The Ladies Lindores by Margaret Oliphant

Rolls in the county jail, sent hither on his own confession, was in a very different position from John Erskine, waiting examination there. He was locked up without ceremony in a cell, his respectability and his well known antecedents all ignored. Dunnotter was at some distance from the district in which he was known, and Thomas Rolls, domestic servant, charged with manslaughter, did not impress the official imagination as Mr. Rolls the factotum of Dalrulzian had long impressed the mind of his own neighbourhood and surroundings. And Rolls, to tell the truth, was deeply depressed when he found himself shut up within that blank interior, with nothing to do, and nothing to support the amour propre which was his strength, except the inborn conviction of his own righteousness and exemplary position -- a sight for all men. But there is nothing that takes down the sense of native merit so much as solitude and absence of appreciation. Opposition and hostility are stimulants, and keep warm in us the sense of our own superiority, but not the contemptuous indifference of a surly turnkey to whom one is No. 25, and who cared not a straw for Rolls's position and career. He felt himself getting limp as the long featureless days went on, and doubts of every kind assailed him. Had he been right to do it? Since he had made this sacrifice for his master, there had come into his mind a chill of doubt which he had never been touched by before. Was it certain that it was John who had done it? Might not he, Rolls, be making a victim of himself for some nameless tramp, who would never even know of it, nor care, and whose punishment would be doubly deserved and worthy of no man's interference? Rolls felt that this was a suggestion of the devil for his discomfiture. He tried to chase it out of his mind by thinking of the pleasures he had secured for himself in that last week of his life -- of Edinburgh Castle and the Calton Jail and the Earthen Mound, and the wonders of the Observatory. To inspect these had been the dream of his life, and he had attained that felicity. He had believed that this would give him "plenty to think about" for the rest of his life -- and that, especially for the time of his confinement, it would afford an excellent provision; but he did not find the solace that he had expected in musing upon Mons Meg and the Scottish Regalia. How dreadful four walls become when you are shut up within them; how the air begins to hum and buzz after a while with your thoughts that have escaped you, and swarm about like bees, all murmurous and unresting -- these were the discoveries he made. Rolls grew nervous, almost hysterical, in the unusual quiet. What would he not have given for his plate to polish, or his lamps to trim! He had been allowed to have what are called writing materials -- a few dingy sheets of notepaper, a penny bottle of ink, a rusty steel pen -- but Rolls was not accustomed to literary composition; and a few books -- but Rolls was scornful of what he called "novelles," and considered even more serious reading, as an occupation which required thought and a mind free of care. And nobody came to see him. He had no effusion of gratitude and sweet praise from his master. Mr. Monypenny was Rolls's only visitor, who came to take all his explanations, and get a perfect understanding of how his case ought to be conducted. The butler had become rather limp and feeble before even Mr. Monypenny appeared.

"I'm maybe not worthy of much," Rolls said, with a wave of his hand, "but I think there's one or two might have come to see me -- one or two."