PASSING under a low and massive doorway, we find in front of us a dark narrow staircase built in the thick stone wall. Groping up the stairs, we enter a large dimly-lighted room, the walls and ceiling of which are stone. After a time one’s eyes get accustomed to the gloom, and on making a close inspection of the room our attention is called to curious marks and carvings on the stone walls.
Some of them are so rough as to be illegible, and it is impossible to make anything of them, while others are really beautiful carvings, which must have required much time and patience.
Many of these carvings are dated, some of them reaching back for nearly five hundred years, the earliest legible date being 1462, while the latest is 1794. A glance round the room shows us that some are very simple, consisting of but one name, while others are very elaborate.
For instance, there is the name JANE standing alone, but close to it is a carving consisting of no fewer than one hundred and sixteen words, and another is a coat of arms most elaborately done with a wreath of flowers round it.
And now for the Carvers. The room is the old State prison in the Tower of London, and the carvings are the handiwork of the prisoners poor wretches who were immured in this dark and comfortless room, some of them for well-nigh the whole of their lives, and many until they were led out to a cruel death at Tyburn or on Tower Hill.
How terribly the dreariness of their confinement preyed upon them is shown by a touching inscription which runs thus: “Close prisoner, 8 months, 32 weeks, 224 days, 5,376 hours.”
What a pitiful sight that one word JANE is, for it was carved by the husband of that unfortunate girl, Lady Jane Gray, who wore the crown of England for eleven days, and, after being imprisoned in this room for a year, was led down the narrow staircase, and was beheaded just outside the prison door.
There are no fewer than ninety-one carvings, each one of which is a separate record of the misery and despair of some poor victim of tyranny, who knew only too well that justice was an unknown thing.
As we leave that terribly sad room, and stand again in the fresh air and sunshine, we realize as never before that the greatest blessing in this life is the time in which we live.
Only think of that room, and of the heartbreaking sighs, the bitter tears, the overwhelming despair that its walls have enclosed and then think of the days in which we live, days in which rich and poor, prince and peasant enjoy alike full justice.
At once our hearts are filled with deep thanksgiving, and we praise God for the liberties that we now enjoy.
O. WALTON.