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The Young Seigneur

The Young Seigneur image
Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
June
Year
1895
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

His chief occnpation in the daytime ■was to stand on the bench by the small barred window and watch the pigeons on the roof and iu the eaves of the hospital opposite. For five years he had done this, and it was the one thing in his whole lifo during that time wbich had a charra for hira. Every change of weather and season was registered there as plainly as if he could see the surface of the world. In the summer the slates seemed to have a great fire beneath them, for a quivering hot air rose up froru them, and the pigeons never alighted on them save in the early morning or in the evening. Jnst over the peak of the roof could be seen the topmost branch of an oak, too slight to bear the weight of the pigeons, butthe eaves tinder the projectiug roof were dark and cool, and there his eyes rested when be tirort of the 1-nrd blue sky and the glare of thoroof. He couklalsosee the top of the hospital Windows, barred up and down, but ncver auvtbing within, for the Windows were ever dusty, and all was dark beyond. But now and then he beaïd bitter cries coming thrmjrfh ono epen window in the Bnnjiner tijm , ;mcl Le listencd to tbera row faint: r :-id faialer, tiil thcy saul: la u low j:i,,.;uin- ;.:)(] tben ceas-ed r.H-,r:. lier. Iu winter the roof was oovcied for BQQi!tbfi by a blanke! of suow, wbirïh looktxl like a shawl of hnpactt. I .i. .1, whit.' and restfal and tht hospita] v.-indows u-ure spread with fri st. But the pigeoHs were the same - almost as gay aud walking ou the ledges of the roof or crowding on the shelves of the lead pipes. He studied them mnoh, but he loved them more. His prison was less a prison because of them, and in the long five years of expiation he found hitnself more in touch with them than with the wardens of the prison or any of his companiona. With the former he was respectful, and he gave them no trouble at all. With the latter he had nothing in common, for they were crimináis, and he he had blundered when wild and mad with drink, so wild and mad that he had no remembrance, absolutely none, j of the incident by which Jean Vigot ! lost his life. He remembered that they had played cards f ar into the night; that they had quarreled, then made their peaceagain; that the others had left; that they had begun playing cards and drinking again, and then all was blurred, save for a vague recollection that he had wou all the money Vigot bad and had pocketed it. Then carne a blank. He waked to find two offieers of the law beside him, and the body of Jean Vigot, stark and dreadful, a few feet away When the offioer put their hands upon him, he shook them off. When they did itagain, he would havefought them to the death had it not been for his friend, tall Medallion, who laid & strong hand on his arm and said, ' "Steady, Converse, steady !" and ho had ; yielded to the firrn, friciidly pressure. Medallion had left no stone unturned to clear him at the trial, had himself played detective uuoeasingly, but the hard facts remained there, and on a cbain of oiroutnstantial evidence Louis Converse, tho yoiiup; seigneur, was seut to prisou for teu years tor mansluughter. That was tho conipromise efl'ected. Louis himself had Baid ouly that he didn't remumbtr, but he couïd not believe he had cornmitted the crime. Robbery? Ho sbruscd his Kboulders at that. Heinaisted that his lawyyr should not roply to the iusultiiig and foolish suggestion. But the evidenoe had shown that Vigot had all the winnings when the othor members of tho party lef t the two, and this very money had been found in Louis' pocket. There was only Louis word that they had played cards again. Anger? Possibly. Louis oould not remen) ber, though he knew they had quarreled. The judge himself, chargiug the jury, said that ho never before saw a prisoner eo frank and outwardly honest, but warned them that they must not lose sight of the crnne itself, the taking of a human life, whereby a woman was made a widow and a child fatherless. And so with the few remarks the judge sentenccd the young Seigneur to ten years in prison, and tben himself, shaken and pale, lef; the oourtrooin hurriedly, for Louis Converse 's father had been his friend ïiom boyhood. Louis took his sri:tence calmly, looking the judge sqr.aioly in the eyes, and when the judge si pped he bowed to him, turned to thejury andsaid: "Gentlemen, yon have ruined rny life. Yon don't kiiow, aud 1 dou't know, who killed the man. Yon have guessed, aad I take the penalty. Supposo I'm inuocent. Howwill you feel'when the truth comes out? You've kio-vu me more or less these. 20 yeari-;, aud you've said with no more knowledge than I've got that I did this miserable thing. I don't know but that oue of you did it, hut yon aie safe, and I take my ten years. ' ' He torned from thom, aud as he did bo he saw a woman lookiug at bim from Í a correr of the courtroom with a strange, wild expression. At the moment he saw no more than an excite,;, bewildered face, but af torward this face carne and went before him, flashing iu and out of cbrk places in a mocking Bert of way As he went from the courtroom avj,ther woman made her way to him ia spite of the guards. It was the little chemist's wife, who years before had been his father's housekeeper, who had peen present when he first opened his eyes on the woria. "My poor boy! My poor boy!" she said, clasping his mauaclod hands. He kissed her on the cheek, without a word, and hurried on hito his prison, and the good world wus shut out. Id prison he refused to sea all visitors, eveD Medallion, the little chemist's wit'e, and the good Father Fabro. Letters, too, he refused to accept and read. He had no contact, wished no contact, with the outer world, but lived his hard, lonely life by himself, silent, broodiug, studious, for now books were to hini a pleasure. And he wrote, too, but never to auy soul outside the prison. This life had nothinj? to do with the world from which he carue, and he meant that ifc should not. So perfeot a prisoner was he that the warders protected him frora visitors, and he was never but once or twioe stared at, and then he saw nothing, heard nothing. He had entered his prison a wild, excitable, dissipated youtb, and he had become a mature, quiet, cold, brooding man. Five years had done the work of 20. He lived the life of the prison, yet he was not a part of it, nor yet was he a part of the world without. And the face of the woman who looked at him so strangely in the courtroonj naunted mm uow and then, so that at last it becaine a part of his real life, which was lived laigely at the window, where he looked out at the pigeons on the roof of the hospital. ' 'She was sorry for me, " he said many a time to h iraself. He was sorry for himself, and he was shaken with misery i of ten, so that he rocked to and fro as he sat on his bed, and a warder heard him . cry out eveu in the last days of his im! priso7jment, "O God, canst thon do everything bnt speak?" And again, "That hour, the memory of that hour, in exchange for my ruined life!" But there wero times wheu he was very qróet and oalm, and hespent hours in wntohing the ways of the pigeons, anrt he was doiug this oneday when the jailer came to him and said: "M. Convorse, yon are free. The governor has out off five years from your sentence. " Then he was told that people were waitiug without - Aledalliou and the little chemist and his wife and others more important - but he would not go to meot theni, and he stepped into the oíd world alone at dawn the next morniug aud looked o.qt upou a still, mg town. And there was Bo one Bt& ring in the place, but suddenly thi' stood before him a woman, who bl! watched by the prison gates all niek and she put out a hand in entreaty and said, with a breaking voioe, "You Z free at last!" He remembered her-the woman w]l0 had looked at him so anxionsly and sor rowfullyin the oourtroom. He looked at her kindly aow, yet he was dazeri too with his new advent to freedom and the good earth. " Why did you come to meet me5" hu asked. "I was sorry for you, " she replied "But that is no reason. " "I once committed a crime," shp whispered, with shriukin bitterness "Tliat's bad, " he said. "Weie von pnnished?" I Sho shook her head aud answered "No. " ; "That's worse, " he added. "I lct someone else take my crime 1 upon him aud be pnnished for it," she said, an agony ii her eyes. "WJiy was that?" he said, looking at her inteutly. "I had a little child, " was her replj "And the otber?" "He was alone iu the world, " she said. A bitter Bmile crept to his lips, and his eyes were all afire, for a straage thought carne to him. Tben he shnt his eyes, and when he opened theni again discovery was in them. "I remember you now, " he said. "1 remember I waked and saw you looking at me that night! Who was tho fathei of your child?" he asked eagerly. "Jean Vigot, " she replied. "He leít me to starve. " "I ain innocentof his death!" he said qnietly and gladly. She nodded. He was silent for a momoni- '"The child still Uves?" he asked. Sheuodded again. "Well, let it be so," he added. "But you owe me five years and a lost reputation. " "I wish to tíod I nonld give them baok, " she ctied, tears '-ireaming down her cheeks. "It was tor my child, he was so yotnií,'!" "It can'c be helped :iow, " he said, and he turued away from her. "Won't you förgive me?" she asked bitterly "Woa't you give me back thuse five years?" he replied meeuingly. "If the chiiil did not need me, I would give my life, "she answered. "I owe it to you. " Her haggard, hunted face made him sorry. He, too, had suffered. "It's all right, " he answered geutly. "Take care of your child. " Aud again he moved away from her and went down the little hill with a cloud gone from his face that had rested there flve years. Once he turned arouud. The woruan was gone, but over the prison a flock of pigeons were flying. He took off his hat to them. Then he went through the town looking neither to right uor left and came to his own house, ■wbere the summer ïuorning was already entering the open wimlow, though he had looked to find the place closed and dark. The little cheniist'a wife met him in the doorway. She oould not speak, nor could he, but he kissed her as he had done when he went condemned to prison. Then he passed on to his own room, and entering sat down before the open window aud peacefully drank in theglory of a newworld. Bot more than once he choked down a sob

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Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News