trouble;' and it seemed to increase his respect for me that this
trouble should be directed to the case of a woman, for he appeared to
have a manly sense of the peculiar appeal made to the honor and
gallantry of man, by the mere general fact of the feebleness and the
dependence of woman. I looked at him more attentively in consequence of
the feeling tone in which he now spoke, and was surprised that I had
not more particularly noticed him before; he was a fine looking,
youngish man, with a bold Robin-hood style of figure and appearance;
and, morally speaking, he was absolutely transfigured to my eyes by the
effect worked upon him for the moment, through the simple calling up of
his better nature. However, he recurred to his cautions about the peril
in a legal sense of tampering with the windows, bolts, and bars of the
old decaying prison; which, in fact, precisely according to the degree
in which its absolute power over its prisoners was annually growing
less and less, grew more and more jealous of its own reputation, and
punished the attempts to break loose with the more severity, in exact
proportion as they were the more tempting by the chances of success. I
persisted in disowning any schemes of the sort, and especially upon the
ground of their hopelessness. But this, on the other hand, was a ground
that in his inner thoughts he treated with scorn; and I could easily
see that, with a little skilful management of opportunity, I might,
upon occasion, draw from him all the secrets he knew as to the special
points of infirmity in this old ruinous building. For the present, and
until it should certainly appear that there was some use to be derived
from this species of knowledge, I forbore to raise superfluous
suspicions by availing myself further of his communicative disposition.
Taking, however, the precaution of securing his name, together with his
particular office and designation in the prison, I parted from him as
if to go home, but in fact to resume my sad roamings up and down the
precincts of the jail.