Stars Look Down, The by Cronin A. J

Author:Cronin, A. J. [Cronin, A. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics, Fiction, Mining, Novel
ISBN: 978-0-7953-4545-6
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 1935-01-15T03:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

The Black Maria stopped with a jerk outside Benton Prison and there was the sounds of bolts being withdrawn. Arthur sat up in his dark little stall, still trying dazedly to realise that he was here, inside this prison van.

The van jerked forward again and jerked to a stop. Then the door of the van was unlocked and thrown open, letting in a sudden rush of cool night air. From beyond the door a warder’s voice cried:

“Out.”

Arthur and four others rose from their narrow partitioned stalls and got out. It had been a long cramped journey from Tynecastle to Benton but now they were at the end of that journey and in the courtyard of the prison. The night was heavy and overcast and it was raining heavily, puddles of water lay in the depressions of the asphalt. Arthur looked about him hurriedly: high grey walls with a sharp castellated coping, row upon row of iron-barred clefts, warders in glistening oilskins, silence and a shapeless darkness relieved only by a weak blur of yellow from the light above the archway. The five prisoners stood in the streaming rain, then one of the warders shouted a command and they were marched through another door into a small whitewashed room, the brightness of which was dazzling to the eyes after that outer darkness. An officer sat at a table in this bare bright room with a number of papers and a register in front of him. He was an elderly man with a bald, shiny head.

The warder of the prison van went up to the officer and spoke to him. While they talked Arthur looked at the four prisoners who had accompanied him in the van. The first two were small scrubby men with black ties and long quakerish faces so oddly alike it was obvious that they were brothers. The third man had a weak despondent chin and gold-rimmed pince-nez, he looked like a down-at-heel clerk and, in common with the two brothers, seemed harmless and ill at ease. The fourth man was big and unshaven and dirty, he was the only one who did not appear surprised or distressed to find himself here.

The officer at the table stopped speaking to the warder of the van. He picked up his pen and called out:

“Line up there, will you?” He was the reception clerk of the prison. He began perfunctorily to read out the particulars of each man’s sentence and to enter it in the register with the name and occupation and religion and the amount of money each had come in with.

The dirty man was first and he had no money at all, not one red farthing. He was convicted of assault with violence, had no occupation and was due to serve three years’ hard labour. His name was Hicks. Arthur’s turn came next. Arthur had four pounds six shillings and tenpence halfpenny exactly. When the officer finished counting Arthur’s money he said sarcastically, addressing the neat pile of silver upon the notes:

“This Cuthbert is well-off.

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