and a-half; how many minutes, how many seconds. How often have I done the same old dreary, dismal sum in my head, by night and day? How often has it dazed and wearied me? How page 29 often, again, has it soothed and occupied my horror-stricken brain, and driven away distracting misery?—

"The sad, mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotic numbing pain."

How often has it kept that at arm's length, and saved me from death, or from worse than death—from madness!

Thank Heaven for this at least—I have kept my reason. Through all that remorse and despair can do, through all their stings, and stabs, and wrenches, I have lived on, and my mind is clear, my senses sound. When I passed in through that gate, how little did I hope for this, how little wish for it! I wished for death, idiocy, stupor; anything that would "raze out the written troubles of the brain," and bring rest and the thrice-blessed balm of forgetfulness. Certainly, I dreaded imprisonment, but not for its own sake, not for its shame, hardships, and restraints, but because it would keep me stationary, lonely, quiet; because it would give me all those hours, days, weeks, months, and years in which to think; because it would keep me chained and motionless, to be tormented by "the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched;" by remorse ever piercing and i devouring through the long, silent, dreadful hours. And all that I dreaded, I have suffered. The cup was drained to the dregs; and yet I am alive, and am not mad. I was guilty, I do not deny it; but not of the crime with which they charged me—No! not of that—not of murder! I have killed an innocent fellow-creature, killed her by the most cruel and horrid of all deaths. It was my crime, my felony, which caused her death; yet the Searcher of Hearts knows how little her death was through my evil intent. I did not know of her existence until I had to look on helplessly, and see her tortured to death by my act!

They say my punishment has been light. You who read this after I am gone, shall judge.