“Have you done preaching, parson?”

“Not quite, jailer.”

He tapped the printed paper.

“Here is a distinct order that sick prisoners shall be taken out of their cells into the infirmary, a vast room where they have a much better chance of recovering than in those stinking cells ventilated scientifically, i.e., not ventilated at all.  Now there are seven prisoners dangerously ill at this moment; yet you smother these unfortunates in their solitary cells, instead of giving them the infirmary and nurses according to the law.  Let these seven persons be in the infirmary before post-time this evening, or to-morrow I report you to the Secretary of State.”

With these words he went off leaving them all looking at one another. 
“He is coming back again,” said Fry.

He did come back again with heightened color and flashing eyes.

“Here is the prisoners’ diet,” cried he, tapping the printed rules; “it is settled to an ounce by law, and I see no authority given to the jailer to tamper with it under any circumstances.  Yet I find you perpetually robbing prisoners of their food.  Don’t let me catch either jailer or turnkeys at this again.  Jailers and turnkeys have no more right to steal a prisoner’s food than to rob the till of the Bank of England.  He receives it defined in bulk and quality from the law’s own hand, and the wretch who will rob him of an ounce of it is a felon without a felon’s excuse; and as a felon I will proceed against him by the dog-whip of the criminal law, by the gibbet of the public press, and by every weapon that wit and honesty have ever found to scourge cruelty and theft since civilization dawned upon the earth.”

He was gone and left them all turned to statues.  A righteous man’s wrath is far more terrible than the short-lived passion of the unprincipled.  It is rarer, and springs from a deeper source than temper.  Even Hawes staggered under this mortal defiance so fierce and unexpected.  For a moment he regretted having pushed matters so far.

This scene let daylight in upon shallow, earnest Hawes, and showed him a certain shallow error he had fallen into.  Because insolence had no earthly effect on the great man’s temper he had concluded that nothing could make him boil over.  A shade of fear was now added to rage, hatred and a desire for vengeance.

“Fry, come to my house.”

Evans had a wife and children, and these hostages to fortune weighed down his manly spirit.  He came to Hawes as he was going out and said submissively, though not graciously: 

“Very sorry, sir, to think I should disobey you, but when his reverence said it was against the law—­”

“That is enough, my man,” replied Hawes quietly; “he has bewitched you, it seems.  When he is kicked out you will be my servant again, I dare say.”

The words and the tone were not ill-humored.  It was not Hawes’s cue to quarrel with a turnkey.