tout heart and faith
that at last all would be well.

In the morning I arose, had my breakfast (nine ounces of brown bread and
one pint of gruel), and was eager to learn what this "labor" meant. I
was prepared for much, but not for the grim reality. I had been ordered
to join eighty-two party--a brickmaking party, but working in the "mud
districts." So we, along with 1,200 others, marched out to our work, and
as soon as we were outside of the prison grounds I saw a sight that,
while it explained the mud-splashed appearance of my spectral array, was
enough to daunt any man doomed to join in the game. Mud, mud everywhere,
with groups of weary men with shovel, or shovel and barrow, working in
it. A sort of road had been made over the mud with ashes and cinders,
and our party of twenty-two men, with five other parties, moved steadily
on for about a mile until we came to the clay banks or pits. Fortunately
we had a very good officer by the name of James. He wanted the work
done, and used his tongue pretty freely; still he was a man who would
speak the truth, and treated his men as well as he dared to do under the
brutal regime ruling in Chatham. He speedily told me off to a barrow and
spade, and I was fully enlisted as barrow-and-spade man to Her Majesty.

A steam mill, or "pug," like a monster coffee mill, was used for mixing
the clay and sand and delivering it in form of bricks below, where
another party received them and laid them out to dry, preparatory to
burning. Our duty was "to keep the pug going"--keep it full of clay to
the top. The clay was in a high bank; we dug into it from the bottom
with our spades, and filled it as fast as possible into our barrows. In
front of each man was a "run," formed by a line of planks only eight
inches in width, and all converging toward and meeting near the "pug."
The distance we were wheeling was from thirty to forty yards, end the
incline was really very steep; but that in itself would not have been so
bad, but the labor of digging out the clay was severe, and that
everlasting "pug" was as hungry as if it were in the habit of taking
"Plantation Bitters" to give it an appetite.

One had no period of rest between the filling of one's barrow and the
start up the run. In an hour's time my poor hands were covered with
blood blisters, and my left knee was a lame duck indeed, made so by the
slight wrench given it each time I struck in my spade with my left foot;
but I made no complaint.