bars of his cell by his braces, the buckles of which had left livid marks upon his neck.  His Prayer-book had been found open at the Burial of the Dead, and it was understood that he had read that service over himself before taking leave of the world.  He had also written his will with a point of the said brace-buckles upon the brick of his cell.  He himself (Mr. Rolfe) had been called as a witness at the inquest, and had thereby obtained two hours’ relaxation from labor; but upon the whole he would rather have been working with his gang—­the affair had quite upset him; and, since its occurrence, the inmates of Lingmoor were forbidden to use braces.

“Were there any escapes from Lingmoor by any other means?” inquired Richard.

“Escapes?” Mr. Rolfe’s countenance assumed a more solemn vacuity than ever.  It was an indiscretion of his young friend to shape that word with his lips while a warder sat in the same carriage.  Yes, there had been such things even at Lingmoor.  But it was a difficult job, even for one used to cracking cribs.  The outer wall was not to be scaled without a ladder, and ladders were even more difficult to procure than tobacco.  Even if you did get over the outer wall, the space around the prison was very bare, and the sentries had orders to shoot you fleeing.  If you got to Bergen Wood, two miles away, you might be safe so far, but it was a dangerous business.  Nobody had ever done it yet without “putting somebody out.”

This was a euphemism for murder, as Richard was by this time “old hand” enough to know.

“Warders?” inquired he indifferently; for he had already learned to value that objectionable class at a low figure.

“Hush!  Yes; you must kill ‘a dog’ or two before you say good-by to Lingmoor, unless you can put them to sleep.” (Bribery.) “There was a man once as had to kill his pal to do it.”

“How could that help him?” Richard felt no interest whatever in these narratives as stories; but since they referred to escapes they entrancing.  The convict who is cast for death thinks of nothing but a reprieve; the “lifer” or the long-termer, thinks of nothing but an escape—­and (sometimes) vengeance.

“Well, it was curious.  There was a ‘Smasher’” (utterer of counterfeit coin) “named Molony in for life there—­a thin-shanked, shambling fellow, as Smashers mostly are—­mere trash.  He had got a file, this fool, and dared not use it—­kept it as close as though it were ‘bacca,’ and waited for his chance, instead of making his chance for himself.  Damme, if I had a file!”

Mr. Rolfe’s feelings of irritation were almost too much for him; he turned up the whites of his eyes, so that persons who were unacquainted with his views upon religious subjects might have supposed him to be engaged in some devotional exercise.

“Next door to this fellow—­though it seemed a long way off, for the cell was in an angle of the prison—­there was one of the right sort; name of Jeffreys.  No prison in England could have held him if he had had a file.  With a rusty nail as he had picked up he dug through his cell wall, and came out one night, all of a sudden, upon the Smasher—­thought he was out of doors, poor beggar, through this cursed angle, you see, and after all had only changed his room.”