The Revolution in Tanner’s Lane

next to nothing; walked through the wards, and left his patients pretty much to Providence. They were robbed even of their food. They were not much to be pitied for being robbed of the stimulants, for every drop, including the “port wine,” was obtained by the directors from those of their number or from their friends who were in the trade, and it was mostly poisonous. Death is always terrible⁠—terrible on the battlefield; terrible in a sinking ship; terrible to the exile⁠—but the present writer, who has seen Death in the “House” of years gone by, cannot imagine that he can ever be so distinctively the King of Terrors as he was there. The thought that thousands and thousands of human beings, some of them tenderhearted, have had to face him there is more horrifying than the thought of French soldiers freezing in their blood on the Borodino, or of Inquisitional tortures. It is one of those thoughts which ought not to be thought⁠—a thought to be suppressed, for it leads to atheism, or even something worse than mere denial of a God. Thank Heaven that the present generation of the poor has been relieved at least of one argument in favour of the creed that the world is governed by the Devil! Thank Heaven that the modern hospital, with its sisters gently nurtured, devoted to their duty with that pious earnestness which is a true religion, has supplied some evidence of a Theocracy.

Zachariah looked round again. There was an old male attendant near him. He had on a brown rough coat with brass buttons, and shoes which were much too big for him. They were supplied in sizes, and never fitted. The old men always took those that were too large. They had as their place of exercise a paved courtyard surrounded by high brick walls, and they all collected on the sunny side, and walked up and down there, making a clapping noise with their feet as the shoes slipped off their heels. This sound was characteristic of the whole building. It was to be heard everywhere.

“You’ve been very bad,” said the old man, “but you’ll get better now; it a’nt many as get better here.”

He was a poor-looking, half-fed creature, with a cadaverous face. He had the special, workhouse, bloodless aspect⁠—just as if he had lived on nothing stronger than gruel and had never smelt fresh air. The air, by the way, of those wards was something peculiar. It had no distinctive odour⁠—that is to say, no odour which was specially this or that; but it had one that bore the same relation to ordinary odours which well-ground London mud bears to ordinary colours. The old man’s face, too, had nothing distinctive in it. The only thing certainly predicable of him was, that nothing could be predicated of him. He was neither selfish nor generous; neither a liar nor truthful; neither believed anything, nor disbelieved anything; was neither good nor bad; had no hope hereafter, nor any doubt.

“Who are you?” said Zachariah.

“Well, that ain’t easy to say. I does odd jobs here as the nurses don’t do, and I gets a little extra ration.”

“How long have I been here?”

“About a fortnight.”

Zachariah was too weak to say anything more, and fell asleep again. Next day he was better, and he then thought of his wife; he thought of Caillaud, the Major, and Pauline; but he had no power to reflect connectedly. He was in that miserable condition in which objects present themselves in a tumbling crowd, one following the other with inconceivable rapidity, the brain possessing no power to disentangle the chaos. He could not detach the condition of his wife, for example, and determine what ought to be done; he could not even bring himself to decide if it would be best to let her know where he was. No sooner did he try to turn his attention to her, even for a moment, than the Major came before him, and then his other friends, and then the workhouse and the dread of death there. Mercifully he went to sleep again, and after another long night’s rest he was much stronger. He was able now⁠—first sign of restored power⁠—to settle that he ought before everything to communicate with Mrs. Carter, and he inquired of the old man if he could write.

“Oh, yes, I can write,” said he, and something like a gleam of light passed over his countenance at being asked to practise an art almost forgotten in those walls.

A letter was accordingly written to Mrs. Carter, at her sister’s address, telling her briefly what had happened, but that she was not to be alarmed, as the writer was rapidly recovering. He was able to sign his name; but when the letter was finished, he reflected that he had not got a coin in his pocket with which to pay the postage. One of the institutions of the workhouse was, however, a kind of pawnshop kept by one of the under-masters, as they were called, and Zachariah got a shilling advanced on a pocketknife. The letter, therefore, was duly despatched, and he gave his secretary a penny for his trouble. This led to a little further intimacy, and Zachariah asked him how he came there.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I was born in the country, and when I was fourteen, my father apprenticed me to the watchmaking. He was well off⁠—my father was⁠—and when I was out of my time he set me up in business in Liverpool. It was a business as had been established some time⁠—a fairish business it was. But when I came to Liverpool I felt dull.”

“What do you mean by dull? Stupid?”

“No, not exactly that. You know what dull means, don’t you?⁠—low-spirited like⁠—got nothing to talk about. Well, I can’t tell how it come about, but I was always dull, and have been so ever since. I got married soon after I was settled. My wife was a good sort of woman,