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A week later a governor and a chaplain together entered Hogarth's cell with news of his reprieve.
Eight months later he was being trundled in "Black Maria" to
Paddington Station amid a Babel of escaped tongues, when, sitting in
his pigeonhole, he heard the unknown voice before him cry: "Well,
Jim, we're away to the mountain's brow!"
Jim, nothing but a voice, was heard: "Worse luck! I knows Colmoor, and I knows the Scrubs, and I knows Portland; and of the five I say—give me Jedwood. Who's the guy in front o' you?"
"Hi, you in front there, who are yer?" cried the first, pounding.
He was answered by a deep voice, which said:
"All right, keep yer 'air on, if you've any left! It's the Lawd
Chief Justice, mate! 'E says 'e's 'oo 'e are!"
"'Old on! I knows who it is: it's that new-comer, 33. They say he was once a priest—"
But now speech was swallowed up in hubbub, as the van ran battering down a rough street near the station.
Then again Hogarth was whirled into night and space, and, toward morning, after the bumping climb of a van, was bidden to alight on moorland, where he spied, far off, set on a hill, a mighty palace of Romance, all grim, aloof, which was Colmoor.
The next morning while the outdoor gangs were being searched on parade before the exit, Hogarth saw a face which he knew; and "You, Bates", he said, "I thought you were in Eternity!"
But no: there stood Bates, all capped and arrowed, cropped and neat, not wearing the filthy old scarf of liberty any more.
The neighbor of Hogarth now was a stout man, with black hair, and grey eyes.
He it was who had been—a priest: and in "Black Maria" had given that answer: "I am who I am".