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"Bring in the prisoner," said the President, in a low tone, but so distinct that it was heard all over the room. The beadle noiselessly glided out, and in a few moments returned, leading a man, whose wrists were fastened with gyves, whom he conducted to the end of the table he had just left, and placed so as to confront the President. "Take off the irons," said the same, low, musical voice.
And from midst of them peered a trunkless skull, and on the skull was a mitre, and from the yawning jaws a voice came hissing, as a serpent's hiss, 'Harold, the scorner, thou art ours! Then, as from the buzz of an army, came voices multitudinous, 'Thou art ours! I sought to rise, and behold my limbs were bound, and the gyves were fine and frail, as the web of the gossamer, and they weighed on me like chains of iron.
Remember the race of Dermid were ever fair and false; and no sooner shall they have gyves on thy hands, than they will strip thy shoulders for the scourge." "Save your advice, mother," said Hamish, sternly; "for me, my mind is made up."
And once when she came back a big girl, an exceedingly big girl with braids down her back, a girl in the third reader in fact, who could read everything in the fourth reader, because she had already done so, and who could read Eugene Aram in the back of the sixth, only she never did find out what "gyves upon his wrists" meant, once when she came back to the dam and was sitting there looking at the sunset reflected in the bubbling, froth-flecked water at her feet, Ellen came suddenly, under the noise of the roaring water, and frightened Jeanette so that she screamed and jumped; and Ellen, who was much older than Jeanette four or five and maybe six years older ran right over the slippery, moss-covered ridge of the dam, and was gone before Jeanette could call her back.
Later came little Elizabeth Fry, with a message for those in bonds, and also for those who had a fine faith in fetters, and a belief in chains and bars and gyves and the gentle ministry of the lash. The wisdom of the paid priesthood lies in the fact that it renders a large number of men useless for anything else. Seven years in college emasculates the man.
They looked on the prisoner with fierce red eyes, and rested on their hammers for a minute; and said the elder to his companion, "Take out Elijah Harbottle's gyves;" and with a pincers he plucked the end which lay dazzling in the fire from the furnace.
Which done, I commanded him to free Sir Richard of his gyves; whereupon the little fellow obeyed me very expeditiously with one of the many keys that hung against the wall. Then I gave my pistols to Sir Richard and seizing on the little, fat man, bound him also.
'It 'll be summut to think on i' t' lock-up how two able-bodied fellys were so afeared on t' chap as reskyed them honest sailors o' Saturday neet, as they mun put him i' gyves, and he sixty-two come Martinmas, and sore laid up wi' t' rheumatics.
Then had been bells and trumpets, flowers, banners, grandees drawing him among them, shouts and shouts of welcome! He walked in gyves, he and the Adelantado, to the house of his detention. Once only a single voice was raised in a shout, "El Almirante!" We came to the house, not a prison, though a prison for him. In a good enough room the corregidor sought to have the chains removed.
The gleam of a shapely neck, of a pearl necklace and diamond cross, of diamond earrings, of an enormous gold brooch, of golden gyves an inch broad on each wrist, as the rose-tinted rays fell on those natural and artificial charms, produced a dazzling effect in the shady corner. On plainer persons, this display might have seemed, in Maltboy's eyes, a glaring instance of bad taste.
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