No one (not even the charming little buyer herself) guesses why the bird and flower dealer invariably gives this fair creature twice her money's worth of violets, pinks, or roses, or why, last winter, he trained, to the utmost of their pretty possibilities, two yellow canaries as a Christmas "gift for his fair." But one day, as this little maiden, bearing in her hand a lavish bunch of Parma violets, turned smiling from his door, the listening parrots heard him thus pensively soliloquize: "Blue eyes, but jes' such hair, an' _her_ step, to a T! An' a wonderful takin' little creetur you air, to be sure. But (sorrowfully shaking his grizzled head), you ain't _her_. No, no, no! Not by a long shot!"
In this roomy corner cell, which rejoices in a glazed window, and is far more cheerful than the ordinary hospital compartment, a pale, earnest man, with sensitive face and iron-gray hair, sits writing.
Looking over his shoulder, you would perceive that (absurd though it may seem) he is making entries in a regular nautical log-book. This has been, for many years, his daily practise; for this convict, whose bowed form and subdued mien retain no traces of the sometime "jolly tar," is a born sailor.
His prison name is Robert Henderson. His is the old, old story--a wild bout in port; a drunken quarrel with a drunken shipmate; a reckless assault; an unintentional murder, and a consequent life-term in the State Prison. Although in hospital for treatment, Henderson is still on his feet, and quite competent to undertake the care of the feebler sinners who are, from time to time, consigned to the other cot in this--his sleeping cell.
Eighteen slow years behind the bars have brought in their weary train salutary repentance and unavailing regret; and, under their pressure, he is gradually going to pieces. Time has been when his whole being was dominated by a restless, homesick yearning for the sea--a form of that nostalgia, recognized in medicine as a real malady, the passionate craving of the land-locked sailor for his wide, billowy home--the sea.
Long before his coming up to hospital, I had noted this mild-mannered convict, and had heard his story from official lips.
By his correct demeanour, and careful adherence to prison rules, he had found favour in the sight of the warden, who tacitly gave him such sympathy as, without in the least palliating crime, may be bestowed even upon a murderer, when his fatal act is the unfortunate result of momentary frenzy, and does not indicate innate depravity.