The Midnight Bell/Volume II/Chapter XVI

CHAPTER XVI.

"On recovering, I found myself lying on my mattress: a blanket had been added to my quilt; and the physician, on my again opening my eyes, administered to me a cup of wine, the first variation of my daily food of bread and water that had passed my lips since my entrance into the Bastile.

"For several days the physician continued to visit me; and having youth and strength on my side, in a month's time I began to recover the use of my bodily and mental faculties, both of which had been much injured by what I had undergone. The greatest cause of remembrance that remained to me of what was past, was the weakness of my eyes when they met the light.

"Near six months passed ere I was again led out to the platform for air, and I even then found my limbs very inadequate to the task of supporting me more than a few minutes at a time.

"Day rolled on after day, and month after month, but still I received no information whether what I had undergone was deemed a sufficient confirmation of my innocence, or not; and as I was still retained a prisoner, I kept looking forward with increasing apprehension to a trial more severe than the one I had already passed through.

"I must here mention a circumstance which, however trivial it may appear to you, dwells on my mind, and seems to claim my attention.

"Nearly a year had elapsed since my undergoing the torture, when one morning a small part of the window having been left open to air my prison, a red-breast flew into the apartment, and perching on the table, began to peck the bread which had just been brought me as half my day's provision. I approached a few steps towards it, that I might the better observe it; for in my present situation, any object which engaged my attention, afforded me a moment of unexpected happiness. I perceived that it saw me, and I stopped; lest I should drive it away; but the food seemed to be a greater attraction than my presence was a cause of fear, and, to my satisfaction, it went on pecking the bread.

"Its plumage was rough, and raised against the cold, and it bore every mark of having suffered from the inclemency of the season, which was that of a severe frost; a deep snow had some time covered the ground, and the eagerness with which it preyed on its newly-found prize, showed that the weather had proved to it, whose feeble claws were unable to turn up the depth of snow, a season of famine.

"I pitied it for what it had suffered, and participated in its present apparently great satisfaction;—'Yet, poor foolish wanderer!' I cried, 'thy native timidity, when the call of nature is satisfied, will again drive thee to the piercing cold and hunger from which thou hast now found protection!—Thou art not wise enough to insure it to thyself, and mayest perhaps perish for want of that which thou shouldst never lack by living here, could I but teach thee to know my good will towards thee!'—In the energy of what I felt, I drew nearer to the table; and the bird, having either finished its meal, or being terrified by my approach, flew two or three times round the room, in search of the spot by which it had entered, and having found it, vanished in a moment from my sight.

"'Thou art gone!' I exclaimed, 'never to return hither!'—There was a charm in the last words I had uttered, that seemed to render even the biting air and keen famine to which the little animal would be exposed, an enviable situation when compared with my own.—'Many are the hardships thou wilt endure,' I cried; 'but thou hast a balm for all thy sufferings,—thou enjoyest liberty,—the choicest gift and richest blessing heaven pours on its created beings; deprived of it, all other ills in life are light.—Knowing what I have learnt from experience of the bitterness of its loss, I would not be the wretch to inflict it, e'en on the little bird I have just beheld, no! though my own enlargement were the price of its captivity!'

"On the following morning, to my great delight and surprise, the little bird again flew into my prison; I threw it some crumbs; it picked them, hopped about the floor, flew upon the table, fluttered about the room, and again left me.

"Every morning I was now visited by the red-breast; I had nothing else to occupy my attention; and I found a great source of amusement in waiting the arrival of my feathered visitor: I never failed to feed him plenteously, and used every endeavour to divest him of his natural timidity, and dispose him to receive my caresses; and I even flattered myself that he began to view me without fear, as he sometimes remained several hours in my prison; but, alas! when spring began to exhale her inviting sweets, my little companion, wearing too much the complexion of the world he inhabited, forgot his fosterer in the hour of adversity, nor returned to sooth his solitary moments. Spring, summer, and autumn passed, and I began to think that some accident had befallen him, or that he had entirely forgotten the spot where he had been so hospitably received, and gave him up as lost.—On the part of my persecutors also, a strict silence as to my doom had been observed towards me, and I began to fear I was a prisoner for life.

"Winter was now again advancing, when, as I was one morning reclining on my hard bed in mournful meditation, a fluttering in the room called my eyes to the part where I had heard it, and I beheld on the table my long-lamented bird!

"I felt the glow of unexpected pleasure mount into my cheeks; and I immediately rose and crumbled for him a piece of bread: he chirped in thankfulness for my gift, and I even imagined he seemed as pleased as myself at the renewal of our acquaintance.

"During the winter he continued to visit me, as he had done the former one; and having made for him a perch, which I contrived, by means of a crooked nail, to form out of a long splinter which I had shaved from my table, and which I fastened up in one corner of my prison, by supporting it in a small niche I made in either wall, he often remained with me during the night, as well as the day, and sometimes for four or five days successively; and the pleasure which, shut out as I was from all intercourse with my own species, I enjoyed in the unrestrained visits of this little bird, was indescribably great.

"With the spring he again deserted me, and with the winter he again returned to my prison; and thus, till the seventh year after his first visiting me, did he continue to be my companion during the winter season.

"It was one day, about the middle of the seventh winter, that he happened to stand sleeping on his perch, with his head folded in the feathers of his wing, when the jailer entering with my breakfast, and observing him, darted across the prison, and, ere I could stop his cruel arm, seized my unconscious favourite, and wrung his neck.

"Need I blush to own that the tears burst into my eyes?

"I would have remonstrated with the unfeeling wretch on his barbarity, had I not immediately considered that what I could now say would be of no avail, but to gain me the derision of him who had deprived me of my only source of solace and amusement; and I contented myself with requesting him to give me the dead body.

"Without answering me, he aimed to throw it out of the window; but, missing his cast, it fell back into the room; I sprang forward to seize it, but he had snatched it up, and his second aim being more successful, it was gone for ever ere I reached the spot; I followed it with my eyes, and when it disappeared, I still stood gazing on the window.

"The ruthless jailer left the prison in the silence in which he had entered it.

"I immediately placed the stool under the window, and sprang upon it, hoping I might find the body rested on the outward frame of the window: but the hope was vain.

"I descended from the stool, and standing with my arms folded in the middle of my prison, reflection again led me to draw a comparison between the present situation of myself and that of my lamented bird; and the only inference I could draw, from a long train of thought, I expressed in a short exclamation, which I insensibly uttered aloud,—'Thou, little bird, art still the happier.'