His
sullenness, his brooding ire, have long transformed his nature;
civility, and even obedience, have become impossible for him. He kicks,
as it were, against a chevaux-de-frise of steel. He has been starved on
bread and water, and grown thin and fierce. He has been put, and not for
nothing, into the dark cell for hours, to brood, as usual, and has come
forth a more reckless devil than he went in.
His warder and he are open foes. That cross-grained official has taken a
strong antipathy to him, which is more than reciprocated; and every,
time he enters his cell sets foot, though unconscious of the fact, on
the very threshold of the grave. He is the keeper of one who is almost a
madman; but the latter is sane on one point yet--he knows to whom his
vengeance is mainly due; and while that knowledge lasts his lesser foe
is safe from him--safe, that is, at present; but a provocation may be
given which would compel this long-suffering victim--in years scarce a
middle-aged man, in appearance gray and withered as the oldest within
those prison walls--to give his passion way, and slay him. If something
should take place, which this warder himself has prophesied would
happen, it will be so; and all Richard's hoarded hate would then be
useless, since it would have no heir.
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