“What things?”

“Well, gents, it is all over now, but it makes me shiver still, so I don’t care to be reminded; let us drop it if it is all the same to you.”

“But, Naylor, for the sake of other poor fellows and to oblige me.”

“Oh! your reverence, if I can oblige you that alters the case entirely.  Well, then, sir, if you must know, I saw ‘Child of Hell’ wrote in great letters of fire all over that side of the cell.  Always every evening this was all my society, as the saying is; ’Child of Hell’ wrote ten times brighter than gas.

“Couldn’t you shut your eyes and go to sleep?” said Mr. Lacy.

“How could I sleep? and I did shut my eyes, and then the letters they came through my eyelids.  So when this fell on the head of all my troubles I turned wild, and I said to myself one afternoon, ’Now here is my belly empty and nothing coming to it, and there is the sun a-setting, and by-and-by my cell will be brimful of hell-fire—­let me end my troubles and get one night’s rest if I never see another.’  So I hung myself up to the bar by my hammock-strap, and that is all I remember except finding myself on my back, with Mr. Fry and a lot round me, some coaxing and some cursing; and when I saw where I was I fell a-crying and blubbering, to think that I had so nearly broke prison and there they had got me still.  I dare say Mr. Fry remembers how I took on.”

“Ay, my man, I remember we got no thanks for bringing you to.”

“I was a poor unconverted sinner then,” replied Mr. Naylor demurely, “and didn’t know my fault and the consequences; but I thank you now with all my heart, Mr. Fry, sir.”

“I am to understand then that you accuse the jailer of driving you to suicide by unlawful severities?”

“No, sir, I don’t.  I only tell you how it happened, and you should not have asked me if you didn’t care to know; and as for blaming folk, the man I blame the most is John Naylor.  His reverence there has taught me to look at home.  If I hadn’t robbed honest folk I shouldn’t have robbed myself of character and liberty and health, and Mr. Hawes wouldn’t have robbed me of food and light and life wellnigh.  Certainly there is a deal of ignorance and stupidity in this here jail.  The governor has no head-piece; can’t understand that a prisoner is made out of the same stuff as he is—­skin and belly, heart, soul, bones an’ all.  I should say he wasn’t fit to be trusted with the lives of a litter of pigs, let alone a couple of hundred men and women.  But all is one for that; if he was born without any gumption, as the saying is, I wasn’t, and I didn’t ought to be in a fool’s power; that is my fault entirely, not the fool’s; ain’t it now?  If I hadn’t come to the mill the miller would never have grinded me!  I sticks to that!”