Johnson would accompany
her, to see that she met with no difficulty or obstacle.
As they walked thither, he told her that some one--a turnkey, or some
one--would have to be present at the interview; that such was always the
rule in the case of condemned prisoners; but that if this third person
was "obliging," he would keep out of earshot. Mr. Johnson quietly took
care to see that the turnkey who accompanied Ellinor was "obliging."
The man took her across high-walled courts, along stone corridors, and
through many locked doors, before they came to the condemned cells.
"I've had three at a time in here," said he, unlocking the final door,
"after Judge Morton had been here. We always called him the 'Hanging
Judge.' But its five years since he died, and now there's never more
than one in at a time; though once it was a woman for poisoning her
husband. Mary Jones was her name."
The stone passage out of which the cells opened was light, and bare, and
scrupulously clean. Over each door was a small barred window, and an
outer window of the same description was placed high up in the cell,
which the turnkey now opened.
Old Abraham Dixon was sitting on the side of his bed, doing nothing. His
head was bent, his frame sunk, and he did not seem to care to turn round
and see who it was that entered.
Ellinor tried to keep down her sobs while the man went up to him, and
laying his hand on his shoulder, and lightly shaking him, he said:
"Here's a friend come to see you, Dixon.
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