Fathers, sent by your apprehensive wives to see whether Dicky is well used at that school or not, don’t draw Dicky into a corner of the playground, and with tender kisses and promises of inviolable secrecy coax him to open his little heart to you, and tell you whether he is really happy; leave such folly to women—­it is a weakness to wriggle into the truth as they do.

No! you go like a man into the parlor with the schoolmaster—­then have Dicky in—­let him see the two authorities together on good terms—­then ask him whether he is happy and comfortable and well used.  He will tell you he is.  Go home rejoicing—­but before you go into the drawing-room do pray spend twenty minutes by the kitchen fire, and then go upstairs to the boy’s mother—­and let her eat you, for you belong to the family of the Woodcocks.

“We are passing one cell.”

“Oh! that one is empty,” replied Hawes.

Not quite empty; there was a beech coffin standing in that cell, and the corpse of a murdered thief lay waiting for it.

At twelve o’clock the justices were all assembled in their room.  “We will send you a message in half an hour, Mr. Hawes.”

Mr. Hawes bowed and retired, and bade Fry to take Robinson to the dark cell.  The poor fellow knew resistance was useless.  He came out at the word of command, despair written on his face.  Of all the horrors of this hell the dark cell was the one he most dreaded.  He looked up to Hawes to see if anything he could say would soften him.  No! that hardened face showed neither pity nor intelligence; as well appeal to a stone statue of a mule.

At this moment Mr. Eden came into the jail.  Robinson met him on the ground-floor, and cried out to him, “Sir, they are sending me to the black hole for it.  I am a doomed man; the black hole for six hours.”

“No!” roared Hawes from above, “for twelve hours; the odd six is for speaking in prison.”  Robinson groaned.

“I will take you out in three,” said Mr. Eden calmly.  Hawes heard and laughed aloud.

“Give me your hand on that, sir, for pity’s sake,” cried Robinson.  Mr. Eden gave him his hand and said, firmly, “I will take you out in two hours, please God.”

Hawes chuckled.  “Parson is putting his foot in it more and more.  The justices shall know this.”

This momentary contact with his good angel gave Robinson one little ray of hope for a companion in the cave of darkness, madness, and death.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE justices went through their business in the usual routine.  They had Mr. Hawes’s book up—­examined the entries—­received them with implicit confidence looked for no other source of information to compare them with.  Examined one witness and did not cross-examine him.

This done, one of them proposed to concoct their report at once.  Another suggested that the materials were not complete; that there was a charge against the chaplain.  This should be looked into, and should it prove grave, embodied in their report.