re, and
pray Heaven I may never see again. A huge sweeping beard descended to
the waist, and its whiteness was obscured by filth incredible. The long
locks that mingled with it and overlay it on either side were roped
together and tangled beyond hope of severance. The face was horribly
pinched and meagre, and was of the color or want of color which you
see in plants which have grown wholly in the dark. I will not describe
further what I saw--what loathsome evidences of foul neglect. I have no
heart for it, and I feel as if it insulted the memory of a gentleman to
recall the evidences of the long and miserable martyrdom he had
endured. They had kept him stabled like a wild beast--those accursed
Austrians--for twenty years, and during all that time the martyred
wretch had never known the use of the simplest appliance of cleanliness.
In all the years I have lived I have never met a man who was more
completely a gentleman by nature--more fastidious in his nicety of dress
and person. I had to learn that afterwards; but for the moment, whether
rage or pity or repulsion most filled my heart at this first clear sight
of him, I could not have told. I think he saw nothing but the horror in
my face, for he blushed crimson, and started to his feet with his coarse
cloak clutched about his neck, and stared at me half appealing and all
ashamed.

If I had had one of his jailers to account with at that moment it would
have gone ill with him, I fancy. I have lived to see the death of that
horrible tyranny, and I know now, that outside the borders of the one
blackguard power which still darkens in the East, no such a life as this
man had led is possible for any political prisoner in Europe; but even
now, when I am an old man, and ought to be able to take things quietly,
my blood surges in my veins when I think of that one minute of my life.
I was no milksop, and I had led a soldier's life, and had seen plenty of
things that were not pretty to look at. But I was horrified, and I can't
even write about it now without the old wrath and disgust and shame.

I got the poor gentleman a room to himself, and when, in the course of
a few hours, the town was alive, I wandered out into the streets and
bought a pair of scissors. Any old campaigner may be a tolerable barber,
and I was a pretty good one. I trimmed the late prisoner into decency,
and with my own hands carried up a pail of water, a piece of soap,
and towels. I had taken good stock of him