I propose, therefore, to make no mention of what passed
between us on this occasion, save that we were reconciled, and that she
brought me surreptitiously a hot glass of spirits and water before I went
to bed, as also a pile of extra blankets, and that next morning I was
quite well. I never remember to have lost a cold so rapidly.
This little affair explained much which had hitherto puzzled me. It
seemed that the two men who were examined before the magistrates on the
day of my arrival in the country, had been given in charge on account of
ill health, and were both condemned to a long term of imprisonment with
hard labour; they were now expiating their offence in this very prison,
and their exercise ground was a yard separated by my fives wall from the
garden in which I walked. This accounted for the sounds of coughing and
groaning which I had often noticed as coming from the other side of the
wall: it was high, and I had not dared to climb it for fear the jailor
should see me and think that I was trying to escape; but I had often
wondered what sort of people they could be on the other side, and had
resolved on asking the jailor; but I seldom saw him, and Yram and I
generally found other things to talk about.
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